WE HAVE OUR TRAVEL DATES!!!

We are officially leaving in two weeks!

We got confirmation from the U.S. Consulate (and our agency) today. And, my, my were we surprised! We assumed we'd fly in and out of Hong Kong because of where Chongqing is located-- but they have arranged for us to fly into Beijing! The bummer of this is that we won't get to visit with Jason's relatives (his mom is from Hong Kong). The cool thing about this is that we'll get to see the historical sites of China. Our agency is arranging for a two-day sight-seeing tour the days after we arrive.

So here's what we know so far:
We need to arrive in Beijing August 18th.
We will tour Beijing the 19th and 20th.
We will fly to Chongqing the 21st.
Our consulate appointment in Guangzhou is the 30th.
We can either leave Guangzhou after 9:00 pm on the 31st, or we can leave Hong Kong after 11:30am on September 1st.

What's next:
Now we need to find affordable airline tickets from San Diego to Beijing and from either Guangzhou or Hong Kong back to San Diego. We are going to see what our agency's recommended travel agency (J.C. Travel) offers us. We are also going to look into another travel agency (Lotus Travel). I hesitate to do this on my own because we are flying in and out of different cities and I imagine the prices will be astronomical that way. Many airlines offer discounted fairs for adoptions, but it's hard to know what that means. Flying in and out of Beijing for those dates, for instance, on United would cost us $1700 each-- and that was in economy/coach!

What else is next:
We need to finish Marcie's room this weekend. And start packing (at least the baby stuff). And I need to contact the law school and let them know I will be missing the first full two weeks of my last year of law school. This causes me tremendous anxiety. I hate that I'll be starting out so far behind. Don't get me wrong-- it's totally worth it, but still . . .

I also need to let my running partner know this means I won't be running the America's Finest City Half Marathon (sorry Caroline!). The good news, though, is that I won't be forcing myself to run 12 miles on Saturday in preparation for it (Phew! I wasn't looking forward to that!). . .

Keep checking back and we'll let you know what's going on as we learn the information ourselves!