Here is our itinerary:

August 23rd: leave that night to LAX for our connection.

Two hour layover in LAX (with the new security issues I hope we will be able to make our plane on time!) and we fly to Guangzhou, China.

August 25th: Arrive in Guangzhou at 6:20 a.m.. (yes, I cringed as I typed that. It’s a loooooong flight, folks! At least it’s premium economy….as I repeat that 50 times.)

Leave Guangzhou at 8:20 a.m. and arrive in Beijing at 10:55 a.m.Force ourselves to stay up until bed time….3 p.m..

August 26th: Wake up (hopefully) refreshed and head out with a group to the Great Wall (!) and Ming Tombs (!).

August 27th: Go with same group to Forbidden City (that is one of my dreams!), Temple of Heaven, and Summer Palace.

August 28th: Leave Beijing early in the morning for Kunming, Yunnan, the province where our daughter lives. !

Three hour flight to Kunming.

Explore beautiful Kunming, “the spring city”, the foothills of the Himalayas, and come to find out today, the daily high temps are around 70. ! Just slightly cooler than Dallas in August.

Get ready for the coming morning by gift wrapping the pot, I mean loose tea, and Godiva Chocolates and put together the diaper bag.

August 29th: okay, I can barely type this. My eyes literally are filled with tears. FuLuZhao is placed in my arms and will be known as Brooklyn from that time forward (although we will say “Brooklyn FuLuZhao” to her until she recognizes her new name).

For the next week we have to wait until police clearances pass before we can leave Kunming. And paper work. Then more paper work. From the pictures we’ve seen and things we’ve heard about Kunming, it is a glorious place to be “stuck” in for a week.

September 5th: Leave the birthplace of our daughter (with our daughter!) to Guangzhou. It makes me sad to think of leaving her birthplace.

That night in the White Swan Hotel (where we will be staying), we will party on with all the little ones that have already had their first birthdays. What a uniting time! The room will be filled with 20 or so families that just became parents (some for the first time!) and are gathered to celebrate the first year of their new children’s lives.

I’m not sure when we do from day to day while we are in Guangzhou, but we need to take Brooklyn down to the medical examiner’s office for an exit exam (very minimal check up), obtain her visa and passport, and complete a huge stack of papers for the consulate appointment. And more paperwork. All of this is necessary to finalize the adoption.

Also, we are going to go with a group down to the Six Banyan Trees (Buddhist) Temple and have our babies blessed by monks. How exciting!

September 7th: Consulate Appointment.

September 9th: Depart late in the evening for LAX and arrive at 6:50 that same night in LA (we gain a day when we cross over the int’l date line). The flights on the airline back to our airport were full so we have to spend the night in LA and then return home on Sunday, September 10th.