Guy is almost 10 years old and he is very excited about being a big brother again. He is an awesome kid who is very sweet - everyone loves Guy. He is an excellent soccer player and swimmer. He also enjoys playing Game Cube and his Nintendo DS – he’s my gamer! He asks about Leah all of the time and just recently (on the way to soccer) said “I wonder if Leah will like soccer?” And I bet she will with 2 older brothers who play soccer!	Grant is almost 7 years old and can’t wait to be a big brother. He is very sweet and an awesome kid and very laid back – he has fun wherever he goes and likes to play soccer, swim and hang out with friends. Grant recently did an “about me” project for the beginning of 1st grade – it had blanks for it to fill in about their favorite food, brothers and sisters, etc – and Grant put that he has 1 brother and 1 sister. His teacher said that he asked if he could put that he had a sister on it even though she wasn’t home yet and of course she said yes – how sweet of big brother Grant! I can’t wait for that to come home and I can save for Leah.

And who could forget Armstrong! Armstrong is the best dog in the whole world – he’s the most well-behaved, beautiful, loving dog in the world. Can you tell we are all nuts about him! He’s a 2-year-old Golden Retriever. When we got him, Guy was really in to space – so he is named after Neil Armstrong. Of course we can’t wait for Leah to meet him – although I do wonder if she’ll freak out a bit a first – I mean he is a big and hairy dog who can overwhelm you sometimes with his friendliness!

Why China???……Because that’s where our daughter is. I can’t think of a better way to say it. It’s pretty plain and simple – of course there are many layers to our decision to adopt, but that pretty much sums it up.

On the About Leah section of this website, there is a quote about a Red Thread. This is a Chinese belief that there is an invisible red thread that connects a child with people who are important to them. That thread may stretch and tangle, but will never break.

I very much buy in to this - we have felt a pull to Leah since last summer. She is a huge part of our lives already - even though she may not even have been born yet. When Vince and I went to the adoption seminar in May of 2005 with our agency to find out more about adoption - they talked about Russia, Guatemala, etc - but all we were interested in was China. We hadn't totally made the decision to adopt at that seminar, but China was the only country we even considered.

When we were answering the questions for our homestudy, there was a question about why we chose China. It was interesting to try to answer that question - and I know it sounds weird - but it's like we just knew that China was where our daughter was. So, I had to think about how to answer the question - other than just – “because that's what we are supposed to do” - or “because that's where our daughter is.” China is a country rich in culture and heritage, and we admire and respect where our daughter will come from. But talking about the red thread - we've felt it all along in a very powerful way

Vince and I had been discussing having another child – we didn’t know if we were going to have another baby or not. There was a family on Grant’s T-ball team that went to China in the spring of 2005 to pick up their little girl. When they came home with her – it kind of hit us – and we starting thinking – “Is this what we were supposed to do?” We had mentioned adopting from China a long time ago in passing – but didn’t think much more about it.

I tell people that I have never been “spoken to” like this before – I just knew God was telling me that our daughter was in China and we needed to go get her. When I came home and told Vince, he was very open to it and of course needed time to think. We went to an adoption seminar that our soon to be adoption agency put on and walked away from it saying – “let’s think and pray about this and decide what we were supposed to do.”

One morning about a month or so later, Vince woke up and said – “I’m ready to get our little girl in China.” Those were some of the sweetest words I have ever heard!

It is common knowledge that China has a “One Child” policy. Because of this policy, there are many baby girls that are abandoned so that parents can have a boy to take care of them when they get older.

It’s funny, I have people say that they admire us for doing this, or what a great thing we are doing – rescuing a little girl from China. That kind of makes us uncomfortable because that is not why we are adopting at all – we just know Leah is there and we need to go get her. I never want her to feel like we did this out of the kindness of our heart. She is a child of ours just as the boys are – a child that we have hoped for and loved before we have even met her. We know she is in China, waiting for us to pick her up and bring her home to her forever family.

OUR TIMELINE

We first made the decision to adopt Leah in June of 2005 – our Dossier was sent to China in November 2005 and our Log in Date is December 9, 2005.

The wait is currently around 15 months from LID to referral (when we get a picture of her). The rumor is that the wait may get even longer – or may speed up – depending on which one you want to believe.

We hope to travel no later than the summer of 2007. Help us pray for speedy referrals!