Care Package Delivered August 14th

Vicki emailed to let me know that she was able to visit Aidyn's orphanage on August 14th. She gave our care package to the ladies who are in charge of the children. They told Vicki that Aidyn is still in foster care and that she is doing well. So hopefully the nannies will give our elephant rattle to Aidyn's foster family so that she can have it before we travel.

The director of the Tonggu Social Welfare Institute gave Vicki her disposable camera back the day she met her daughter. So hopefully we will receive our camera when we meet Aidyn.

We are hoping to have our travel approval by the end of this week. We will post as soon as we receive it. Then we will wait for a Consulate Appointment and our travel dates so we can book our flights.

Thanks for keeping Aidyn and our family in your prayers!!

Siblings

What a Difference a Day Makes, and a good contractor,

and two hard-working landscapers!!! Well, this is what our yard looked like yesterday morning, and what it has looked like for the past 8 weeks:


















And then Mr. Dan came and rescued our landscape project. We had wanted to hire Mr. Dan at beginning of April bc he goes to church with us, his wife was Spencer's Sunday school teacher, he has the sweetest daughters, and he does beautiful landscaping. His yard is the most fabulous I have ever seen. The kids even have a zip line from the trees that lands at an in-ground trampoline. Sadly, Mr. Dan was booked solid and couldn't fit us in. We really wanted the project done before summer so we hired the contractor who came highly recommend but who became an emotional wreck during a custody battle for his son. Last week the bad contractor stopped returning our calls, so we finally gave up on him ever finishing the project that we hired him to do on April 22.

This week Mr. Dan called us bc he heard from his daughter in our Jr. High class that we needed his help. Yesterday he arrived with two employees and they finished the front yard and part of the backyard. We now have sod in front yard and they made a sodded play area along side of the house too. They brought in beautiful stones and flowering shrubs to line the edge of the sod. These pictures do not adequately show how nice it is now, so you guys will all have to come visit us soon. And now we have to figure out how to keep all the shrubs and grass watered while we are in China for two weeks--Mike, Shayne, P.J., anyone??

We will miss Callie

For the past 6.5 months, Callie (aka Callie Marie) has been staying with us while Ms. Niki and Mr. Eric work. Spencer loves Callie and he is going to miss her when she goes to daycare next week. As you can see from the pictures, they play together really well. I chose pics that span from January to August to show how much they have both changed this year.

We hope that Callie has fun at daycare and will still come visit us. We will miss her ready smiles, her sweetness, and the room to room chase fests.

Finally able to add more pictures

Have tried for one week and could not get Blogger to post pictures. These are pictures from last Thursday when we received our referral package. And photos of the care package we mailed last Friday. The elephant rattle and disposable camera should be hand delivered to Aidyn's orphanage this weekend.

Please pray the high security alerts for carry-on luggage are amended asap or at least by the time we travel to China. So far i've heard that baby formula and medicine are exempt. But not sure how we would survive without liquids and electronics on our 15 hour flight or on the mainland if our luggage got lost???

No camera, No laptop, no blackberry, no cell phone, no email, no contact solution, no hair gel, no toothpaste.

We will be an ugly, aggitated bunch of travellers if this terrorist threat doesn't evaporate soon.

Marsha
8:45 am

OUR REFERRAL PACKAGE ARRIVED!!!!

Yipee!! As I was on phone with Aunt Mary Alice, FedEx delivered our referral package on thursday afternoon. Niki, Angela, Josh, Brennan, and Hayden took care of Spencer all day for me. They took him bowling, along with Maggie, Callie, Emma, and Rachel. Wish we had video--one mother and eight kids, Bowling.

Aidyn's referral package has lots of documents with fancy seals. Of course, being in Chinese I have no clue what the pages say. But one page was highly important. The form that declares Jeremy and Marsha want to adopt Tong, Min Yue. Upon receipt of the package I rushed down to Jeremy's office to get his signature then headed to UPS to ship the Acceptance Letter back to our agency. What a relief to finally be done with the referral process after so many years of waiting!!!! Next the letter will ship to China's Center for Adoption Affairs. Now we wait for Travel Approval from China and a Consulate Appointment with USA. We expect it will be a month before we receive word from China regarding our travel.

This morning we received an update from our facilitator on Aidyn's "current" measurements. Not sure what date these were taken: Weight 12 1/2 lbs Height 24 inches

I joined a Yahoogroup for familes that have adopted from Aidyn's Social Welfare Institute; from these families I have already learned great info. The SWI complex houses elderly folks, older and special needs kids, and the babies. As you can see from the pictures from previous post, this SWI looks really nice. It was just under construction in 2005 and we think it opened back up in Spring 2006 to care for the babies.

From the yahoogroup I learned of a kind lady from NY who offered to deliver small items to the babies and nannies when she travels next week. So we shipped a tiny care package to her that includes Spencer's elephant rattle and a disposable camera.

And while at UPS store, the man beside me in line was Chinese so he read the characters for Aidyn's name and said Yue means Jump. I think he may be accurate bc as soon as he saw the characters he said Tong Min Yue and he gave Tong and Min to be what the SWI has said those characters mean.

More Aidyn info

Translated medical forms came this morning.

On January 11th, Aidyn was taken by local police to the orphanage. So her finding spot is listed as the orphanage front gate. See below pictures of the Social Welfare Institute and its front gate. We may not find out how she came to be under police care. Her birthdate is estimated as January 9th. On January 11th she weighed 5.5 lbs. Height was 14.96 inches.

On April 27th, her medical from was completed. She weighed 11.4 lbs. Her height was 22.83 inches.

Lots of other info is included about medical tests and immunizations. But the most interesting news is the following quoted portions of her medical form:

"She is a lovely child with reddish skin. Her name means growth.

At 1 month, she could suck strongly, cry loudly, move her body when she had a wet diaper.
At 2 month, her daily routine was established. She would go to sleep after bath or feeding.
At 3 months, she started to make some sounds, stand for a moment with help, play by herself inside her crib, tried to find the source of the sounds when you called her name.
At 4 months, she knew when you talked to her, giggled when watching T.V., move her arms and legs a lot in excitement.

Her main food is milk with rice cereal at 260ml each time, 4 meals a day. Her bowl movement normal, sleep normal. She gets up at 8:00am, nap for 2 hours, goes to bed at 9:00pm..

She has a happy life thanks to the orphanage staff and the foster mother.

Most favourate activities: play with other kids
Most favourate toy: toys that can make sounds"

So I guess I will be sending a toy with sound in her care package. We are hoping to get an address soon so we can mail a package this weekend.

Thanks for all of your prayers!
mkd

Aidyn's friends

These five girls are all associated with Tonggu Social Welfare Institute. We will be travelling with their families to Beijing, Nanchang, and Guangzhou. A two week journey. Eight families are in our travel group. I will add the other girls' pictures as I receive them.

Aidyn's mugshot

Her name is Tong Min Yue. All the babies at her SWI (Social Welfare Institute) are named Tong Min. Tong is the first character of her town's name, Tonggu. Tong means "copper". Min means "the people". I did a quick search for Yue online and found that it means "moon". Eager to see what my Chinese facilitator, Adam, says about her name later this week.

I Just received her mugshot and Chinese name via email from our Agent. The referral package will be delivered tomorrow to our house so more info on its way.

Keep checking back for more updates,
marsha

Introducing our daughter Aidyn Landreth Duncan

Aidyn Landreth Duncan

Birthdate: January 9, 2006

Click on the pictures and they will open into bigger pictures.

Been in foster care since January 11th in Jiangxi Province.

She lives in Tonggu community, associated with Tonggu Social Welfare Institute, which has 80% minority ethnicities.

We will receive her translated medicals, her Chinese name, another picture, and all her information tomorrow or Thursday via FedEx.

Tonight our agency emailed us with the little bit of info they have and two pictures.