What's going on right now.....

10 days until take-off....

We received Logan's passport last week and FedEx'd our Chinese Visa applications. We should be receiving these back tomorrow. Then we'll need to make photocopies of the passports and visa to take with us.

We thought we had enough luggage but then ran into a problem with not enough room. For In-China flights, the weight of the check'd baggage can not exceed 44lbs which limits us to the pieces we can take. We bought another piece of luggage over the weekend b/c we needed the space but now it's over the 44lbs and I still haven't packed jeans/pants for me. We've been working on this forever it seems like. Our packing list even lists what is in each suitcase. We're trying to be as organized as we can possibly be but it's stressing me out. We also spent about 1 1/2 hours Saturday photocopying all the papers/forms we need for the trip plus copies to leave at home in case we lose something and need to call someone to fax these to us.

For Valentine's/early Birthday/pre-travel gift we gave him the Fisher Price Kid Tough digital camera tonight. He has been asking for his own camera for a long time. He's always wanting to take pictures with my camera. Right now Logan and Tony are uploading his photos. Now he can take his own photos while we're in China. To the left is one that he took of Andrew. We've already had to give him a lesson on why it is NOT appropriate to take naked shots. Nate was in a middle of a diaper change and Logan wanted to take a picture. Uh oh! If I catch him coming in there with the camera while I'm in the shower, he's in big trouble.

We are all immunized. We're now all updated with Hep A, B, typhoid and updated Tetanus. I had to be sneaky about Logan's immunizations. I knew he would start screaming and yelling. Luckily it didn't turn out as bad as I was dreading it. The person that gives the shots is very fast.

Tony created our own luggage tags in PINK. He even made up laminated cards with phrases in Chinese saying "why" we are in China and has Madelyn's picture on it.

My sister collected up some things to put in Logan's carry-on. We're working on finding more travel games. Kricket has one for him. We can't seem to find any. I guess most games now are all for computers but not all of our flights are we going to have power for the laptop. All I have for me so far is a crossword puzzle book. I'll get bored with that pretty fast. Tony ordered books for himself.

I got prescriptions for Madelyn. I've been told by many to take syringes but when I asked our pediatrician she said we didn't need them. Hopefully we will NOT need them or someone else in the group might have one we can use if we HAVE to get an injectible medicine.

We have one more weekend to get everything together plus Tony has off Monday for President's Day and also the day before take-off. Nate and Andrew will be leaving the night before we leave. I'm going to cry. Leaving them behind is tearing me apart. I'm going to miss them so much. They are on the verge of walking and I'm afraid I'll miss that first step with no assistance. They already cruise everywhere and walk with hands being held. On the bright side, we should be able to see Madelyn's first steps. We've missed all the other firsts so far with her.