All Four to China in 2014

In 2009, not quite five years ago, Greg and I traveled to China to adopt Lian, our youngest daughter. Our oldest daughter, Amelia stayed with her grandparents and started first grade.  The original plan was for Amelia to travel with us to China.  Due to the "H1N1" virus (aka 'swine flu') there were some risks involved with traveling to China at that time, so Amelia stayed in the States.  We promised Amelia we would go back to China one day and she would come.

Fast forward to 2013, Lian is now 5 years old and ready, begging actually, to go back to visit China.  Because, in her words, "I don't remember China and I have not seen it all." We told her that we would not be able to "see it all" in one trip but that we would go back to China soon. "When?" Lian asked. "How long do I have to wait? How long have I been here (the States) already? Please, can we go to visit China?"

In November 2013, we learned that our adoption agency was organizing a heritage tour to China in the Spring of 2014.  Hmmm. Then we realized the date of the trip overlapped with the girls' Spring Break, more hmmm. Next, we found out a family we know was going on the same trip.  I called our agency to get more information.  We were not sure we were ready to go back, Lian was not yet 6.  I asked how old most of the kids would be (8-12) and if our agency would be hosting another heritage tour in the Spring of 2015.  "Probably not," I was told, "the summer months are more popular." By the time we figured out if we traveled in 2014, Amelia would still be considered a child for rate purposes, we were seriously considering it.  Once my boss said I could take 2 weeks vacation for a 2014 trip, we looked into airfare and budgets - The rest as they say is history.

In less than 2 weeks, all four of us will travel to China. The first week we will be on a heritage tour with other adoptive families. The second week, we will re-trace our steps from September 2009 when we met and adopted Lian and became forever, a family of four. Although, as Amelia reminds us, all four of us were not together until we three travelers landed back in the State in late September 2009.

I will let Amelia post more about our itinerary later.  The important thing is that we have our passports, our visas, and our plane tickets and Lian has been packed for weeks, literally.  We leave the States on March 20 and arrive in Beijing on March 21.  We hope to blog and post pictures as we go to share our trip with family and friends.

This picture is from our family trip to "Camp China" in NC during the summer of 2013. Amelia is holding Lucy (Jie Jie), Lian's roommate from China who was adopted at the same time. While Lucy and her family will not be with us on this trip in person, they will be in our hearts and thoughts as we re-trace our steps from an adoption journey that began for this family before Lian was even born in China in 2008.