Packing, packing, packing

Our post tomorrow will be about this past week in saying goodbye to Bella and meeting her family, etc.  It’ll probably be long and you’ll probably want tissues nearby.  Today, we want to update you on what’s happening with Emma’s adoption and our remaining time here.

Our bags have been half packed for several days now and we’ve been ready to leave to pick up Emma on a moment’s notice.  But then we got word that the provincial government and the orphanage needed time to get things together for her adoption.  So the earliest they will be ready for us is May 28^th.  So, that’s the day our little princess will be placed in our arms!  Then we’ll travel around China a bit to get all the official paperwork we need to travel back to America.  We’re hoping our consulate appointment will be June 4^th and we’ll be able to arrive in America on June 5^th.    

So what are we doing in the meantime?  Packing some more!  On Wednesday afternoon we received word that our landlord wants to break our contract and take his apartment back one year early.  We thought all of our stuff could just stay in our home and maybe we’d even be able to extend our contract when we came back in July 2014.  But through our interactions with him it is clear we just need to get out.  So, either he’ll give us a year’s rent back and we’ll move all our things in the next 11 days!  Or, he won’t give us our rent back, and our stuff can stay here, but we’ll pack it up anyway, because we won’t live here when we come back.  Or, he won’t give us our rent back, and we move our stuff out anyway, because we just want to be done dealing with this guy!  All around this has added stress to an already emotionally packed dramatic week.