Hooray for Kate

Well, another Friday night is almost done and the weekend will pass quickly. Time is flying so fast. Seeing as we’ll miss most of the workup to Christmas, I listened to Christmas music on my satellite radio all week. Nobody can resist feeling good when they listen to Christmas music (at least for the first few days)

Jen and I both finished work today. Jen’s department had a Christmas / Farewell party at a local watering hole this afternoon. Because of much different reasons I slipped out the side door without much hoopla.

So, whats left? I need to put the motorcycle away for the winter and bring in some more firewood. Pretty boring stuff for 5 days before leaving for China, eh? A couple of social engagements fill out our weekend. Tomorrow night is J&J’s farewell party for us, then a family brunch on Sunday. Family and friends…. What could be better?

One week from tonight we’ll be arriving in Chongqing and prepping for getting Kate on Saturday. I wonder. Over 100 weeks of waiting and just 1 week to go.

Congratulations to Mel and Pete (the blogless Freddy Beachers) who should be getting their referral this month. No official cutoff date from the CCAA yet, but it looks like they are in if you pay attention to the Rumor Queen. Dianne and Joe, January is your month.

And Chris, our flight may leave @ 5:55 AM, but that’s 5:55 PM Beijing time. Coffee, no. Wobbly pop, yep! OK, maybe a bit too early for a wobbly pop. We’ll wait and celebrate as we cross the international dateline somewhere around 180 degrees over the Pacific Ocean.

Well, that’s it from here… not much terribly exciting to really report right now, but this time next week will be a different story.

The moral of this week’s story. Things are good. REAL good. There’s a skip in my step.

At this time in 2 weeks, we’ll be on that big 777 and somewhere over Western Canada on our way to Beijing. Wow! Only 2 weeks to go.

I’m an information junkie so I enjoy things like you’ll read below. I’ll be looking while we’re being shuttled all over the country.

(from the Economist, 10 Nov 07) For decades cars owned by foreign companies or individuals have had to use black licence-plates. These stand out from the blue plates now used by most civilian vehicles (there are other colours, too: eg, white for the police and army, and yellow for bigger vehicles).

The black plates were originally intended to make it easier for the police to identify foreign-owned vehicles and stop them from entering restricted areas. In the 1980s large swathes of China were off-limits to foreigners. These were often areas used by the army or considered too embarrassingly backward for foreigners to see. Roads in the countryside around Beijing were dotted with signs telling foreigners to proceed no further. By 2005, however, official press reports said only 8% of the country was still off-limits to foreigners.

The status of the black licence-plates has changed too. When they were introduced almost all other passenger cars were for official use. But in the past few years private-car ownership has grown rapidly. Members of China's burgeoning middle-class have come to covet black plates. They suggest status and overseas connections. Traffic police sometimes turn a blind eye to transgressions by black-plated cars (perhaps to avoid the embarrassment of conversing in a foreign tongue).

This fuelled a black-plate black market. Many try to register their vehicles as foreign-owned, and many black-plated cars now have at best tenuous foreign connections. From this month, however, foreigners all get blue plates too. Only diplomats still get special ones, marked by a character meaning "envoy".

But vehicular discrimination survives. Cars with black plates can keep them. And the discerning motorist (and policeman) will still spot a foreigner's blue plate. In Beijing they all bear the letters LB. The police say that this will make foreigners' cars easier to manage.

16 days until we leave. We’re getting close.

Chris and Tracy finally got their referral today! What a whopping head of hair! Congratulations guys! That’s awesome… someone for Kate to play with.

OK, Mel and Pete, you’re next, then Dianne and Joe, then Angela and Bryan, and finally Sam and Matt. Hey, Pete, you’re a “nerd”…. get a blog up and going so we can follow your guys’ journey.

Yesterday, I needed to go home for lunch as Abby the dog was not feeling well and I wanted to make sure she was OK. She was. Well, just as I pulled in the driveway, the Canada Post truck pulled up and had me sign for a package form the NB Government. It was a congratulatory letter from the gov’t and 2 originals of the “Notice of Travelling to China for Adoption” (same paperwork, new name)

We’re just waiting for our passports and airline tickets to be sent to us and then we have everything.

Next… begin packing! I’m a chronic over packer… I pack too much when I travel for work, I pack too much when we go camping, I pack too much when we go hiking for the day. I like to be prepared for any situation so I over pack. Packing only necessities will be a real challenge. Jennifer will probably do most of the packing.

The latest cut-off is out from the CCAA and they’ve matched up to December 8. Hooray for Chris and Tracy from Moncton who had a log-in date of December 5. They should have the picture of their kid by the end of the week or beginning of next week.

In case you want to follow their blog, it’s located HERE.

And Chris and Tracy… from what I hear, you still don’t have a kid’s room done yet. Time to get it done!