Tremendous news

The Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs has matched us to charming little girl from Shangrao, an industrial city in the northeast of Jiangxi province province (see map).

She was born in November 2005, and showed up at the gates of the Bureau of Civil Affairs in Shangrao the next day. The orphanage there named her Ling Cha Jiao: Cha means tea and Jiao means lovely or sweet; we don't know what Ling means yet but it is the surname that the orphanage gives to all babies in its care. She has spent time in foster care, outside of the orphanage, which is great.

We will leave for China at the end of December or early January.

Shangrao is near old and historically important Taoist temples and porcelain kilns dating back 1500 years. Sanqingshan, just north of Shangrao, is quite lovely.

When we travel, we will spend five to seven days in Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi province, which is located near Lake Poyang, the largest in China. Endangered white-naped cranes spend their winters in Lake Poyang and we hope to see them during our visit.

We want to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank everyone for all the support we've received over the past five years. We have not had an easy time by far, but have been comforted by the amazing amount of love from our family and friends. It is a joy to be able to share our good news.

We will be maintaining this blog for the next few months (and maybe beyond) so we can update everyone and, most importantly, post photos during our trip. Hopefully, you will be entertained.

PS: We thought that doing a little sightseeing in Jiangxi before we picked up our daughter would logistically make sense and would enable us to show and tell her what her birthplace looked like (with all the photos that we take, of course). So if you know of any China travel guides, please pass them along!