Ladybug Adventures

Monday, September 26, 2005 5:07 PM CDT

Just a quick note to let you all know that we received Travel Approval to go to China to get Nikole!! We don't have exact travel dates yet, but expect it to be the first couple weeks of November. We will post again as soon as we have travel dates and our itenerary.

Blessings,
Lisa

Originally posted on Tuesday, September 13, 2005 3:12 PM CDT

Emilie is now in school and is loving every minute of it! She is in a pre-school class for 3 year olds at a local church here in Berne. She only attends class on Tues. & Thurs. from 8:30 am to 11:00 am right now. She likes it so much, she wants to know why she can't go to school every day. :) I hope hope she maintains this same like for school throughout all her school years. :)

We did get one small tid bit of information last week about our second daughter as well. Nikole is now 32 months old and our agency tells us she weighs 13.5 kg = 29.72 pounds and her height is 82 cm = 32.28 inches. The orphanage that she is fostered through, called the foster family and said she is doing well. And the orphanage says they are getting ready to move her from her foster home back to the orphanage to prepare her to meet us. We have mixed feelings about that. The good thing is, that probably indicates our "Travel Approval" should be coming soon, but we fear that Nikole will not get as good a care in the orphanage as she would if she could remain with her foster family until we get there. At least it will only be for a few weeks.

That is about all the news we have for now. We will post again as soon as we get new photos or travel approval.

God Bless,
Lisa, Steve and Emilie

Originally posted on Monday, October 31, 2005 10:13 AM CST

For our family and friends who may still be watching this website, here is an update on our current upcoming trip to China. We recently received our detailed itinerary, which tells us where we will be and what we will be doing each day we are in China. I posted a copy of it on our yahoo grou last week and will copy that same post to this website as well.

In case you are not aware, we have started a yahoo group for everyone to follow our trip to China this time. We are going to post to the yahoo group as often as possible while we are there and hopefully even upload a few pictures. If you want to view the photos we post from China you will need to log on to our yahoo group to see those. I will try to copy all of our post to this site as well, but to make sure you don't miss anything, you might want to check out the yahoo group. You can find it at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hammellfamily

The first time you visit the yahoo group, you will have to create a yahoo login and password and request to join the group. Once your request has been approved you will be able to see all of our past posts to the group, view links I have added and view the few photos I have already put up. Some photos of Emilie and the only referral photos we have of Nikole at this time.

Here is our itinerary. I have added a few website links so you can check out some information about the
hotels we will be staying in or find information about the tourist attractions we will get to see while we are there. Here it is!

Nov 4 = Fly from Fort Wayne to Chicago - Flight UA7255 - United
Airlines (D: 6:00a - A: 5:55a)

Fly from Chicago to Beijing China - Flight UA851 – United
Airlines (D: 12:05p)

Nov 5 = Arrive in Beijing at 2:30 pm (Beijing time) and stay at the
Wangfujing Grand Hotel. Here is the website for our hotel:
http://www.wangfujinghotel.com/english/ssfw/xxsg.html

Nov 6 = Tour the Great Wall and the Summer Palace
The Great Wall Info – http://www.crystalinks.com/chinawall.html
http://www.thebeijingguide.com/great_wall_of_china/
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/china_great_wall/

The Summer Palace Info -
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/cityguides/beijing/summer.htm
http://www.thebeijingguide.com/summer_palace/index.html

Nov 7 = Meet Nikole!!!! Go to adoption registration and
notarization appointments

Nov 8 = Tour the Forbidden City
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/cityguides/beijing/forbidden.htm
http://www.thebeijingguide.com/forbidden_city/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_City

Nov 9 = Tour the Temple of Heaven
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/beijing/heaven/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Heaven

Nov 10 = Tour the Lama Temple
http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Asia/China/Beijing_Shi/B
eijing-1024960/Things_To_Do-Beijing-Lama_Temple_Yonghegong-BR-1.html

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/beijing/yonghe.htm


Nov 11 = Get Nikole's Passport

Nov 12 = Go to Hutong Tour
http://www.cbw.com/tourism/hutong/eindex1.htm
http://www.sinohotelguide.com/travel/beijing/hutong.html

Nov 13 = Fly to Guangzhou – Flight CZ3102 – China Southern (12:05p –
3:00p)
Stay at the White Swan Hotel
http://www.white-swan-hotel.com/eng/Public/index.asp

Nov 14 = Take Nikole for her Medical Check and get her Visa Photo
taken in the afternoon

Nov 15 = Go to 11:00a Visa Appointment at the U.S. Consulate

Nov 16 = Get Nikole's Visa

Nov 17 = Fly from Guangzhou to Hong Kong – Flight CZ301 (8:30a –
9:30a)
Fly from Hong Kong to Chicago – Flight UA896 (11:35a HK time –
11:40a Chicago time)
Fly from Chicago to Fort Wayne – Flight UA6828 (3:45p
Chi time – 5:45p Fort Wayne time)

Lisa Hammell