Care package and visa application

We have sent off a small package to ChaoHu City. Photo album, and small things for our little girl. We were coached to keep it simple and small. In China the packages are delivered by bike courier most often, so if it is too big, they will not deliver it. Often, they do not have the staff or time to go and get packages.
We also have sent off our visa applications, along with our passports. More passport photos needed! We were able to find mom and dad's on the computer, but took new photos of the boys and played the print-cut-paste game. We learned that cheap photo paper + elmers glue = destroyed photo. Since the visa applications had to be hand delivered to a Chinese Consulate office, Rebecca dropped everything off at a business in Minneapolis called China Tribune. They will be getting everything where it needs to go (we hope!). Rebecca said she met a nice man, and he had quite a lot of information about China related resources here in the Twin Cities.
Our agency, Children's Home Society, instructed us to write November 15th as our "travel date" for the visa application. So many times it has seemed that we were not going to all be together by Christmas. For a long time I (Tom) have been hopeful that we would see her on her birthday (October 21). While that is seeming to be a very small possibility, we are not going to complain.

Up till now the whole H1N1 flu has been not as bad as some predicted. We all have our flu shots, and the H1N1 shots should arrive in our area mid October. We all plan on getting one, and having LOTS of documentation for China. One of our bigger concerns about traveling is all the stories regarding people being quarantined. Hopefully we are all healthy for the trip, and not sitting next to someone who is sick! If we are, we are going to hope that paperwork stating we are vaccinated will carry some weight.