On Saturday, January 23 we were contacted by our adoption agency with a referral of a beautiful two year old girl. Her Chinese name is Hua Xue Bin (wa-shé-bin). She is currently with a foster family in conjunction with the Yu Lin City First Social Welfare Institute in the Guangxi Province in Southern China. We quickly had her medicals reviewed by adoption pediatricians at Northwestern University, University of Minnesota and a local pediatric cardiologist. The consensus from all was to pack our bags and go get her. If only it was that easy. International adoption is a paperwork intensive process. Our referral set off yet another round. Last week, we received our letter of authorization from the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA). This has been the most important piece of paper that we have signed to date. With this document, we officially acknowledge our intent to adopt Xue Bin as our daughter and complete the adoption in China. As many of you know, we began this journey over five years ago. Because of the long wait, we have done little to prepare for a child in the house. We have been moving fast to get ready. The spare catch-all room is quickly transforming into a cute little girls bedroom. Our lives are about to change forever and we are excited. The next step is to receive our travel authorization and visa's. We expect to travel late spring at this point. We are creating this blog so that our family and friends can follow our journey and share in the joy of gotcha day and our getting acquainted with our little girl. We will update as events unfold.