Tomorrow our Article 5 is suppose to be picked up from the Consulate in Guangzhou and at the same time a few other documents will be added to this and they will be sent off to the CCAA. So I am assuming from tomorrow November 4th we will wait 3-4 weeks for Travel Approval. We were told we can travel a week after getting TA. I think there may be a possibility we can travel even earlier since we would be going directly from within country. We will see. So if it takes 3 weeks to get TA then we are looking at maybe getting it on Thanksgiving. We would really be thankful for that! Possibly we could get TA on December 2nd. I am hoping we'll get it BEFORE Thanksgiving. I would love to get TA on November 18th. Then we could travel December 2nd and be in Shanghai from the 2nd to the 9th and then onto Guangzhou from the 10th until the 18th or so and then fly back to America in time for Christmas. If we are able to travel December 9th to Shanghai we could be there from then until the 16th and travel to Guangzhou and be there from the 17th until 25th. We would then travel home on Christmas but as we travel we would lose a day and possibly arrive in America ON Christmas.
So what I have been seeing from others who have traveled is the pattern is to first fly to the city where you child is and stay there a week. Then you make your way to Guangzhou on Friday and stay there from Saturday to Saturday.
In the meantime we wait not only for travel dates for booking tickets within country to go get Ian but we also wait to purchase tickets to fly BACK to America. Most likely we will be purchasing these tickets maybe a couple of weeks before we leave? We are suppose to go to a meeting in January and they are asking us for our ticket information to fly to them. We don't even have tickets back in country yet, let along tickets from Oklahoma to Virgina.
Along those lines we are trying to figure out what to do for the kids for the holidays. We won't put up a Christmas tree because we may not even be here much of the month of December. If we end up traveling on Christmas or spending Christmas in either Shanghai or Guangzhou it will definitely be odd for all of us. Todd and I talked about still doing Advent. I guess if worst comes to worst I can bring some red tea lights with us and we can download some music on our computer to sing. My Advent calendar is pretty big so I won't be able to bring that, maybe I should make a smaller felt one to travel with?!
Along the same lines of waiting I have been waiting to find out when I can go take my language test. Due to the crazy changes and with the past 7 months of unknown I have been waiting to reach a level 3 evaluation so I can take my language test. On October 20th I received a level 3 rating and was told that I could go take my test. This test is huge and if I pass it I won't have to take as many hours of class as I do now. And with adding Ian to our family if I could get this test out of the way before our travel to get Ian and BEFORE we go home for Stateside it would be amazing. I could come back here and still study language but with much more flexibility and no pressure of the language test looming over me. So on October 20th I told my language supervisor that I wanted to take my test the week before Thanksgiving. All was good for the next week then a few days ago I found out that they changed the rules and I have to get another level 3 evaluation (I send in a recording of a conversation I have with someone to be evaluated by a local). And on the 20th I was told I could take our company's old language test. Now I am told I can't go and take the test like I thought, I have to send in a new snapshot to be evaluated (it has been taking 3 weeks to get evaluated) and then see if I can go take the test. Then I get another email saying they don't know what is going to be on the test and I need to wait until they tell us. I am running out of time. It looks like my hopes of going and taking the test to have it out of the way and to end our first term here on a good note are out of the picture. I'm a little frustrated by the whole process and that who ever is in charge is being so fickle so I don't have time to do this.
It will mean that I will come back from our 6 months in America to having to take 15 hours of class every week on top of being a wife and mother to 3 young kids. Then since I will be in America not around the language like I am here I will have to review some and hopefully get back to where I am now in order to try to take the test again so I don't have to take 15 hours of class anymore.
Waiting is never easy.
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