I 800 Approval

I can't believe it.   We received our I 800 in the mail today.  It is exactly 2 weeks since we mailed the application.  We are now waiting on our letter stating that they have cabled NVC and we can send everything to our agency.  They will then send the last of our paperwork to the US Consulate in China who will issue Article 5.  Once that happens China will issue our Travel Approval.  I don't even want to guess when we will travel but it should be in the next couple of months.  I can't wait to hold my boy in my arms.  The closest I've come is our new family photo.  We took one with a picture of Christopher with us.

Vacation to Hilton Head Island

We spent a wonderful week with my parents in Hilton Head.  We drove there over two days.  We stopped in Mt Airy North Carolina on the way down.  It was the birthplace of Andy Griffith.  Almost everything in the town has Mayberry in it's name.  There is a museum for Andy Griffith and Sheriff Andy's car.  They have Mayberry Days in the Fall.  We didn't have a chance to visit any of it.  It was also the home of Chang and Eng the original Siamese twins.  I learned everything by looking it up online.  We arrived to late in the day to visit any museums and were on the road early the next day.

Hilton Head is a beautiful place but it takes nearly a week to figure the place out.  It is separated into plantations.  We stayed in the Shipyard Plantation at the Coral Reef Resort.  We had a nice townhouse with 2 bedrooms and a pull out couch on the first floor.  I got a picture of the outside but never took pictures inside.  We had a kitchen, dining room living room combo, powder room and laundry room on the first floor.  The second floor had two bedrooms each with a private bath.

It was a five minute drive or 20 minute bike ride to the beach.  There was one private beach access in our plantation.  All of the beaches are public however access to the beach is mostly private.  There are a few public access points.  We only used the one at our plantation.  The beach was beautiful and it wasn't crowded.  We got up early every morning and got to the beach at 7:30am and we would stay until about 11:30am.  We would then spend the hottest part of the day at our condo.  We would also swim at the pool.  Many afternoons we would take a nap as well.  Our evenings were spent going to dinner, shopping and heading back to the beach.

This was our first night at the beach.

I wish I had gotten a picture of Xuelian's reaction to seeing the ocean for the first time.  She was so cute.  She closed her eyes walking up the boardwalk.  When she opened them her eyes got huge and all she could say was WOW!  We stayed for a little while then went home for a good nights sleep and came back bright and early the next morning.  

This was I think our third night at Hilton Head.  I bought a kite to fly.  It was really windy and I was only able to fly it for a little while.

Xuelian had fun playing in the surf.  She rolled her long shorts up and jumped in and ran through the waves.

 This was our last day in Hilton Head.  We were at the beach bright and early again.  Xuelian and Tim built a sandcastle again.

 Filling the bucket of water with sand.

 They made a base for the castle and then added their wet sand.

 Building the towers.

 I think the castle looks like something from Lord of the Rings.

 I love these next few pictures.  Xuelian had no clue that dad was doing silly things in the picture.

 The look on her face when she figured it out was priceless.

 Xuelian and dad playing in the ocean.

 Grandma, Grandpa and Xuelian.

 I don't ever remember my dad going into the ocean.  It took him all week but the last day he finally came in.  We had a ton of fun being hit by the waves.

 We had seen dolphins swimming all week.  A few would come in close and I was finally able to get pictures of it.

 The beach was also a great place to ride a bike.  Xuelian and Grandpa went for one last bike ride on the beach.

 Xuelian had a great time with her boogy board.

We went to the Sea Pines Plantation one day.  This is where the lighthouse is.  You have to pay to enter other plantations.  I'm not sure it was worth the $5 and a missed day at the beach.  Sea Pines is huge and you drive from one point to the next and it is all high end shopping villages.  We love lighthouses but this one is a bit contrived.  It was only built in the 70's and used as a way to video golf tournaments.  They wanted $3.50 a person just to walk to the top.  Normally we would have done this with any historical lighthouse but this seemed silly.  We had a nice lunch at the Crazy Crab.  I was able to get a great salad.  I can't eat seafood so my choices were very limited at most places.

They had red rocking chairs everywhere to look out at the harbor.

This bear was in front of an ice cream shop.  We just stopped to take a picture. 

This was a kids area at one of the villages.  In the evening there is entertainment for the kids.  We were so busy we never made it to one of the shows.  They have places like this in different areas of Hilton Head.

On Friday it rained all morning but did clear up for our beach combing boat tour.  You spend an hour looking for shells on a sandbar that is exposed at low tide.  Then there is a two hour dolphin watching tour.  We saw a ton of dolphins.  They have over 100 that stay year round and then just as many if not more that migrate through.

 Waiting for our boat tour.

 Check in desk for Outside Hilton Head.

 We were the only family on the tour.

 It was super windy.  This is the lighthouse I was talking about earlier.

 Pictures of the many dolphins we saw.

We didn't take pictures of beach combing.  We were too busy looking for shells and sand dollars.  We  found over 20 sand dollars and it was a great time until the storm rolled in and we were really far away from the boat.  We were running through the water and seeing lightening in the distance.  We made it back to the boat and managed to stay ahead of the storm and still stopped to see more dolphins.

Hilton Head is a beautiful town.  It does take awhile to figure out where everything is.  Nothing is clearly marked.  Signs have to be small and are low to the ground and all of the buildings blend in.  It does keep everything tranquil but hard to find.  Most people ride bikes everywhere they go but it was so hot we drove most places and rode our bikes at the plantation.  It would be a great way to get around in the spring or fall.  They have beautiful bike trails everywhere.  We were able to see lots of wildlife on our bike rides. I unfortunately never had my camera on these rides.  We saw gators in the ponds mostly 2-3ft ones.  We did see a 7ft Gator one day I really wish I would have had my camera for that.  There are also so many different kinds of birds herons, stork and pelican to name a few.

We had a wonderful time in Hilton Head.  We went out Saturday night for a farewell dinner at Kingfisher Restaurant.  Kingfisher was the second best place we ate at.  The best was a Gullah restaurant.  I have never thought I would rave about hushpuppies or cornbread.  These were like dessert.  The hushpuppies came with a sweet potato dipping sauce and the cornbread was a sweet potato cornbread.  Yummy.

We left on Sunday morning and drove the whole way home.  It was a 12 hr drive.  I don't think I want to do that again.