Welcome to our Blog!

Welcome to our blog that we'll use to document our trip to China to adopt the newest addition to our family, Mia Zhou Sandrelli.

We received our referral on March 30, 2006. Mia is currently known as You Dao Zhou (Zhou is pronounced, "Joe"). She was born on August 12, 2006. She is currently at YouXian Social Welfare Institute, in You County, Hunan Province.

Folklore has it that because of the spicy cuisine in Hunan province, that the babies there are fiesty, or spicy. So, please join us as we travel to meet our Hunan Spicy Girl!


Here is our travel itinerary:

May 17 - noon - fly from Vancouver to Shanghai (two other families of our group of 5 families are also on the same flight)

May 18 - arrive in Shanghai at 3:10 pm(15 hour time difference plus cross the international date line).

May 19/20 - Explore Shanghai!

May 21 - fly to Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province. Check into the Dolton Hotel.

May 22 - GOTCHA DAY! Meet Mia in person for the first time at the Changsha Civil Affairs office

May 23 - Adoption Day

May 24/25/26 - Wait for adoption to be processed. Hopefully visit the YouXian Social Welfare Institute.

May 27 - Fly to Beijing with our daughter - check into Wangfujing Hotel.

May 27 - June 1st - complete necessary paperwork to bring Mia to Canada at Canadian Embassy. Sightsee! Bond.

June 1st - Return home. Leave Beijing at 4:30 pm and arrive in Vancouver, same day (back over the international date line) at 12:25 pm.

I will hopefully post pictures of Mia shortly, still learning how to "blog".