Hello! Finally writing! Our flights went very well. There was not a lot of room but we made it work. Just when you thought you were going to lose it, the plane landed. Luckily we only had a hour lay over and 30 minute flight before reaching Jinan. (Little sidenote: Andrew's Ipod was lost on a flight. He is so sad over this. I am sad for him because he paid for half of it, had several pictures on there, some to show Peter of our home life, and had invested his own money in games and music. He could use some Good Thoughts on this subject if you think about it) It's very cold here. And foggy. Boy is it foggy!! When we were picked up we were given a nice surprise. Our translator asked if we would like to go ahead and get Peter. Um, YEAH!!! So when we arrived at the hotel, he and his caregivers met us in the lobby!! What a moment!! It was a bit awkward because he is older and we are all strangers to him. He did quickly warm up to us though. Sadly our cameras were still in the luggage so no pictures of that moment. They caregivers and translators came up to our room (our upgraded room since the pool is broken. It's huge! 3 bathrooms, 2 bedrooms, living room. Peter may not like our home!) and with our signatures put on a piece of paper, he was allowed to stay! He showed us picture album and he also brought us gift he had bought with his own money. Precious. He also had several pictures of his growing up years and that was so exciting to see. His orphanage did a fabulous job of taking pictures and taking care of him. It's obvious they really care for their children. We took some time looking through his things, gave him his pj's and went to bed. It was 11 at night here and we had not had any sleep. At all. We all slept about 4 hours on Friday night so exhaustion set in. Morning came quickly at 6:45. We had to be ready by 8:30 to fill our paperwork. Our breakfast was superb and we found out that Peter likes orange juice. We met his caregivers and started the paperwork process. I must mention the traffic here. I've never seen such...craziness! You hear about it but nothing prepares you for it!! There are no rules whatsoever. You drive your car, scooter, bike, or walk wherever you want. So insane. We arrived at the first office and there were the Raffray's!!! SO exciting! We had the translators explain to the boys that they would see each other. As the translator was explaining to Peter about homeschooling, she kept commenting on how smart I was to have majored in every subject. :-) If she only knew. HA! I tried to explain but I sort of liked how highly she thought of me so I stopped. Peter had been hanging on Eric a lot because he is used to him. At some point during this, he started to notice me. He asked the translator a bunch of questions about me. He started to hold my hand and pat my back. Precious mommy moments. He is trying to also figure out our names. It's adorable to hear him try and remember who we are. He will look at me and say Dad, not Abi, no Mom!! LOL He and Abi hit it off very quickly. Andrew has always been standoffish but we know they will have plenty of time since they are sharing a room. We had lunch at a fabulous restaurant where we drank the (boiled) water and used a real toilet! So happy about that. We finished up our paperwork and headed to the supermarket. That was just crazy. And this is where you all yell at the screen because I forgot my camera in the van!! And I do not get it back until tomorrow. But we are going to try and upload Abi's pics. We looked for clothes but they were way to expensive. I'm not paying those prices for clothes! I need a Target! Between the supermarket and paperwork, Peters caregivers left. He was very sad but they did a great job helping him transition. They hugged, cried for a moment, then she guided him to me. He's doing well now but you can see a bit of sadness. I don't blame him one bit! I would be super sad too. A little about Peter...he is very active and mischevious. He likes to laugh and play but he will tone it down when we ask. It's not bad enough to complain about. Just all boy. He LOVES video games and technology. LOVES them. He's playing a game as I type this. He begs all the time and we have to tell him not right now. He also loves cameras. So grandma's if you are itching to buy something, he would probably want one of his own. Abi will get sick of sharing. He loves the color red, cherries, banana's, Jackie Chan movies,and angry birds. He wears a size 12 in target clothes so he is right about the same size as Abi's friends. He clearly cares about others. His caregivers mentioned that to us but we have seen it ourselves. At the supermarket, he wanted to only buy chips as his snack because he remembered Abi liked them. He then let Abi and Andrew pick out the flavors. He likes to help. He is trying hard to speak English. He repeats what we say often. He learned English in school and BMH prepared him to communicate if he doesn't know. His speech is obviously affected by the cleft palate. And that is where all the time with Paris has helped us! He sounds a lot like her but we can make it out because we are so used to trying to figure out Paris talk. He saw a picture of them (Curfman girls) and looked at it for a while. We told him about the Hoods and if I ever get unpacked I will show him their letters. ;-) If we get the pictures uploaded, look for Chels to post! She gets first dibs. We are struggling with phone calls and texting so lift that up please. Please lift up our bonding time. He showed me his necklace of Buddha earlier and made the motions of p aying to him. Hmmm....yeah, lift that up to please! I'm off to drag video game head (and it's not Andrew) off the iPad and make him communicate! This is the longest update (I hope!) so enjoy. Love though our Father, Aimee for the Akin's *If someone could post our blog on CHEC, I would appreciate it. Love you all~~

Here is the first official Picture of Peter with his New Family, Minus his Biggest sister of course. I will be updating the blog for Aimee while she is gone. God is good all the time Mimi

Thank you!

Because of all our incredible family and friends, and mostly our Sovereign Lord, we are fully funded for our trip!! Praise the Lord! He answers!! And Peter has a completed puzzle! God is good. We cannot express to each of you how much we appreciate all the hard work, the money, and the prayers you have given us. (I'm very sorry if you did not get a thank you note. Please know that I did have very good intentions!!) Because of you all, Peter has the opportunity to be in a family, to celebrate Christmas, Easter and birthdays with us, to have a chance to get a great education but most importantly, to have the opportunity to know and accept our Lord and Savior. We love you all very much and cannot wait to share our families next adventure with you!-Eric, Aimee, Chelsea, Andrew, Peter, and Abi

Bring Peter Home!!

Chili Cook Off & Bake Auction

Eric's sister, Brandy, and her family will be hosting a chili cook off and bake auction for us on November 3rd. This is going to be a FUN event! We still have a few details to iron out but be looking for them sometime next week. So far we will have a band, courtesy of our talented nephew Zack, and a bonfire!! And the food! The food will be sooo good! Because they will be your wonderful creations! ;-)There will be a prize for the best chili so start getting your chili recipes ready. There will also be a prize for the baked good that sells for the most money. This will be a fun night to hang out with your friends while supporting a good cause. We can't wait to see you there!!!

A couple of fundraisers...You'll love them!

Our wonderful friend Teresa Grimes, owner of Across My Heart, is a talented artist who makes mosaic crosses. Teresa has generously offered to host a fundraiser through the month of October for Peter! Check out her facebook page to see her wonderful creations and mention that "It's for Peter!" when ordering. Thank you! Across My Heart We still have shirts for sale! They are such good conversation starters plus they are so nice looking! Here is what we have left: Y small-yellow (not a icky yellow, a pretty yellow!) Y small-pink (This one is a bit small than the yellow one) A M-lime green A L- 2 gray, 1 white, longhorn burnt orange A XL-2 gray, lime green, pink, yellow You really need to see these to appreciate them. If you would like to see a picture, please email me and I will send you one. lil_blesins@yahoo.com We are still selling puzzle pieces! We have a lot left. Let's get these sold so Peter can see how wanted he is!!

Some Updates!

We have received our LOA! (Letter of Acceptance) This is the letter from China that says we can officially adopt Peter! We have a bit more paperwork to fill out, along with some waiting then we will receive our travel dates!! We have been told 2 1/2-3 months! Can you believe that? It's really going to happen! We held our garage sale last Thursday and Friday. We raised $4200!! WOW!! It was a great two days. We had so many people helping us. Seventeen kids came and helped us throughout the day. It was so overwhelming at times and we were so happy. The weather was great, the customers were great, the help was awesome, and so much more. We pray that at least one person had a seed planted for adopting or fostering. Thanks to those who came and helped. Our Scentsy party was the a week ago last Thursday. We had such a fun time. We also had our friend Teresa's crosses here along with some other little fundraising ideas. We raised $350 through Scentsy and $96 from crosses! What a great night! A huge thank you to Linna Sutton and Teresa Grimes!