Prairie Cone Flowers

 
Personally, I think this looks like many rockets taking off.

It's raining again today, so our rocket launch has been called off. I don't mind damp, but our rockets are only cardboard. More on the rockets in the next post.

On the Adoption Front, we're awaiting our Travel Announcement(TA). The TA is the Chinese government's invitation to pick up Li Mei. The rumor mill says there are a batch of TA's coming in on Monday and I really hope ours is among them. Once the TA comes it's only two to four weeks before Li Mei is in our arms!

We're bringing Kai and Rowan to China along with our longest suffering babysitter, Cindy. The boys have been working on practical things like making room for Li Mei by packing up less-used toys and bringing out toys that are more appropriate to Li Mei's age. They've also been working on more theoretical things like trying new foods or familiar foods prepared in different ways.

The biggest news for trip preparation is that Rowan's latest IgE antibody blood test came back with some good numbers. This test measures how strongly Rowan is reacting allergically to certain foods. We tested milk, beef, egg, peanuts, soy, and corn. Soy and corn came back safe. The other food antibodies were reduced from three years ago but still in the danger zone. Milk was the worst, peanuts were the most mild. I am very relieved about the soy results -- I don't know how we could have avoided that in China. Rowan was so excited about the soy results that at Olive Garden, he asked the waitress to add a little soy to his order as if he was requesting a condiment.