Josiah #1

Hello all this is my view of this trip I will be posting pictures of what we are doing I would love it if you followed me! Ok so here is the Seattle airport :D my veiw I will be posting soon love you all follow me!

And We're Off...

So after all the anticipation and hard work (especially by Steph) we are finally headed to China. We are so excited! However, we have to admit, it is a bit tough to leave the youngest two behind. But, we are comforted by the fact that they will be in more than capable hands - Steph's Mom and Dad.

Tomorrow morning we will board a plane in Portland, OR and head up to Seattle, WA. We will be there for 4 hours and then get on a Korean Airlines flight to Seoul, Korea. We have an hour and a half layover there and then board our last flight for getting us into China. We will enter China in Hong Kong and spend the night there.

The next morning we will get on a plane and fly to Nanning, China. It is there we will pick up our first daughter, Anna. This will be around 7pm on Wed. April 21st US time.

The rest of the week will be filled with paperwork as we prepare to go to Guangzhou. We will leave Nanning on Sunday (April 24) and get Zoe on Monday. Now more paperwork, doctor's visits, trip to US consolate and such. We will also have a little downtime.

We will have opportunity to see some friends while in Guangzhou. We look forward to also getting to make some new friends as well.

All of this will take a total of three weeks, and we will return home on Sunday May 9th.

We appreciate all your prayers that things go smoothly, and that the girls adjust quickly. We will continue to update this blog throught the trip.

Now We're Laundering Money!

I never thought anyone could say of us that we laundered any money, but now they can. Steph started the process of ironing some of our money, and then I worked on it for another 45 min. or so.

The deal is that some foreign countries are very big on having new, crisp and clean dollar bills. This is due to the large amount of counterfeiting that takes place.

While we are being extra cautious by making sure our small bills even look good, it is really important with the large bills. You aren't allowed to have any marks or creases in the bills and then need to be crisp.

So what do you do if you have a bill with no marks, but is all wrinkly? You iron it of course. I knew this from previous trips to China, but didn't actually know why this worked so well. Turns out that the green paper you tote around in your wallet and purse has a significant fabric content.

That being the case, if you have a clean looking bill and need to bring it back to an acceptable looking state, just pull out the iron and treat it like your favourite shirt. It really does the trick.

So how do you even get clean bills in the first place? You can go to the bank and ask for them. We just told them we were involved in an adoption and explained what China's regulations were. Some of the bank officers are familiar with the process and know exactly what you need.

In our case we went to several banks in Portland and asked for help. They were very helpful in sorting through money to try and find what we needed. We didn't realize that one bank was going to do this for us, but they put in an order for our money to come directly from the reserve. We were able to get all of what we needed in clean, off the presses dough. So much so, that even all the serial numbers are in successive order. Pretty cool huh?

Finally Have Travel Details

Hello all.....

We finally have travel details that are confirmed. :)

We are leaving on April 19th and we will be returning back to Portland on May 9th.
First we will travel to Nanning and meet Anna Yang Qing on April 22nd. We will fly to Guangzhou, where Zoe is from on Sunday, April 25th and meet Zoe Gui Yuan on April 26th. We will travel to Hong Kong to visit friends on May 6th and be there for the 7th and 8th. Can't wait to see our friends. :)

Please pray for our safety and for the many nerves that are involved, both on our parts and the parts of our new daughters. I'm sure they are very nervous and excited. Please pray that all the details will work out smoothly and that our Lord will be glorified!!!

Lots of love to all,
The Vincent Family

An Extra Addition

This may come as a shock to you... but not only are we bringing home Anna really soon to join our family, but we recently added a second sweet girl to our adoption process. Her name is Ni Gui Yuan, or Zoe... if you'd like. She is about to "age out" of the Chinese system, meaning her birthday is May 13th and she will turn 14. We are excited about this adventure and pray that God's hand is in every detail and we are now in an amazing rush to get all the paperwork done. Right now... our paperwork is at the US Embassy in Guangzhou, China. As soon as they sign off on it, and then China Center of Adoption Affairs signs off on it.. we'll be purchasing plane tickets and be off. :) We're really hoping that it could be as soon as April 9th...

I am posting a picture of Zoe and we'll be updating you soon on when we should be leaving. Continue to follow us while we're in China. It should be interesting and packed.. We'll try for lots and lots of pictures this time.

Please pray... pray.... pray for all the details. It's a lot, but our God is bigger!!

Its Only Been an Hour...

Phew!!! Hey guys it's Amberlee! :D Just got off the first flight and we are now in Seatac? so I'm pretty excited! I have discovered that Seattle's Best Coffee really is better than Starbucks! : D
On the plane I sat by a guy that was jamming his elbow into my arm. Lovely. Just lovely. ;) BUT I only had to sit by him for like 45 minutes. Oh! My knitting needles went through just fine!

I have my passport now, but while we were going through security I dropped it! Luckily dad was standing behind me. :) Also! I ate the BEST chicken burger ever! And we were charged 50 cents more for using our card. Woohoo! :)


I am missing everyone very much! I would put up pictures but I don't think I can do that from my itouch. :/ sorry.

Anna (Yang Qing)'s history

Hello All. I have been reminded that I haven't given you much detail on Anna and would like to take this opportunity to let you know what we know about her so far.

Anna was abandoned when she was 6 to the orphanage. She has been in the orphanage ever since and as far as we know, never been in the foster care system.


She is from the Guangxi province and in the Liuzhou orphanage. We are in the process of sending her our third package. We can't determine whether she got the first package, but know she received the 2nd. Appears the orphanage moved and the first address we had was closed.

We do not know anything about her family history. As far as we know, she goes to public school right now, not just the orphanage school. We have several of her report cards and she appears to be a very good student. We're really happy about this part. She appears to be very compliant and sweet.

Recently we met a lady that brought an 11 year old girl home from the same orphanage just 6 weeks ago. She knew Anna and actually shared a room with her. She actually has more pictures of Anna that we are waiting to see in the mail soon.

I hope this helps you feel like you're more in touch with what's going on so far.

PLEASE continue to pray for the few processes we still need to make it through. It could go really smooth from here.... but we've seen it go slow all the way through... so hard to be real upbeat.. God is able to do more than we could ever ask or imagine.... PLEASE KEEP PRAYING!