Chinese New Year

Last night we went to Linda and Victor's house for dinner, and we celebrated Chinese New Year (a little early). Victor cooked a multitude of delectable dishes, and we discussed various New Year traditions. It was a blast. I also found out that the entire family wants to come to the airport to welcome our sons when we arrive home from China. Of course, I did warn everyone that we will all be tired and probably cranky. The boys might even be miserable and not in the mood to meet anyone new. But it's sweet that the family wants to great the children upon arrival. Everyone is getting excited for our trip. We decided not to bring our cell phones to China and only communicate by email. I can check our email once a day from the hotel lobby or an internet cafe. If there is a true emergency, Linda and Victor will have our power of attorney to make decisions and take any necessary action. I also found out from Daniel that I need to buy a booster car seat for Ben. NYS law requires a car seat device up to 80 lbs.!! Yikes! One more thing to add to my list of things to do. I made a few copies of our house key today so that I could leave a few behind for people to check on the house. Unfortunately, the new keys don't work. So back to the hardware store tomorrow. All these little details take up so much of my time these days. I was on hold with an airline today for over an hour (really) to find out if they offer a discount adoption fare. The airfare roundtrip Rochester-Beijing-Rochester for each one of us is cheaper than a one way ticket Beijing to Rochester--and we need two one way tickets. I found out that yes, most airlines have adoption fares, but they are a percentage (65%) off the fully changeable fare. There is no discount off of the restricted nonrefundable fares. This means that the discounted price is still double the cost of just buying a restricted ticket. Bummer.