Our agency just called, and the word from China was to go ahead and send us! So he has requested some dates for us for our Consulate Appointment. The new rule is that you have to request 5 dates, so he requested 3 for the 3rd week of September, and 2 for the last week of September. However, he doesn't think they will pick the last week since we have to be out of the country by Sept. 30th. He's assuming they'll pick one from the 3rd week of September, meaning we will be leaving on Thursday!!!

However, the tricky part is that we cannot buy plane tickets until we have a confirmed Consulate appointment. Due to the time difference (China is 12 hours ahead of the East Coast), we MAY have an answer tomorrow, but the Consulate actually has 5 days to respond so it could be next week before we hear anything. Since Monday is a holiday, that means we won't hear anything until Tuesday or even Wednesday- then jump on a plane on Thursday! Crazy, right?

If it's too close, we may have to skip the tour of Beijing. That would not be our first choice, however, since we need that time to adjust to the time zone and work off a little of the jet lag. And I would be totally bummed out since seeing the Great Wall is something I have really been looking forward to; I've been training for climbing it by walking up the steepest hill in our neighborhood! But we'll do what we have to do. If we skip Beijing, then we can wait to leave until Friday or Saturday (the 10th or 11th).

All this is just speculative at this point, of course. We have to wait until we hear back from the Consulate. Once we have that all-important Consulate date, our path will become clear!