Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday - December 26th through 28th

Hello,

Tori and the rest of us have been recovering nicely from all of the Christmas activities although I had a bad case of the 24 hour flu all day Wednesday and Wednesday night... Upset stomach, muscle aches, head ache and the cold chills... It wasn't very fun but I feel much better today and I isolated myself from Tori so hopefully she won't or hasn't caught it...

I say 'hope she hasn't caught it' because Tori had a pretty rough Wednesday night as well... She was miserable throughout the night and we had to use lortab, xanax and zanaflex multiple times to try and calm her down. She was didn't sleep hardly at all so we are hoping she can catch up on that today.

The China trip planning continues each and every day. I have contacted each airline and have arranged for special assistance and they will be prepared for our arrival. I also have approval to bring Tori's liquid medications and food through the airport checkin. I don't know why but even with all of this preparation I'm not real confident we can make it through without any issues... Prepare as much as you can and expect the worst I guess and hopefully we will be pleasantly surprised. We shall see.

Tori's passport issue still is not resolved... I am in daily contact with the Passport Agency support center and currently there aren't any more known hold ups and the passport is being 'processed'. They won't give you a confirmed complete time either which is very frustrating... I've now been told if there are no further issues identified the passport should be sent sent anytime between now and next Tuesday... ARGH... Once we actually get her passport we can submit for our China visas. Most visa service companies advertise 3-5 business day turnarounds but I have found one that advertises 24 hour turnaround. We'll probably end up using it just so we can have everything in hand ASAP!!

Maria and Grandma Schmanski played alot of hand written card games with Tori Wednesday and Tori aced almost every question. Word games and even math problems were presented to her and she would acknowledge the correct answer by staring at it or lifting her head while staring at it. Grandma is convinced Tori can read and can read some French as well because they also played with French words at times.

Alright, that is about it for now.

Thank you all as always!!

-Tim