It's My Sister Lynn!

Anna and I, while talking about our wedding, decided to ask Lynn to be our Maid of Honor at our future wedding!  Lynn is my oldest friend.
I have known her since I was 10 years old.  I always tease Lynn because she is 13 months older than me... so for one month she is two years older than I am.  Lynn has agreed to be Anna's Maid of Honor and she is going to help us plan a small wedding and reception at our apartment.

Test For Remote Blogging

I just received a nice phone call from Martin wishing me well for my trip!  He told me about a setting for Blogger that should allow me to update my blog using email.  This is my test!  I am also including one photograph to make sure that works also!  I am so excited!  Leaving tomorrow at about 5:30 am.  My next blog entry should be from Beijing!  I had my last video chat with Anna about three hours ago.  We are both so excited!  The photograph that I have posted is a special card I have purchased for Anna.  To me it represents our communication with each other and how we met and fell in love.  I have also purchased a large framed print as a wedding gift for Anna.  The artist is Elena Ray and I really like her work.  She does beautiful prints with a Chinese theme.  This photograph is of a beautiful antique Chinese caligraphy set.

Internet Chat Using Skype

Anna and I have been very lucky.  We established a special bond very quickly.  One of the tools we both love to use is internet Chat using Skype.  Skype is a free resource that can be downloaded at http://www.skype.com/.  I cannot begin to tell you how exciting it was to start internet chatting with Anna after about a month of long email letter exchanges.  If we were lucky we would get about two long letters exchanged in a good week.  With Skype chat it was like exchanging a long letter in a half an hour!  And when we fianlly added video it was like we were talking in the same room with each other!  I will always be grateful to Skype for allowing this level of communication with Anna.  Anna even downloaded Skype on her parents computer so we could keep in touch when she goes home for a weekend or the holidays.  Also we plan to keep in touch with Anna's family this way when Anna and I are finally together in the US.  During each chat session Anna records our conversation and I take at least one photograph from the video to help document our relationship.  This is necessary for the immigration process.  Here is one of my favorite photographs of Anna from one of our chat sessions.

Finding Anna!

After my failed attempt to connect with Jane and Jessica I vowed that I would take my time going over all the profiles at Chinalove.  I began my careful search and after viewing hundreds of profiles and photographs this is the photograph that really caught my eye.  My first time seeing Anna!  I read her profile and found Anna to be very intelligent and I was so happy that we seemed to have much in common.  Also I became excited when I read that she was fluent in English.  Anna is acutally a University English teacher!  Perhaps this would be a key to the deep level of understanding I wished and hoped for in my relationship?  Maybe it was fate but something just clicked immediately.  My intuition is very accute when it comes to people and it was going crazy after reading Anna's profile.  I decided Anna was the one I would try to establish a connection with next!

Leaving for China!

Well I have definately been remiss in my blogging!  I still need to do a long post about how I met Anna.  I plan to work on my blog while I am in China.  Edward has agreed to help me post to my blog if the Chinese National firewall give me trouble.  I am leaving for China on Thursday!  I am filled with nervous excitement.  At long last I will get to be with Anna!  This is one of the first photographs Anna took for me using her digital camera and is one of my favorites!