Day 2ish - 3

After breakfast we went back to our hotel room and hung out for a while.  Some of us napped a little but I was too nervous/excited to sleep, even though I was dead tired. We decided to get some lunch in the restaurant here in the hotel before we had to leave to meet our guide at 3:30 so we quickly exchanged some good ol' American dollars for some "Monopoly money" as Josh calls it.  We were the only people in the dining room since it was 2:00 pm.  We ordered 3 pizzas for the kids to share (think personal size pizzas), a bowl of minestrone soup for me and some crazy salmon and fruit dish for Josh (gag!)  It ended up being about $100 dollars (American!) for the meal.  What a rip-off.  We learned our lesson and will not be dining there again except at the free breakfast buffet.  (I have also been taking Ziplocs down to breakfast to pack away a few things for lunch or snacks. Gonna get our $100 worth for sure!)  

We ran back up to our room to gather all the things we needed to take with us to meet G.  Our guide met us in the lobby of our hotel and we were off.  Driving into Xi'an the night before didn't really seem any different than driving somewhere in Texas.  But that was merely because we were in the dark.  Driving (or being driven) around China is an experience I didn't really need to have.  It is so scary!  

The similarities to the US:  They drive on the same side of the road as us.  The driver is on the left side of the car like us.  

The differences:  There are no carseats here so babies are just held or sat down in the seat next to you.  There are lanes painted on the roadways but apparently they are just guidelines and no one really follows them.  There are also people just walking down one of the lanes of the road if that's what they feel like doing.  There are motorcycles and bicycles everywhere - with at least three people on each, and a load of watermelons and a chicken. I have seen so many bikes loaded up with the craziest things.  There are stoplights and crosswalks, just like at home, but these, too, seem to be just guidelines.  No one uses blinkers - they only use the front of their vehicle to squeeze into wherever they want to go.  They like their car horns too, but only if there is no policeman around - it's illegal to use the horns in the cities because of the noise.  They drive much slower, even on the tollways/expressways, which is good when there are only guidelines to follow.  I haven't seen any accidents yet, which is amazing considering all of the times I've gasped in horror, sure of our certain death over the past few days.  Everyone seems very patient.  I'm surprised our guide isn't cussing out all the drivers around him all of the time.  (To be fair, I have no idea what cussing someone out in Chinese would sound like so maybe he actually is!)  Even the people on the street that we almost run over seem patient.  They don't even make faces at you or look surprised when you almost run them over.  In America that kind of thing would get you the bird at the very least!  It's just so different.  Our driver is a very nice man and seems to be a very good driver - I've heard a lot of horror stories from other adoptive parents in the China.  Thank heavens we got a good one!

OK, on to what you really want to read about.  I just wanted to get some of this stuff down for my own journaling purposes.  :)

We arrived at the provincial government office building a little early on Sunday afternoon.  This province (Shaanxi) actually does things differently than most of the other provinces of China.  They plan their 'Gotcha Days' for Sundays when most of the people are not in the building.  (Most provinces do them on Mondays.  E's will be on a Monday.)  

This is the building we were at and that's our van.  

The view looking up at the huge building:

Since there aren't many people in the building they don't turn on the air conditioners.  Can you say, FREAKING HOT?!  'Cause that's what it was up there on the 20th floor in the international adoption office.  There was one little couch, a rolling desk chair and a couple of folding chairs, so our family pretty much took all the seating.  ;)  

We actually walked into the building with a nanny and another child waiting to be adopted.  It was a little boy, almost 3, with bilateral microtia.  Definitely made me think of E!  We were all waiting in the office when his new parents walked in.  They were very surprised that he was already there, and he wanted nothing to do with them.  The dad finally got his interest a little by playing ball with him in the room.  S saw that and immediately wanted to join in but the little boy was having none of that.  It totally hurt S's feelings.  He can be so sensitive!  The couple adopting this little boy ended up being from El Paso.  Small world!  

So anyway, we were just sitting there and suddenly they walked in!  No great announcement, no fanfare.  She was suddenly just there.  

Josh happened to be sitting close to the door and saw her first.  He stood up and immediately took her from the nanny (who was handing her to him).  

She is still not so sure about that goatee.  This may be the first man that has ever held her.  Love how she looks at his goatee out of the corners of her eyes! 

I snapped a few pictures and then handed the camera over to Madison and went to meet my girl.  

Daddy handed her over to me and she came willingly.  She was smiling and happy.  

The nanny was visibly worried about this transition and obviously already missing her sweet girl.

G never cried and went back and forth between Josh and I and the nanny.  At some point we put her on the ground to stand at the little table there and all the kids gathered around her.  It was very sweet.  

We took a few pictures in front of the big red sign in the office.  Us, the nanny and the adoption coordinator from the orphanage.  

 

We asked some questions of the nanny and other orphanage worker through our guide, filled out some paperwork and then went to another little room to take our first family picture, well actually just us parents and G's picture.  It actually turned out to be a pretty good picture.  We got it back the next day on the official adoption certificate.  After picture taking it was time to go start our 'trial-period.'  China gives the prospective adoptive parents 24 hours with the child to make sure they really want her/him.  We would go back the next day to sign the papers and make it official.  

After all the papers and everything we were very ready to leave that crazy hot building.  So we loaded up our crew and headed back downstairs.  We said thank you to the nanny several times and gave her lots of hugs and then we left.  

On the way back to the hotel we needed to make a stop at the local Walmart.  ACTUAL WALMART, people.  It's pretty much exactly the same as in the states except for all the Chinese signs and the fresh noodle making stand in the middle of the store.  

We ended up getting a stroller (which they assembled for us right there in the store and which we paid for right there in the store), lots of bottled water (that ended up being the most expensive kind you can buy - leave it to us!), and some baby formula (which we had to pay for at the liquor counter.  Still not sure why. . . )  

We did all of this while walking through Walmart with our 5 children and getting LOTS of stares and questions.  Lots of people taking our picture and asking our guide questions.  I think it's pretty funny that they're so blatantly staring and pointing at us but the kids, especially S, don't think so.  It's not rude to stare here, like it is in the US.  Some of these people have probably never seen an American before in their lives, let alone 2 adults with 4 children and a Chinese baby on a hip!  We are quite the spectacle.  

We made it through Walmart and back to the hotel in one piece.  We got everything up to the room and Josh took the older boys with him and Celine so she could show him where the good restaurants are within walking distance.  She also wrote down a few things in Chinese for us like:  'take out', 'no spicy' and 'broccoli'.  The first two I understand, but I have no idea why he asked her to write down broccoli!  LOL  M, S and I played with G while Daddy and the boys were gone.  

He brought us back some food - sweet and sour pork over rice and some pumpkin congee for G.  Congee is a rice porridge similar in texture to watery oatmeal or a thick soup with rice.  It comes plain (just rice and water) or with things mixed in like pumpkin or beans, etc. 

We ate, played a little and then crashed after bath time.  

G never cried, ate her congee like a champ, took a bottle and loved her bath.  She went to sleep without any problems and slept all night long.  (If all Chinese babies are this amazing. . . )

Day 1 and halfish

We were up super early on Friday morning.  The kids were actually up before us.  Josh and I set our alarms for 3:30 am and I planned on waking the kids around 4:00 but when I went up there the big kids were all dressed and Maddie was in the shower.  Sawyer was still asleep, thank goodness.  We managed to make it out the door by 5:00 am.  We got our Suburban parked and all our bags onto the shuttle and then all our bags off the shuttle and into the airport.  We checked in fairly quickly, made it through security without incident and then sat around for 1 1/2 hours wondering why the heck they said to be there 3 hours early.  We all could have used another hour or two of sleep.  

Our first flight of the day was to Vancouver - about a 4 hour flight.  Thankfully, Sawyer slept for a good portion of it.  The other kids all did really well too.  I was worried they'd get airsick but no one said anything if they did.  We made it into Vancouver without a problem and had about an hour or so to wait for our next flight after getting to the gate.  I had packed lunches for the kids so they ate theirs and Josh and I got some A&W hamburgers and root beer - without ice!  Weird.  

Then we got on the BIG flight.  

We were able to get two whole rows (4 seats each) all to ourselves so there was an extra seat in each row.  That was nice to lay Sawyer down in, who fell asleep pretty quickly and slept most of the way.  The other boys also took some naps - especially towards the end of the flight.  I don't think Maddie ever fell asleep or if she did, it wasn't for long.  I was able to catch a very uncomfortable nap of about 2 hours and Josh was able to sleep quite a bit, but not very comfortably.  Airlines did not consider the big/tall people when they designed the seats.  They fed us two 'meals' but no one ate much.  We should have gotten some water for everyone in Vancouver as we were all really thirsty by the end of the flight.  The flight attendants came around several times with their big water bottle but if you weren't up and asking for a drink they'd just walk by you.  They were unfriendly but I wouldn't say they were friendly either.  Very matter-of-fact.  The airplane we were on also had a camera near the nose of the plane and they showed video of us taking off and landing.  That was a little scary but in a comforting kind of way.  The kids thought it was awesome.  I think the camera was on the whole time, as the TV channel never switched to something else, but we were cruising at 36,000 ft (is that right?) and there's not much to see up there besides clouds.  It was daylight all the way over, which was weird because they turned all the lights down on the plane and everyone had their window shades drawn shut so it seemed like nighttime, and that's what our bodies thought it should be too.  We flew from Vancouver up to Alaska and then flew across the tip of Russia and down into China so we were flying over land almost the whole way.  There was another TV channel that showed the progress of the flight.  It was fun to watch at first but then it would change to a new screen that showed how much longer we had left in the flight and that was just depressing!  It was a LONG flight!  And an even longer day.  

We made it into Beijing and through Customs/Immigration.  That was the easy part.  Then we had to figure what gate our next flight was on (it wasn't printed on our boarding passes).  We had to go through security first before we could find out the gate.  Security was total mess.  Their were no clear lines like there are in America.  There was ONE person checking passports and stamping them and boy, did he stamp them.  He took his job seriously.  It was pretty funny to watch him. From there you move to the conveyor belt area behind a big wall.  It's much like the American ones except that there are like 3 bins and everybody is waiting for their turn with them.  The language barrier isn't fun either.  I don't expect everyone here to know English - I am fully aware that we are the visitors here.  But it's still hard.  We made it through security though and made it to our final departure gate of the never-ending day.  This time we waited for a bus to come get us.  The bus drove us out on the tarmac and then we climbed a big walkway up to the plane.  The kids thought this was awesome!  We waited for about an hour on the runway before we took off.  Almost all of us were asleep before we ever took off.  I slept a little here and there but I didn't want both Josh and I to be asleep if one of the kids needed something.  

Once we made it to Xi'an at about 11 pm on Saturday evening, we were the last people off of the airplane and ended up being so far behind everyone else we took a wrong turn in the airport.  We'd just followed the crowd on our last flight and they led us to where we needed to go.  We walked for a quite a while before we finally found someone who looked like they might work there and tried to ask her where to go.  She just shook her head and waved at us to go back the way we came.  So we trudged back the very long corridor we had just walked down and finally found a sign that told us where to go.  By the time we got to the baggage carousel there were no people around and no bags.  I seriously had a minor heart attack.  Josh (thank heavens for this man) calmed me down and we found the tiny little place where they keep the unclaimed bags.  Our guide was waiting for us so we quickly gathered everything and went to meet her.  She is so nice and very helpful.  Her English is EXCELLENTE.  She led us to a big huge van and we loaded up our crew and baggage and headed off to the hotel - about 45 minutes away.  She gave us our itinerary and told us quite a few things about Xi'an.  This is where she lives with her husband and little boy so she knows quite a bit about it.  

We got to the hotel and got all checked in.  We got everyone in their jammies and we all crashed.  We woke up around 8:00 the next morning (Sunday in China), got showered and dressed and made it downstairs to the breakfast buffet right before it closed.  They had quite a few Western breakfast items but mostly Chinese.  Up until this point in my life I could have said I've never had fried rice for breakfast but not anymore.  It was pretty good too.  They have little mini pancakes that the kids have been eating by the ton.  They have bacon but it doesn't look like bacon.  It looks like beef jerky that's been soaked in oil.  Josh and the boys say it tastes like bacon but I don't think I'll be braving that anytime soon. 

The hotel is pretty nice.  We're staying at the Jian Guo Hotel in Xi'an.  You can tell it's an older building but it's been well maintained.  The hotel is built around this courtyard/pond.  

Here's a view of the outside of it from inside our van as we were heading back one day (the big yellow building): 

Our rooms don't smell at all, which is wonderful because smoking is allowed pretty much everywhere here.  We have two connecting rooms with two full beds in each and a crib.  The beds are pushed together though so it seems like there is just one hugmongous bed in each.  The beds are super comfy.  The rooms aren't huge but they're nice and they have air conditioning so that's about all we care about here because it is HOT.  Like Houston or Dallas hot.  It does seem to cool down a little more at night though.  The landscape here is similar to Dallas or Houston - very flat.  The difference is the amount of huge, high rise apartment buildings here.  In America you see high rise buildings in the downtown area but there are usually businesses or offices.  Here, there are an insane amount of high rises and they are all apartments.  There is also a CRAZY amount of new ones being built.  It's mind boggling to think about how many people have to live in a city for them to build this many apartment buildings.  Our guide calls them "Big Beauties".  They are only allowed on the outside of the city wall.  There is a height restriction for the part of the city inside the city wall.  More on the city wall in another post.  

That's about it for these few days.  I'll finish posting about Sunday (our Gotcha Day for G) in the next post.  :)

Finally!

(REPOST FROM FACEBOOK)

FINALLY made it to Xi'an and the hotel! 

The BIG flight went pretty well considering we were all going on about 4 hours of sleep. All the kids slept a good portion of the flight and Josh and I got a few hours as well (Josh a few more than me - but he did sit next to Sawyer through the whole flight!) I will not say anything about the food that was served on the plane (if you can't say anything nice. . .)

We arrived a little late in Beijing and headed off to immigration and customs. That wasn't bad at all. The security checkpoint to get to our flight to Xi'an was a different story though. Chaos + no air conditioning + no real lines or guidelines + a very tired family of 6 + the language barrier = lots of sweaty, frustrated people. I will say that everyone we have met has been VERY friendly and kind even when they have no idea what we're saying. 

We made it onto our flight to Xi'an after finding some water and food for everyone. Our flight was delayed about thirty minutes and then we sat on the runway for about an hour before we finally took off. Everyone but me slept the entire flight. 

We took a wrong turn in the Xi'an airport and ended up backtracking for quite a while to find the baggage claim. We were so late there was no luggage left and all the people from our flight were gone. (I may have had a mild heart attack at this point.) But we found all our luggage and our sweet guide, Celine, (no relation to Dion), was waiting patiently for us there. We loaded all our crew and stuff into a huge van and our driver (we're so sophisticated - ha!) took us to our hotel about 45 minutes away.

It's now 1:30 am on Sunday here in Xi'an although it feels like it should be about 12:40 pm to us. Everyone else has crashed here except me (anyone else notice a theme here?) and I am mighty tired after our 30+ hour adventure. I just wanted to let everyone know we're safe and sound. 

Our guide let us know that our girl is taking a train overnight to Xi'an and we'll meet her tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon around 4. So excited!!

We made it to Vancouver

(REPOST FROM FACEBOOK)

Made it to Vancouver and it only took me 2 hours to figure out how to use the VPN. (Well, hubs figured it out and then hooked me up.) But we know it works so we should be able to post from China too. Yay!

Getting on the big flight in a few minutes. Kids did fabulous on the last one - mostly because S slept for most of it. (Thank you 4am wake up call!) We'll see how he does on the next flight though. We've been running him and the other boys around the airport so hopefully that'll last him for next 11 hours. 

We'll post again from China!

We are going to China!

We received TA on the 19th which is CRAZY fast!!  Most people wait at least two weeks for it and that's totally what I was expecting.  I about fell over when the adoption agency called and said, "It's HERE!"  

And then today we got our final thing needed from China.  We needed to get our US Consulate appointment set so we'd know when we absolutely had to be there.  This also lets the facilitator in China know when to set up the days/times to meet our girls.  (This is called "Gotcha Day" in the adoption world but I don't really like that term.  Not sure what we'll call it, if anything.  May end up calling it Gotcha Day anyway just because that's the language everyone speaks.  I don't know. . .)  So that Consular Appointment (CA) is set for Aug 20.  

We're still trying to figure out the flights and stuff.  Our travel agent is working hard right now!  We'll most likely be flying out on Aug 2 and arriving in Beijing on the 3rd.  Then we fly out that same day to Xi'an.  We'll actually be meeting Grace on Sunday, Aug 4.  Usually Gotcha Days are on Mondays but the orphanage requested Sunday.  One day closer to her is OK with me!!!  We'll spend the rest of that week in Xi'an and possibly (hopefully) catching a flight up to the city where her orphanage is.  We'll fly out of Xi'an to Nanjing on the 10th and we'll meet Emily on the 12th.  We'll hang out in her province and hopefully visit her orphanage as well.  Her's is a little closer to the capitol (Nanjing) so we could actually drive there.  It's all up to the orphanage directors though.  We'll fly out of Nanjing and head to Guangzhou on the 16th.  The girls will have their medical appointments on the 17th and our US Consulate appointment will be early in the morning on the 20th.  We'll fly out of Guangzhou back to Beijing on the 22nd and spend a few days there touring the Great Wall, Forbidden City, etc. with the girls and then we'll be headed home on the 25th-26th.  That means we'll be home for Josh's birthday!  We'll all be dead tired and won't feel a bit like celebrating but we'll be home!!

I cannot believe this happening.  I knew it would, but we are leaving NEXT WEEK!  Holy cow.  I've got some serious stuff to do!

NVC Letters and an update on the girls

After the I-800 approval letters arrived the next things we were waiting on were the letters saying that our petitions had been forwarded to the National Visa Center (NVC) and the US Consulate in China.  I knew it would take about a week, at least, to get these letters and the process would just be in a standstill until we got them.  Torture!  I kept feeling like I should research this a little more and so I did.  I spent a couple of hours on the internet and finally found someone who said we could email the NVC and ask them to send a PDF of the letters instead of just waiting for the snail mail.  I did it and got the PDF's that same day!!!  This was last Wednesday.  So the process is for sure moving again and we are officially waiting on our Travel Approval - the last step!  Incidentally, we haven't received the actual letters yet.  I am so thankful for the many promptings I have received throughout this entire process that have kept everything moving quickly and smoothly.  I haven't shared all of them here but I've tried to keep a record of most of them in my journal.  Someday I want to be able to share all the little miracles that have happened with my girls.  

Last week we also decided to send some care packages to the girls.  We can't package up a bunch of things and just send it over to the orphanage, unfortunately, but there are services located in China that will do it for you.  I had heard great things about Ann at Red Thread and decided to use her.  She was WONDERFUL.  She emailed me quickly and was so nice.  As part of the care package she will send a request to the orphanage asking for an update.  This is the main reason we wanted to send a care package - so we could get updated measurements and possible pictures of the girls.  Our agency can request an update but the orphanages don't respond very quickly or at all sometimes and Ann can almost always get an update.  I didn't realize how fast she would get it though!  We emailed back and forth a little on the afternoon of the 3rd and the pictures and updates were waiting in my inbox when I woke up on the 4th!  What a great way to start the day.  :)  So here are the pictures:

This is E.  I think these were taken the day the update was sent!  They are all taken from a weird angle so it makes her head look weird.  Plus she seems to kind of bow her head a little in all of them too.  She reminds us of S a lot.  There is a definite difference between the girls' photos.  We are thrilled to have these pictures but they're also a little heartbreaking too.  E just looks so sad in them.  I want to pick her up and hug her so much!  I am definitely more worried about E than G.  She needs to come home NOW.  

E is currently about 25 pounds (very underweight for a 2 1/2 year old!) and about 32 1/2 inches tall.  (S is about 39 inches).  

This is G.  She is a little chub!  So nice to see some smiling pictures.  I have heard some really good things lately about her orphanage and I think she is very well cared for.  (Evidence=chubbiness!)  It is a smaller orphanage and has seen many improvements in the last few years.  I'm so grateful!

It's good to see her standing.  I don't think she's crawling yet but at least we know she can bear weight.  Yay!!!

Oh, how I want to squeeze this face!!!  Those cheeks are just screaming to be smooched.  

G and E have almost exact measurements!  G is about 24 lbs (pretty close to where she should be at 1 1/2) and about 31 inches tall.  So they're both in 18-24 months clothes.  I bought a few 12 month sizes (that list the weight up to 24 lbs) and I bet those will fit them.  Especially E since she's a little on the skinnier side.  They are both wearing about a size 5 (American) shoe.  

Here are pictures of the care packages that they should receive today or tomorrow.  They got the exact same packages - two dresses, shoes, headbands, a stuffed toy, a soft picture album with pictures of us, a letter from us that Ann translated into Mandarin and an 8GB flash drive that hopefully the orphanage will use to put any and all pictures/information they have on the girls and send with E and G when we pick them up next month.  Not guaranteed but we can hope!  They probably have several pictures of them when they first arrived at the orphanage and we would desperately love to have any pictures they might have.  Oh, and there's candy for all the nannies included in the care package!

Hopefully the girls will actually get these things. I really don't care if they get the clothes or not - they're too little to care about stuff like that yet.  I DO hope they get the picture albums though.  I hope they have good nannies that will show them the pictures and tell them about their new Mama and Baba coming to get them soon!  

I can't say enough nice things about Ann.  Even though the care packages were exactly the same she took the time to take different pictures of each of them to send to us so we'll have pictures for each girl's scrapbook.  She was so genuine and sweet and VERY efficient - I would highly recommend her to anyone looking to send a package to their future kiddos.  Well worth every penny!