Updates on how we're doing and new Pics!!

Well, finally, the promised updates. :) We've been home for nearly a month now and things couldn't be going better.

Julia has met both sets of grandparents now and loves them all. She is still smiling, loving life and just as outgoing as she was when we met her. She now has 4 teeth with more on the way and even through that has been smiling. So that's saying something.

I'll post a few new pics of Julia here. I've got some with each Grampa, playing with her Sesame Street toy that Grandpa Stephens brought her (one of her favorite toys!) and lots of her sleeping in various places. The child will go to sleep anywhere! In her Jumperoo (that she is really loving these days!) and on the floor holding her teddybear "ladybug" from Ms. Aubrey that while she crawls across the floor she will drag "ladybug" with her... and yes, she's crawling everywhere now! She started a week or so ago, and now is improving her technique and speed, she's getting pretty fast at getting into things that's for sure!

WE ARE HOME

Sorry everyone to keep you waiting. We got in last night around 11:00 and finally settled in bed around 1 am. And then all three of us slept til nearly 2 this afternoon. The flight went very well, whether that was due to Julia sleeping most of the way (on Mama by the way) or due to Ms. Gloria looking out for us and getting the couple next to her to switch seats with us so we had more leg room (we were right in front of the big screen).

Either way it was much better than the flight over. Despite all the hassle with the Airline.
Ms. Lori and Mom met us at the airport. So good to see friendly faces and Ms. Lori was nice enough to drag our luggage home in her vehicle. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

My email is acting up here at home so I'll keep trying to log into that later. For now just know that we are all home, we are safe, and beyond exhausted. LOL.

Found the museum pictures!

Located the right memory card and thought I would add some pics from the museum in Changsha. For me it was one of the more interesting tours we had. All of the tours were wonderful but for Ray and I as much as we love history and I love art the museum was a real treat.

Their most noted find was of course the 2001 year old woman, I'll post her picture but I'll keep the photos of her organs off the blog...I won't take you that far. LOL She was found in Hunan in complex of 3 separate tombs. I've also added her coffins....yes that's definitely plural. She was buried inside 3 coffins that were nested one into the next and all 3 housed in a huge wooden case that we saw the bottom part of in the basement and the top of we could look down through from the 2nd floor. Very cool.

Again Julia slept through part of the museum...she seems to need a power nap in the mornings ranging from 10 minutes to 30 and then she goes until after lunch (sometimes well after lunch) before her afternoon nap. That nap can be anywheres from an hour to 3 hours seems to be averaging about an hour and half to two hours.

We did find an embroidered silk bag that I intend to put away for her wedding day. The trick to all of this buying and putting away for later is of course going to be finding a place to keep it and finding it when we want it. LOL. Still have to work on that. By the way Kim, or anyone else headed to China in the future, let me know if you end up going to Hunan Province, we got a business card from the photo studio that was around the corner from the Huatian hotel. The pictures really did come out beautifully and I just couldn't describe the book that they made for us. Incredible.

Anyways. That was about it from our day at the museum. Just learning about history, artifacts and some beautiful pottery and ceramics that it's hard to believe date back as far as they do.

The White Swan at last!

Well, we are finally in Guangzhou, due to an error somewhere along the way our itinerary had us coming here yesterday afternoon, however we couldn't get the babies passports until 5:30 last night so we had another night in Changsha and left there early this morning. Julia did great on her first plane ride, of course that one was barely an hour long, I feel so bad for whoever sits near us on the Hong Kong to Chicago flight on Friday. LOL. Not that she screamed (cried for just a minute on the descent but she was very tired and fighting sleep too) but she plays hard! Her favorite games seem to be bouncing, waving and hitting Mama....not meanly hitting it's play to her and mostly when she's excited...we're working on it. lol.

Yesterday in Changsha we went to the Museum, fascinating stuff. I loved it! We saw the 2001 year old woman, it's truly amazing how her body was mummified and perserved. Nothing at all like an Eygyptian Mummy. I'll have to add those photos at another time (if any of them even came out) not sure what Ray did with the other memory card.

I do have a few pics of our first day in Guangzhou to post though, as you can see I wasn't kidding Julia was exhausted and I walked through most of the airport carrying her while she slept, naturally she sleeps after the plane lands. I finally had to just lay her across the top of the luggage. LOL. it worked for a little while.

It's very beautiful here, I don't think the pictures will do it justice but it should at least give you an idea. The White Swan is actually located on Shaiman Island along the Pearl River. If you step into our hallway there is a good view of the river unfortunately for us our room gives us a view of the street, which actually isn't that bad either, in some places you can barely see the street for the trees. We passed a nice park on our way to the medical exam and it feels much safer crossing the streets here as compared to Beijing and Changsha.

Guangzhou reminds us a lot of Charleston, only even more shopping! First thing we purchased was a stroller in one of the hotel shops! Just a small one, but no more lugging through airports for us! She would perfer being carried but seems okay once we get moving. We bought Julia some silk dresses tonight after dinner. It's cooler to go out in the evening of course and these shops out here in front of the hotel are tailor made for adopting parents. We were a minority in Changsha we saw one or two other small groups there adopting, here it seems everyone is pushing a stroller. As is most of our group now. 3 of us purchased strollers after arriving here today. Carrying is fine for short distances, but they wanted us to take a 15 minute walk to the medical exam (which Julia sailed through by the way! as a matter of fact I think she's the only one who didn't cry at all, most of the babies seemed upset by the ear nose and throat exam) so it was then that we became the stroller brigade. We also realized how far it is to gates and what not at the different airports and frankly my back just couldn't take anymore. She's getting better about letting Daddy carry her but since he has to carry the baggage as well.....you get the idea.

There are so many souveniers everywhere here, it's hard to know what to buy for some of you and for Julia to have as she gets older as well. We found some silk dresses for under $5 each and of course some squeaky shoes to match for under $4. We're going to try taking one of her pictures back tomorrow to have a marble etching done if we still have time. They do beautiful work here! Since tomorrow is a free day it's going to be spent doing just a little bit more shopping, taking some things out to the laundry, finding some lunch, and mostly doing a lot of relaxing and hopefully even a little swimming. We'll see how that goes, Julia is still afraid of the water but each bath gets a little less stressful. She seems to be the only one with this issue so I can't help but wonder why. We'll likely never know...

I babysat this afternoon while our one mom traveling alone went to do the paperwork, the rest of us just got to send one person. So Ray went for us, (thank you Honey!) both girls did very well together, at least for the first hour they took turns crying instead of doing it together, that is until Ray came back without her Mom (they left together) and her and Julia both woke up at the same time. Ray tried to take Julia so I could comfort Hannah but she was having none of that, so I ended up with both of them, Julia of course calmed as soon as she was in my lap and then proceeded to help me pat Hannah's back to comfort her. It was very sweet! Guess she doesn't mind sharing as long she makes it clear that she belongs there too.

One final note! We have a BONUS here at the White Swan I can finally view the blog!!! It was so nice to see everyone's comments at last! We miss all of you too and while we have definitely been having a wonderful time here we can't wait to be home. Almost there, we will have the oath taking at the embassey on Thursday afternoon and be headed home on Friday morning. Please say lots of prayers for the trip.

A few more from the photo shoot

I knew I wouldn't be able to narrow it down to 5 pictures. :) The book that made for us is absolutely beautiful, I can't even describe it to you. And sorry Grandmas but the big book is Mama's.

Everyone in our group is amazed at what a "happy baby" we have. She rarely fusses in front of anyone else. Guess she saves that for Mom and Dad, but even then it's rare. She truly only fusses when she's not feeling good or when she's tired and then I only have to sing to her for just a moment and she calms. I'm sure this won't last the more comfortable she becomes with us so I'm enjoying every minute of it while it does!

Look Joe we finally found someone who could work a camera! Happy now?? LOL

That's all she's going to let me do for the moment so I better get this published and pick her up. Love to everyone.

Photo Shoot

I mentioned I think that we took Julia for her first photo shoot the other day and amazingly enough they managed to get some very nice pics. It's so hard to decide which ones to post for you and I may end up doing two posts, depends on how long she's happily playing on the blanket beside me. At the moment she's playing quietly while Dad takes a nap. Hope he knows it's my turn next!

City tour

Because of the heat we opted for a "city tour" on the air conditioned bus today. So we all loaded up and took a ride. They drove us to the River Walk and some of us got off for a photo op. in front of the river. As soon as Ray took a pic of Julia and I in front of the river we went looking for shade. We found some in front of some sort of tourism booth, the two girls working there came out and of course Julia made some more friends. :) She is much more outgoing than her mama is...lol We almost got to have dinner on the boat but it was decided that it would be too late for the little ones. oh well....

Ray got some more pictures as we drove around the city and then we ended up at the "new Walmart" yup another outing to Walmart. Too funny. This one was nicer and had more to choose from, some things you're not likely to find in your local walmart. At least I found her some sandals that she'll keep on, though she keeps messing with them. We ended up at McDonald's again for lunch ( okay I'm even sick of McD's at this point you won't believe it but some in our group are even pickier than I am!) lol. I've managed to find something in our Chinese meals to eat at nearly every meal. Except last night, it was mutton and on top of that it was very spicy! So Ray took a walk after dinner and found the nearest KFC for some nuggets for me. But that's the first time I've had to do that on the whole trip so far! :) Julia slept through most of McD's again, it's that stroller any longer than 10 minutes and she's ready for a nap in it!

This afternoon was much calmer and we just hung out in the hotel. Tomorrow we are going to the museum and in the afternoon getting Julia's Chinese passport and then her paperwork for the Chinese side of things is complete. Tuesday morning (6 am) we leave for the airport and Guangzhou to take care of the US side of things. We only have 3 nights in Guangzhou and then we are on the plane home. We have loved our time in Changsha and Peter has done a super job of keeping us busy so that time doesn't stand still on us but we are all ready to move to the next step and be on our way home.

It's so hard to decide which pictures to post every night, not to mention finding time to load them all one at a time. The connection is much slower here than it was in Beijing. Once we get home I'll load everything into some online albums so that you can really see China through our eyes. Here you are barely getting a glimpse. It is truly a beautiful country and it's amazing to see how they have progressed so much in the last 50 years or so and at the same time their roots are so clearly defined here as well. Never have I seen the past and the present collide in quite the same way that they do here.

Well I better get some sleep, little one is restless tonight so I better try to rest while I can.

Playing on the bus

I wasn't going to do two posts about yesterday, but I know you'll want to see more of Julia. Daddy took these pictures on the bus and this how she is about 95% of the time. She is very open and friendly with nearly everyone (so long as they don't try to take her from me or Dad) and has a ready smile and the sweetest laugh. She loves to play "pat-a-cake" and shake hands with Mr. Pang (our guide)
We chose the right part of her Chinese name to keep as she truly is our "sweet" baby!

I also added the photo of Julia and I with the hostess of the restraunt here in the hotel. Julia starts looking for her as soon as we turn down the hallway from the elevator, as soon as she spots her she starts to wave and breaks into her huge grin she does this everytime we see her! It's so funny so we asked the hostess this morning if she'd be in the picture with us. Everyone here has been so nice and have truly gone all out to make us feel comfortable and welcome here. We could never say enough good things about CWA, our guides here in China and the trip in general. Peter especially has gone above and beyond to help us find what we want and keep things running smoothly. We are truly blessed to be so well taken care of!

Park in Changsha

Only a few of us braved the heat and went to the park yesterday. We are so glad we did though. It was like nothing we've ever seen. People were everywhere and in small groups throughout the park, singing, playing instruments, cards, and some just taking advantage of the shade and lounging about visiting. Our guide, Peter, even borrowed a "two string" and demonstrated how to play it for us. The music was beautiful, as was the park overall. There is a big monument that is in the center of the park, a lake for fishing and even renting boats or taking ferry rides on. On the south side it really takes on a carnival feel and has play areas for the kids even a small rollercoaster, bounce houses and carnival games. We enjoyed it but I can tell you we were ready to get back on the bus and into the A/C by the time we went from the west gate to the south gate! It had to be every bit of 97 degrees with at least 80% humidity.

As if that wasn't enough for the day, Peter took us to a local photo studio in the afternoon (only 3 families went yesterday) and Julia had her first photo shoot. She was definitely overwhelmed as they had too many people in the room helping out but amazingly enough they managed to get some beautiful pictures. As much as our little one flirts and smiles with any stranger on the sidewalk getting her to smile for the photographer was serious work! They took the pictures we chose (about 35 out of nearly 90) and are putting them into a bound board book for us and we chose another 10 for a small wallet that the pictures fold out of. Julia was worn out and only wanted Mama after the photos were done she had already had a nap before we went and she passed right back out and slept til nearly dinner time. Poor thing. I believe we also get a CD of her whole photo shoot as well. We should get everything in the morning.

We also got her Chinese name done in traditional caligrahpy to hang in her room. It has her name, her birthdate and the city she's from and is going to take up a good amount of wall space. I'll unroll it here sometime and take a picture of it. It's very beautiful which in only fitting as our little miss is too!