Eva Day!

Woke up at 4:00am with labor pains...just like being pregnant although you have planned for the event 9 months, in our case 4 years, the minute those contractions hit reality sets in and all the excitement you've been experiencing up until now is replaced with nervousness, anxiety and a fear of the unknown. It isn't until the baby is born and you have counted all the fingers and toes that the excitement returns. Of course, now you scrutinize every move they make and wonder if it's normal or not...well, such is the same on Gotcha Day!

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We met our guide and driver after breakfast in the foyer of the hotel at 9:20am. It was a short 20 minute drive to the Civil Affairs office. It was another 40 minutes before Eva arrived. I was a ball of nerves and so anxious, the boys kept asking when was she going to get there, David and Dawn kept filming and taking pictures of every car that drove up just in case it was her. There were two other families there each adopting a boy from different orphanages. We were able to watch when the first boy arrived, met by his parents & 4 sisters all adopted from China. As we were watching, Fred comes up to us and says here they come. We all run to look out of the window and see a lady carrying a very small child with her under the umbrella walking into the building. We knew it is Eva.

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The caregiver hands her to me and Eva never cries. She sat on my lap looking around, following Noah & Nicholas as they moved around her. It's hard to explain this part of the process. You want to just sit and soak in your new child, but around you are the guide and 2 caregivers all talking Chinese loudly and trying to provide you with 2 years of her life in a matter of minutes. The just of what I got is that she likes to eat! Fortunately Dawn had made a book that included questions we wanted to ask and almost every answer included food.

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As I'm sitting holding her, I notice one of the ladies pull out a tote bag and she starts pulling things out of it. She hands me a photo album that takes me a minute to recognize as the one we sent her in the 1st care package back in March. I had always wondered if she had received it and it was so great to know that she had. They brought it all back including the toy phone that they said she loves to play with. Then, as if that wasn't enough, they pull out a journal that includes entries and photos of Eva's life since Oct. 30, 2009! What an amazing gift! This is truly a treasured item!!

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After completeing some paperwork and photos, we left the office and returned to the hotel. Eva fell asleep on my lap in the car, but quickly awoke when we arrived back at the hotel. The boys quickly surrounded her with toys on the bed and Noah was eager to read to her. She loves playing with the stacking cups and the magna-doodle. She is extremely quiet (a novelty in our household) and can entertain herself. She does interact with us by passing cups back and forth, but take one away and she can scream with the best of them!

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She is very small, we weighed her and she's only about 16 pounds. She is 29 inches long. The outfit we changed her into for lunch, a gift from "Aunt" Dawn, is a 12-18 month and is a little big. Twelve month fits her perfectly and 18 month leaves room to grow. The shoes she wore were a 2 but she'll soon need a 3.

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We went down to the restaurant in the hotel, it's still raining out, and she proved her love of food there! She ate fried rice, corn, carrots, watermelon, cantelope and orange juice. On our way back to the room, I put her down and she walked, holding our fingers, all the way back. She looks like a little weeble-wooble, too cute!

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With all the food in her tummy and the long trip this morning she was ready for a nap! We woke her up after 3 hours. At first when she woke she was as stiff as a board and would not do anything for Dawn and I, but the minute David and the boys walked back in the room she became very animated. She spent the rest of the evening playing. She loves music and liked for us to sing while she tapped the cups with the pen of the magna-doodle. After a bowl of noodles for dinner she was off to bed.

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It has truly been a day filled with God's blessings. It is amazing to walk through a day fully aware that everything happening was at exactly the time God had planned. We are truly blessed and our family is complete! God is so Good!!

A Family of 5

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words!!

Ni Hao from Nanjing

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We flew this morning and arrived at 11am in Nanjing, China. Nanjing is the capital city of the Jiangsu Province and where we will receive Eva!! We were met at the airport by our guide and transported to the Nanjing Grand Hotel which we will call home for the next 5 days. The first thing we noticed upon entering our room was a crib! So very exciting!!

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The hotel is located in the downtown area next to the Nanjing Normal University. We were all starving since we missed breakfast this morning so we walked around the block and found a restaurant named "Tacos". It advertised as Mexican Cuisine but the menu was about 20 pages long with only one page of Mexican food. Dawn, Noah & I had cheese pizza, Nicholas had noodles with shrimp and David had a beef tenderloin quite an ethnic mix! It was some of the best food we have had since arriving in China. After lunch we crossed the street and had ice cream for dessert at McDonalds. I have a feeling these two restaurants will be seeing a lot of us this week!

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We met with our guide, Fred, in the room this afternoon at 3pm to discuss the adoption proceedings and plans for the week. The most important piece of information from that meeting is that he will be picking us up tomorrow at 9:30am to travel to the Civil Affairs office where we are to receive Eva at 10:00am!!! In less than 24 hours we will have her in our arms!! Please pray for her travel; it's about a 2 hour drive from the orphanage to the office.

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After resting for a while, we ventured out again. Different from Beijing, Nanjing is less crowded and less noisy. The city is not as clean with a strange smell in the air. None of us were hungry so we just walked around. We immediately notice that we are the only Americans here. Accorinding to Fred, we are the only family here adopting a child. This province only does about 300-400 adoptions a year where others do over 1,000. We are getting lots of stares and we know they are talking about us...I'm wondering if we should be glad to not be able to understand what they saying?!

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We're going to turn in early tonight; hoping for a good night's sleep (yah right!) to be ready for the day ahead!! Thank you all for following along, your comments, emails and especially your prayers! We are so happy to be able to share this special time in our lives with you all!! Can't wait for all that tomorrow brings!!

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Ready for Eva!

Gifts for Orphange Director & Caregivers

Beijing Tours - Day 2

Today is the day the boys are most excited about - walking on the Great Wall of China! We started out again at 8:30am after a much needed night's sleep. We are experiencing light showers today and as inconvenient as it is to have to use the umbrella it has helped to keep the temperature and crowds down.

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Our first stop of the day was Olympic Park where the 2008 Summer Olympics were held. The first thing we all noticed was how small the whole space was and how close the venues were to one another. It was really neat to stand there and imagine it full of cheering crowds!

Next we went to Ming's Tomb.

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Then we stopped at the jade factory/museum. I was especially excited about this since Eva's Chinese name, Yu, means jade. The setup was more of a high priced jewelry store but I did manage to find Eva a pretty jade cross pendant and a jade/pearl (her birthstone) bracelet. Both of which I'll put away to give her as a gift when she is older.

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From there we headed to lunch. David has been begging Sim to take us through a McDonald's, everyone in our group would like a little American food, but once again it was another Chinese lunch with a lazy susan style table where all the dishes are put on that and everyone shares - like a buffet on your own table. I was more attracted to the large shopping area up front than the food. David called the whole setup a Chinese Stuckey's! We bought all the kids a Christmas ornament; a tradition we have of getting one from every vacation.

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Finally it was time to head to the Great Wall! Fortunately the rain had cleared and it was actually "cold" out which makes it great to go on a walk of this magnatude. The only downside was it is still overcast which didn't make for great pictures. We managed to walk all the way to the top until we reached a locked tower and could go no further. It took us about an hour to go up, photo ops included and only 15 minutes to go down. You actually skid most of the way down; it's very steep! Walking the Great Wall was the perfect ending to our day and our stay here in Beijing!!

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Once again David asked Sim to find us a McDonald's on the way back to the hotel, but an hour later we arrived at the hotel with Sim saying they looked but couldn't find one. Personally, I think it just goes against his grain to take tourists to a non-Chinese restaurant. David and the other men in our group took matters into their own hands. After googling the locations on the computer, taking a picture of the computer screen with the information where they wanted to go, the front desk was able to help them get a taxi to McDonald's and bring dinner back to the room!

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Now we are packing up for our departure tomorrow. We leave for the airport at 6:30am and our flight departs Beijing at 8:20 to Nanjing, the capital city of Eva's province. As much as I have enjoyed our stay in Beijing, we have accomplished what we came for and are ready to get this much closer to Eva!!

Beijing Tours - Day 1

Over the past two days we have seen some amazing sites here in Beijing. We have stood in places that up until now we had only seen in books or on TV and we have done the things that we have talked about for over 4 years. It has been an incredible experience.

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Yesterday we left the hotel by bus at 8:30am. Apparently we are staying at the farthest point from where these sites are located because it seems like we drove forever. For me, the getting there is half the fun. I just love how much of the city we have actually gotten to see, even from the window of a bus. I am still amazed by the ways of life here.

Our first stop was Tianamen Square and the first thing you notice are the crowds! Our guide, Sim, said that July and August are the height of domestic travel here in China. Chinese families like to come here and visit together. We did manage some pictures in front of the wall with the photo of Chairman Mao. Chairman Mao led the Communist Party from 1949 and formed the People's Republic of China. Although they promised a nation in which everyone would be equal it was during that time that China became cut off from the rest of the world.
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As you cross over from Tianamen Square you enter Forbidden City. While waiting for our guide to purchase the tickets to enter we found out how right Noah was yesterday when he said everyone was watching him. There are 11 of us all together in our tour group, Noah & Nicholas are the only children, and we all pretty much stick out like sore thumbs. I was also right when I said that the Chinese people are as fascinated by us as we are of them, especially the younger high-school - college aged kids. It didn't take long for the first person to ask to take a picture with the boys and from then on they became "Rock Stars"! People would ask, mainly by hand guestures and pointing to their cameras, to take pictures with the boys, they wanted to touch their hair and face and one teenage girl even gave them each a little gift. Most of the time Nicholas was oblivious to their smiles and laughs at him but every now and then he became very shy, especially around the teenage girls, and that only set the girls off to lots more giggling over him. It has all been quite funny!

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After our walk through Forbidden City, which is a palace complex that was built for the emperor's family during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), we got back on the bus and headed to lunch. It was of course a Chinese restaurant with a buffet. The smells and taste of the Chinese food here is quite different from home. I think it has something to do with the spices they use and it doesn't always smell very appetizing which has helped us to not be too hungry. We can always find plain white rice and watermelon to eat. Today we also had noodles followed by gelatto for dessert!

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After lunch we went to Summer Palace. During the time of the Qing Dynasty, the emperor commissioned work on the imperial gardens and gave this area to his mother in 1752 in celebration of her 60th birthday. According to our guide, the number 60 is cause for celebration among the Chinese people. Most of the time the empress would have walked the long corridor (the longest corridor in the world) along the Kunming Lake alone, a view that I couldn't imagine having all to myself!

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We left the Summer Palace and went to a Chinese Acrobats show. As Nicholas said "these people are professionals". It was an absolutely fantastic show! If Eva has any of their flexability she will definitely be a world ranked gymnast!!

On our way to dinner the boys, David included, fell asleep on the bus. David wasn't hungry so he stayed on the bus and let the boys sleep. I really didn't want to eat either but it was nice to sit and visit with the other couples to talk and share pictures of our daughters. We are all going to different provinces but will all be back together in Guangzhou.

Thirteen hours later we were back in our rooms and ready to crash!!

The boys have been fantastic throughout all of this, even the other couples have commented on how well they have handled the long days. Noah is having a hard time though with all of the "poor people". There are lots of beggars on the streets, esp. around the tourist sites, and it's different then when we see people on the side of the interstate at home holding signs. Most of these people are physically handicapped in one way or another so it's hard, for even us adults, to see. He and I have prayed about it and I just ask you that you pray for him and his tender heart. I want Noah to take away with him the things he sees to be used for good one day, but not let the negative images be the first thing he remembers about China.

I know this has been a long post so I thank you if you are still reading....now on to Day 2!!

It is 9:55pm here and we are just getting in from 13 hours of sightseeing! I have tried several times to write a blog post, but honestly I'm just too tired. I'm attaching a few photos from the day, all together we took about 500 of them and downloading them all will also have to wait.

I promise to do better tomorrow!!

Boys in Tianamen Square

Emperor's Bedroom at Forbidden City

Lake at Summer Palace

Marble Boat at Summer Palace

Free Day in Beijing

Our Hotel

We all woke this morning not to the sound of bird's chirping but to horn's beeping! I'm convinced that they just like blowing their horns. The traffic here is a nightmare, I would never drive if I lived here; then you mix in the people who are walking, on bikes or mopeds and it's really chaotic.

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We made it down to breakfast for the buffet. I found it most interesting that the majority of food on the buffet seemed more lunch type items then breakfast. Lots of pasta, noodles, spring rolls, meatballs (Noah liked these) and the most appetizing pork intestine...Not! We were able to get fried eggs, toast and watermelon and Nicholas found cereal. So all in all, a good start to the day!

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After breakfast, we decided to be adventurous and take a walk around the hotel. I have to say that I loved being out and about. Where we are is such a mix of modern and traditional; there's a hustle and bustle and it just seems very alive. I also LOVE that I am only a few hours from Eva!!

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Imagine this...we found not one but two malls!! The first was very upscale, with BMW and Mini Cooper car dealerships. The second was a very traditional, stall type market. I scored a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses for $20, a necessary purchase since I left my pair at home.

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Back at the hotel, we met another couple here from Florida adopting their first child. She & I had emailed prior to leaving the states so it was nice to put a face to a name. After a rest, we went back out and this time found an open air market...very traditional! Noah did not like the smell, but I just loved being able to experience what life is truly like here.

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For dinner we found a KFC. Still not quite like we are accustomed to...the chicken sandwich had peas, corn and carrots cooked into the patty, but the fries with ketchup and ice cream were just like home!

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Noah quickly noticed at breakfast that we get quite a few looks. I think the people find us as fascinating as we find them. I have noticed that they like trying their English out on us with a "Hello". They seem to get as much a kick out of it as we do when we say "Ni Hao".

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So far the biggest negative is the smoking. There are No Smoking signs posted everywhere but no one seems to pay attention to them.

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Tomorrow we head out to Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and a Chinese Acrobats show.

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Thanks for following along!!

Upscale Shopping Mall

Very Fresh Seafood!!