Running a fever of 102.7!

Well, I knew it was bound to happen over the holidays, and it did. Last night at around 8, Gracie started running a fever. I took her temperature with the ThermoScan set on Infant/Toddler and it registered as 102.7. I was pretty surprised, as she felt warm but not near that warm. So I thought maybe something was wrong with the ThermoScan, but it registered correctly when we tried it out on the Child/Adult setting for DD1. Anyway, I gave Gracie two droppers of Tylenol and laid her down to go to sleep for the night at about 9:30 p.m.

Now, I have to tell you that we have been trying to get her to fall asleep on her own in her own crib for the past 5 nights or so using the Ferber method of putting her down awake and progressively checking on her when she cries. This was working like a charm, until last night. On the 6th night, per Dr. Ferber, I was supposed wait 17 minutes before going in to check on her and reassure her. I did, but she cried the entire time between. So I was worried about how this was working. I went in and checked on her telling her that everything was okay, that she needed to get some sleep and told her I would see her in the morning. I then left the room closing the door behind me. I knew that this wasn't going to make her happy, and Dr. Ferber had said the same thing. That is that she might cry harder after leaving the room. She did. Shortly afterwards, say maybe 5 minutes, she fell asleep and slept through the night. So, so far so good with the Ferber method.

Back to the fever. Gracie woke up this morning with a cool forehead, but was sweaty. I think the fever broke during the night, but by 12 noon she was running a fever again. I gave her more Tylenol and then left with DD1 to go to the eye doctor, while DH fed Gracie lunch and put her down for a nap. She woke up around 3:15 feeling cool, but again sweaty. Now she's acting cranky. Her cheeks are cool, but her forehead feels a tad warm. I haven't taken her temperature yet, but I suspect she's running a low grade fever. I don't know why, but it's making her cranky and clingy.

I remember when our other DDs were little and how these fevers could come and go. I hope this is the same kind of thing, and that she'll be over this soon. Oh the joys of having a baby in the house!

Family Christmas Party #2

This is the Chrismtas party that almost didn't happen! Two weeks ago, DH talked with his sister about having his side of the family Christmas party yesterday, the 21st at our house. She was supposed to talk with her daughter and see if that would work for her and her hubbie. Well, that never happened, so we were left up in the air untiil Friday when DH called his parents who live in the same town as his sister. Turns out that my BIL fell twice. He has MS, and can't walk, and insists that his wife be the exclusive caregiver - at least this is what my MIL has told me. Anyhoo, he fell in the shower and a couple of days later fell out of his wheelchair off of the lift in the garage that they have to get him in their SUV. I guess they thought there were broken bones, but thank goodness that was not the case. She ended up having to call an ambulance to take him to the hospital, and although he was okay, he did miss his weekly shot appointment at another hospital. So she had to drive him the hour or so for that a day late. But here's the real problem, I think. My SIL had surgery on her thumb about a week and half ago. Get this, NOONE told me this until yesterday as we were on our way to my in-laws to visit them. This is incredible to me. DH just happened to mention in the van on the way down that his sister was having trouble getting things done because she's in a cast. A cast! This was news to me. I didn't know about the cast or the surgery. DH's family just doesn't share information about themselves at all. It's so different than my family, where everyone knows what everyone else is doing whether you want to or not! Anyway, because of the very rough week that his SIL had, she didn't think they could come up. So we said we could come there. She didn't want people at her house, so there was an informal agreement to meet at his parents.

So, in the meantime, DH hurt his back playing basketball on Thursday. He says he doesn't know if we'll even go if his back doesn't stop hurting. Does this sound like maybe God is trying to tell us that this wasn't meant to be?! I don't know, but leave it up to him as to whether we'll go or not. He decides yesterday morning, that yes we will go. We get to his parents around 12:30. We ask about his sister. They say that don't know if she is coming or not. They'd talked to her the night before, and she didn't know yet. And they hadn't heard from her yesterday, and didn't want to bother her to find out. I just don't get this, but that's just the way this family is. Anyway, we eat lunch play with Gracie, talk a little bit, and open the few gifts that need to be opened. About 2:30, just as we are ready to pack up and leave, guess who pulls up in front in the house? Yep, his sister and BIL. So we rethink and stay until about 4:30. No problem, except Gracie had not napped at all during the day and ended up being VERY cranky. We left and came home with Gracie falling asleep in the car shortly after we pulled out of the driveway.

We didn't have the camera with us, so no pictures. Just a very strange "party".

Family Christmas Party no. 1

Saturday was my family Christmas party. My family is too big to hold the party in one person's home, so my parents started renting a place to host it a few years ago. My father has continued that tradition for the past two years since my mother died. This year was no different, but what was different was that there was a big ice storm in the midwest on Monday of last week. One of the hardest hit places was Oklahoma, where my brother and his family live. They were without power for 5 days, and sadly had to cancel coming to the party. So they weren't there, and then on Saturday the weather forecast was for 10 to 17 inches of snow to hit with blowing snow. They were calling for a blizzard warning. This scared off my sister and her family, so she and none of my nieces and nephews and their children were there for the party either. Needless to say, there was a small turnout, and in addition to that, DH and I decided we needed to leave on Saturday afternoon instead of staying overnight and coming home Sunday to beat the blowing snow. We left and our two older girls were none too happy. Gracie slept the entire way home, which was good, because the weather was really bad. DH wouldn't have been able to handle the stress of staying on the road and a screaming baby that wanted out of her carseat. So, although the party was okay, it was somewhat of a bust this year. I guess you can't expect every year to be beter than the last. This was one of those years where it wasn't. I just hope that this isn't shades of the future, where we won't have good turnouts for the party.

We also did something way different this year than in past years. As I mentioned we have a really large family. I have 4 brothers, and 2 sisters, all of which have children, children's spouses, and/or  grandchildren. So you can imagine how hard it is to maintain a gift exchange. One of my brothers has done a great job every year figuring out how to make it work, but this year with agreement from everyone we decided to cut back on gifts for each other and dontate gifts to a family that needed help. My SIL found a local family through my father's church; a mother with 9 children and one on the way. She had some bad things happen to her in the recent past, and was really down on her luck. Each of us were given a child to buy for and then we wrapped gifts at the party. My SIL was to take the gifts to church on Sunday afternoon, where the mom would pick them up later. We had quite alot of gifts for the family, and it was nice to be able to help out the family.

We still had the gift exchange for the children in our family, so noone really felt left out. But as much as I liked the idea of helping this family, I have to admit that it changed the whole feel of our family party. It wasn't a bad change, but a change.

Lastly, the other thing that was different was that we didn't get to go ice skating as part of the celebration, as we usually do. We didn't because we had to leave early, but it turns out that noone did because the city changed their rules about out-of-towners paying to skate. It was just too expensive. So that not only changed this year's party, but will change parties from now on. We'll have to figure out some other way to get together. It seems that change is in the air for our family!

This is the first of two family Christmas parties for us. The 2nd will be with DH's family this Saturday. It is at our house and is waaaay smaller. DH's family consists of the 5 of us, his mom and dad, his sister, BIL, niece and nephew-in-law. A total of 11 people. A nice size for a party at our house. We're doing chili instead of a more traditional meal. There won't be a Santa, but we will exchange gifts. It should be a fun time with Gracie around this year, and I'm looking forward to it.

3 weeks until Christmas!

Wow! Where has the time gone? It really just seems like a few weeks ago that we returned from China with Grace, and now we're looking at celebrating our first Christmas with her in our family! I remember last year around this time feeling sorry for myself, because it was obvious that we were not going to be finding out who our Gracie was before the end of the year. What a difference a year makes. Grace has been a member of our family for 4 months, as of last Friday, and is now 14  months old.

Here are few things that we've learned about her since we brought her home:

*She sleeps through the night. She rarely wakes up with night terrors anymore. Although I know this could be something that comes and goes with her, right now we're enjoying it!

*She crawls and walks with her walker. Her little legs are just not strong enough for her to walk all by herself, but she has no problem controlling the push-behind walker that she got for her birthday in October. And crawling is no problem for her. It's her main mode of transportation. She's all over the house now!

*She answers to her name. she know who Mommy is, who Daddy is, and who DD1 and DD2 are. Whenever we say "Where's xxx?", she'll look for whomever that is and stare right at them. So we know she knows her family.

*She LOVEs to give kisses! First thing in the morning, whomever goes in to get her out of bed will be treated with her version of kisses. She sucks in her bottom lip, leans over with her cheek out and wants you to kiss it! It's too darn cute!!!

*Her favorite vegetable is green beans. She also loves peas, carrots and broccoli - not the babyfood kind, but the pick it up and eat it kind. She likes fruit too, but vegetables are king with her right now!

*She can drink with a straw. We found this out last week. The first time we tried it, she had trouble figuring out what to do, but a couple of tries later, she slurped  the juice right up!

*She's almost weaned off the bottle. She takes one bottle at night and one at naptime. It's amazing to me how easy this has been so far. My other girls just did not want to give up the bottle so easily.

I know I haven't been posting very regularly, but things have been crazy. I just don't see how some of you blog everyday and still have time to work, take care of your family, clean your house, and sleep! I'll try to do better.

A few more photos of the 3 DDs

I had trouble with viewing the copy of the Hands of Hope DVD that Denene gave me, so until I get that figured out, I won't be able to upload it here. In the meantime, I thought I'd post a few more photos of our 3 lovely daughters.

 

 

 

Hands of Hope; Reflecting Gods heart for orphans

This weekend there was an event at our church that highlights the ministries that are active there. This was Hands of Hope Orphan Ministry's first time participating. I was nervous, but I didn't need to be. It went very well. Our booth was just inside one of the main doors to the church and just outside the door to the main worship hall. Pretty good location for foot traffic. Also each of the board members took turns manning the booth between and after the services on Saturday and Sunday. We brought our children, and one of the women on our board brought her 3 year old adopted daughter (from China) with her dressed in a Chinese silk and tulle dress. She was so cute! You can imagine that she brought alot of people over to talk with one of us. Gracie was there too, but on Saturday she wasn't feeling well, so she only stayed for 15 minutes before DH took her home with the other girls. Sunday I took the hint from Denene and dressed her up in her tradtional Chinese silk dress, and she too got alot of attention. Ron brought his newly adopted son, Samson (adopted from Liberia, home for about 2 months) too. He's 10, and so outgoing. He too got alot of attention. So with the kids bringing over the adults, we had the opportunity to get exposure to our ministry, and got about 15 names of people to contact. Pretty good for a first time out!

I have to say that our board is the best! As the leader, a couple of weeks ago, I was getting pretty nervous about what we'd have to display at the expo, but after meeting with them, they did a GREAT job! So professional, you wouldn't have believed that the display, the handouts, the video were all put together with about a week!  Thank you to all of you that made this a great event! I'll post the video after I get it uploaded on our computer that has a dvd drive.

All three of our beautiful daughters

I just got our photos back from the photo shoot that our three girls were in. They turned out so well, and the 3 are all so beautiful. At least I think so, but you judge for yourself!

The Gift of Life

I didn't give you the gift of life,

But in my heart I know

The love I feel is deep and real,

As if it had been so.

For us to have each other

Is like a dream come true!

No, I didn't give you

The gift of life,

Life gave me the gift of you.

Author: Unknown

Celebrate National Adoption Month!

November is National Adoption Month. There are several suggestions for celebrating the month at www.adoption.com, but I'd like to suggest one that is not listed there. This idea not only celebrates adoption, but is an easy way to show that you support the adoption of children into their forever family.

This necklace: http://adoptionshop.com/adoption_products/Adoption-Infinity-Circle-Necklace.html is an inexpensive way to not only celebrate National Adoption Month, but to also show your support for adoption. Since I've been wearing it, I've had several people ask me about it. It's a great venue for starting a conversation about why you support adoption, your adoption story, and just maybe be the first step towards getting someone else to think about bringing home their child through adoption!

If you don't jump on this idea to celebrate adoption, please consider some other way to celebrate this month. The more people are aware of the need for adopting children, the more likely it is that we can find homes for children needing forever families!

My baby, then and now!

Here's two photos of DD1. The first was 14 years ago in the hospital the day after she was born, and the second is her school picture from this fall. She was cute back in 1993, but is beautiful both inside and out in 2007!

Happy 14th Birdthday DD1!

14 years ago today at 11:03 a.m., I was lying in a hosptial bed in northern Virginia with DH beside me after having pushed for 2 1/2 hours when the OB said that he was going to prep me for a c-section. So they halled me out of the nice comfy birthing room to a sterile operating room and had me lie on a narrow cold table. The OB pulled out these looong forceps and told me to push one more time. I pushed like a mad-woman being deathly afraid of having to deliver by c-section. The OB pulled out a bloody, white-pasty covered baby with a tiny little scratch by her eye where the forceps had nicked her skin. I remember touching her hand as the nurse held her up for me to see, and DH crying saying she was amazing.

The next thing I remember is crying out to the OB because whatever was happening "down there" hurt so badly. They whisked my baby away, and gave me something to knock me out. After that I woke up in the recovery room with DH and DD1 beside me. DD1 was sleeping in her bassinet, and I remember the first words out of my mouth were "Is she cute?"

I slept for another couple of hours before being moved back to a room in the maternity ward, and that was how my sweet little DD1 came into this world. There's lots more to this story about the day DD1 was born that is both funny and painful to remember, but the most blessed result of that day was that DD1 joined our family. Now 14 years later, we are still blessed to have her as our daughter!

I'll post photos of her then and today a little later, but for now, I just want to relish in the fact that this amazing daughter of mine is the one I have to thank for allowing me to say "I am a mother", which is something I wanted more than anything in the whole wide world! Thank you DD1, and happy 14th birthday!

Love is Grand!

No photos today, but I just had to write about something I saw as I was coming into work this morning that really touched my heart. As I was going about my morning routine of getting out of the car after a 45 minutes commute, locking the door and heading up to the office building, I saw a man standing at the curb on one side of his car with a woman walking towards him. They were probably about 25 feet apart. The man was short, in his mid-forties, wearing jeans and a gray sweater. He was not attractive really, but not disgusting either. I guess I would have to say he was nothing special, with the exception that he was standing with a single rose in his hand facing the woman. The woman was also short and in her mid-forties. She had short dark hair, streaked with gray, wore glasses, and well...very overweight. I doubt that anyone would say she was attractive by today's standards. The woman did have a smile on her face that got bigger as she approached the man.

When she reached the man, he said something to her, handed her the rose, and reached out to hug and kiss her. She responded by taking the rose and kissing the man back. It was a very tender and sweet moment to watch. And the funny thing about it was that this was all happening out in public view of everyone walking into the building, which at the time was about 10 people that could see what was going on. Neither one of them seemed to care, as they were both caught up in that moment on the sidewalk.

I have no idea why this man was giving this woman a rose, and no idea if they were husband and wife, lovers or friends, but I was truly touched by the scene. I'm sure that this woman feels loved today!

Witnessing this act of love reminded me of how a simple thing like this can make someone in your life feel special just for that moment, for that day or maybe even for a lifetime!

I may not go out and surprise my hubbie with a single rose today, but believe me I will show him in some special small visible way how much I love him. I hope everyone that reads this does too for the special person(s) in their lives!

Happy 1st Birthday Gracie!

Gracie turned 1 yesterday! We celebrated by having a small family party for her at my dad's house on Sunday. My sister, her daughter, her grandson and granddaughter were there, as well as my brother, sister-in-law, their 2 daugthers and one son. Of course, we were all there with my dad too.

We started the party by having a barbecue. My dad said that it had been a long time since he'd had that many people in the house at one time. I know he's thinking about when my mom was alive. It's so sad to think that she never got meet Grace, but you know, I know that they will meet again and that she'll know Grace immediately as her granddaughter.

Anyway, after trying to eat outside, most everyone came back inside because of the bees being pests. We then sang Happy Birthday to Grace, she opened her presents and then we had cake and ice cream. I had a lady at work bake a ladybug cake for Gracie. I asked her to bake a small cake just for Gracie to dig into, so she made one and put it on top of the bigger cake. It was too cute!

It didn't take Grace long to figure out what to do with her little ladybug cake. She dug right in. I had DH strip her down to her diaper so there wouldn't be a problem with her getting icing all over her clothes, so no worries there.

Yesterday was her actual birthday, and as I reflected on her turning one I am so grateful to her birth family for giving her a chance at a better life. They probably did not know where she would end up, but we are still so thankful that they chose life for her. I pray that they know that she is loved, healthy and well taken care of!

 

Photos of Gracie in the Nanchuan Orphanage

After we got our referral for Grace, we sent a care package to her orphanage through a great organization called "Blessed Kids". It is run by a Chinese American woman that lives in the US. She will pack and ship care packages to Chinese orphanages with a letter indicating that the person is very happy to get a referral for their child, and other things related to adopting a child from China.

In our Blessed Kids care package I sent a stuffed panda, two disposable cameras, two packages of candy for the orphanage workers, and a letter stating that I'd really appreciate it if the workers got the candy, Grace got the panda bear, and that the cameras were used to take photos of the orphanage and Grace's caretakers and playmates. When we got Grace, we got back the cameras. Her nanny told us that she was not able to bring back the panda bear because of being so busy. I can imagine that this was the case, so we were very grateful to have the cameras with photos from the orphanage back. These are priceless to us, and I know will be to Grace someday too as they are one of the few direct connections she'll have of her life in China before being adopted.

Here are some of the photos. Just in case you can't tell, Grace is in the black and white outfit with the light blue sandals.

 

Sleepy Baby!

I snapped this picture while Gracie was sitting at the table eating a bitter biscuit. She was happily enjoying it, when she got so tired, she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer! It was too cute!!!

Many Firsts already and many more to come

Yesterday, without fanfare, Gracie turned 11 months old. It's strange to think that our little baby that we just added to our family will be a year old in less than a month. She's still a baby, but with turning a year old, it seems like she won't be a baby very long. Of course, I knew this would be the case, but I guess I didn't realize how I'd feel like it's going way too fast! It's like bringing home your newborn baby one day and in two months having her turn a year old!!

There are many first that we missed with Gracie, not having her with us for the first 10 months of her life, but at the same time she's on the cusp on having many new firsts being part of the family. She's about ready to have her first tooth pop in, she's about ready to crawl, and she's about ready to start pulling herself up. These things will all probably happen before her first birthday.

There are also some firsts that she's already experienced with us. She moved from taking a bottle exclusively in China to eating solid food. First she was eating stage 1 foods, then moved to stage 2 within about a weeks time, and now is eating from the table (although not alot because she doesn't have any teeth to chew anything). She had her first ride in a car while in China, her first plane ride in China, and her first ride in a carseat on the way home from the airport (although if she could talk today, she'd probably tell you she could do without this last first). Oh, and of course, the biggie first of having a forever mommy, daddy, and two big sisters that don't look anything like her, and don't talk anything like people she was used to being around at the orphanage.

Next month she'll have her very first birthday party, and then a couple of months after that she'll experience her first Thansgiving and her first Christmas. So in just a few months time, this wonderful little girl, has had and will have so many changes and so many firsts. It must be overwhelming for her. Sometimes I wish I could get inside her head and see/hear what she's thinking, but since I can't I only pray that she's feeling loved and safe in her family!

Happy 11 months old Gracie! I love you!!!

 

Returning to Work

Last Monday, August 20, I went back to work. For those of you that don't know, I work 32 hours a week as an engineer: Monday and Friday mornings from home, the rest of the week in the office. I've been on this schedule since I went back to work after DD2 was born 10 years ago. It's worked for me and my family, and my bosses have been great about allowing me the flexibility to do so.

Unfortunately, at my company, there is no paid leave for an adoptive parent. That doesn't seem fair to me, but I can't really complain about the flexibility of my company. They have been very good to me. I am able to take 12 weeks of unpaid family leave (FMLA).  Of course one of the problems with that is that, it's upaid. We really need my income in our household.

So, to go to China, I used my vacation. The first week back I took a week of FMLA. On Monday, I had to go get back to work. DH was also working, so I tried to work my morning from home with Grace there. Well, as you can imagine, that was,..um, shall we say "challenging!" I got in 4 hours of work, but it was not all during the morning. That was just not possible. I finished my work at about 10 o'clock that night!

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, DH was home with Grace, so I headed into the office. It was good to be back, and I enjoyed being around my coworkers, but at the same time I missed being home. Every working mom out there probably understands this feeling. It just one of those mom things, I guess.

The week at work was really getting acclimated again and figuring out what had transpired while I was gone. Not too stressful.

This week, though, the pressure is on to produce. I've got a full plate. In addition, I found out that the adoption and orphan care ministry that I've been working to get started at our church for the past 2 years was approved as a bonfied ministry. Exciting? Yes. Bad timing? Yes.

How do I work 32 hours a week, take care of a baby, head up a ministry at church? Right now, I don't know. I'll let you know when I figure it out!

 

Photos

As I promised, here are some photos of Grace. Nothing really new to post, other than I went back to work last week. I've got more to post on that, but will save that for another post.

 

More on the Bees!

Okay, so now DH is trying to plug the whole from both the inside and the outside where the bees are coming from. He thinks he's got it sealed up, and then has to get all the live bees out of the house. He spent about 30 minutes chasing bees with DDs butterfly net. He took them outside to either kill them or set them free, I'm not sure, and don't care.

He gets it down to about 4 bees in the house, so then the clean up needs to begin. Did you know that bees poop?! I didn't, but apparently they do, because we had bee poop all over the one room where they were hanging out. I had to clean all the leather furniture, and all the table tops. We ended up throwing out all paper items that were in the room, and vacuum up the dead bees. That took about 30 minutes or so, while DH chased the rest of the bees out of the house. I decided to go out to the other room to vacuum up the dead bees there, where apparently they were attracted to the picture window where the sun came in. I started vacuuming, and all of a sudden on the live bees started swarming me! I guess, he/she didn't like me messing with their bee graveyard. So I stopped until DH got the rest of the bees out of the house.

Remember that this was all happening after we'd spent the last 3 days trying to get out of China and home. We were both EXHAUSTED! This was not the homecoming that I wanted, or expected! At any rate, DH needed to get some rest, so he went upstairs to lay down while DD1, Grace and I sat down to enjoy being together. DD1 and Grace didn't even have a chance to really get to know each other yet.

Well, that wasn't to be right yet. It became painfully obvious that the bees were finding a new way to come in. I didn't want to disturb DH as he needed to get some sleep badly, so I used the butterfly net to catch them and take them outside. Well, this sounds like it's no big deal, but I am not good with bugs! Everytime I see a bee, and decide I was going to swipe at it with the butterfly net, my adrenelin would start pumping, and I'd get totally hyped. See I was worried that I'd miss it and it would decide to take revenge on me by coming after me. I have this same fear about spiders and other bugs. I'll kill them if I have to, but it's not a calm affair. So after going through this about 12 times, I couldn't take it anymore. I was burnt out. Having the ups and downs of my adrenelin levels for every bee, I was totally exhausted. I went to go wake up DH. He had at least had sufficient rest, to be able to think clearly and find and seal completely the opening from the outside. So the saga of the bees ended.

Like I said before, this wasn't the homecoming I'd envisioned or wanted!

Oh, and I promise next post, there'll be some photos of Grace and our family since we've been home!

Bees!

Here's what we've had to deal with when we got home on Saturday, August 11.

We arrived home to a house full of bees! Right before we left, bees had wormed a hole into our playroom. We'd see about 2 or 3 a day, and DH thought something along the lines of "I'll have to fix that sometime." It really wasn't bad, the bees were easily either caught and taken outside or killed. No big deal, right? Wrong!

By the end of the first week we were gone, it became apparent that we had a problem. DD1 stayed at a neighbor's down the street while we were gone, and had the responsibility of bringing in the mail each day, watering the flowers, mowing the lawn, and generally looking after the house. For a 13 year old that turned out to be too much responsibility. She did the best she could, but she really was not ready to handle it even under the best of circumstances. Add to that this bee issue, and she was overwhelmed.

We talked to her about checking on the house, and she said there were bees everywhere. She was afraid to water the plants, afraid to bring in the mail, and well, afraid to be in the house. Now here's where DH and I had a difference of opinion. I wanted to call an exterminator to have this taken care of while we were away. We could've asked one of our neighbors to help out and talk with the exterminator to get things taken care of. DH wanted to wait until we got back.

In my opinion this was a mistake. I don't know that he'd agree though. What we came home to was a BIG mess. The bees had essentially taken over the playroom and the livingroom. There were dead bees everywhere and swarming bees in both rooms. DD1 did a lousy job of watering the plants because she was afraid the bees would get her, and she wasn't able to vacuum up the dead bees because she said the live ones swarmed her when she tried.

There were hundreds of bees everywhere in our house. So DH tried to figure out where they were coming from, plug the hole, and get rid of the remaining live bees in the house. He ended up chasing and catching them with DD2's butterfly net. I know this sounds funny, but at the time it was anything but. I was afraid to take Gracie out to the playroom for fear she'd get stung, nevermind fear that the rest of us would too! So we essentially stayed upstairs until DH got things somewhat under control.

This post is getting too long, so I'll continue later....More to come!

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

After we got to LA on Friday, here's what happened. We spent the night at an overpriced Mariott by the LA airport because we couldn't find any other hotels that had rooms available. It was getting very late, so we finally sucked it up and paid $249 for a hotel room that was no better than a Days Inn (my opinon only, of course)! Gracie was wide awake at 3 a.m., so DH went ahead and went to bed, and I let Gracie play quietly on the floor in front of the bathroom, so as not disturb DH. Gracie finally settled down to sleep at about 4:30 a.m., and all 3 of us slept until about 6. DH got up and went to the airport to see what we could take to get us home. Gracie and I slept until about 7 a.m.

DH came back from the airport feeling not very optomistic about us getting out of LA to anywhere that would take us to Indianapolis. But we decided to give it a try, so we all headed over to the airport at about 8:30 a.m. to try to get on any flight we could. We tried to get to Chicago on 3 different flights, and then to Kansas City with no success. DH was exhausted, and said that we would try one more flight that was scheduled to leave for Chicago at 6:55. By the grace of God, we made it on that flight, although we weren't able to sit together. DH sat in a middle seat with Gracie and I sitting in the middle seat in the row behind him. We arrived into Chicago at 11:30 p.m., and of course had to see about getting another hotel for the night before flying home on Saturday.

DH's usual stayover hotel in Chicago, La Quinta, where we could've gotten a room for $89, was full. So we opted to stay right at the airport in the Hilton for a "cheap" $169. We also decided that we wouldn't rush to catch the 6 a.m. flight the next morning to Indianapolis, and instead get as much sleep as we could. You could imagine how tired we were! So we got up and walked over to the United terminal and easily got on the 12:55 p.m. flight home. We landed in Indianapolis at about 2 p.m., took a van to our car, and put Gracie in her brand new carseat to head home!

So to sum up, here's how we ended up getting from China to Indianapolis:

Train from Guangzhou, China to Hong Kong train station; a bus from Hong Kong train station to the Novatel Hotel; a van from the Novatel to the Hong Kong Airport; a plane from Hong Kong to LA, a plane from LA to Chicago, a plan from Chicago to the Indianapolis airport, and a car ride home from there.

That's our version of "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles!"

A miracle right here in the 21st Century!

First off, I want to thank all of you that have been praying for us to be able to get back home from China. Your prayers and mine have been answered in a big way! This post is about how DH and I got back into the USA with Gracie to proclaim her a US citizen.

It starts back on Thursday, August 9 at about 3:30. All the families in our group took an oath at the US Consulate in Guangzhou that everything that we'd provided the US government with regards to adopting a Chinese baby was indeed truthful. The oath took about 2 minutes. We were given a sealed brown envelope and told not to open it, but rather to give it to immigration at our port of entry into the USA. Shortly after our oath we all said our quick goodbyes to the families that were leaving Guangzhou for Tokyo on Friday morning and to Alison, our guide. There were tears and excitement as our time with all the families came to a close. DH and I also said goodbye to my dad. We'll see him again in the states after he arrives.

Alison had hired a guide in Guangzhou, Elvin (he called himself "Almost Elvis". Isn't that cute?!), to take us to the Guangzhou train station, get our Hong Kong tickets changed to an earlier train, if possible, and get on our the train. Elvin successfully got our earlier train tickets, and we were on the 5:05 train without incident. The train ride was about 2 hours. We travelled with 3 other families, and 2 grandmas that had come with one of the families to China. Once we got to Hong Kong, there was a woman that met us to get us on a bus that was to take us to the Novatel Hotel in Hong Kong where the other 3 families were spending the night before flying out on Friday morning back to their homes in the USA.

DH and I got off of the hotel bus,said our goodbyes to t rest of our travel group, and jumped on the hotel airport shuttle bus without problem. It was about this tiime that we started to feel God's hand in all of our travel. So we got to the Hong Kong airport (which is HUGE, by the way), and DH went to Cathay Pacific to see if we'd be able to get on a flight to LA that was scheduled to leave at 11:35 p.m. It did not look good, as Economy was oversold by 50 seats. And we didn't know how many other SAs (Space Available fliers) were trying to get on the flight too. On top of that United had told DH back in Chicago that when he bought his ID90 tickets on Cathay Pacific that we didn't need a ticket for Grace. Cathay Pacific told him we did, so we had to buy her a full-fair lap baby ticket (only $237, but still United messed up!). The lap baby ticket had a $33 refund fee if we didn't us it because we couldn't get on the flight. After deliberating for about 5 minutes, DH decided to go ahead and buy that ticket, as we really didn't have that much to lose. But it did NOT look good for us to go.

The way Cathay Pacific (CP) doles out their SA tickets is to have everyone waiting for seats on their flights come to a special desk and wait to see if their called for tickets. They told DH to return to the ticket counter at 10:45 p.m. to see if we got on the 11:35 p.m. flight out to LA. We returned with no real hope of getting on, but alot of prayer.

Here's the miracle, so play close attention! At about 11 p.m. the guy at the CP desk told everyone there was a 10 minute delay in the flight and that there would be a 10 minute delay in giving out SA tickets. So we waited. Other SA passengers were being called for other CP flights, Johannasburg, London, and then they started calling for LA tickets. We were the 3rd persons called! We couldn't believe it! We were on the flight that was oversold by 51 seats, and had at least a dozen more SAs waiting to be called for tickets. We found out that the reason we got on the flight at all, was because there was a last minute equipment change to a much bigger plane! What a miracle God performed yesterday! Praise and Thank Him!!!

From there on we were treated very well because we were traveling with a baby. Everyone was very helpful, and we arrived in LA at about 10:15 p.m on Thursday, August 9. We're still not home yet, as we have to figure out how to get from LA to Indianapolis, but we're in a hotel where we can drink the water, and most people speak English! Ahhh, it's good to be home! Thank you God for your miracle of getting us back into the US!

Oh, and by the way, Gracie became a US citizen the minute we touched down in LA. So she's an all American Girl now!!!

The Legendary White Swan Red Couch

There is a tradition among adoptive families that stay at the White Swan Hotel on Shamian Island, Guangzhou, to have a photo taken of all the adopted children on this big red couch in one of the lobbies of the White Swan Hotel. Our turn came today. All of the girls were decked out in their traditional Chinese clothes for the photo. Some of them wore dresses, some of them wore shirts and pants, but all of them looked very beautiful! I don't know where this tradition came from, but it is a lovely one! Oh, and check out the photo of Gracie trying out walking in her squeaky shoes! When we first got her last week, so wasn't able to put much weight on her legs for any length of time. Now she's trying to walk! What a difference a week makes.

Ahhh, Starbucks!

One of the things that I've missed since being in China is Starbucks. I don't have Starbucks everyday back in the states, but if you ask anyone that knows me well, they'll tell you I do like Starbucks! In the heat of a summer day, I usually stick with Frappacinos, instead of the standard mocha cafe I get in the cooler months.

So imagine my delight when we went out walking yesterday after Gracie's medical appointment, and saw this Starbucks. It's a beautiful one too. The architecture of the outside of the building is very french in nature. They say that Shamian Island was heavily influenced by french and english architecture. That's evident from walking down the streets. Most of the buildings were built in the 1800's. DH says that this place reminds him of New Orleans, and I'd have to agree. It really is lovely, and the people here are so friendly. Many of them speak English, or at least some English, and are anxious to talk with you. Back at Starbucks: I had a Mocha Frappacino, and DH had a mango juice slushy thing. Both were VERY good!

Gracie's Medical Exam on Shamian Island, Guangzhou

In preparation for the US Consulate swearing in ceremony on Thursday, Gracie had to undergo a Chinese medical exam at the local clinic. The clinic was a very clean place and very busy. Grace was a trooper and didn't cry once (oops! I just looked at the photos and saw that she cried most of the time! I guess I blocked that part out.). She really was more curious than scared. First the doctor examined her by measuring her head size, and pressing on her tummy. Then the nurse took her weight and height. She told us that Grace weighed 19 lbs. I don't know how accurate the scale was, but I was guessing she was about 18 lbs. So she's pretty close to what we expected. Following the weigh-in the nurse checked her hearing, looked in her ears and her throat. Everything looked good. Alison told us that the doctor had written down that Grace had heat rash. Of course, we knew that already. Anyway, we left there and were on our own for shopping.

Why we are in Chongqing so long

Several people have posted comments asking why we're in Chongqing so long after getting Grace. So I thought I'd post a quick entry explaining. Just before we left the USA, we received an email from our adoption agency explaining that there was a new rule in Chongqing that the local police department had to do something with processing the adoptive child's passport. So we had to stay an extra 4 days in Chongqing, and now we are waiting for that to take place, although we haven't heard anything from them.

I suppose that our guides would hear something and let us know if there were questions. It appears though that we're still on tap to leave here tomorrow afternoon for Guangzhou.

Today we had a worship service in the hotel business center that was led by one of the adoptive fathers. I don't know if he is a pastor of what his "qualifications" are for leading the service, but I have heard him talk about staying in contact with his pastor back home. So I think he may have volunteered to lead the service. Later we are headed out to Walmart on own in a taxi to see about getting a suitcase to pack all of our purchases from China in. Before we left, we expected to have to buy a suitcase, so this was part of the plan all along.

Not everyone just stares

I thought I'd better balance some of what I've said about the Chinese locals just staring at us without saying anything by also telling you the good side of the people here. Not everyone stares without saying anything. About 1/4 of the people that we see actually come up and say something about Gracie and smile. They usually either touch her arm, wave at her, or touch her under the chin. Since I don't understand Chinese, I can only guess that they are saying how cute she is. And of course they are right in saying so!

There are some younger people that come up and speak to us in English. The other night when we were out with Grace in the stroller, DH was inside a small shop looking for some bargain Nike shorts. So I was standing outside the shop kind of rolling the stroller back and forth while Gracie slept. A young man, oh about 17 or 18, walked by, looked at me, and then looked in the stroller at a sleeping Gracie. He stopped and did a double take. I was fully expecting him to walk on without a word, but instead he got a quizzical look on his face and asked if she was an adopted Chinese baby. I told him yes, and he smiled and asked how old she was. I told him 10 months, and he said "Wow, she's big. Are you sure she's only 10 months?" I reassured him that she was only 10 months, and he just said again that she was big for her age. I told him that in America, she would be considered small at that age. He kind of laughed, and said what a lucky baby she was. Then he walked on. So like I said, not all Chinese people are rude and just stare.

We also have been stopped by younger school aged children who say "hi!", and then just giggle. It's very cute. I'm sure they are practicing their English. Our guide, Michael, told us that all the school children learn English, but more for reading and recognizing the alphabet. They don't really get to speak it much. So I'm sure these kids are totally excited when they get to try out what they've learned in school.

One last story about a very nice Chinese man. We had gone to lunch at the Best Western Hotel one day this past week, and DH had taken a restless Gracie out to the lobby to walk around. He was standing by the doorway, when a very nice young Chinese man, who was in his 30's, stopped and asked if he could practice his English with DH. DH said sure, and they had a very nice conversation. I guess the man had learned English at university, and didn't get much chance to practice with people that actually spoke English as their first language. He told DH a little bit about himself, and said that he was very happy that we were in China. DH thanked him and told him his English was very good.

So, just so you don't get the wrong impression. Not everyone is so rude. There are some people that have been very friendly and nice.

Da-Dot-Dot-Dot-Da - I'm Lovin' It!

We were a bit tired of Chinese food, even though we do like it, and decided to venture out with Gracie on Thursday evening and try one of the Chongqing McDonald's restaurants by our hotel. We packed Gracie up in the stroller that the hotel provides for adoptive families and headed out.

The first thing we noticed about this McDonald's is that you have to go downstairs to get to it. Apparently China has no "handicap accessible" laws, so we schlepped the stroller with Grace in it down the stairs to order. The best way to order food here is to point to what you want on a card that has both Chinese and English along with pictures of the food. The sandwiches and meal deals are called the same thing as in the US, but you have to be careful about thinking that what you order here is the exact same thing as what you'd get if you ordered it in the US.

A couple of days before our MacciD's adventure, DH had ordered us burgers and fries from our hotel roomservice, and I did NOT like the cheeseburger he brought back to our room at all. First off, because I don't like cheeseburgers (I've been married to DH almost 20 years, and he claims he didn't know I dislike cheeseburgers!), and secondly because the meat was very fatty and undercooked (again, DH ordered mine cooked medium, when he knows that at home I don't eat any meat that's even remotely pink inside! What was he thinking?!) So I decided to stick with something I thought would be relatively safe, a hamburger Happy Meal. Wow! I was very pleasantly surprised when it tasted just like home!!

DH had a quarter pounder with cheese, and Dad also had a quarter pounder (am not sure whether he had cheese on it or not.) Apparently, there's some kind of spicy sauce that this  MacciD's puts on their quarter pounders in China that they don't in the US, but both DH and Dad said they tasted good. So it's 2 big thumbs up for the Chongqing McDonalds!

While we enjoyed our food at one of the tiny tables in the restaurant, there was a Chinese woman with what I assume was her husband and son eating at the table next to us. This woman stared at me holding Gracie on my lap while I was enjoying my burger and fries, the entire time we were sitting there. Like before, there was no smile and nothing said to us, just a dead stare. It was a bit uncomfortable for me, but I guess it didn't bother her because she just kept on staring whether I was looking back at her or not!

After we finished our meals, we headed back up the stairs. I noticed that at the top of the stairs was a fast food window where the locals were ordering ice cream. Later we thought we should've tried it, but we didn't. That will have to be next trip!

Here are some photos. Oh, and by the way, the title of this entry is supposed to be the words to the McDonald's theme song. Just in case you didn't catch it!

Gracie becomes a member of our family forever!

I know I'm working somewhat backwards, but I wanted to make sure that I posted a little bit about the day that the adoption was final. That was on Tuesday, July 31. We went back to the Civil Affairs office, that is the office where we picked Gracie up the day before, at around 1:30 in the afternoon. On this day, things were alot quieter. We were the only group in the office waiting to finalize our adoptions. When we were on the bus traveling there, Alison asked all of us if we all wanted to keep our babies, and we all answered a resounding yes. What a blessing for all of the families in our group. Please thank God as you think of how 8 families were either created or extended on that day!

Once we were at the office, it was a matter of adding our fingerprints to the paperwork we had filled out the day before back at the hotel. DH went first, then me, then Gracie. As you can see from the pictures Dad took, getting Gracie to give her fingerprint was a bit challenging. The first time she actually got the ink on her dad rather than on the paperwork. But in the end, she did great.

I can't tell you the feeling of finalizing the adoption of our precious Grace. It's pretty amazing. Reflecting on the long journey we've taken to get to the point of adding this God selected child to our family, I know now that the wait was well worth it! Gracie is an amazing little girl, and to think of how much she's gone through already at just 10 months old, is overwhelming. She's a fighter for sure, and I feel truly blessed to be able to call her my daughter!  I'm so anxious to have her meet her sisters back home.

Here are photos from finalizing the adoption. The little girl in the purple shirt is Kaylee. She is the daughter of one of the other adopting families in our group. Boy, is she a cutie!

Walmart, Chinese style!

It seems like every Chinese adoption blog has at least one post about Walmart. Here's mine. We went to one of 3 Walmarts in Chongqing Wednesday morning. It was an experience. As you would expect, there are many similarities between our US Walmarts and the Chinese Walmarts. There are also many differences.

The biggest difference is in the meat section of the Super Walmart we went to. As you can see from the photos, you can buy squid, duck, and many other delicacies we didn't partake in. They also had something called a flying pancake. It's a dough-like thing that a person behind the counter stretches into a square sort of like pizza dough, but very very thin pizza dough. Once it's stretched to about a 12 to 16 inch square, filling is put on top. There are different types of fillings that are used, we saw a vegetable filling in one and a pineapple filling in another. Then the flying pancake is closed and fried. I didn't see if it was deep fried or pan fried, but it is definitely fried. One of our families bought a pineapple one and gave all of us a taste. I didn't try it, as I don't like pineapple, but DH and Dad did. They both thought it was tasty. I think if we have an opportunity to try it again with some other filling, I definitely will! Here are a few photos of Walmart. I should mention that we were told later by our guide, Alison, that Walmart doesn't like photos taken in their store. Apparently they are afraid of competition seeing them. Dad was never told he couldn't take them, although he was given a dirty look by one guy. It didn't stop Dad though. You should also know they didn't take our Mastercard, so we paid with yuan.

Hot Pot in Chongqing

These photos are from the restaurant where we had hot pot. Hot pot is a local dish in Chongqing. There are two rings to the hot pot. Both are heated to boil the food before you eat it family style at a table of about 8 people. The inner ring is the hot spicy broth. I don't know what makes it spicy, but the liquid is red. The outer ring is chicken broth and is clear. It is not spicy at all. The wait staff came around and dumped a bunch of the food around the hot pot into the hot liquids and then wait for it to cook. The way this works is that when the broth boils again, the food is cooked. We were all a little leary of having the meat cook so short a time, so we gave it extra time after it started boiling. There were many different kinds of food to cook in the hot pot: beef, chicken, fish, sweet potato jelly (no one tried this at our table!), vegetables, and lots of different kinds of noodles. I stuck with eating the things that were cooked in the outer ring. They were very good, especially when you dipped the cooked food into the sauce that was provided. We also put garlic in the sauce, and they was quite tasty. DH said that the noodles didn't really absorb the spiciness from the inner ring very much, but that the meat and vegetables did. He said it was quite spicy, but delicious. He LOVED this place, and spent lots of time eating all kinds of things cooked in the spicy inner ring. Dad and I didn't eat as much. Me because Gracie was cranky, and I don't think Dad liked it very much. He said later that he doesn't like soup, but I didn't understand that statement, since it was really not "soup." Anyway, out of the 3 of us, DH liked it the most. When we got back to our room, I noticed that everything we had with us, our clothes, the diaper bag, ... all smelled like garlic. So that's what a hot pot is all about.

Spicy!

You may have heard, like we have, that Chongqing has spicy food. Well, we got to try some of that today at lunch in the form of a hot pot. I'd never heard of a hot pot, but DH asked Alison about it yesterday, and she and Michael took us to a local restaurant for lunch to experience it. And it is an experience. Before I tell you about the hot pot, let me fill you in on the rest of what's been happening.

Grace had a rough afternoon yesterday. She was a little bit constipated, and was spitting up quite a bit. We think that feeding her the steamed egg that the Chinese locals keep pushing on us to feed her caused the constipation. So we decided no more steamed egg, at least for now. As far as the spitting up, I'm not sure what caused that. I fed her a tiny bit of mashed banana for breakfast. That could've been it, but I don't really know. So again, no more banana for a little while.

Last night was a quiet one in our room. After Gracie woke up from her nap around 5, she was so fussy that I thought maybe a walk in the stroller around town might help her feel better. She loved the walk, but we were stared at alot. I wasn't really expecting what happened when we went walking, DH and me with Gracie in the stroller. It's not that I didn't expect stares. I did, but what I didn't expect was the lack of smiles or anything else. We got alot of dead stares. Noone talked to us, and noone said anything to Gracie. They would see us walking, and then look down into the stroller to see if there was a Chinese baby in it or not. Of course there was. I don't know if this is typical or not, but it made me feel uncomfortable. Anyway, after about a 20 minute walk we went back into the hotel. We had Pizza Hut pizza for dinner. I had the veggie lovers which was quite good. It had lots of different kinds of veggies you'd expect to be on a veggie lovers pizza, but no black olives (which was fine with me because I do not like olives!). It did have corn and pineapple on it. Sounds strange, but it tasted good! Anyway, after that it was an early night for all of us. We turned in around 9:30 or so.

Today started out well. Gracie woke up at about 3 and went back to sleep until 7:30. We went to the Flying Tiger Museum and had traditional Chinese scrolls for each of the girls done by an artist that was right there in the museum. They are quite beautiful! After the museum we headed to the restaurant for the hot pot.

I know I said that I'd tell you all aboutthe hot pot experience, but I'm going to stop here for this post, as it's getting quite long. I'll fill you all in on the hot pot and hopefully have more pictures next time.

More about Gotcha Day

I wanted to write more about what happened on the day that we received Grace. On Monday, July 30 we went downstairs in the hotel dining room to fill out the paperwork before we were to go to the civil affairs office that afternoon. We each had to sign papers in that were written in both Chinese and English. All of  them required our passport numbers too. After we finished some of husbands and a couple of the wives went with Michael, our Chongqing guide, to the bank to exchange the US dollars into RMB, and then wire the money to the orphanage. Later DH told me that he felt funny about how things were handled at the bank. When I asked him why, he said that there was a woman from civil affairs that walked in to the bank by herself with a big bag of Chinese yuan. She proceeded to take bricks of RMB out of her bag and count it. Once the proper amount of money was counted out, the money was turned over to the bank and wired to the orphanage. Only after that did Michael collect the US dollars from each of the families. He said we would get our receipt and change later. DH said that the women took the money, over $30,000 USD, put it in her purse and walked out again. That was it, no guards, no Brinks truck, just a woman with her purse! I can't imagine feeling safe with all that cash in my purse!

So once the money was paid we met in the lobby of the hotel and rode over to the civil affairs office, which was about a 20 minute ride. We took the elevator up to the proper floor, walked about 30 feet before entering the civil affairs office area. It was white with some red decorating the walls, and was very friendly looking. We were told that the babies weren't there yet, and it would be about 10 more minutes before they got to the office.

After about that amount of time, 4 women and a man came walking in through the same entrance we walked in from, each woman holding 2 babies in their arms. We were not allowed to touch the babies, but everyone was totally excited. We were all taking pictures and trying to determine which baby was which. Grace was in the arms of her nanny and another baby. I can't remember which baby was with her, but DH and I figured out pretty quickly who Grace was. She looked so tiny! She was dressed in a black and white polkadot two piece baby outfit, and pink sandals. She looked so cute! Shortly after the nannies were done reporting in, they called all of us adoptive parents and family members into a big conference room to receive the babies. Alison, our guide, had told us the order that the babies would be handed over. We were number 2. So the first baby was being handed over, when I decided to ask one of the other adoptive moms to take still photos, while my dad took video. I was trying to show her how to use my dad's digital camera when they called our name. DH walked up and took Grace in her arms without me! I was and still am disappointed that we didn't go up together, and that I wasn't the one to take her from her nanny's arms! At any rate, she didn't cry or fuss at all. She just looked at us trying to figure out what was going on. She was so cute and sweet!

After everyone received their babies, we were brought a bag a formula and rice cereal along with one bottle already mixed and ready to give her. Grace started fussing, and we determined later that this is what she does when she needs to poop. She finished her duty, and we got her bottom cleaned up before we signed the trial adoption papers. We also were given the chance to ask Grace's nanny any questions and have them translated by Alison. Here's what we asked and her nanny's response:

Did our baby have any cribmates?
All the babies slept alone in their own crib.

Did her nanny have a nickname for our baby?
ShanShan

Was there anything that the nanny would like to tell us about our baby?
She asked us to be good parents to her, and to love her (At this point the nanny got teary eyed, so we know that Grace was well loved!)

I was also able to have both Grace's nanny and the orphanage director sign the "When You Were Born in China" book! (I asked DH to get Alison and Michael, our guides, to sign it too, but we ran out of time right then and didn't have them do it yet. I will take care  of that later this week.)

Each family had a photo taken with their baby's nanny and the orphanage director, and handed over the gifts each had brought from the US. We had brought 6 Tshirts: 3 of the Indianapolis 500, and 3 of the Colts Superbowl Champions, as our gifts.

We then all piled back in the bus and drove back to the hotel. We were to get to know our baby and decide if she was the baby that was meant to be ours before we headed back to the civil affairs office on Tuesday afternoon to sign the paperwork.

Here are some photos of our Gotcha Day.

Announcing our baby daughter Grace Minshan Coombs

We got Gracie at about 3:30 p.m. today. Everything went very well. She's had a bath and is taking a bottle now. Here are some photos of her back in our room after her bath. I'll try to post more later from her actual Gotcha time later.

Enjoy, 'cause we are!

Ni Hao from Chongqing!

We made it to Chongqing last night. The city is really beautiful. It's hilly like San Francisco, but humid and sticky like the tropics! Since we haven't had much time in our room up until now, it's been hard to blog. I think things will change today after we get Grace. We'll be in our room more, but don't know how much free time we'll have! We get her at around 3 p.m. our time, which is about 3 a.m. back home. Pretty exciting!!

I'm a little nervous, but looking forward to this big change in our lives and hers too! Please pray that all goes well, and that she is healthy and not grieving too much. Please pray to put Grace in the Lord's hands!

Here are some photos from Beijing and the Great Wall.

We're in Beijing!

We made it to Beijing yesterday afternoon without incident. We even got to fly first class for the trip from Washington, DC to Beijing. That was sweet!

According to our guide, today is the day that is meant to wear us out, so we'll sleep and be adjusted to the time difference. So we did lots today. First stop was the Great Wall. It was pretty amazing! The section that we climbed was very steep. We only climbed to the first tower because of lack of time. My dad did great. I was a tad worried about him when we were coming down, but he didn't have any trouble.

The next stop was the cloisienne (sp?) factory and jade factory. We bought a little something at each. The craftsmanship in both of these places was incredible! The people that work in these factories are truly artists.

Next stop was lunch. We had, what else, Chinese food. We had sweet and sour chicken, dumplings, some bean egg roll wraps, rice, french fries (for the little girls in our group), and some kind of stuffed fish. The fish was not a big hit. Noone from our table tried it, but most of the other food was really good!

After lunch we did the Summer Palace. I have to say that this was a bit disappointing. Too many people! Since it was Saturday, the place was packed. We did have a nice boat ride on the lake, and I bought a couple of things from street vendors. A funny story about one of the street vendors. I bought a china tea set from her, and Roger handed her the exact change to pay for it (Alison, our guide, told us beforehand to NOT have the street vendors make change), and she started saying something in Chinese that indicated she was questioning whether the money was counterfeit. I just looked at her not knowing what to say, and then all of sudden she points to a tear in the bill, and indicates that she wants a different bill. Well, if Roger hadn't been with me, I probably wouldn't have thought too much about it, other than I didn't remember the bill being torn when he handed it to her. Anyway, Roger says to her "No, it's real. Now go away!" He realized that she was trying to trick us. The scam is for the street vendor to take the real money, pass it to another person behind her, and that person to hand back the counterfeit bill with a tear in it. So the unsuspecting customer would take the counterfeit bill, replace it with a real bill, and the street vendor walks away. Now the customer is left with a counterfeit bill.

After the Summer Palace, we went to the Pearl Market. This didn't thrill me too much, as I'm not a huge jewelry person. So not too much to say about it.

Then it was back to the hotel and meet up with Alison, our guide, in her room to pay for our in-China travel. That done, we took quick showers, and headed down to dinner.

I have to say that Alison was right. I'm ready for bed. I'll post photos tomorrow, since it's taking forever to get them uploaded!

Mary can go, but YOU can't!

Those are the words we heard today when we went to get on our flight to Beijing. We arrived at ORD around 7:30 a.m. Everything was going very smoothly. DH even commented on how smoothly things went, and said he hoped that the rest of the trip went this smoothly. Shortly after that, we went to board our wide-open flight to Beijing, AND get sure-thing 1st class seats! We were called up to the desk, and the CSA asked to see our passports. We oblidgingly turned over our passports, she looked at mine - no problem. The she looked at DH's, looked at something else, and said those words "Mary can go, but YOU can't."

You know that feeling you get when the blood runs from your head, your arms and your chest? That's the feeling I had, and DH's was just totally silent. Turns out that the Chinese visa that DH has is a work visa. He can't fly into China on work visa unless he's actually working the flight. He needs a leisure visa.

Who knew? Our agency, that's who should know. When we told our agency representive that handles travel that DH had a China work visa, he asked us to send a copy of DH's passport picture page, and the visa page. We did, AND I asked at the last pre-travel meeting if it all looked good. Mike G. from our agency said that everything was good. NOT!

So, there we were at ORD. I had my ticket in my hand, the CSA asked me if I wanted to go by myself. It wouldn't much good, as I couldn't adopt without DH there. There's lots of other paperwork required when both parents don't travel to get their adopted child.

So we scrambled. DH determined that he could get his visa expedited by going to the Chinese Consolate downtown Chicago by 2:30 and fill out an application, and pay the fee. He took a taxi there, and then called me to tell me he didn't have his wallet with the all the cash in it, and he needed a passport size photo as well (which was also in the luggage he left with me). So my SIL and I rushed downtown to meet him (Praise the Lord for my dear SIL! She is the greatest!!!), and gave him what he needed. That was at 2 p.m.. We then took her kids to McDonalds, had a Coke while we waited for DH to finish. He did get his visa at about 2:50.

We are now at my DB and SIL's house to spend the night, and will fly from Chicago to Washington Dulles, and the from Dulles to Beijing tomorrow. Those are the plans anyway! Remember "the best laid plans of man...". I can't remember the rest of that quote, but you get thepicture.

PLEASE pray that we will get to Beijing tomorrow without incident! And throw in a request for us to be able to fly 1st Class for our now 13 hour flight!!!

I'm leaving on a jet plane!

 

Remember that song by Peter, Paul and Mary? Those of you that are baby boomers like DH and I are most likely singing it right now. Sing it with me...

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go
I'm standing here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go.
I'm leavin on a jet plane
I don't know when I'll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go.

Well, I really am leaving on a jet plane TO CHINA! We leave in the morning, and all my bags are packed, and I am ready to go, I am sooooo ready to go! Go meet my little girl, Grace!

Oh, and I do know when I'll be back again, August 11.

All that's left is the waiting!

Well, today we finished up our packing and got pretty much everything ready to leave early Wednesday morning for Chicago. I only ran into a couple of snags. The first of which was having too many liquids for two carry-ons. My dad is going to carry on some of the baby medicines we need to take in his 1 qt Ziploc bag, so that problem is solved. I just need to get the stuff down to my brother's before we leave. The 2nd problem, has a similar solution. I called in refills for my allergy perscriptions on Saturday, pills and nose spray. Well, I went in to pick them up today and the pharmacy said that they could only refill the nose spray because it hadn't been long enough inbetween when I last refilled the pills for my insurance to cover it. The earliest it could be refilled is Wednesday, the 25th. That wouldn't be a problem, but we'll be in the air on Wednesday on our way to Chicago. Argh!!! So again, I asked my dad if he would stop by and pick it up on his way to my brother's before he leaves on Thursday morning. He said he will. Both problems solved! Good thing my dad is going with us, if for no other reason than the be our packmule and assistant :-)

So tomorrow night, we'll take the girls to their respective homes where they'll be staying. Then we'll get up really early Wednesday morning to get to the airport, and we're off!

Here's a photo I took of my bags. The one on the right is my roller carry-on. The one of the left is the diaper bag that I'm using as a backpack. I have to tell all those nay-sayers, that I was able to get everything into my carry-ons AND I even was able to pack a Thermos!!! That's DD1 laying on the bed watching tv. Boy am I gonna miss her and her sister while we're away!

Skype is so cool!

I have to say that I'm enjoying getting my family members to get onto Skype. We're going to use it while we're in China, and so I've been recruiting to get it downloaded with all of my 6 brothers and sisters to be able to possibly set up a conference call between all of us while we're there! How cool would that be?!

Skype is surprisingly easy. The only thing you need is a microphone and a speaker (or headset with both of these) for your computer. It's free to download and free to skype computer to computer! If you're interested in downloading it, just go to Skype.com and follow the directions!

DH, my Dad, and DB1 of my 4 brothers are now on Skype. I talked with DB3 last night, and he's going to download it. Can't wait to see his avitar!

Our itinerary

We have finally got our itinerary for in-China. Here's the plan:

Wednesday, July 25: Leave for Beijing (please pray that there will be space available in Business Class for us to make our flight!)

Thursday, July 26: Arrive in Beijing: Stay at the Temple of Heaven Holiday Inn Hotel

Friday, July 27: Meet up with the rest of our travel group (including my father, that's flying on a different flight and airline)

Saturday, July 28: Great Wall, Summer Palace, a jade place, and a pearl place

Sunday, July 29: Tien An Men Square, Forbidden City, an international church service; Leave for Chongqing

Sunday, July 29: Arrive Chongqing, JW Marriot Hotel

Monday, July 30: Grace's Gotcha Day at Civil Affairs Bureau!!!

Tuesday, July 31: Registration at Civil Affairs Bureau

Wednesday, August 1: Shopping

Thursday, August 2: Eling Park

Friday, August 3: A zoo (don't know which one)

Saturday, August 4: Flying Tiger Museum

Sunday, August 5: Sunday Service with our guide

Monday, August 6: Fly to Guangzhou, check into White Swan Hotel

Tuesday, August 7: Take passport photo for Grace; Travel group photo on the infamous red couch

Wednesday, August 8: River Cruise

Thursday, August 9: Swearing in at Consolate; train to Hong Kong;

We're on our own from Hong Kong on. We're going to try to catch a flight to the US on Thursday. Otherwise, we'll spend the night at an airport hotel and try to get back to the US on Friday. Here is where we need extra special prayers! Please pray that once we get to Hong Kong that we'll be able to get on a UAL flight to the US on either Thursday or Friday.

Of course, then we'll return to IN, get our other girls and head back to our home to adjust to being a family of 5!

Only 5 more days!

We leave for China in 5 days! I've got to start packing and make sure that I can fit everything we need into a carry-on bag and diaper bag. I'll be trying that out this weekend while DH is on a trip.

The girls are all set with our friends. DD2 will have a vacation, since she's going to Holiday World and Rhode Island while we're gone! DD1 will be much closer to home, down the street as a matter of fact. It's so nice to know that they'll be well taken care of while we're gone.

In the meantime, here are some pictures of our shower for Grace on Saturday! Everyone was so nice and supportive! It think it was a fun time for all of us, except DD1. She came down with the flu the night before and spent most all of the day in bed. By dinner time though, she was feeling much better. Thank you to all our family and friends!!!

Here's my WeeMee

DH and I were playing around with Skype tonight. We are going to use it while we're in China to call home. While we on Skype I saw WeeMee. I've seen other blogs that have a WeeMee on their blog, so I thought I'd try out making one for myself.

Here's my WeeMee

Does it look like me? HeeHee!

Now we have our passports!

It seems like everyday there's something new going with respect to getting ready for our trip to China. Today the FedExc package came with my dad and my passports and the travel letter. We have to take the Travel Approval letter with us to China, and of course we'll need our passports with our visa in them to be able to enter China.

So now all we're waiting for is our own in-China intinerary, but today our agency told us they can't quote us a price until they know our departure date and what hotel we're staying at before we join the group. They also need to know Grace's new American name. I'm not sure why they need that, but that's what he said. So DH is working on what to tell them. I really want to find out how much because I need to cash a check on our money market fund, and it will take 5 days for that check to clear. If I don't find out by Monday, I'll just guess on the high end and cash the check anyway. That's pretty much the last thing I need to do to get ready.

Well, that's not exactly true. I found some wicking shirts at Walmart, but one of them is too big. So I need to exchange it for a smaller size. So that's good. I also need to figure out what outfits to take for Grace. I actually only have one outfit that I could take. Hopefully, I'll have something more to choose from after this weekend. I'm hoping that my niece will bring the clothes she told me she had packed away from her daughter having outgrown them. That would be ideal.

So we're getting closer everyday!

Oh, one more thing. I weighed in at my WW meeting today. It's been two weeks since I weighed in and I was worried that I'd gained weight as I've been stressed. When I'm stressed I eat! Anyway, I weighed in, and surprisingly I haven't gained/lost anything. I'm exactly the same as I was two weeks ago. I should be upset about that, but I'm pretty happy because I haven't been doing a good job of following the program. Starting today, though, I'm going to get back on program.

We have our in-China itinerary, sort of

I just received an email from our agency travel guy. In it he says that he received everyone in our travel group's itinerary except ours. I suppose that's because we have a split group with my dad going over and coming back one way, and DH and I going another. Anyway, he did send us a copy of the other families' itineraries, so we could see what it looks like. According to their itineraries we are to get our babies on July 30 in the afternoon! So in about 2 1/2 weeks we will be seeing our little girl's face in person for the very first time! I can't tell you how this makes me feel. Goosepimpley, happy, excited, and scared all at the same time.

We still don't know how much it will cost to travel in China as our agency guy didn't include the cost in what he sent. It did include what is/is not included in the quote for in-China travel. But we should find that out shortly. We now know the name of the hotel that we'll be staying in Beijing, so DH can make reservations for us. It's the Zhongcheng Holiday Inn. I think that's the one that DH was looking at online the other night, but since he's traveling today, I can't ask him.

In the meantime, on another front, I signed the FMLA paperwork. I now am eligible to take up to 12 weeks of Family Leave from August 13, 2007 to August 13, 2008. Cool, huh?! I've never taken any FL, so this is a first for me. I don't intend to take too much because we can't afford it, but it sure is nice to know that Ican when I need to.

Things are quickly falling into place! Please continue to pray for us and for Grace, and thank you for doing so.

Please Pray!

Several people have asked me over the course of the last few weeks, if there is anything they can do to help. My answer to that question is, pray. Pray for Grace that her grieving is not too deep. Pray for her adjustment to be as easy as possible. Pray for us that we will know how to comfort her. Pray for our safe travel. Pray for Grace's orphanage mates, and for the caregivers and orpahange director. Pray that our girls will not miss us too much while we're gone. Pray that we won't miss our girls too much while we're gone! And give glory to God that we are able to do this adoption. It has been amazing, and I know it will continue to be an amazing journey!

Our CA is August 8!

Everyday now, things are happening. We found out on Monday that our CA is August 8, and late Monday we received a quote back from the travel agent on dates for international travel and cost. After alot of discussion and looking online to see how we could pass-ride, we decided that Dad should go ahead and buy a round-trip ticket. We will still pass-ride from Chicago to Beijing one day earlier than everyone else arrives. He flies out of Indianapolis on the 26th and gets to Beijing by way of Detroit and Tokyo! Coming back on the 10th we will most likely all fly together until we get to Seattle. Then Dad will fly to Indianapolis, and we'll fly to Chicago.

So now, I've got to step up the packing effort to make sure I have everything and be able to pack it in our carry-on luggage. I've got 2 weeks from tomorrow until we leave! WOW!!! We don't have our in-country itinerary yet, but should get that soon. So that's when we find out exactly when we get to meet Grace for the first time!

God is soooo good!

Our TA came in on July 2!

Wow! We heard from our agency yesterday that our TA came in! I was totally surprised. We were told that it would take 4 from the time our LOAs went back until we heard anything. Our LOAs for our travel group went out on June 15. So it only took 3 weeks. Our agency is asking for CA on either August 8 or 9. So if all goes well, by this time next month we'll be with Grace, getting to know her, and having her get to know us. How cool is that?!

In the meantime, I've picked up the pace on getting things ready to travel. My DB and SIL came into town on the 4th to spend the next week and a half with us. They have an 8 month old little boy, and of course, I forgot that he'd need something to sleep in. So we tried to come up with a pack-n-play (ours is at my dad's), but couldn't find one. They graciously brought down their other baby crib (they had twins the first time) for us to use for Grace. But it was all in pieces. So at 11 p.m. on Wednesday, we decided that we might as well put up the baby crib and go buy a mattress since we'll be needing one anyway. Where else can you decided you need a baby crib mattress at 11 o'clock at night on a holiday and be able to drive less than a mile away and get one?!  The world we live in is an amazing place.

Anyway, we now have the baby crib with the mattress set up. My nephew slept in it one night and got his legs caught between the slats about 4 times before my SIL realized, we need a bumper pad!  Another SIL told me she had a crib set I could have, so at 8 last night we drove to her house and picked up the bumper pad and comforter set. It's on the crib now, and my nephew slept better last night.

I told my SIL that if they stay long enough, we'll end up getting everything we need for Grace out of neccesity for her son to be able to stay here! LOL!

Anyway, I also got the Amoxicillan and scabies meds. I got infant Tylenol, and hydrocortisone cream. I still can't find a small bottle of Benedryl. So I haven't figured out what we're going to do about that. But I'm getting closer to being ready. Well, at least ready with everything I need. I still have to figure out how to pack all this stuff into carry-ons. I think I can do it, but it will be challenging.

Oh, I also bought "When You Were Born in China" to take with us to have the nannies sign, 3 Coolmax t-shirts to take and be able to wash out by hand, 2 capris, and 1 pair of sport shorts - all 3 will dry out quickly. So I think I'm pretty much set!

I can't believe I didn't think of this until now!

I was sitting here trolling the internet, looking at other peoples' blogs because there are rumors that TAs are arriving. Suddenly it dawned on me: Grace was 9 months old yesterday, and I missed it! I didn't even realize it. What kind of mother does that make me?! Well, I feel really badly about not remembering. I guess with all of the preparations for travel and life going on here in our hometown, it just didn't sink in that our baby girl had a milestone in her life yesterday. I'm sorry baby. I'll make up for it next month when there's a slim chance that we'll be with you to celebrate your 10 month birthday! Your mommy loves you! I hope you had a good day yesterday!

The Dresser

Here's a photo of the dresser that I so labored over to get put together. It took me weeks to get this thing together, and then if it weren't for my wonderful DH, the drawers would never have closed. See I found out that you REALLY have to pay close attention to the directions when you put things like this together. This experience of putting together the dresser reminds me alot of sewing things without a pattern, and having to rip out seams until you get it right.

Anyway, it turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself!

Like I said in my last post, the dresser is now in DD2's room. This picture was taken in the playroom before it was moved in there.

Watching home videos

The girls wanted to watch home videos on tape from when they were little. So DD1, DD2 and I watched videos of DD1 when she was about 3, and DD2 was a baby. From there they were 6 and 3. They were so cute. One of the results of watching these videos was to get me excited about having a baby in the house again. They are both just too stinkin cute, and I'm sure Grace will be just as cute at those ages too!

Right now, we're watching DD1 dance in her training pants while DD2 sites in her baby chair watching. Both girls loved to dance!

We had a productive weekend cleaning the girls room. We REALLY cleaned them. Actually we're not totally done, but things are getting more organized. We moved the dresser us in DD2's room. So tomorrow I'm going to move the little bit of clothing for Grace into the dresser. That should be fun!

Besides that we went to get fabric for the good wishes quilt. Each girl bought fabric as did I. It's funny that I've gotten more questions about how the quilt blocks work from my family than I could've imagined. They keep thinking that you need to write the good wish on the fabric. I think this confusion comes from where my sister made a quilt for my mom when she went through her first round of chemo. My sister asked everyone to send her a quilt square with a message on it. Some people sent painted blocks, some sent embroidered blocks, some had pictures scanned on them. It was lovely, but it confused my family to now ask for quilt blocks and a good wish. I told those that have asked that they can put whatever they want on the block, but they didn't need to. I think they understand now, but I never imagined that it would be so confusing!

 

I always knew I was G rated!

I found this on another adoptive mom's blog site, and decided to try it out to see what my blog is rated. As expected, I'm G rated!

Not much happening today. I took DD2 to swim team practice at the YMCA, and while I was there, worked on my laptop. Afterwards I stopped in at the Members Services office to pick up the volunteer sheets for DD1 and DD2 to volunteer to help out with the swimming classes. DD2 is totally excited about it. DD1 is not. Here's some of what DD1 had to say about this: "Why do I have to volunteer?", "I don't want to do this!", "You can't force me to volunteer!", "None of my friends' parents make them volunteer!",  and the ever present and popular with teenagers everywhere "It's Not Fair!"

Guess what, her dad and I don't care if it's fair or even if she wants to do it.  And least of all, do we care if her friends' parents are or aren't making them volunteer over the summer.Want to know why? Because life is about helping other people, and not about taking everything you can get out of it. Volunteering is a way to help other people, but it's also a way to meet and be around new people, teach children new things, experience the feeling of having a child think you're awesome because you know how to swim and they don't, and well, there's just many more good things that volunteering does for you than bad things. None of these good things are surpassed by the reason she doesn't want to volunteer which is basically that she doesn't want to do it. Besides if she doesn't volunteer this summer, then she'll be sitting around home watching tv or on the computer, and that's something we don't want to encourage too much!

When we were having this, um, conversation last night with her, I got to thinking that there were things that my parents made me do when I was around DD1's age that I just hated to do and thought I hated my parents for making me do. As an adult, it's funny how my perspective has changed. I appreciate most of those things that my parents forced me to do. Those experiences taught me things that I wouldn't have learned otherwise. That's why DD1 has to volunteer even though she thinks she doesn't want to right now.

Hmmm, what to write about?

I know that I need to blog, because it's been awhile since I have, but I don't have too much new going on. I guess I can relate our weekend adventures. Let's try it out.

Friday DD2 spent the night at a friends, so DD1 and I stayed home and watched a movie on tv. I can't remember the movie, so you can tell that it wasn't much. Saturday morning, I worked out at the Y, while DD1 slept in. My dad came into town around 12:30, and we met brother and SIL for lunch at Ram restaurant. We all had a good time, even DD1! Afterwards Dad, DD1 and I went to Sam's Club to get something to take to euchre. We shopped for awhile and headed home. We didn't make it to church on Saturday afternoon, and I fully intended to go on Sunday morning. But I didn't make it on Sunday morning either.

After having a fun night of playing cards with friends, we came home and went to bed. On Saturday morning, I woke up and went to pick up DD2 from her friend's house, and then headed off to the Y to work out. After getting cleaned up, we headed over to my brother and SIL for lunch. During lunch, my brother got a call from his youngest DD's work. She had fainted, and since they couldn't get ahold of her DH, they called her family. My SIL had to spill the beans about the surprise that her DD is pregnant! What wonderful news. They think she fainted because of that, but the doctor found nothing wrong. So that's good. She's due in January. When my dad found out she was pregnant the first thing out of his mouth was that he'll have 23 grandchildren and 25 great grandchildren! Wow! If only my mom could be here to share in all of the births that have occured since she died. She would've loved it!