Christmas Pictures, Take 1

Watch Jason (red sweater) and Sarah in these shots! Also notice the "bunched up" dress in the first couple!

Jason: "Is she still here?" :)

Sarah: "What's up there?"

Sarah: "What's down here?"

Jason: "I AM smiling, Mom!"

Hey, wait! This one might be a keeper. Whoops! The princess is done with the photo shoot.

Been busy...

This girl can eat! Her appetite has really increased and she is eating a wider variety of foods all the time. This is a relief to me, as I was worried about her eating habits. Her latest favorite food-- corn on the cob!

After the bath! We bought Sarah several cute footed pajamas so she stays warmer at night. She is a very active sleeper and the covers don't stay on for long.

It seems like we just got home and Thanksgiving is here! This past week has been very busy with hoilday stuff and getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner. We had a nice Thanksgiving with Grandma and Granddad P. and Dean and Nancy. Why I didn't take pictures of everyone, I honestly don't know. :)

We are going to try to get some Christmas card photos of the kids done this week. Should be interesting, trying to get five kids to look at the camera and smile at the same time!

Sarah is doing very well, and amazes us all with her spunky personality and sweet smile! We love this little girl very much!

The Wagon Incident

Sarah has been pretty clingy to her mommy this week, although today she has played a little more independently. I don't mind the "clingyness" and I understand why, but sometimes it's hard to get anything done! :) But that's OK.
So on Wednesday evening I was trying to catch up on a few chores and the boys asked if they could play with her in the front yard. I was relieved she wanted to go outside with them, so off they went.
A few minutes later Justin came running into the house with a crying Sarah. Oh, no. Apparently they were playing with her in the wagon and she toppled out of it... onto the driveway. She didn't cry very long and was ready to play again in a few minutes, but now she has a nice "road rash" on one of her cheeks and the side of her nose. Lovely. Just in time for Thanksgiving family pictures, right?
The culprits felt very sorry (it really was an accident), but I still couldn't stop from telling them, "Just wait til your dad gets home!"
And to add to my embarrassment as an "unfit parent", I had to take her to the doc on Thursday morning.
"Oh, no.. what happened?" he asked.
So I gave him the gory details. And he laughed and said, "Oh, she'll be fine, just put neosporin on it."
And Sarah promptly grinned and waved bye bye to him. I'm sure she was happy she didn't get any more shots!
Anyway, Sarah's face looks a little better every day. Sigh. So this is why I haven't posted pictures much this week! :) Probably I will get brave and post some soon!

Home Sweet Home (pictures)!

We are home (late Friday night)! Dave and I look very travel weary-- but Sarah is ready for the party!

Not sure about this car seat business!

Thanks Nicole for the signs! We are so happy to be home!
Jason is a big brother! And he is really BIG compared to Sarah! Playing the piano with Evan and Logan.

Um, did I mention she likes to climb? The stairs are no problem-- both up and down.

Today she climbed up the entire slide! It's about 8 feet long.

And slid right down! And yes, this seems pretty amazing for a 19 month old! I think we're in for a wild ride with this little cutie! ;)

Great Wall of China

We drove for about an hour in the taxi through some small villages in the mountains. Then we hop out of the car and get on one of these!! A ski lift! I couldn't believe it. I guess I thought we would just walk up to the wall. I didn't realize the wall was on the mountain tops, which makes sense, of course. We actually took this picture on the way back down, so this is why it's darker than the rest. By the time we left it was getting dark and it was COLD and foggy.

Here is Ike. The man should run marathons! He's not much taller than me, but he can really move FAST. He knew we were pressed for time and wanted to make sure we got some pictures before it got too dark, so he moved even faster than normal. It was a work out, for sure!

How incredible is this? The building behind us is a watch tower, and you can see them spaced out along the wall. The watch towers were where the soldiers lived. I can't imagine how cold those buildings must have been in the winter. The holes along the sides of the wall and on the tops of the towers were for shooting arrows.

It's hard to get a shot that gives you an idea of the vastness of the wall. It just goes on and on and on, all along the mountain tops. It truly is an amazing wonder of the world. It was very foggy, and the mountains were beautiful.

This is one of the little "arrow shooting" holes along the wall.

Just a neat picture of the mountains through an opening in the wall.

This is inside one of the watch towers.

Another shot of the different watch towers.

One last great picture! Sarah was a trooper, of course. She really liked the ski lift and laughed and giggled all the way back down the mountain. She is very wiggly when she's excited, so I had a death grip on her and Dave kept saying, "Do you have her? Do you have her?" because she was so wiggly!

P.S. Wanted to get these last China pictures posted today, will try to post some homecoming pictures tomorrow. For some reason blogger is really slow tonight.

So we stood on the Great Wall on Friday afternoon, flew 12 hours, crossed the International Date Line, arrived at LAX on Friday afternoon, and slept in our own bed on Friday night, MST. How's that for a busy Friday??? :)

Last picture of Ike helping us at the Beijing airport. The terminal is huge and very cool. Sarah is very photogenic and likes to see the picture in the camera window after it is taken. She is sitting in the luggage cart. It was the perfect size for her. :)

Home Sweet Home!

We made it!!! Seven flights (total) and over 24 hours of travel time, we are home!!! The flights were all fine. Sarah slept for about an hour on the Guangzhou to Beijing flight and amost the entire Beijing to LAX flight (the flight was 12 hours). This was definitely an answer to prayer! :)

It was WONDERFUL to see the boys and grandparents waiting for us at the airport. We missed them all so much. At the airport, Jason was pretty mad at us and was crying when he saw us, but this morning he gave us big hugs and told us he loves us, so I think we're forgiven! :) And he looks huge to us and is so much heavier than we remember-- we haven't been picking up a 35 lb toddler for 2 weeks. Sarah is light as a feather compared to Jason.

Back to the travel story-- it was just a quick flight from LA to home. It was nice to be in LA again. We had Cinnabons and MILK! It was the first milk we'd had in two weeks (there was a milk scare not too long ago in China--pretty sure it would have been fine to drink milk there, but were advised not to.) We didn't get sick at all in China and we ate a lot of different kinds of food in a lot of different places. And we had ice cream, too-- so we obviously didn't worry too much about the milk issue. :)

Will post pictures tomorrow. But here's the coolest thing. We had a six hour lay over in Beijing, which is a LONG time with a toddler in tow, so we called Ike and he met us at the airport and took us to the Great Wall! It was AMAZING! But more about that tomorrow!

The two biggest blessings on our trip (besides our sweet Sarah, of course!!) were New Day Foster Home and Ike. New Day is just amazing and Sarah was so loved and cared for by the staff and her foster parents. It is completely obvious that her foster parents adored her. Sarah is coping very well with this huge transition in her life. She is a brave and trusting little girl. This is not to say that there aren't difficult moments (she is a very determined toddler!), but we are not dealing with more difficult issues that some adoptive families face.

And Ike was also a great guide and friend. He was very kind and patient with us and and so sweet with Sarah. He gave her a special cup as a keepsake when we said goodbye to him at the airport and told us to come back to China soon! We are so glad we got to see him again in Beijing!

We would love to go back-- someday. But it's not in the cards for a while. We would like to take Sarah back when she's older.

OK, so my sleep cycle is all messed up. But we'll get back to normal at some point. Sarah fits right in with the boys and their noise and chaos. Today she was chasing Jason all around the kitchen and she lets the older boys pick her up and show her around. They are pretty smitten with her, and so is her Daddy, by the way! She already has him wrapped around her little finger! I think from Day 1!

More tomorrow-- pictures of our homecoming and the Wall!

Day 12-- US Consulate visit

Today (Thursday) we went to the U.S. consulate building to have the swearing in ceremony and to pick up the "all important" brown consulate envelope that has Sarah's visa. The room was full today (close to 40 families representing 26 states) with families from all over the U.S. who have come to China to bring home a child.
It was great to see all those kids today and know that they are all going home to loving families. It was a heart warming and touching experience. Just amazing. That basically sums up this entire trip.
Are we ready to go home? YES!!! Am I glad I came? Absolutely.
No pictures today (sorry). Need to get ready for bed. Tomorrow is going to be a marathon day. We will be traveling for 24 hours by the time we touch down at home. We are a little worried about Sarah on the flights, but hopefully she'll sleep thru the long one from Beijing to LAX. Please pray that all will go smoothly for us tomorrow. Thanks for all your comments and support!
Grandma and Grandpa W-- please remember Sarah's car seat. I'm sure she'll love her car seat. (NOT!) She thinks that her place is my lap in any vehicle, and we have yet to see seat belts here! So this should make for an interesting ride home. Ear plugs, perhaps? :) Hope not.

Day 11-- Consulate appt and free time

Here we are outside the Italian restaurant where we ate dinner one night. It was very good. So, just in case you were wondering-- it was an Italian restaurant (La Dolce Vita) in a Chinese city with Chinese waitresses who were serving American customers!

Sarah is very agile and flexible. She can climb just about everything. Hmmm. Should be interesting at home. The boys weren't big climbers.

Can you tell she is full of life and personality? She also folds her arms like this when we tell her "no", except then her expression isn't quite as happy! ;) When the Chinese ask us what province she is from and we say Jiangxi, they say, "Oh, she's a spicy girl!" And she is! Sweet and a little spicy! :)

I see a lot of this side of Sarah as I trail her to keep up! Do you see the little boy on the bench? She kept going up to him to say hello! She's not shy-- which will also be a change for us from the boys!Running toward the camera.

Playing at the park with the locals. She climbs right up the slide like a pro!

The island we are staying on is very popular for wedding photography because of the beautiful old trees and buildings. We have seen wedding couples every day since we've been here.

On Wednesday morning we had our consulate appointment, but we didn't actually go to the consulate. Our agency went with our paperwork and we stayed in our hotel room for 30 minutes in case the consulate had any questions for us. We weren't called, so the rest of the day was free to do what we wanted!

We spent some time shopping and just enjoying the weather. I have to tell you about shopping here. It is not my favorite thing to do partly because it takes a lot of energy to bargain with the shopkeepers! But I am starting to enjoy it more. The shopkeepers follow you around and try to sell you just about everything! :)

We have decided there is a definite "learning curve" with figuring out how to bargain effectively. We are doing much better now and usually end up getting the price down to around half the original estimate. Today I was pretty proud of us because we got Sarah 2 more pairs of squeaky shoes for about $6.00 USD total.

That's about all the Wednesday news. Today (Thursday) we are actually going to the US Consulate to have a "swearing in" ceremony. Then we will get Sarah's visa packet to take with us back to the U.S.

P.S. Amy-- thanks for the tip about Jennifer's Place. She is very nice and her prices have been the most reasonable of all the stores.

Day 10-- Lions and Tigers and Bears!

I fed a baby white tiger at the Guangzhou Wild Animal Park. Sarah just wants her bottle back! Ha, ha! :) (Disclaimer: The animal trainer was standing right outside the picture frame and the baby tiger was only interested in his milk!)
Crossing the Pearl River on the way to the wild animal park.

King of the playground! This was an old playground that has been converted into a goat exhibit. Kind of strange, but the goats seemed to enjoy it!

Pandas! There were lots of pandas here!

Very tired panda. It's tough being a panda!

You could pay 10 yuan to feed the giraffes, so they were quite friendly with the crowds. Sarah loved seeing all the animals!

The zoo had a really nice Australian animal exhibit. They had lots of albino kangaroos. Who knew?

Just a great picture of the giraffes!

Another fun day of sightseeing in Guangzhou. On Tuesday we went to the Guangzhou Wild Animal Park. It was beautifully maintained and there were many animals there. They have a "Safari on Wheels" where you get on a train and ride through different areas to see the animals in their "natural" habitats. Then they also have a very large zoo area with many different animal exhibits. The park here reminded me a lot of the San Diego Zoo, but I think it may have been even bigger. We did a lot of walking! Sarah was a trooper throughout the day and enjoyed the animals.

Happy Birthday, Justin!!

Justin,
Happy Birthday! We are going to call you later today! We hope you have a great birthday!!! Sounds like you are having a good time with Grandma and had a fun party over the weekend with both Grandmas and Grandpa!
We love you and miss you and we will be home on Friday!
Justin, we are proud of you for who you are and for the good choices you make. You are a smart, funny, thoughtful, and handsome boy and we are proud to be your parents!
Love, Mom and Dad

Day 9-- Physical Exam and Kindergarten kids!

Today we had Sarah's physical exam as part of the adoption paperwork. To be honest, it wasn't much of an exam, which was OK. They weighed and measured her (she weighed 24 pounds but was fully dressed), looked in her throat and ears (the doc didn't even use an otoscope--sp?-- the little ear instrument with the light), and another doc listened to her breathe with a stethoscope and did a very quick overall exam. The whole thing took less than 10 minutes.

Here they are measuring Sarah's height. She tolerated this OK but wasn't thrilled about it.

A very "cheesy" smile for the camera! Sarah likes her new "squeaky shoes" but I took out the squeakers because they are really loud and she moves pretty fast!

The rest of the day was pretty much a "free" day. We spent a lot of time outside, just enjoying the nice weather and letting Sarah play. Guangzhou reminds me a lot of San Diego as far as temperature and vegetation. The weather has been perfect. I keep reminding myself it's November!!

And now a few more pictures of the day!

Hello Orchard Hills Kindergartners and faculty!

There is a school near our hotel in Guangzhou, and we snapped this picture of a kindergarten class walking somewhere on a field trip. The kids are all wearing matching red jackets, but not full uniforms.

This is the tail end of the line of kindergartners. They walk in a double line, hold hands, and have a teacher in the front of the line and a teacher in the back of the line. Our guide (Ike) told us that most Chinese kids start learning English in kindergarten or even in preschool.

Here's one more picture of school kids-- this is a preschool class. They were a little younger and were holding on to a rope. They all like to say "hello" to us! I hope all is going well in kindergarten and that you are all learning a lot and helping each other! :)

Day 8-- Sunday sightseeing in Guangzhou

"Don't let my sweet face fool you-- I specialize in running Mommy and Daddy ragged!" :) Sarah is by far the most active child in our group. We are thankful for this-- it shows that she has been given lots of love and attention and is not scared of new things.

At the gardens at the Chen museum.

Beautiful flowers in front of the Chen museum. I'm not sure what kind of animal the bush is supposed to be.

Pronouncing a blessing on an adoptive family at the Buddhist temple.

Very tall pagoda at the Buddhist temple. We were going to climb the stairs to the top but it was closed for renovation.

View from the balcony of the restaurant where we had lunch. Food was Cantonese style and was GREAT! There was a small amusement park on the hillside.

There were lots of aquariums right outside the restaurant where you could pick out your dinner--fish, prawns, and snakes-- all alive!

The huge mall of pearl and other jewelry wholesalers.

The shops look like this-- bags and bags of pearls behind the counters. Many stores had workers stringing pearls on the countertops.

Sunday morning we got up and got ready for a day of sightseeing. First we went to an old academy that was built by the Chen family around 600 years ago. It is now a museum and has beautiful gardens around it.

Then we went to a Buddhist temple. Because it was Sunday we were able to watch some Chinese light incense and bow to the different buddhas. It was very interesting. We learned there are several different buddhas that represent different aspects of life. For example, there is a buddha that one prays to for career assistance, a buddha that helps with family, etc.
Some members of our group has a Chinese monk pronounce a blessing on their new child. It was all very interesting.

After that we had lunch at a very nice restaurant that overlooked a beautiful lake and park. The food was very good and very familiar. The restaurant served Cantonese food, which we found to be a lot more like the Chinese food we are familiar with in the U.S. Apparently Jiangxi province (where Sarah was born) is known for its very spicy food. We can attest to that! :) So the Cantonese food was a nice change.

We had some great noodles (not spicy), sweet and sour pork, a green bean dish, kung pao chicken, ham fried rice, Chinese steamed buns, mushrooms, and duck. I tried everything but the duck. It was all very good. Dave tried the duck and liked it.

After lunch we went to this huge mall that was filled with wholesale pearl vendors and other jewelry vendors. It was amazing. Shop after shop after shop of pearls and other jewelry. We were so overwhelmed by the whole thing we couldn't decide what we should buy and how much to bargain down. So we ended up just walking around, which was also pretty entertaining.

When it was time to get back on the bus to come back to the hotel, we went outside into this big open area to wait for the bus. I have never seen so many people, so close together in my entire life. It made most of us feel a little anxious, I think. Not for our safety, but just because there were SO MANY people there. There are about 20 of us from our agency all together, and we attracted a lot of attention as we worked our way through the crowd. One of the dads from our group held up a baby wipe box above his head so we could see where to follow to get to the bus. Then we had to wait around for about 10 minutes for the bus to pull up (the traffic was very bad), so we stood around and watched people staring at us. It was like being monkeys on the wrong side of the cage! :)

We are now with a large group of families, which has been nice in a lot of ways. Everyone is very friendly and kind. Most of the families are from Colorado, but one is from Georgia and another from Wisconsin. So it's been fun getting to know them and share our experiences. Several of the families in our group have been to China before to adopt. One of the families is completing their third adoption!