One less orphan tonight

Hello! There is one less orphan in the world tonight! Megan arrived to our room at 10:12 this morning. 18 mins ahead of schedule. She's already started off on the right foot in our family. Ha! There were no tears from anyone when she arrived She laughed, played with her toys, ate some Cheerios and even handed out some kisses. We texted Jacob a picture of his new sister while he is at Cedar Point and his response back "she's beautiful". We facetimed Alex and he cried and cried when he saw Megan which made me start crying. I really wished the boys were here to meet her.

It was a very busy day completing the China end of her adoption and getting her passport. We are glad that we only have to do this once! Good grief!

We arrived back at the hotel and ordered room service. Megan had French fries and French toast. 1st meal don't judge. ; )

Things we know about Ms M: She Is so stinkin adorable. she is sassy. she has so many funny faces when she does things. she loved her bath and didn't want to get out. she doesn't like to share. she knows the word "mine". She knows touching Papa's phone is naughty but will turn and bat her eyes and flash an adorable smile. She hated her flip flops when we 1st put them on but when we got back to the hotel she carried them around. She has a terrible cough and junk coming out her nose a color I haven't ever seen before. She hates her antibiotic and spits it out (the next 10 days should be interesting). That's all we know about her so far. : )

Thank you for all the love and prayers! 

Hello! Today was a bittersweet day. Bitter because we had to say good bye to Jeff & Charica as they fly off to their province to get their little boy. We are so excited for them to become 1st time parents. Michael, Brandi, Maddox, Jeffrey and I loaded onto the bullet train to Jinan where we will get out children. The sweet part of the day! The bullet train was nerve racking and fun. So many people waiting to get on but once loaded it was a very fast and smooth ride.

We arrived at the our new hotel and I may not want to leave this place. It is soooooooo nice! We are on the 23rd floor overlooking the busy street.

Tomorrow is THE BIG DAY!!!! We will receive Megan in our hotel room around 10:30am. We are so very ready!! We ask that you say a prayer for us that Megan's transition goes well and that all our legal doc/appointments get processed without any issues. Thank you!










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Seriously another awesome day

Another Great Day!

It's been another exhausting, yet fantastic day in China. We started out walking through most of Tiananmen Square. Talk about an enormous area. It's almost unreal. Being a Saturday it was fairly crowded. Our tour guide, Tom, said "if we get separated, just keep heading north, we will find you." Maybe that was his nice way of saying "don't get separated". Luckily nobody got lost. We marched north, past the famous portrait of Chairman Mao and went into the Forbidden City. This area was massive. The original throne of the Emperor is still in one of the buildings. It was very cool. It took us two hours to walk the whole way from Tiananmen Square all the way through the Forbidden City.

Next stop were the rickshaws to take us on a Hutong Tour. We thought riding in a van through the crazy traffic was dangerous. Try it in a little rickshaw. It's amazing they don't have a fatality at every corner. It's almost indescribable. The Hutong area is the oldest area of Beijing, predating the Forbidden City. Our tour guide's name was Potato. He told us it was his English name, not his Chinese name. We're not sure who told him Potato was an English name, but maybe he's seen Papa Grande pitch for the Tigers and just liked the name. The Hutong area is a mix of a hip bar scene (frequented by tourist and college kids at night) and a very old neighborhood. We ate lunch at a family's house. This was the best food we have had, yet. The owner of the house actually live upstairs and is a former chef. He started a very small restaurant (2 tables) in the main floor of the house. It was phenomenal. We're getting better and better with chopsticks at every meal so if we have you over for dinner in the future, be prepared. :)

We had some downtime between the morning touring and the acrobatic show in the afternoon so we strolled down the main street near our hotel with Jeff & Charica. The highlight of the walk was stutter stepping in front of a very large bus. They seriously seem to aim for pedestrians. Unreal. We visited Wu Mart (catchy name, huh?) to see what a Chinese version of Wal-Mart looks like. They pretty much had it all. The coolest part was that it was three stories tall, with escalators that you pushed your shopping cart on.

The acrobatic show was great. It started with a guy stacking about 10 chairs a good 20 feet high. He of course did a bunch of amazing balancing feats up there. It was very scary to watch. One of the middle acts was a group juggling straw hats while doing crazy acrobatics. It was great. The final act consisted of 8 motorcycles spinning in a steel ball. We still don't know how they did it.

Our great group!

The emperor's garden in the Forbidden City

This photo needs no description!!!

Lunch

Love from Beijing!

PS less than 48hr and we will have a daughter!!!

An amazing day!

Hi again! What a day today has been. Amazing!! 1st stop today was to a cloisonne factory. They showed us how they make this beautiful art. It takes many days to lay the small copper pieces on to the vase or plate, then 7 layers of paint to color it and then buffers to finish the art. Just crazy that it takes so long to make one piece and it is all done by hand.

Next stop, THE GREAT WALL!!!!! OMG, words cannot express the greatness of this wall. We climbed a section of it and one would think that this should be easy... ummmmm nooooo!!! The steps were very uneven in size and very steep. It was amazing how many friends you meet at the Great Wall while you are suffering to climb all those steps. Coming down was just as hard. Holy smokes! I am so not a heights person so this was very overwhelming. Jeffrey, Michael, Jeff and Charica all made it to the top. Brandi, Maddox, and I made it about half way.

Third stop was to a Jade factory and lunch. Jade is a big industry here and it is also a great craft that takes a lot of patience to make.

Last stop was the Olympic village. What a huge space this is. It must have been one awesome Olympics down there. We walked past the Birds nest, the Water cube, and where the main Olympic torch was lit. By the end of this stop we are all so dang pooped and ready to get back to the hotel.

Tomorrow is The Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and then a Chinese acrobatic show in the evening.

Nighty-Night to us and Good Morning to you!



It was a long way to the top!!

Ni Hao!

Ni Hao! First official day in China! Today we went to the Summer Palace and it was beautiful. Amazing that this was the summer residence of one emperor. The Summer Palace is about a 30 minute drive with traffic. Traffic... OMG, I am not doing well in the car. It is truly amazing that cars, bikes, motor bikes, rickshaws, and pedestrians share the same space!!! We have dodged so many cars and people for a million lifetimes and we are only in day one. The weather is beautiful - warm and mid 80's. After the Summer Palace we went to a pearl shop. Natural water pearl business is very big here. Then it was off to lunch at a real Chinese restaurant. The food was good and we had to learn quickly how to use chop sticks or we wouldn't eat. Jeffrey did eat and agreed it was good. : )

We met our Bethany travel group - 2 families and they are so much fun and easy going. Michael and Brandi are here adopting a 5 yr old little boy and they brought along their 5 yr old son Maddox. Their new son will be their 5th child. Jeff and Charica are adopting their 1st son and he is 2yrs old. Jeff, Michael and Jeffrey are all in the auto industry - we all found this a bit weird. Ha!

After we arrived back at our hotel we ventured off to see what was out there in the great big Beijing (or just within walking distance). Amazing how many shops and restaurants there are on each block. The shops are extremely small. We found a grocery store and took a look-see inside to see what Chinese items were sold and what american items we could find. What an adventure.

Any who, we are going to rest and then grab dinner but after it is off to bed. Crazy what a 12 hour time difference can do to you.

Written with a wet broom on the cement.

At the Summer Palace

Our group at lunch

xoxo from China!


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Well we made it to Beijing

Holy smokes, what a day it was to get here. Delayed flights, crappy sleep on air planes but we are here. We got to the hotel around 12:30am Beijing time. It took us 10 mins to figure out the lights in the hotel room but once we got that down we were off to bed for a nap. It was finally nice to sleep laying down. We've had "breakfast" and now we're off to the Summer Palace. Just the one stop today so we can get acclimated to the time change. We will have our guide, Tom, with us until we leave for Jinan on Sunday. Quite a boring post but we wanted to just give an update that we did indeed make it to China. : )


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And we're off!!!!

Today is the big day!!! We are so very excited! It's going to be a very long day but we think we are ready. We will post each day with our day's adventures. Please continue to pray for us that this entire trip will go very smooth, that Megan will bond with us quickly and that the boys are not overwhelmed at home. Much more to come!!!

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