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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Travel Dates Confirmed!!!!

Yep, that's right - we are really going to China!  ; )  Megan will be home June 26!!!  We are so very excited!!  No more waiting on official documents and approvals - our plane tickets have been purchased!!!!

Travel Invitation Received!!

Finally!  Today we received the official Travel Invitation from China!  This means Bethany Christian can now put in for our US Consulate appointment.  Once we have that, we book some flights!!  YAY!  SO CLOSE NOW!!

The birth of our girl's blog...

May she know her parents are not creative to make this blog look great but one thing she will know is that we love her to the moon and back!!!!