Great Wall, Lunch and Squatty Potty

Saturday Night in China 6:pm

1. Jet leg has hit us hard today. We came back to our room today after a full day of touring and I went to straight to our "board" bed. It was only 5 p.m., but we had been up since 3:30 a.m. and had been out in the heat and walking and we were tired.

2. Cloisonne Factory. "Herbie" our guide there kept talking "Herbie is moving" "Here goes Herbie" all in third person, it was rather funny.

3. Great Wall of China. Beautiful. Hot. The steps are sometimes as steep as putting your knee to your waist and constant, it was way more of a workout then I would have guessed. The heat and sun combined with the exercise made me hand over the camera and bottled water to Kory and send him up the wall on his own. I was disappointed to not climb much more, but the heat made it feel unbearable. I wandered back down and people watched. Saw my first baby here wearing split pants. Had a great conversation with a man who is here on tour with us as the grandpa of a family adopting a little boy. Kory finally made his appearance and was so hot from his trip up the wall. He told me he almost lost his lunch when he walked near a squatty potty up on the wall. (He is not the type to gag easy either...) He made himself walk in to take pictures for all of you curious people at home. Stay tuned for that.....

4. After the Wall, we went out for a wonderful lunch as a group. It was a meal where we were seated around a table and there was a glass lazy susan that they loaded with food and we all had our choice of what to eat. It was so difficult to choose, it was all yummy. I had rice and a hot and spicy chicken, dumplings and other dishes.

5. After lunch, we did a bit of shopping. I don't really like to shop here in China. For instance, we were looking at Jade jewelry. The girl followed us all over and said, "you like? which one you want to try?" and made me feel like I couldn't even think. Kory ended up negotiating the price on a jade bracelet and we blasted out of there.

6. We saw the Birds Nest and the Water Cube from the Olympics.

7. Traffic is so awful here in Beijing. we were on the bus such a long time and it is a stop and go traffic jam the entire ride.(Over an hour today one way!)

8. We bough a nice piece of art for Hattie's room today. A painting of a Panda in soft colors that we thought would be fun for her room.

9. Ahh, back to bed for me. More later.

Date Night in China

Last night, we decided we had had enough of trail mix and headed down to the lobby of the hotel for dinner. What an experience. We had to point to a table to be seated, then once we were a female hostess came over and slowly spread a cloth napkin across our laps. She then gave us each menus and hovered right there as we tried to decide what to order. I wanted to play a little game with you the readers to see if you could guess which dinner was Kory's and which was mine but here in China we are only able to email our posts and our pictures, we can't view our blog. (One family in our travel group has some special software that makes it seem like they are blogging from England when in fact, they are here in China)

Anyway, dinner. I haven't had much appetite yet, so I settled for Chinese Won-Ton Noodle Soup for 68 yuans (about 10 US dollars). I ordered, no problem. Kory though decided he needs a burger and fries. He had to work so hard to find out what kind of cheese options they offered. By the time he had explained over and over with hand gestures about cheese, we had four different girls around our table trying to figure out what he wanted. They tried to explain that he could have cheese, fried egg or bacon on his hamburger when all he wondered is what types of cheese were available. He finally just said yes and they took his order. He also ordered a chocolate milk shake. When the girl brought it out, she was giggling. We weren't sure why, but we smiled and went along. His milk shake was all fancy in a glass on a plate with a spiral pink straw. I ordered (boring, I know!) water no ice, and it came out with ice and all wrapped in a special napkin. I chose not to drink it due to the ice.

While we waited for our food the girls hovered right near us which was kind of strange to us but they were waiting to help us if we needed anything. Our table had a vase with beautiful fish swimming around inside, there was live piano music and it was just very nice. When my dinner came out is was gorgeous. It was delicious, too. Kory's burger DID come out with cheese on it and also piles lettuce. Very nice presentation. We had a really nice dinner and would go back down there again anytime.

Ok, a few misc. things to tell you. The reason China wants us to bring fresh uncirculated money is that they want to be able to circulate it a long time within China.

Also, one sight that I can't get over is seeing babies on the back of rigged up mopeds with no helmets on, just being held as the driver goes about his business. Yesterday, on our walk we saw a baby on a moped who was only like three months old, just a weird sight for us. No wonder car seats are not required around here.

When we left the acrobatic show last night and our guide said, Ok, now we need to the "cross the road" it was so funny to hear people in our group chorus "Oh, boy." You would have thought she was asking us to now sky dive. It truly is a bit crazy with the traffic. Lots of horns honking, people don't move for ambulances or police with flashing lights on, buses almost sideswipe at times as they go by, people ride in random fashion all over.

Well, we woke up at 3:30 this morning. Maybe, in a few more days we will be sleeping through the night? Well, that will depend on how Hattie sleeps. We will be receiving her in just two days, wow!

Today, we will go down for breakfast. Then we leave for the Great Wall at 8 am. It should be a full day, we are eating lunch out with our guide and should not be back to our hotel until after 5.

Thanks for the emails and all the prayers, we appreciate it!

Hayden and Culley, We love you and hope you are having fun with Graceful. We are looking forward to seeing the Panda Bears and will tell them you boys said Hello.

Acrobatic Show

Good Evening From China,

We are adjusting to our new hotel life in Beijing. We had a wonderful breakfast this morning and met some nice families who are in our travel group. Breakfast DID have decent coffee, juice and we went to the Omelette Station for our breakfast. It was quite good. I also had to try Dim Sum, and that was yummy as well. Kory stuck to his Omelette, granola with yogurt, toast and hash browns. Which sounds like a lot, but that was the only real meal of the day. Our guide told us to stick with eating in the hotel or fast food right now. So, a big breakfast really has been it for the day. We brought almonds and peanuts and granola bars from home, but I can see that we will tire of that quickly!

We had our meeting this morning to go over details. That was heart wrenching as one couple had a child with them for two days and decided that the child had some serious health issues. The were able to (withsadness) ask to be matched with another child(that is the short version of a complicated process) and now have a child they feel they are prepared to parent. I had such empathy for the roller coaster they must have been on and the grieving they were going through but also great respect that they knew what they were capable of handling and despite their sadness and loss they spoke up and all is well. Please understand, China wanted to set them up with a child that they were comfortable with and did so, it was not an intentional thing.

We were told to act more Chinese while here, meaning don't worry about personal space, just dive in and claim your space. Traffic laws are only suggestions, so be aware when crossing the street. We also were told to be aware that our children will be angry, crying, sad, biting, running to the door, all things that are sad for them and us, but if we show great love and kindness to them and expect nothing back they will begin to bond with us in a few days. To many this process seems exciting (and it is) but it truly is also full of great emotion. Sadness for the babies and the loss of the only culture and life they have known and sadness for us to not be with our kids at home. It is just lots of emotions.

Now, on to more fluff stuff! We went to the bank as a group to exchange money. That was really quite funny. Imagine(we will just say 10) families all in line at the bank, all frantically counting hundred dollar bills and comparing notes on where we "found" our hundreds. We all wanted to take pictures and as one guy in our group said, "this picture would be of 50 thousand dollars;)" but none of us felt like picture taking would be appropriate. There were guards all around and we each had to take a number to sit down and exchange the money. It was amazing to see how they checked out each bill in many ways and many times to make sure they were getting the real deal. We had a neighbor who helped us connect with a bank who ordered all brand new uncirculated bills from the Federal Reserve. we had to go pick them up at the bank at home on the day they arrived. Who knew you could order money just like you would order shirts from L.L. Bean? Anyway, after the man checked all the bills and was stooped right over them- he held up a paper that had the exchange rate and asked if that was correct. I agreed and then he began gathering Chinese Money for me and made a copy of my passport. Kory had been sitting by me at the next desk exchanging money as well. (We had a limit per person that they would allow families to exchange at a time and for some reason I had the bigger stack) When we were done, I seriously felt like a bank robber loading my Baggallini bag with packs of bills. So weird!!! I mean we just don't deal with physical amounts of dollars like that at home.

We went out for a walk and then tried to take cat naps before the Acrobatic Show. That was interesting. All we could think of was Hayden would love each costume for his dress up bin and they were AMAZING! Culley, meanwhile would have learned some new moves to try on his bike. Like, oh, how about riding really fast before deciding it would be more fun to balance on the handle bars. Or how about 12 people on a bike at a time? We need Culley to learn how to ride his bike in the garage at a slower pace and use his brakes to stop to park. His current method, is peddle as fast as possible on full speed and drive into a bin of toys that stops him.

Ok, last. The Grocery Store. I don't know what to say, except colorful, exotic and well. see for yourself, in the pictures. I loved the formula for babies called "Pro Kiddo"

Have a nice day in TC and elsewhere. We are winding down for bed. The we have the Great Wall tomorrow. We will also be seeing some of the Olympic sights, like the Birds Nest.

Good Night. Hayden and Culley......We miss you! It sounds like you are having fun and being good!!!

Good Morning From China!

Here are a few more pictures for those of you who love the details. This is the view from our room in the hotel, 6:45am. Note those "plate" type things on the top of the building.

The other photo is a picture of our room key in the power slot. I had heard of this before we came. You need to put your key in the slot in order to access power for the room. It has been quite interesting to watch Kory try and figure out how to turn on and off lights. Our nightstand has a row of buttons on it to turn on various lights, there are more buttons on the wall to push to turn the bathroom light on and the closet light goes off as long as your door is shut.

We are off to have our first breakfast in China. Have a good sleep back at home. (especially Culley and Hayden! Please be good sleepers for Uncle Mck and Aunt K!!)

I am craving a good strong cup of coffee. I wonder! If all else fails, I made sure to pack the packets of Starbucks Via and a travel mug:)

First Night

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for the emails!

We should be sleeping but instead are awake. We went to bed 8pm but woke up at 2. Kory is studying the Beijing map while I hand washed our travel clothing and wrote a letter to the kids.(I thought they may like getting real mail.

We are drinking Jasmine tea (Abby, you would love the tea!!) and thinking we should get back to our board, I mean bed. It isn't too bad but it truly is a BOARD with bedding on it.

We wanted to share a few more photos with you.

Some of our hotel and our walk to the grocery store as well as a picture of our 3 a.m. tea time. The grocery store will be fun to go back to when we aren't so tired. We were so exhausted we couldn't even really enjoy ourselves. But we figured a good walk after our LONG day of travel would be good for us. It is very hot and muggy here. When we were walking to the store, we ended up in the midst of a group of men who were running. They were all in green and we weren't sure what/ who they were. On the walk back we discovered they were training to be firemen. They were out doing practice drills and such.

The grocery store was interesting. Big open bins of rice and lots of interesting fruits. The meat section was really intriguing but no way would I eat anything! Kory's eyes landed on Oreo Cookies. I thought I should stock up on boxes of kleenex for Hayden's class. They always need supplies like that and the kids would get a kick out of the characters on the box!

It is Friday and we should go back to bed. Breakfast is from 6-10a.m. I think we will head down early and then be ready for our 9:30 am meeting. Then we will exchange our money and head out for the acrobatic show.

Sorry, for any grammar issues, sleep deprivation!!

One Long Day

We have just arrived to our hotel and it is 6:15 p.m in China On August 26th. You guys back at home may be just getting up for the day. We had a rough goodbye with the kids, they were really sad and that made it hard for us to leave. But we called a few times yesterday to check on them and they were having fun and doing great. One of our favorite parts of the day was leaving to a sign our neighbors had made for us-see the picture.

Kory and I had an easy flight from TC to Chicago. We left Chicago at 12 noon for our long flight. It was a smooth flight and we enjoyed ourselves reading and relaxing, which was a big treat after the rush of the past months since the referral. All was well, until 9 p.m. for me then I was just tired and hungry and craving an Olive Burger from Sledders and the Jelly Belly's that had been packed in my checked luggage:) I had had enough of almonds and mini luna bars and water.
Soon after I was hungry, the airline served us our snack of Chinese Noodle Soup with chopsticks. Kory says his worst time was 11 p.m. when he couldn't get comfortable and was so tired. But we managed to survive by giving nicknames to the passengers around us ( Mr. Mount Rushmore, as he was like a chiseled statue at he end of our aisle, never moving) and the best was Mr. Juice Bag. (a very nice guy we are sure, but he was snoring in such a way that all we could think of was the sound the kids make when they suck out the last drops from a juice box/bag).

Anyway, you know you are overly tired when you find great humor in the dumbest things!

Once, we got off the plane we thought we were on easy street. Ha, no way, we had about an hour in line to go through customs, of course under the foreigner line. It was super hot and the lines moved slow, but we made it through there and thought, now we are good to go. Nope, next was grabbing our luggage(we each checked a suitcase and carried one bag on the plane) which was easy. Then we made it through the packed crowd who held signs waiting for the people they were to pick up. Flowers everywhere, signs all over, tons of people. We finally found Joy holding the Bethany sign and then had to wait for our driver. He came in to get us and she stayed to wait for more families. I knew from reading to just be assertive and not too "American" about mulling over who should walk first or whatever, I just plowed on behind the driver who was wheeling my suitcase. But Kory got stuck in a human traffic jam and I had to tell the driver to wait. We then had an hour ride in his car to our hotel. We are here and we wanted to write a quick post to tell everyone hello. Pictures will be added a bit later, we are going to venture out of our hotel to a bright yellow grocery store (those were our directions! ) for bottled water before heading to bed. We are tired!

Hayden and Culley, are you guys having fun and being good? We are glad you could be home and have fun with family, this day would have ben very hard for you to enjoy! We love you

One more day at home

We have one more full day at home before leaving for China. It is still so hard to believe we are going after such a long wait.

Today, the kids and I went to a park and played. We had a few friends over this afternoon and ended up with our coffee cups in Hattie's room. It was nice to chat and slow down from the crazy pace.

We also finally got our renewed I171-H form and not by mail but by email. Now, all the loose ends are wrapped up.

Hattie's room is pretty much put together although one of her brothers has been spending lots of time in there wrapping up her baby doll in a blanket and reading her books and cooking up a storm in her play kitchen, so at times her room looks like a train wreck:) I am posting pictures of her room though as many of you have asked for a peek.

It is hard to explain how we feel, mostly just tired and ready to get going. We have researched and prepared and shopped with careful thought for baby clothing and clothing for us and for medicine and travel bags and just everything, to the point that we are just ready to go. We have left a binder of notes for our family and friends who will be helping with the kids, we dropped our dog off to be watched while we are gone, we have made more meals for the freezer and have wrapped a few things for the kids to open while we are away.

Tomorrow, we plan to take the kids to Moomers for ice-cream and just enjoy our time together.

Keep reading! Things are about to get much more interesting. Thanks again for so many kind offers of help and for your prayers and for your wishes for safe trip and such. It really does mean a lot. From our reading, we know we are about to go on a grand adventure.

A week from today we will have our Hattie Day. For those who aren't aware in adoption it is often called "Gotcha Day" when families receive their child. We personally, don't like that term. It sounds so unplanned and random and to me , it sounds like we are snatching her from something. We will call it Hattie Day. This has been a very lengthy process and one that has evolved since we began back in Fall of 2006. We want to celebrate Hattie and welcome her into our family with respect to her country and her culture and her foster family. We will try and gently transition her to us rather then "snatch"

We may post once more before we leave, but if not the next post will be from China! And you all are such silent readers, start leaving your comments!!!!!!!