Happy New Year

I just got this year's New Year's Eve party photo from my friend. Rewind to last year - Chicka's first New Year's Eve with us, fast forward to Zabi's first New Year's Eve with us. Hmmm. Wonder what we will be doing New Year's Eve of 2010?



Hard to believe, but true! 2010 - gosh that is weird to write!

MissE is going to a friend's party and spending the night, IBoy is going to some friend's church lock-in party, Dad is at work and that leaves the girlies and myself to sleep the night blissfully away. NOT! Nights are not a special time around here. In fact, they are downright dreadful. It seems like one of the girls is always fussing or wide awake OR I can't go to sleep! I have put a bed on the floor for the 3 of us tonight to see if any of us will get more sleep. Please?????'

Spinning Sisters

HOME!!!!!

Merry Christmas to all!!!!!

Thanks to our Lord, Jesus Christ, and to all of you, my friends, for keeping us in your prayers before, during and after our journey to
bring our daughter home from China. We are home, safe and sound, and loving every moment of our new life together!

The transition for all of us has been amazingly smooth so far. The girls are playing together nicely with very few bumps in the road. No surprise, our first outing last night, we got the question. "Are they twins?" No doubt we will be hearing it frequently, even though they don't look alike at all!

Sorry for the rotten photos - somehow the camera got set to a manual focus without me knowing it and I was happily snapping away, unaware that it was so fuzzy!

Last Day in China

Wow- it is really hard to believe that our time in China has come to
an end. This time has been SO different from when we were here last
year. Not only are the girls' personalities very different, adopting
a 27 month old, severely traumatized baby is a world apart from
adopting a 4 1/2 year old, well adjusted young girl. It is really
hard to compare the experiences - they are both harder and easier in
very different ways. Zabi has adjusted amazingly well to us so far.
For the most part, she is an easy going, delight to be around. A
real giggler, too!

Michelle and Tam took us to Baiyun Mountain - White Cloud Mountain -
is how it translates. The hightest peak in Guangzhou and from the
top, on a clear day, you have a 360 degree view of the city. We
didn't make it all the way to the top and it wasn't clear, but it was
beautiful. It was Christmas Eve Day here, and there was an
elementary school on holiday there, complete with Santa!

On our way home, we strolled through a local market - scorpians
anyone?????

A travel group family joined us for dinner for a delicious hot pot
meal to round out our day. Our bags are packed and ready to be
picked up at 6:15 AM, we leave for the airport at 6:45 for a LONG
journey home.

Thanks to all of you for your encouragement, prayers, blessings and
friendship along this beautiful journey. We wish you a Merry
Christmas and hope to keep you informed on our family life with 2
teens and 2 four year olds. Could be busy!!!!!

Last Day

Quick post - we are headed to the mountain for sightseeing early this
morning.

See the shape at the very top center of the photo of the city? That
is a person, again with no safety harness!!!!!

Photos of last night's dinner - and no, we didn't eat those snakes!
I don't think, anyway!

Wednesday, December 23

We had our oath taking ceremony yesterday - Zabi's visa is being
delivered today - we are ALL DONE!!!!!! Under the new Hague
regulations, even though hubby didn't travel with us, the adoption is
complete and final here in China!

The majority of the city is undergoing a major facelift to get ready
for the Asian Games in October 2010. Shamian Island is no
exception. There is scaffolding and netting EVERYWHERE. It is
sometimes difficult to breath for all the dust in the air. This is
the view out our room window. These photos are of the workers
dismantling the scaffolding and handing it down the side of the
building, piece by piece. No, the workers are not wearing any safety
harnesses at all, we are on the 5th floor!!!!!

We found the local Catholic Church and wanted to find out what time
Mass was going to be on Christmas Eve. I finally found a helpful
girl who spoke great English who was part of an art class. They had
an outdoor assignment to sketch some buildings and she was able to
ask around and find out when Mass is for us.

With the warm and sunny weather (in the low 70's), the wedding
couples were out in full force having their photographs taken. I
couldn't resist the fluffy pink dress hiked up so it wouldn't get the
hem dirty!

A group of school children were out practicing for a parade (I
think!) and flag raising. They were having a great time.

The boat in the water - I think they were cleaning the river. They
had some sort of pump vacuum in a net and were sucking up garbage and
putting it in the boat.

More of Monday

Spurting mosquito medicament. Hmmmmm. I kept saying when we checked
into the Victory that it smelled like bug spray and sure enough, the
next day this sign appeared next to the elevator doors!

We had the pleasure of dining with a group of awesome adoptive
families at the Cow and Bridge last night. Please forgive any
misspellings or accidental omission of names - The Kambergers, Linny
Saunders & daughters, The Belks, Victor & Carina & son and a family
from Texas - he is a pediatrican - and their family. We occupied two
of the very large round tables and had a blast visiting and eating
great food. A couple of the families had already left when we took
the pictures of the kids outside :-(

I had a little scare yesterday, actually two of them. We were
filling out the last of the paperwork and a copy of both parent's
passports is required. Fine for mine, but somehow ALL of my copies
of both mine and DH were taken in Nanchang, where they were also
needed. Fortunately, Nanchang was able to fax a copy down to us with
only a little inconvenience. We wouldn't have been able to move
further ahead with getting Zabi's visa with out it!

Then I had to call to confirm our flights. Uh - oh - "no, you are
not listed on these flights". WHAT????????" They had to "research"
the problem and call me back. Yes, we are coming home!

8 AM here now and IBoy/Zabi are snoring still. Nice to be able to
let them sleep in for once!

Zoo

We were able to visit the zoo yesterday for a bit. We then walked
around the island and saw more wedding and model photo shoots. Our
friend, Michelle, took us shopping at the pearl and jade market, then
to dinner at her apartment. The photo of food being cooked - it
looks like english muffins with eggs in the background? That is a
hamburger! It is an egg cooked inside a flour muffin - pretty good
to eat - like an egg mcmuffin, but kind of greasy! The guy holding
the metal door - that is someone closing up their shop for the day.
A metal "garage door comes down, then metal folding grating with a
door in it goes on - all locked up for the night!

The photo with the group of us at night is the front door of
Michelle, Tam and baby Howie, then the photos of the food are in
their apartment.