Zhengzhou day 4

This morning, Sunday, March 17 we flew to the city of zhengzhou. It is the capital city of Henan. We said goodbye to our one guide, George, and David took us through the airport, checked in all the families, and then said goodbye to us at security. Ccai rocks and their guides are worth every penny. We literally just get dressed in the morning and then show up. It's wonderful to not have to worry about a single thing while traveling. The flight was easy - a mere hour. We met or new guides, Yisha and Rita. Both women are incredible sweet and I can already tell that they are masters at their job. In fact Yisha's
Room is directly across from ours, so if we need anything, she is just a few feet away. The city is beautiful.....again, very big, with lots of skyscrapers..this time the city feels a lot like Chicago to me whereas Beijing felt like New York but much bigger (IMO) . Once on the bus and after Inteoductipns, we received an official date on our son. This was the longest update that we have had to date. It literally is packed with specific information to help us prepare for our first meeting, we were told what formula he likes ( Scientic ) , he prefers water with chrysanthemum powder ( this is similar to like the crystal lite packages you add to water back in the states), the foods he likes, the food he hates, ( Meat----sounds just like khaki and Finley) loves fruit, hates juice, drinks two bottles a day, his nap schedule, when he wakes, when he sleeps, how he likes to be comforted, who is friends are in the orphanage, his nickname, and so many other details. It
Is so comforting to have this going into tomorrow, so that we are prepared. Now, this all might fly out the window tomorrow, but at least we have enough information there for a good starting point. Once settled in to our beautiful hotel, the crowne plaza, Jordan and all the men went with Yisha's to exchange money. Afterwards we headed to the 3 story Walmart that is located just a short distance away. Again, people were quite enamored with us and after tomorrow, they will be even more curious when they see all these white people with chinese babies. The sidewalks here are not just for pedestrians, but for scooters and electronic bicycles as well, so you better watch out. Carseats are non existent and therefore babies are strapped to the bicycles to tote around or you will see babies in the front seats of cArs just being held. It's crazy. I'll have to take a picture so that y'all can see it. Anyways, I digress, we ventured to Walmart with our guide Rita and she helped every family gather the correct formula and then let us get other items. There was some pretty interesting things there in the store.... Nothing really was all that different except for the entire food floor..which deserves an entire post by itself, but I just chose to look straight ahead and not look. My nose was good enough to know that it was something freaky. We walked back to the hotel , dropped our stuff in the room, and wait------ while we were gone, room service put a CRIB in our room. !!!! After my short tearful sigh , we headed to the restaurant down in the hotel and had a delicious Italian meal. Then up to the room to charge cameras, lay out Rex's things, and get the gifts ready for the nannies. Jordan is already asleep as he is really tired tonight. I tried logging into our church service back home but couldn't get it to work correctly. So now , I am just left with my thoughts about tomorrow.

You know, I have had the privilege of birthing my two beautiful girls and tomorrow I gain a son who is not of me, but is so rooted deep within my heart, I can hardly contain the love I already have for him, In fact, I have had three babies , 3 different ways, Finley was delivered, Khaki was lifted up, and Rex will be received. My eyes are so ready to see him, my arms are so ready to scoop him up, my heart is so ready to pour out the love that has been stored up for 14 months, my voice is ready to comfort and console, my hands are ready to nurture , my lap is ready to be used as a playground, my feet are ready to serve him and my soul is ready to love him forever because tomorrow he will be mine.....his third mama .....his forever mama. Rex is leaving the only life he has ever known tomorrow morning. We will look and smell different to him , we will not be able to speak his language , nor will we know what he is thinking. Our prayer is that he will learn to trust us, be secure in our love for him, know that we will meet every physical need he has, and allow us to comfort him. It will not happen Instantly...it will take time. The first few days may be rough....really rough..... And so we just ask that you continue to pray for us. We have no expectations about his response to us --- we are just going there with our arms wide open and ready for whatever happens. I know I keep saying it, but thank you thank you for the emails, comments, and prayers. We are so encouraged by your words. Night y'all.

Day 3 recap

We woke up fairly early and headed out for a very long day of sightseeing and tours. Our first adventure was to take a rickshaw ride through OLD Beijing and experience how the majority of Beijingers live. This is called the Gutong tour which means " alley " in Chinese. The rickshaw allows for easy access through the narrow passage ways Among the houses. While traveling our guide spoke of just how expensive it is to Iive in the city and how valuable it is for a family to have a house rather than an apartment. The average family in China makes $1000 US dollars / month, to live in a 950 square foot apartment in the city costs 1 million dollars . Yes, you read that correctly. However , a home costs about 3 million US dollars. What we found interesting is that a home consists of a central courtyard with four bigger sections branching off from it. The house is shared with multiple family members and the largest section of the house is reserved for the person who makes all the decisions which is usually the patriarch of the family. The house that we visited was occupied an elderly lady ( her husband had passed on ) , her daughter and son in law. The courtyard was visibly full of " mess" but very clean. In fact while we were arriving the daughter was sweeping up the dirt and dust from the fall out. I noticed two guitars in the corner and was interested to see that this sweet lady owned a piano that was located in the main family room. Music is definitely part of their family. She told us that the house had belonged to her grandfather and that they received it from him. She was a retired physics teacher and her son in law was a very experienced artist. The artwork in this house was beautiful and I got a really cool picture of all of his brushes and ink wells. She was a gracious host and allowed all of us to explore her home. It really gave Jordan and I a better perspective on how the Chinese people live and very eye opening. Jordan and I also got a.very good laugh at seeing how the rickshaws were parked because every one of them was BACKED IN ( cue lance and grant ). We took a picture to document that even the Chinese like to have a head start on pulling out of their parking space. My brothers are probably laughing right now since they always give Jordan a hard time about backing in his Tundra. every time.

After the rickshaw tour we headed to the silk factory which was probably my favorite thing we did yesterday. The Chinese silks were amazing and we got to learn all about how the silk worms make the threads of silk, how they are spun through the machine, and then got to see women use that silk to make comforters for beds. I bought one and I am so excited to get it home on our bed. It is going to be a great reminder of our time in Beijing.


Raquel and Alissa have been curious abut the food. Actually girls, it is really delicious. It is very similar to our Chinese food back home. They do present it differently -- like the sweet and sour chicken comes tossed already in the sauce and is surrounded by fresh vegetables. There is a difference when serving fish, bc they serve the head on the platter. I will take a picture of the food and will upload it so y'all can see. After lunch we headed to Tinneman square and that started off being very entertaining. We ( the 26 Americans) were quite a sight. Jordan and I were stopped and asked to pose with a lady and we obliged. So many of them were taken with our group and many many people were stopping to take pictures of us. It was pretty comical to watch, One guy in our group caused quite a bit of stir because of his blonde hair.

Tinneman square and the Forbidden City what to say about this monstrosity of a palace. It was cool for the first 30 minutes, but by the second courtyard but I was pretty tired of it. Sorry history buffs, but it really was the same thing over and over. Basically this is what I took away : the forbidden city has 9,999 1/2 rooms ( there's a story there , you can google it ) , it housed 4 emperors, and 3000 concubines. The emperor slept in a different room each night and could choose which lady he wanted to accompany him. There---- that is the Paige recap . Of course, we had to take a whole 2.5 hrs to walk through the entire thing. We did see the use of split pants while here and that was pretty interesting. For those of you who aren't familiar with china child rearing trends, the babies here wear split pants where there is littérally a split in the pants and a bare bottom is exposed for the child to pee/poop on the street or wherever they want, so we saw lots of babies just using the bathroom wherever they wanted. I also would like to say that the babies here are bundled up like you wouldn't believe and it really gives everyone in the group some insight to the pictures that we hAve of our children. The weather yesterday was chilly but not blistering cold. I had on a jacket, sweater, jeans, and uggs. You would think that these babies were in a blizzard. They had on puffy snow suits, hats, mittens, and snow boots. The ones who could walk were in split pants, puffer jackets, snow shoes, and hats. Very interesting,

After the many miles of walking the forbidden city we All went to an acrobatic show. I thought it was really entertaining and unique And a good way to end our day. We got back to the hotel about 7 and went straight to bed. We were pretty exhausted and had to be up early to fly out of Beijing to Zhengzhou which is the Capitol city of Henan ( Rex's province ).

Day 2: The Great Wall : mark it off the list !

Day 2

We got a great night sleep last night thanks to our trusty friends Malatonin and No Jet Lag pills. We had breakfast in our hotel and then met ALL the families in our travel group. There are 8 families total and 10 children who will have forever families. (2 of the families are adopting TWO children at once). We loaded up and made the 1 hr 10 minute drive to the Wall all the while listening to our guide tell us facts about China, the city, and of course the history of the wall. The weather here today is chilly for us Floridans but not freezing. We chose the harder section of our two choices and ugh, it was hard. Jordan and I made it a fairly decent ways before we had to turn back to meet up at the bus. The stairs were extremely steep and some had even caved in from being trampled on for so many years. We climbed the section that was built by the Ming dynasty-- the section was 600 years old. The whole time Jordan was asking me ," are you alright?" Ha! I guess he thought I was struggling by my frequent rests, but it wasn't too bad. Jordan compared the steepness to a double black diamond which by the way I have never been on. I guarantee you thought that I enjoyed being on land doing this than on two skiis. We were pretty much left to go at our own pace and it was a lot of fun to do it together. After the climb, our guide told us that the Chinese believe that you aren't
A hero until you climb the wall, so I guess we are heroes now. The next stop was the jade factory- very interesting and very pretty, but we didn't buy a single piece. Then we went and had lunch and let's just say it was AMAZING. We ate family style with all 19 of us. It was so delicious and it was nice to have coversation with the other families and hear their " adoption stories". On our way home from the hotel we made a quick trip past Olympic village where we saw the water cube, birds nest, and the village where all the athletes lived during the games. It was a really fantastic first day, we got back to the hotel about 30 minutes ago. Jordan made a quick run to the Wumart for some water and diet coke. We are looking forward to our nap and then heading back out for dinner. Only 3 more wake ups until we get Rex. Thanks so much for all the prayers and comments. We really appreciate our family and friends supporting us even from 6000 miles away, love y'all

And so it begins

Day 1 : Travel Day
Our luggage : 3 big bags / 2 backpacks /1 bag for orphanage donations and snacks and 2 carry ons.

I tried really hard to do things for the girls to help them not miss us. I made a Chinese lantern countdown, a calendar with tidbits of information so they know what we are doing each day, made a basket of "happies" to open every few days with dollar store and target treats and surprises, wrote them a note for each day we are gone , and went to the library and picked out a dozen books having I do with Chinese culture. Finley assures me that she is not going to miss us because she is going to be having fun with all her grandparents.


We left our house at 3:45 am. Karen was gracious enough to take us to the airport while my mom stayed at home with the girls. Jordan and I both needed one more snuggle from Finley and Khaki and were so glad we got one extra kiss from them both. We flew to Dallas with no complications and I was able to sleep a little bit. We got a quick bite to eat and now we are just waiting to board our next plane which will take us to Seoul , Korea. I have to say that I am already Intrigued by our fellow passengers. Most are of Asian descent and I have already caught myself staring at precious babies. I also find the stewardesses to be so beautifully elegant. Their hair is tied back and Intricatly braided or done up in a bun. They place chopsticks in the center of their design. We are downloading books on our iPads now and Jordan has already had me laughing this morning We are off to a great start. Next little bit will be from Seoul, Korea

We made it to Seoul. We loved our airline , Korean Air; fabulous service. But we are very tired. We now have been up for 24 hours and we are very much in need of a nice hotel . We are about to board the plane to Beijing.

We are finally to our hotel and we are about to hit the hay. We met our guide George outside of customs and met up with two other families both of which are part of my Facebook adoption group. The city is very smoggy and huge. We face timed the girls just now. All is well on the home front. It's been a very long day. Night y'all

TRAVEL APPROVAL

On Wednesday, FEBRUARY 27, 2013 @ 3:36 PM we received an email that we had been anticipating for MANY days. WE GOT TRAVEL APPROVAL! This allows us permission to come and get REX! Our agency requested our Consulate Approval based on the premise that we told them that we wanted to leave as soon as possible. We got an email the following morning that our Consulate Appointment is set for March 27, 2013 and therefore, we will be leaving March 13 to begin our journey to bringing Rex home. GOTCHA DAY is March 18!!! And yes, I just started crying as I typed those words out....aghh, GOTCHA day...what a beautiful sound, right!?  I have already packed REX..In fact, Rex has been packed for a long time. HA! I am sure that I will add some things at the last minute, but he is pretty much done.  This week I will finish cleaning the house and preparing for the girls to be without their mama and daddy for 17 days.

To my sweet baby boy, Rex
   Your daddy and I have fallen in love with you from afar. We have stared at your picture a million hours. We have studied your features..we have memorized every update we have received. We can't wait to feel you in our arms and to stroke that sweet head of yours. We promise to love you every day of your life. We can't wait to introduce you to your family..and boy, you have a large one. You have 3 uncles, 3 aunts, 2 sets of grandparents, 2 beautiful big sisters, you have 10 first cousins, you have great aunts and uncles, and second cousins...you have two great grandmothers that are still living, great uncles, great aunts and ALL are so excited to LOVE you and to watch you grow. You have a family waiting for you, my sweet boy, and we can't wait till March 18th.....you will have a FOREVER FAMILY. oh my sweet boy....we are coming! Hold tight...it won't be long now.
Love your forever mama and daddy

A little update

We got an official update on Rex today. It was so awesome to hear some personal details. He has 14 teeth, can run, walk, climb stairs. Outgoing, loves to eat congee and steamed dumplings. I can't write his  nickname in pinyin, but it means "baby of the family", so he obviously has taken to the nannies at his orphanage. I think that we end up calling him by his nickname for a while to help him acclimate to his new American name. He is 27.5 pounds, and about 30 inches tall. He is so precious and I really can't wait to get my hands on him. !!!!

His room

I have been busy moving the girls around and cleaning out closets.  I have taken a gazillion trips to Goodwill and Salvation Army and have made room for our sweet boy.  I painted the nursery a taupe color. Khaki wasn't to sure of the whole process but after a few days it sunk in that this was her brothers room now and not hers.  Anyways, I chose this sweet little fox as my inspiration.  I bought in Brookhaven while visiting for Thanksgiving,  I fell in love with the color combination the minute I saw it.   this is also where i bpught my very first BOY outfit. My mom came home to Tampa during christmas so we took one full day to go shopping together. We had so much fun. Our first stop was Little Peeps. I chose an aqua and orange stripe fabric for the bed skirt and am having two crib bolster pillows made in an orange / white polka dot Material with a solid brown fabric for piping and side panels.  For s rocking chair, I am having it covered in a very cute, masculine vintage print that I found at fabricworm.com.   I adore it.   The bedding should be here in about three weeks   I have been blessed with several bins of hand me downs from Raquel , Katie, and Smythe.  I have purchased him a plane outfit and some Jammie's and some sweaters and coats, but the clothes from them are a blessing. I also was given a sweet little backpack from a dear friend who is also an AP - I had it monogrammed this past week and it is waiting for his precious little hands to carry it around.

The fox started it all 

Backpack from Angie :) 

First boy outfit that I purchased...in Brookhaven during Thanksgiving