Day 3 pictures

That's try this in the middle of the night, maybe we'll get success!

Our hotel

Palm trees!

The river 

Sage exchange US currency to Chinese

This is the breakfast buffet at our first hotel, delicious! They have something called a black egg...I wasn't brave enough to try it.

Guangzhou, the big apartment buildings covered in peoples laundry!

Our entire flight from beijing to Guangzhou was over mountains. The flight had a strange rule, the window shade needed to be up during take off and landing. Can anyone shed insight on that for me?

Beijing airport

I'm trying very hard to embrace the Chinese culture and the people. I'll admit, it can be hard! People are pushy here! If you aren't moving fast enough you will get shoved out of the way. People stare at us. We stood at baggage claim and a girl, maybe 6 or 7, was standing about 2-3 fr infront of me. She would face me and just stare. Then she'd point and ask her sad something, and continue to stare. I was soooo uncomfortable! It is hard to get people to smile back at me. The friendliest people are the hotel staff. 

We are told that when people see us with Haylie that they will look at Haylie as if she is a very lucky girl because she got adopted by American and gets to live in America. People will look at us as good people. I hope that's the case! Part of me fears someone will try and snatch her from us because they think we stole her or that we shouldn't be adopting their babies. 

I will say I have noticed how well put together the women are. They are simply beautiful! Dressed very nicely, hair and makeup done, fancy bags. Me, ha, I'm in jeans that are falling down because I forgot my belt, and a hoodie with tennis shoes. And when women travel, they don't dress down for comfort. Me, well I switched to sweats! Here is the best example I could get of their fashion without being obvious.

Only 8hrs until we get our baby girl!!!!

Day 3

We have reached our final destination!!!! We landed in Guangzhou at 3pm, there was a van waiting for us that took us to our hotel. We're staying at the Victory Hotel on Shaimen Island. It's beautiful! The "island" is about a square mile and it is surrounded by a small river/stream. The island is like a world of it's own. It is very layed back. Sage and I went out after checking in to scope it out. We even stayed out after dark and didn't get scared! Everyone has told us of this resturaunt called Lucy's, apparently they cater towards the American adoptive families. We weren't impressed. Sage ordered a cheeseburger and said it was def NOT beef. I ordered a seafood rice dish, there was something staring at me....lost my appetite quickly. 

We've had an interesting day....by 7:30am I was so proud of myself, I hadn't cried yet! Managed to skype with the boys and still held it together. Our flight to Guangzhou changed that. Worst flight ever. Turbulation was so bad it brought me to tears. Then we get to our hotel and they want a $1400 deposit! Our room won't even cost us that much for our entire stay. Ok, no big deal (not like we have a choice, right?). We give her cash, only for her to say they don't accept the new $100's. Ok, where can we go to exchange money? The bank...off we go. Only, it's Sunday and the banks are closed! Quickly I'm going into stress mode! On our way back to hotel we passed an American looking couple with a Chinese daughter. Our saviors! They traded some old $100's for our new so that we could at least check in. What a day! 

So Guangzhou is interesting...it seems cleaner than Beijing but still has a lot of smog. It's green, there are flowers, and even palm trees! Temp was 65° when we landed, I'm pretty happy! The buildings seem newer, tons of skyscrapers, only a lot of them are apartment buildings instead of office buildings. It's funny looking at these huge buildings because everyone has their laundry hanging out to dry!  There are McDonalds EVERYWHERE! (Except the island!) We did stop at a 7-11 to buy some snacks. It's interesting what you can buy in China at a 7-11, you'll be glad to know that they sell Slurpies! There is a beautiful river on one side of the island and at night there are river boats that take you for a dinner cruise and you get to see the lights of the city. Google it if you get the chance, dinner cruise in Guangzhou. 

I'm going to try and add photos tonight but the wifi here is really slow. Fingers crossed that it works!!!! *****photos just aren't gonna happen tonight, I'll try tomorrow....

Tomorrow is our Gotcha Day! At 3pm we'll get Haylie, so around midnight your time. Praying this goes as smoothly as it possibly can! Can't believe in less than 24hrs I'll be holding my baby girl! 

Day 2

Day 2 started out pretty early, like 1am. Ugh, long hours just laying here! I did get to watch the sun rise, and you can see all the beautiful smog....

We started out with the hotels breakfast buffet, which is amazing by the way, and then loaded up for sight seeing. First up, Tiananimen Square (sorry if I mis-spelled). Pretty cool, huge. This is where all the students were killed back in 1989. No exact number on how many students, but at least 1,000. Apparently people still come there to protest things. There are guards all the time, and around them are fire extinguishers. I guess someone has lit themselves on fire before....crazy! 

Here is the Congress building, seriously huge. 

Then we saw the Forbidden City. This really was pretty amazing. Very big! I think there were 6 palaces total, they've been rebuilt multiple times because of lightening strikes. Seemed appropriate that we had watched Mulan the night before! ;-) Every now and then I felt the presence of Karate Kid and Kung Fu Panda! 

We had a Karate Kid moment for Logan to see, hoping he'll remember this part of the movie (especially since he made us watch it a million times!). You are supposed to rub this for good luck.  

The architecture really was amazing. The ceilings, the Emporers thrones...details were so impressive! I took more pictures with our actual camera so I'll have more to share once we get home, but here's what I've got for now. 

At the end of the Forbidden City is the Imperial Gardens. Even with everything being dead from winter, it was beautiful. Rocks and trees that were so old, and huge! Very cool to see! I wish we were here during the spring or summer so that we could see it's entire beauty. This first picture is where the Emporer would climb up to watch the moon during the Moon Festival. 

The outside of the city is surrounded by a moat, it's pretty intimidating. 

Also outside the gates were vendors swarming trying to get you to buy random trinkets, hats, books, toys, cherries glazed with sugar...on a stick...

We had another amazing lunch, which I ate too much of. Shocker! There was also duck, not quite as tasty. And honestly, they brought out the head and everything on the plate! Bleh! Next up a silk factory. Beautiful clothing, bedspreads, very cool to see how they make it all.

This evening our guide left us and we decided to venture out to a local grocery store and flea market type place. Crazy what you can find! 

$45 US for this bag of pistachios! I love me some pistachios, but not that much! 

The view from our journey out. We were pretty proud of ourselves, crossed the big street with no guide! :-)

So it's 7pm here, Sage is snoring away, I'm attempting to stay up until at least 9 so that maybe I'll sleep longer than 3am! We are packing up and heading to the airport in the morning. Heading to Guangzhou! Meeting Haylie in less than 48hrs!!!!! Besides my excitement for that, I am beyond excited to get away from this cold environment! Brrrr, I can't handle much more of these temps and the wind! 

Hope you all enjoy your weekend, I'll be back tomorrow! I'll leave you with just a few random Beijing photos. 

This Santa face is everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE. All stores, multiple along the walls inside the stores. Weird for a country that doesn't practice Christianity! Our guide says that they so actually celebrate Christmas, the younger Chinese people, but not the same as we do. 

Good night my friends & family!!!! 

Day 1

Well we did it, we survived a 13hr plane ride! Sometimes I thought I wouldn't make it. I even cried, just once. The flight overall was great, good movie choices, good food (3 meals!), and the best thing was it wasn't full-which means I had 3 seats to spread out across! 

Airplane dinner

Our flight path

So we got into Beijing around 9:30pm (Beijing is 14hrs ahead of KS) and our guide wasn't there. Luckily there were 3 other families waiting with us, so we were able to look awkward standing huddled up together, only white people around! I'm sure we were a sight!  Once getting to our hotel I lost it. Couldn't figure out how to get our lights on & to stay on, and then I couldn't figure out wifi! The thought of not checking in with home was too much and I just lost it. Then, like magic, the wifi connected and we figured out the lights! (You may think it's as simple as turning on a light switch, but you would be wrong!)

So when people talk about jetlag, it's for real! I was up at 3am!  I am so thankful that I started my day skyping the boys. So what I needed in order to have a positive attitude today!  We had a very busy day today.  First we headed to a jade factory, it was pretty amazing to see then work and look at all of the jewelry and decor. 

Then we loaded up and headed to the Great Wall. Wow, it is simply amazing to see that! It was COLD! We went ahead and took the challenge to hike the loop. There are 6 of us families traveling together, 1 of them has their 6yr old daughter with them. Man, she was a trooper! This hike is no joke! My thighs burned so bad on the way up, and my legs were so jello-like on the way down. The stairs are deteriorating so each step is made carefully! 

This picture makes me laugh. When you get to the top the statue says "You are now a man"....obviously we ladies needed a picture with it ;-)

And the boys....we tried to get them to take of the shirts, seemed like a great photo op! They disagree! The man on the left is Uncle Zhou (Joe), our guide. 

After our climb of the "Great Stairs" we went for lunch at an amazing restuarant. Attached to it was a factory where they make vases, so we got a tour of that as well. 

Our lunch

And I spotted my first squatty potty! 

The key to the bathrooms here, the toulet paper roll is just inside the bathroom entrance, not the stall. So don't forget your paper!!!!! ;-)

After lunch we got to see the 2008 Olympic stadium, and plenty of traffic, crazy drivers, and more than enough smog. Seriously, pedestrians walk right out infront of cars, cars pull out infront of each other, I'm not sure if there is a "right of way" here!

Well I'm gonna call it a night. Exhaustion has sunk in. We are eating in our room tonight, Pringles and a couple of Chinese beers! Oh, and watching Mulan! Perfect movie for tonight! 

Thanks for all of the prayers, keep them coming! Tomorow we're off to the Forbidden City! 

We leave in ONE day!!!!!

This is a hard post for me to write.  When I started this process a year ago I thought that when I was at this point I would be ecstatic.  Sadly that isn't the case!  This is not to say that I am not excited to finally meet Haylie, I am beyond the moon excited to see that precious little face!  But instead of feeling total joy, I am here feeling sad.  I will miss my boys more than words can express.  This will be one of the hardest things that we have done as parents.  Leaving my boys for two weeks.... it seems unbearable!  The kids are well prepared, we talk about the trip, they are excited to get to cross days off of the calendar.  This morning Riley (5) came and woke me up excitedly saying, "you leave for China in ONE day!!!!!!"  He is so excited to meet his little sister.  I pray that his expectations aren't set too high!  I think he is expecting a 3yr old who will be able to play with him, play the xbox, etc... unfortunately kids that are raised in orphanages are delayed.  For every two months they are there, they are delayed by a month.  Realistically we expect Haylie to be about the same developmentally as Hunter is, 18 mos.

This has been the point where I have really began to think about what this next week will mean to Haylie, and how she will feel.  While you and I know that we are giving her the love of a family, she will see this as that we have taken her away from her family.  Children in orphanages spend a lot of time in cribs.  You may think that would be difficult to keep a toddler in their crib.... some children are tied into their cribs.  A child would be lucky to have their own crib, most will share with one or two other kids.  On average there are around 100-150 children in each orphanage.  The caregivers there are the people that Haylie has known her entire life.  On our "gotcha" day, she will be brought to us by one of the orphanage nannies, we will sign some paperwork, the nanny will leave, and Haylie will have officially lost everything that she knows.  I can't imagine the heartache that she will experience, the confusion, and possibly anger.  She will miss her friends, her caregivers, her bed, the comfort of being in the only home she has ever known.  I pray that we will be strong enough to provide her with the support she needs, and that she in turn will allow us to comfort her.  We ask for as many prayers over the next two weeks. Prayers to carry us safely to and from China, prayers to give such a tiny little girl the strength to mourn, prayers to give Sage and I the strength to support this beautiful child, and prayers for our boys left behind who will no doubt be missing their parents!

We are so blessed to have my parents live so close.  They are moving into our house for the next weeks so that our kids can live life as normal as possible.  How amazing are they?  We thank our family and friends who are helping get kids to and from their activities, the teachers who are giving even more attention and love to our boys while we are gone, we are truly blessed!

We fly out tomorrow at 1:45pm and head to Chicago.  We have a 3hr layover in Chicago and then will head on Beijing.  We'll total out to 24hrs of travel time before we land in Beijing.  Lord help us get through those hours without losing our sanity!

Thank you in advance for all of your prayers!  We will be posting our journey daily, can't wait to have you all follow along!