Gotcha Day or Forever Family Day....

Hello All! Well, the day has finally arrived. We went to the local Civil Affairs office where they were going to bring Lu Chen Jie to us. We arrived before she did, and here are some photos of the room we were in.The third pic has our interpreter/adoption facilitator Erin in the photo. She is very nice and her English is perfect. She met us at the airport on Sunday night, even though it was very late at night, with a driver.

When Lu Chen Jie arrived, she was wearing the same dress that I have seen her in many times from the some of the pictures that I have of her. She also was very quiet, stoic and scared. A couple of times her eyes filled with tears from fear, but she never boo-hooed cried. That is when I was saying bu ku, "don't cry." She would look straight ahead and not respond. This behavior was completely expected, and I cannot imagine how much courage it took for her to be there.

Here are some pics of right after the introduction while we were in the van on the way back to the hotel. You can see the deer in the headlights look on her face.Happily, and surprisingly, this did not last very long. Erin came back to the suite with us, and talked to her occasionally. We just let her hang out and get used to everything. At one point, she needed to use the toilet and Erin took her back. On the way there, Erin pointed out the clothes that I had brought for her, which were folded on a stand. Once she saw all of the pink clothes everything changed!

Erin ran back saying her personality has completely transformed, and then Jie Jie came to get me and bring me to her clothes. She wanted to change her clothes into her new clothes. This was also something unexpected. Many children coming from an orphanage situation do not necessarily want to take off their clothes right away. It helps them to feel secure to keep them. I have read numerous stories where the children even want to sleep in their clothes and wear them for days. This was not going to be the case for Jie Jie.

I had also brought a little purse with Disney Fairies on them, and she won't go anywhere without it. She is also very determined to have her hair done. I had brought new fussy flower pony tail holders and they had to go on as well. To say this child is a "girly-girl" would be an understatement.

You can see the transformation in the next series of photos. These are when we went to lunch at a noodle restaurant. The first one is a family pic.These are from the restaurant. She really enjoyed it when I fed her. Again, something great and unexpected, as sometimes it is hard to get eye contact from the child or get them to smile too soon. She is a big smilie girl, and loved it when I fed her. We get constant eye contact and engagement.There is so much to say on this day, I think I will wait to continue this day at my next posting. We have all spent the night together and have had 3 meals together so far and it is amazing how well everything is going. No more crying, no bad behavior, tons of smiles and all the kids get along well (although the boys keep talking to her in English and don't understand why she is not answering them back....)

Some people call this Gotcha Day or Forever Family Day. I think it will be the latter for us, as even though it has only been 24 hours so far, it already feels like Forever. She fits in so well and we all love her to pieces.

Did you know that Nathan and Alex were Celebrities..?

Apparently in China they are. We actually have accomplished a great deal of site seeing in Beijing considering we have only been here for about 3 days, and we thought we would be adjusting more to jet lag.

I already shared with you the Great Wall athletic event that we accomplished. We also have gone to the Forbidden City twice and Tiananmen Square which is across the street. Dave and the boys went to the Temple of Heaven and I went to the Pearl Market (did I buy pearls, oh yes!).

People stare at us quite a bit as there are not too many blondes in China, but what is most amusing are the amount of people who want their picture taken with Nathan and Alex. Even if not getting their picture taken with the boys, various people would get out of their seats on the subway so the boys could sit down. Even elderly women were doing this, no matter how hard I tried to stop them.

Twins in China are called shuang bao. Twin boys are considered particularly good luck. Many people stop us and tell us how much good luck it is to have twin boys. (they clearly have not spent a great deal of time with twin boys I imagine, but yes, we do feel lucky).

Here are some publicity shots for the boys:I forgot to mention that the first day we were at the Forbidden City, it was raining all day, thus the raincoats.

Here is a family pic before we went inside.The other photo op for the boys was when they went to the Temple of Heaven. This time an older girl wanted her picture taken with them. You will notice one of the twins is missing. That is because Alex likes to wander off and not listen to Daddy.... Here is Nathan and his new friend.Dave and the boys at the Temple of Heaven.
I forgot to mention that the way we have been getting around the city is via the fantastic subway system in Beijing. Because of the Olympics, signs all over the place include English (or Pin Yin) as well as Chinese. The subways were easy to navigate and very clean. Crowding was another issue, but then again, this IS China.
Here are the 3 boys in the subway.For those of you who are reading this blog from the States, we are a day ahead of you. Presently, it is Monday August 23rd and we are about to go get Jade-Rose in about 10 minutes. I am writing this blog to try to get us caught up before it is the Gotcha Day announcement.

I hope you are enjoying moments of our trip and please continue to have us in your thoughts and prayers.

4 planes down.... only 5 more and a train to go.....

Train for the Great Wall even if......

Even if you think you won't be climbing it. Because you just MIGHT!
Oy Vay! That's what happened to us yesterday, on my birthday, August 20th. Our plan was to take one of the cable car rides up to the wall, take some pictures and ride the toboggan slide down. Unfortunately, we did not know (nor were we told) that there are TWO cable car rides and the slide is only next to one of them. Ugh!

I knew that the Great Wall of China was a huge structure that spanned thousands of miles. So large that it can even be viewed from space. I pictured in my mind great expanses of walkways on top of the wall. Ummmmm... not so much. Actually, there are some expanses of walkway on the wall but there are many, many STEEP staircases going both up and down. This was an incredible discovery for someone/family ill prepared for a great climb. What we decided to do since we were sent up the wrong cable car ride was to walk to the other cable car/toboggan ride area.

[We pause in this story to show a picture of where we are staying. The first picture is of the Novotel Hotel in downtown Beijing. It is walking distance to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. We hired a private van to pick us up at the airport and bring us here because it was so late at night. But we will take a subway back that apparently goes directly to the airport and is across the street from our hotel.]Here are some pictures of our climb (there will be no pictures of me huffing and puffing):

The first pic is of Dave and the boys against the wall.I always like to take one of these type of pictures with the three of them holding hands.Here is a picture with one of the watch-tower turrets that run all along the wall. You will notice that Alex's hand is extended in the air. He said he was posing like the Statue of Liberty. I guess wearing a red, white and blue shirt with the US flag on it, didn't scream American enough to him.The last two pictures show a bit of our climb. Particularly, the second picture. That entire stretch of the wall that you see in this picture, was our climb (it is not a walk, it is a climb). Way in the distance, at the top of the far mountain is a building that has a traditional roof on its structure. I hope you can see it. That is where we began.Dave doesn't think that picture does it justice. He believes it does not show the steepness of the climb. At least you can judge the great distance. Dave just said that parts of it are as steep as a Black Diamond ski run.

So, the moral of this story is, even if you think you will only be going to the Great Wall with two 6 year olds to take a nice ride and have a photo op, you may just end up doing much more than you planned!
Another lesson to learn if you decide to try the cable car rides, make sure you GET ON THE CORRECT RIDE. Here are the differences.
This is the WRONG cable car ride if you want to do the Toboggan ride down the mountain, http://www.micktravels.com/china/mutianyu/02-great-wall-mutianyu-cable-car.html

This is the Correct cable car ride. Notice it is more like a chair lift that you would see at a ski resort. Less like the enclosed cable car. (If you scroll down this guy's travel blog you can see the chair lift. It's the best picture I could find) http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/Great-Wall-of-China/blog-367408.html

Here is a link to the Toboggan ride. http://hubpages.com/hub/Mutianyu-Toboggan A definite MUST DO! You have a choice of a single car, or a double car. The kids sit in front of the adult in the double car.

My friend Diana is making the posts for me, as Blogger (and Facebook) are blocked by China. I have also noticed on other internet searches that many things are blocked by China. There are moments like this that help you appreciate the freedoms we all take for granted living in the US. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press is a wonderful thing to have.

Love to all,

9 Planes and a Train

Hello All!

We have started our journey and so far, so good. The picture above is when we first began at the Tallahassee airport. We had the nicest American Airlines person assisting us. We were even able to scan our passports right at a kiosk and we have our boarding passes all the way to Beijing. We were the only people in line, and I guess that is why she was able to spend so much time with us and help us out. We were grateful.

Packing was challenging. I don't normally worry about losing luggage while traveling. But considering that we are literally going to be on 9 different planes by the time we return home from this special journey, I was a bit nervous about checking any luggage. Believe it or not, I was able to pack for 5 people in 2 carry-on suitcases plus our individual carry-ons. The boys have their backpacks and their special pillow friends (or C-pillows as they call them). Dave has a backpack and I have our old diaper bag (those Skip Hop bags ROCK!) and travel purse. I was thinking of my friend Julie Guyot the whole time, as she encouraged me to attempt this international travel with just carry-ons. I did it, Julie. I did it!

This picture is of Alex and Nathan on the flight to Chicago. I am blogging to you from a food court in Chicago O'hare. 2 flights down and only 7 to go. LOL!

We hope all is well with you, and please keep us in your thoughts as often as you can. But I thought I would take this time in the beginning of our journey to let you know that we are all doing splendidly. Let's hope the boys sleep on the way over to China!!!

A difference in personalities

Hi

I just thought I would share this little story to help you understand the difference between the two personalities of my twin boys.

If I ask them the same question, these are always their individual replies:

Me to Alex: Who loves you, Alex?

Alex: You do, Mommy.

Me to Nathan: Who loves you, Nathan?

Nathan: EVERYBODY in the whole world!

Guess which one is Nathan in the frames above.

Like my new blog design??

Isn't it P*R*E*T*T*Y...??

Diana of Custom Blog Designs did it for me and I am just thrilled. I wanted to do a shout-out to her to thank her for sharing her talent and this lovely design. She is very quick, a great communicator and generous with her creativity.

I highly recommend her if you are needing help designing your blog.

Can anyone guess the connection between the new design and my daughter?

Post your guesses.....

New Pics and Travel Updates

Hello Friends-

After receiving TA, our adoption facilitator in China asked Jade-Rose's SWI more questions about her. One of them was "Does she have a nickname?"

It is Jie Jie. Her Chinese name is Lu Chen Jie.

Jie Jie is very cute, and I like how the two "J's" of Jie Jie and Jade-Rose go together.

They also sent us more pictures.

Check out the water fountain on top of her head! I love how the pony tail on top keeps getting bigger and bigger with each new set of pictures that I receive.

I also love these pictures of her eating rice with a friend. (By the way, if you are an adoptive parent, and recognize that friend in the pic as your daughter, please let me know. I have many pictures of her. She is in many of the same pictures that I have of Jade-Rose, and I would be happy to share.)

As far as Travel Updates....

We have our flights booked going and coming. What a whole new concept in the adoption process to stress over!!!

Summer time is the most expensive time to fly to China (take heed all of you AP's out there). Our travel agent Sue Sorrels said that she had never seen prices as high as they had been for this summer. Don't be misled by Sue's very simple landing page at her website. She is an expert in her field and very highly recommended in the adoption community. We tried figuring out our own flight plans, but nothing we came up with worked as well as what Sue came up for us.

Because Tallahassee only has a regional airport, it's hard to get flights in or out of here without a bunch of layovers. We are flying on August 18th Tallahassee>>Miami>>Chicago>>Beijing.

Our Gotcha Day is August 23 and we leave China on September 4th

Hong Kong>>San Francisco>>Chicago>>Miami>>Tallahassee.

We still have to book our in-country flights from Beijing to Hefei and then Hefei to Guangzhou.

We have Chinese travel agents booking our hotels in China, and the train we will need from Guangzhou to Hong Kong. We know where we are staying in Hefei (the capitol of Anhui Province, where they will bring Jie Jie to us). We also know where we are staying in Guangzhou (where most of the adoption requirements take place). We have asked the travel agents what they recommend for Beijing, but we haven't heard back yet. There really is SO MUCH to coordinate for a trip like this, and I thought the stress from the paper chase was bad...