Gotcha day

Our day began with our bus pulling out of the hotel at 5:30 AM.
We landed in the Guangzhou Airport at 11:00 AM and we had an hour or so at our lovely White Swan Hotel to settle in before heading out to the Civil Affairs Office. Everyone was excited and nervous over the next events!!
What a sweet boy Micah is. He loved the trucks and snacks we brought and wanted to share them with everyone. Ben was so excited and wonderful with his new brother. (think Tigger)We had about two hours to interact with him and his caregivers before taking Micah with us. He seemed concerned but willingly came along.
You would have been entertained watching us at dinner - Trying to figure out how to feed a toddler for the first time at a beautifully decorated restaurant! He loved taking a bath and even tried to crawl back in after he was finished.
We have had a wonderful start to our forever family! We thank God for bringing us together. More tomorrow!

Saying Good-bye to Beijing

Ben says "We have a busy day." He has said that the last several days. Mommy and Daddy agreed. Today Ben fell asleep while in a stroller touring Tiananmen Square. Then he fell asleep for the night while we were eating dinner. He knows that tomorrow we get Micah.
Our group also visited the Forbidden City - which was a crowded, hot place today. The rickshaw ride around Hutong, old Beijing, was fun.
Tomorrow at 5:30AM we head to the airport. then in the afternoon we get to meet Micah. Yeah!

Great Wall Day

It's Saturday already and we climbed the Great Wall today. "Climbed" is the word for it. The section we visited was quite steep. Some of the steps themselves were quite high.

Where is time going? Early mornings are spent keeping Ben from waking up the the whole 26 floor hotel at 5:00 AM. The breakfast buffet opens at 6:00 AM and I am always ready to go eat by that time of day - definitely a jet lag thing!

Ben's days include entertaining the crowd in our travel group. I am wondering how sharing the attention or the stroller is going to go over with him in a few days! There are several other children that he enjoys hanging out with.

We have had great weather here - sunshine and 83 degree days for exploring our neighborhood and finding places to eat and pick up groceries. I enjoy trying new foods and that includes the McDonald's menu. Taro pie and Lychee punch topped with ice cream were both yummy! I do think the strawberry milkshake tasted a bit like evaporated milk. It is great to come to the hotel breakfast buffet for some plain and simple Western food! One evening while walking around with two other couples we selected a Chinese restaurant that was not a recommendation from our guide. Brad asked if we could have forks since he does not like chopsticks. The waiter came back with 2 forks and explained they only have 2 forks; I think he meant in the entire restaurant.

We are also focusing on getting ready for the big day on Monday when we receive our children. Thank you for your prayers for this trip.

PS You can email us.

Beijing at last

Thousands of miles and 24 hours of travel have brought us to Beijing. We flew over the North Pole and traveled in daylight the whole time. We are thrilled to be here and are enjoying showing our photos of Micah to other families here in our travel group. We are working though a little jet lag. Bennett stirred this morning at 3 AM and I asked him if he was awake. He said, "Not yet."

Some creative use of technology is allowing us to post to this blog. We are going through a VPN since the site is completely blocked in China.

Blast off!!

Our bags are packed and we were able to get everything in two suitcases and just one carry on! Yeah! Less to lug through all the airports.

A friend email this to us:
We will be specifically praying for your:
safe travels
good health and strength
smooth processing through the bureaucracies and
most importantly for the joyful uniting with your children and the loving family bonding process to follow.

I liked the prayer list a lot. We welcome you to join with them. Thanks!
We look forward to posting again soon from Beijing

One

One day until take-off - let's see how much laundry, how much cleaning and how many meetings we can can stuff in a suitcase! Yeah!!
We leave the house tomorrow morning at 4:00 AM. One local couple traveling with our group of 18 families will meet us at the Harrisburg airport for take-off at 6:00 AM. Another family will be joining us at Newark. Good company to help our 12 hour plus flight to Beijing go as quickly as possible.
This is a picture of Ben having great fun with his cousin Nathan at Hershey Park. Ben talks about doing it again!
Yesterday in the grocery store Ben was sitting next to my purse in the cart. He asked me to more my purse because he thought it looked weird. How funny.

Two

Our lists are getting shorter as we check things off on our countdown. This evening was Ben's last class for the summer at Little Gym.
We are so excitied to meet Micah next monday - in just one week from now.

Three

Three days to keep wrapping up things before splash down in China! We squeeked in a short Ocean City trip that was lots of R&R for me and the boys! The piles that are now on the dining room table keep growing! Things are coming together well except I haven't figured out Dreamweaver CS5 yet. Hhmmm. Ben had his back-to-school night and I have his bag packed for his first day of school September 13.
Thanks for all the prayers and support!

One Week!!

We got our schedule this morning!
both hotels we will be staying at are ones we stayed at when we brought Ben home. I am glad for that comfort. We know the neighborhoods a bit!

CHINA ITINERARY
August 26 Arrive in Beijing @ 1:50 p.m. Stay at Chang’an Grand Hotel
August 27 Orientation at 10:00 a.m. Acrobatic show in the afternoon
August 28 Visit Great Wall and Cloisonne Factory
August 29 Visit Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City and Hutong
August 30 Flight to Guangzhou. White Swan Hotel airport pickup. Receive your child in the afternoon
August 31 Adoption registration in the morning
September 1 Medical exam and passport application.
September 2 Free
September 3 Visit Guangzhou Zoo
September 4 Free
September 5 Group photos and and meeting to prepare consulate documents
September 6 Visit Guangzhou Folk Art Museum and Yuexiu Park
September 7 Visa appointment
September 8 Go to the consulate to take the oath at 2:15 p.m.
September 9 Go to the consulate to pick up child’s visa at 2:15 p.m.
September 10 Flight to Beijing to connect @ 3:45 p.m. to U.S.A.

Friends

Shared a picnic with friends of more than one kind. Ben is afraid of most dogs but he was thrilled to be friends with this sweet one! Thanks for sharing the photos and the dog! It's so nice to see Ben growing and overcoming fears.

In place

Crib is now ready to go and the guys must be rubbing off. I skipped a crib skirt, figuring it's a great place for a Thomas layout.

Two weeks!

Two weeks til we are in China! We got together with two other couples from our travel group over the weekend. It was a different thought to recognize we will be spending a lot of time together really soon!

Adventure continues

We got news today our travel group number of families has climbed to 18! We still are waiting our itinerary in country. We don't know which day we will be welcoming Micah.
Ben helped me chop onions today. He mentioned he had sunburn in his eyes. It was so cute to see him sniffling but determined to keep whacking my chopper!
He hasn't complained at all about his stitches bothering him - since getting them in place. (he found out what happens when you hit the coffee table with your forehead.) We should be looking A LOT better by the weekend - haircuts tomorrow and stitches out Friday.
We thank God for getting us through each of the these steps along the way!

Stir crazy

We are getting over a week of Ben and I battling the flu. Not exactly what we had planned but we are very glad to be on the mend as we count down the days.
We were happy to find out we will be flying with a NJ family who have two children traveling with them. They will be joining us at our Newark flight. Other kids will help give Ben something to do on our long flight to Beijing.