Monchichi

I had to get my picture taken outside the Monchichi store in the mall with the giant Monchichi's for the boys. My sisters and I had Monchichi's as kids and for some reason I told my boys about them and found the old Monchichi commercial on you-tube and showed it to them. They thought it was funny and watched it several times.

Day 3

Day three has been good for us. We've had a chance to relax and mentally prepare for "gotcha day" which is tomorrow. We left our hotel in Beijing at 9:30 and headed for the airport. Our flight left at 12:30 and was only about 2 hours long. We landed in Zhengzhou, the capital of the Henan province and were met by our new guide Yisha. We checked into our new hotel, which is wonderful and Paul went to the bank while I nested in our hotel room. We have a crib set up for Grace. I also packed her a backpack and a diaper bag. We ate dinner tonight with two other families at the Italian restaurant in our hotel, Mama Mia's. It was very good. After tonight we may stick to noodles and dumplings for awhile for Grace's sake. It's been great sharing this experience with other families. We are all so excited to meet our new children. Paul and I are ready for tomorrow, and not at all nervous as of yet.

This is our group, minus one dad who just joined us today (he is doing his 6th and 7th Chinese adoption!) The group consists of three couples, one family of five and the one dad by himself. George our guide is in the middle. All of us have other children and we are all adopting waiting children.

Here is Paul and I with George before we left for the airport.

This is me and Amy working on learning some Mandarin phrases to speak to our daughters tomorrow.

Paul is snoozing already, and I am really hoping to be able to sleep past 4:00 am tonight. We are exhausted, and that is a very good thing because we are so excited, it would be hard to sleep otherwise.

The next time we post will our Gotcha Day pictures!!!

Day Two

Day two was amazing. The day was completely packed, we left our hotel room at 8:30 am after skyping with the boys and didn't return until 7:30 pm. I laid down on my bed and fell asleep without blogging. I miss the boys a lot and skyping with them has been great. I can't wait to do it when we have Grace! Our first stop on our tour yesterday was a jade factory. We then visited the Great Wall of China. It is simply amazing. I can see why it is one of the 7 wonders of the world. Our guide challenged us to climb to a certain spot on the wall, and I don't think he thought we would make it. I thought it would be a hike, but I had no idea! It is mostly stairs, with a few flat places. The steps are very steep and all different sizes ranging from a few inches to a couple of feet.

Paul and I and another couple took the challenge and climbed to the spot our guide suggested. It was totally exhausting, one of the hardest physical challenges I've ever had, but I am glad we did it. Coming down was much easier, but very steep and all of our legs were shaking.

Here we are at the bottom, if you look on the top of the mountain we climbed to the third structure from the left. This picture was actually taken before we climbed. It was in the 60's today and we were very hot. There were some Chinese ladies climbing with heels on. We also saw several small children climbing.

Our next stop was lunch at another really good Chinese place and then to the Olympic Village, which now sits empty. It was pretty neat, we just took pictures from the outside. Some Chinese people asked to have pictures made with us and our friends, but Gregory the three year old, was mobbed with fans once again. :) Our last stop was an acrobatic show. It was really amazing what the performers could do. I bought a video because I knew the boys would love it. I loved it too.

We still haven't had jet lag but I've been going to bed early and getting up very early (like 4:00am). We leave today (Sunday) to fly to Grace's province. I am so excited we've reached this point in the trip, but have thoroughly enjoyed everything about Beijing. The history here is so interesting. (And for any homeschool Story of the World users out there I actually knew enough about Chinese history from what I've read to the boys to be able to follow all that our guide has taught us very easily.)

I will try to post again in the morning! I can read emails and really enjoy reading them, I just haven't had a second to respond yet.

We're in China!

After a really long flight we made it safely to China! The flight was good. I was able to sleep some, but Paul didn't. We crashed when we got to our hotel room and slept until morning. That was a really good thing because we didn't have any jet lag today. The hotel we are staying at is very nice. It has a really good breakfast and a mall underground. This morning we met up with the three other CCAI families and our guide George and toured Beijing. We took a rickshaw ride first.

Next we took a tour of a very old traditional Chinese home that is still lived by the descendants of a very old family and then a silk factory. That was actually really cool. I had no idea they actaully unwound silkworm cocoons in order to make the threads of silk. Here is a picture of what it looks like.

We ate lunch at a really good Chinese restaurant and spent the rest of the day touring Teinanman Square and the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City is the Imperial Palace where only the Emporer and his family lived. It was built in 1426 and is amazing. Our Guide is great and shared much with us about Chinese history.

We've really enjoyed or first day in China. The people here are very friendly and kind. They especially love the three year old American boy in our group and they'll often stop and take picture of him like he was a celebrity. To say that Beijing is crowded would be an understatement. It is a HUGE city with lots of modern building next to century old ones.

We had a very full day, one we'll always remember. We skyped with the boys and now we are going to bed. Only three more days until we get Grace! We are so thankful for this opportunity and for all the prayers. Especially for the boys as we are apart from them.

Tomorrow we se the great wall!

Please forgive the typos and poor writing. My brain is so tired it's numb.

Dear God, I KNOW that you love Grace more than I do. I know that all her days were written before the earth was created. I know that you established the perfect day for her to come home. Help me to rest in you, and your perfect plan. Help me not to go crazy waiting for our Travel Approval. Let me use this time well to prepare our family and home for her. AMEN

Adopting the Waiting Child

I am posting again today because special needs adoption has been on my mind. The wait to adopt a healthy child from China is at 5 years and is predicted to get even longer. Many predict non-special needs adoption from China will eventually cease to exist at all. There are many people who have been waiting years who will likely never meet their child. I know the decision to adopt a waiting child is a personal choice, and many people have good reasons not to, or can't. But I have to wonder if maybe some people don't fully understand how manageable many of these needs are on a daily basis. Many needs don't require further medical treatment. Not to mention the healthy older children available. Also there are more boys available then girls. Very young boys with minor special needs. This video is great at explaining it!

Gods Heart: Adoption