Our First Day of Touring

Well we met all of the other families that we are traveling with today. We got to know most of them and hope to get to know the rest tomorrow, but all of them are really nice and all just as excited and tired as we are. We were outside most of the day and it was very cold, but not absolutely unbearable.

We started out meeting our guide Sherry. She is a wonderful young lady from Shanghai, who lives here in Beijing. She works for our adoption agency as a guide for adoptive families, so she does this a lot. The game we played all day, I called "Follow the Blue Flag". This was very important, because every where we went there were thousands of tour groups, each with a tour guide holding up a colored flag with a different logo on it, very helpful.

Sherry was full of great information that I won't try to pass along, because I'm sure I'll mess 99% of it up. I'll just give a quick run down and let you look at the pictures.

Most of the places we went were at least 600 years old, and incredibly accessible. You could walk most anywhere and touch most everything. Tiananmen Square is the most recent and was set up as the political center. The Forbidden City and Summer Palace were started centuries ago and were amazing. In the Forbidden City there are 10,000 buildings. All of this was for the Emperor and their family and subjects.

The Summer Palace is a 1,500+ acre "palace" full of buildings, gardens, a lake, temples and more. We really saw very little of both the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace in the 3 1/2 hours we spent at both places. It would take weeks to really take it all in. It was beautiful.

We also went to a pearl store. We didn't buy anything, but everything was nice. We went to a silk factory, which was quite impressive to see how they take silk cocoons and turn them into fabric. We did buy Audrey a formal outfit and a set of pajamas.

We ate at Chinese restaurants for lunch and supper. The lunch was more traditional, chopsticks and all, the supper was a buffet. Alex and I were pretty adventurous and Julie was a little more cautious. Alex learned that he like tofu. So far, I'm not that crazy about the food. The lunch was good, but the things I liked there weren't much of, and the supper reminded me of the Chinese buffets we have at home. I'm looking forward to our duck dinner tomorrow.

I have to say, I'm really proud of Alex. At 16 I don't know if I would have handled a day long historical tour as well. He never complained and actually seemed pretty interested in many things we saw.

Tomorrow we are going to an international church service, followed by lunch and a trip to the jade shop. After this we head to the Great Wall. We finish the night with an acrobatics show.

We're in China

Well we got to Beijing last night around 10. Our total travel time was around 25 hours, 20 of those in airplanes. The flights weren't bad. The plane for the 12 hour flight had plenty of leg room and Julie & I slept quite a bit. Alex, however, didn't sleep as much so he says that plane was the worst.

We got settled in the hotel about 11, called our parents on skyepe and went to bed. Our hotel is on the outskirts of Beijing. We got up this morning and hit the breakfast buffet, which was good. It was a little odd to see noodles, fried rice and baked beans on a breakfast buffet, but there was enough familiar stuff to make it good for us.

We met Sherry, the guide our adoption agency has provided for Beijing. She gave us a quick run-down of things, but had the 12 other families from our agency arriving today, so she had a full day and set us off on our own. We walked around for about half an hour and then ate lunch at a Pizza Hut. We got the "American Special" - a pepperoni pan pizza. There were many other choices, but this seemed safe for our tender American stomachs.

After that we stopped in at Carefore, which is like wal-mart but we've heard very different. We didn't look around a whole lot, so we didn't see anything unusual.

We came back to the hotel and fell asleep and slept through supper. Tomorrow we head to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square with all of the other families. We'll take lots of pictures and hopefully some video to put on here tomorrow night.

We're down to just 2 1/2 days until we meet our daughter!

Dates are set! Flights are booked! We are soon on our way!

We received word about this time last week that we would probably be traveling on the 6th of November, provided the adoption agency was able to get us an appointment with the US Consulate for Nov 17th.

Toward the end of last week, the agency called to tell us that the appointment is set and they emailed us a flight itinerary to review. We reviewed, we booked, and we leave on the 5th. Our official itinerary starts on the 6th, but we elected to go a day early to rest up from the 24 hours and 50 minutes of travel (19:40 in the air).

There are lots of big dates in this trip, and you can see I've added our full itinerary on the side of this page, but I’ll highlight the 3 big dates:

Wed, Nov 5th – We fly to China
Mon, Nov 10th – We meet Audrey for the first time face-to-face
Wed, Nov 19th – We come home with Audrey

I told Julie that when we meet her, she gets to hold her first, but when she hands her to me I plan to hold her for the rest of her life. I just can’t see ever putting her down. We’ll see how this goes. I can already see problems with this plan, like high-school.

After picking her up we will submit paperwork to the Chinese government & the adoption will be official. At the US Consulate’s office, we will submit the necessary paperwork, take the necessary oaths, and Audrey will be a US Citizen and we can bring her home.

I think it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, we are beside ourselves with excitement. Thankfully there are plenty of things to do in these last days before we leave to keep us busy. Many people have asked what they can do to help. Please pray for our family as we make this journey. This is truly the biggest thing you can do for us.

We may not post much between now and when we leave, but we hope to post daily while we’re in China. We may get some updated nursery pics on now that we have things on the walls.

China Travel Itinerary

Tues, Nov 4th – Elect a new President; spend the night @ Uncle Craig’s in Knoxville

Wed – Fly Knoxville to Minneapolis, MN, then Minneapolis to Tokyo, Japan

Thur – Arrive in Tokyo and fly to Beijing, China

Fri – Sleep off jetlag on free day in Beijing

Sat – Beijing Tour: Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Pearl & Silk factories

Sun – International Church Service, Jade factory, Great Wall of China, & Peking Duck Dinner

Mon – Fly to Nanchang, Jiangxi and meet Audrey!!!!!

Tues-Thur – Civil Affairs, Notary appt’s, sightseeing & shopping

Fri – Fly to Guangzhou

Sat – Audrey’s medical exam, sightseeing & shopping

Sun – Fill out Consulate forms

Mon – Appt with US Consulate

Tues – Pick up Audrey’s Visa

Wed, Nov 19th – Fly to Tokyo, then to Detroit, then to Knoxville - Audrey is home and a U.S. citizen!!!!!

Audrey’s Room is Ready!

We've had lots of fun decorating the nursery for Audrey and think it turned out beautifully. There are still a few finishing touches to make (pictures to hang, etc.), but it is basically done. We hope to head to China in the next 3-4 weeks. When we come home she’ll have a great little girl’s room to sleep and play in. We‘ll let the pictures do the talking. We’re very proud of it and can’t wait for her first night here and rocking her to sleep.

Here's some before pics (formerly an office):





Here's her room now:

Some special childhood stuffed animals from me, Aaron & Alex that we're passing on to her:

New photos & update on Audrey!

We were very excited to receive updated measurements & 2 new pics of Audrey yesterday from Ann with http://www.redthreadchina.com/. Ann lives in China and has a care package service for adopting families. We ordered a care package with her last week to be sent to Audrey. She has been wonderful to work with and seems to care so much about these children. We hope to meet her in China.

The care package includes a blanket, PJ's, photo pillow, Hello Kitty doll, 3 pics of us, a disposable camera for the foster family to take pics of her for us, a letter, tea and candy for her foster family, and a red bag to put all her things in. We sent some questions in a letter with her care package and hope to hear something back, but we may or may not get a reply back. Ann is going to let us know when Audrey receives the care package. You can see all the items in it here.


Ann was able to get the 2 current pics of her that you can see above and updated measurements for us. According to what she sent, Audrey's converted measurements are:
Height: 28.35 inches (2'4")
Weight: 16.5 pounds
Head: 16.73 inches
Chest: 17.52 inches
Feet: 3.74 inches
Teeth: 2

Audrey is 13 months old now. According to the size charts I have looked at, she is a size 12 months by height and a size 9 months by weight. I guess we will go mostly with 12 months sizes, and they will just be a little big on her. Her shoe size should be a 3 right now. She has grown about 4 inches and gained 2.25 pounds since March 30, 2008. I think she is a little small (especially in weight) right now, but this is what we tend to hear about the other little ones from China before they are adopted. Her color looks good to us in the pictures (no blue lips or blue color to her skin), so we think that is a good sign. Her heart condition can cause the blue color in more severe cases. We think she is just adorable!

Please pray that we receive our Travel Approval soon. This is when we will get our definite travel dates and plans. We can't wait to hold her in our arms and bring her home!

Referral Approval & first pics of Audrey

These are the first pictures we received of Audrey with her referral on August 15th. Now that we have received our referral approval, we can post them here. We fell in love the moment we saw her and knew right away she was our daughter. She is just beautiful, and we are so blessed that she is ours!

Our family coordinator with America World (AWAA) called on September 25th to let us know that they had received our referral approval (RA) from the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA). This was the next important step in the process that we had been waiting on since receiving Audrey's referral. This means that the CCAA has officially approved us to adopt her. We are now waiting for travel approval (TA) from the CCAA. Nicole, our family coordinator, said we should receive the TA in 2-3 weeks and to tentatively plan on traveling in early November. Once the travel approval is received, America World can get a consulate appointment for us, set firm travel dates & make all of the travel arrangements for us. We are praying that it comes quickly.

It was also a special day because it is my Grandmother's birthday. She turned 83 today (Sept. 25th) and is doing well overall. We all love her so much. She is a very special and unique lady that never fails to put a smile on our face. She and Alex are best friends and have been since he was little. They have a special bond.

I am a bit behind on posting here, but I am going to try to catch up on the things that have been going on lately over the next few days. We have been very busy with cleaning out the house and getting Audrey’s room ready, a yard sale, consignment sale, baby showers, birthdays, work at camp, etc. It is such an exciting time for us, but it can all be a little overwhelming at times, too. There is so much to do and many things that we want to accomplish before we bring her home. It seems like I think of something new to add to the to do list everyday. We have accomplished quite a bit already though, and I am trying not to stress about it too much. Some days I do better about that than others. :)