Tuesday & Wednesday in Nanchang

Well yesterday, we spent all of our time and attention on Audrey and not blogging, so we'll get two days in here. It's currently about 4:30pm here and Audrey is napping. There may be an addendum to this post if anything exciting happens the rest of the day.

Yesterday we spent the morning taking care of official business. We first had to interview at the civil affairs office, where we had to tell of our plans for raising Audrey and pay our orphanage donation. We were given our Chinese Adoption Certificate. From there we went to a police station to have her picture taken for her passport and then to a notary's office to have the certificate notarized. After that we went to Wal-Mart where we got 3 ping-pong paddles that looked good, but the info was in Chinese, so I'll have to have Brett Hyder look them over and let me know what we got, but they were really cheap and look as good as the more expensive ones we bought in the states. We also got some drinks and snacks - Spicy Seafood Pringles and BBQ Steak Pringles. They had others that were even further out there, but we decided to be somewhat safe.

After we got back to the hotel Audrey took a nap and Alex and I went looking for a place to play with our new paddles. A bell-boy escorted us about 5 blocks to a middle-school and tried to convince the security guard to let us play. He did not, but was very nice. I can't believe how much the people here go out of there way to help us. It was very interesting watching all of the students who passed by point and stare at us. We had been told this would happen, but hadn't really seen it yet. Apparently in this part of the country a westerner is a rare sighting.

The rest of the day was just hanging out at the hotel.

Today we got up and gave Audrey her first real bath - before it was just sponge baths. She did fine and will probably get used to it fairly quickly, but she wasn't nuts about the whole thing.

We headed out with our other adoption families to see the Teng Wang Pavillion. This was built originally in 653 ad, but has been destroyed 28 times. So this is the 29th construction, completed in 1989.




After the sightseeing, we stopped to eat at a local McDonald's and opted to stay in that area and look around. There were hundreds of shops and lots more stares. We got Audrey a baby toothbrush and a really cool hat (look for pictures of her wearing it later). Sorry Ted, I still haven't found a yeti for you yet, but I will continue the search.

We shopped as long as Audrey could handle it and then we headed back to the hotel in a taxi, which was a joy all to itself. It could be easy to be scared in a car that weighs less than I do with no seat belts and no evidence whatsoever of traffic laws, but these folks really know what they are doing. It's absolute chaos, but all of the drivers, cylcists, and pedestrians just kind of flow. We've seen 6 cars packed side-by-side on a 4-lane road, moving along at a decent speed with cars, scooters, and bikes cutting people off and everyone just reacts accordingly. I really enjoy watching it and it terrifies Julie.

We got back here, and Audrey ate some pears, veggie chips and a bottle and she's down for a nap. Maybe more later.

Today We Met Audrey Elise Morris

I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of Him. 1 Samuel 1:27

Our first family photo

She loved her mom right away

Apparently dad too

Sound asleep after a big day

Well, today was the big day. We started by getting up at 4:30 and heading out of the hotel at 5:30 to catch our 7:35 flight. We landed in Nanchang, which is the capital city of the Jianxi province. Our hotel is in Nanchang and is about a 2 minute walk from the civil affairs office, where we would soon go get Audrey. I need to point out that our hotel has the best name ever - The Galactic Peace International Hotel. It is a nice place, but we had to get our room changed, because it was an oven. Other than that drama, the hotel is fine.

We got to the hotel about 11:00 and weren't going to get her until 3:30. So we ate lunch and sort of took a nap and then met the group to go get our babies.

As we went into the room we noticed babies right away, but ours wasn't one of them, so we got to see some families be introduced to their babies first. This sounds bad, but it wasn't at all. It was really sweet and we knew she'd be their soon.

They brought her in and we found out that she wasn't feeling well. She had gotten car sick on the way over. Julie has gotten car sick a couple of times here, so already they are alike. She really seemed fine. We each held her for a few minutes and then all sat down with her and started playing with her. She really took to all three of us quickly. She hasn't shown any signs yet of distress over this major change in her life.

We laughed and played a lot. She had a bottle and did real well and ate some solid food at supper. She is very even-tempered, and a little rowdy. She's not talking at all, but makes normal sounds, has a healthy laugh, and a healthy cry which we got to hear changing her clothes. She doesn't have a lot of patience for that. Overall, she seems like she can't get enough of hanging out with us, which is great because we feel exactly the same way. She's not walking on her own yet, but that will change soon. She can walk holding on and pulls herself up pretty easily.

I've put a couple of videos on as well as a slide show. We'll try to get more on tomorrow.

Great Wall of China

This will be a short post. Today was long and we've got to leave at 5:30 am to catch our flight to meet Audrey! We're wiped out, but I didn't want to get behind in our daily posts, so here's the quick rundown - we started with an international church service (very cool), went to a jade store and bought Audrey a pendant, ate lunch, headed to the great wall, and then took in an acrobatics show. After getting to the hotel, we had to pack and have our luggage picked up to make the morning easier.

Most of the pictures are of our trip to the great wall. For those who know me well, I had to climb as far as I could in the time we had, and of course, Alex was pushing for more. We went quite a ways, much further than the crowd of people. I'm glad we went as high as we did - the view was fantastic.

We will meet Audrey for the first time in the next 24 hours. I plan to video Julie meeting her and we'll get lots of pictures. After our initial meeting and getting settled, we're going to call grandparents, and publish to the blog later, but hopefully not too much later.

Keep us in your prayers for safe travels tomorrow and a wonderful meeting!

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!!!!!