HOME!!

Wow, what a trip! We've made it home finally though a little worse for wear. I'm fine (surprisingly), Aanika has a cough and the sniffles and Kevin has taken a beating! To start, his wife (ME) is to blame for his first injury. As we were waiting in one of many lines at an airport I decided to sit on a luggage cart while Kev was holding Aanika - well, after sitting for quite some time, I had forgotten that Kevin too was sitting/leaning on the same luggage cart up near the handle bar. Did I mention that he was holding Aanika? Leave it to the blonde to stand up which in turn sent Kevin crashing to the floor! Luckily for us one of our travel partners helped to break his fall as he landed on his backside... Did you ever have someone give you a look like 'I can't believe you just did that' as something awful was happening? Yup, I got THAT look. Soon after this incident, while wandering around Nanjing and carrying Aanika in the Snuggli, he managed to throw his back out and put himself out of commission for a bit. Sheesh....to top it all off, after worrying and fretting that someone was going to get sick and possibly prevent our group from leaving China, guess who gets violently sick? KEVIN. Needless to say, Aanika didn't get to spend much time with her daddy on the way home to America. But, we're home safe and sound and simply thrilled to be in our own beds!

Thank you everyone for praying for us while we went through this process and during our trip - it's truly been amazing!

(Pictured are Auntie Sue, Uncle Matt, and Aunt Chrissy with the panda bear)

Stranded in Hong Kong

Well, it's November 21st and we're delayed in Hong Kong (in the hotel lobby because we already checked out) because a flight issue from Chicago (again). We're trying to remain positive but it's really hard when you only want to get home! Hopefully, we'll only be delayed about 5 hours....

Guangzhou - Hot and Steamy

Well, we're in day 2 in Guangzhou and boy, is it STEAMY! We're very glad that this is a November trip - just can't imagine how hot it truly gets in the summer...

Medical's and visa pictures were done on our first day here and most of the paperwork is finished. We'll going later today to take "the oath" where we promise to take care of her etc.Shopping is underway, plenty of exploring to be done still and just some general relaxing until we fly out tomorrow to Hong Kong. It appears that we'll be arriving relatively early in HK and will be able to take the express train into the city - we hear it's just amazing and we're looking forward to it.

On another side of this trip, we just found out today that another group is under quarantine because of chicken pox that put one child in the hospital. We're under strict orders to keep to ourselves and to keep the anti-bacterial hand cleaner with us at all times. Unfortunately for them, they have to remain for another 10 days....lucky us.

Aanika is making great strides. She's finally decided to start crawling for us and is just an hysterically funny kid. She has such a ready smile and is so mild natured, we just can't believe how blessed we are!

Nanjing - first business day

Well, it's our first official business day in Nanjing. First thing this morning we were off to sign papers and give our thumb prints for the province officials. After a very brief questioning of why we were there and would we truly accept Aanika, we were sent on our way. It was a bit stressful, but otherwise painless. At the moment, we're waiting for the Notary Officials to arrive from Aanika's home town to sign some other documents. I believe that this is all of the paperwork that needs to be done in this area.

Tomorrow is a touring day....it ought to be wonderful. It's a very lovely area with much to be seen.

Gotcha Day!

What a great day! We received little Aanika into our arms right at 3 PM China time (about Midnight EST); they came to our room with one of her caretakers to give her to us. The "nurse" said to Lian Yi Mei, "This is your mama", and handed her over. She was clutching the pink elephant we had sent over 3 months ago.

She was quite calm and inquisitive. She was just as big as they had said (I had expected a bit different); I'm guessing she's all of 18 pounds and plenty chubby cheeks. After studying Cil's blue eyes for about 5 minutes, she started looking over the goofy looking guy with the camera. She didn't make a sound, and just played with the toys we gave her.

About 15 minutes later we were able to meet the "nurses" who took care of her and the director for the orphanage. On the way over to visit them, she feel asleep in Cil's arms - apparently quite tired from the 5 hour drive to the hotel. They gave us details of her schedule that she typically keeps (we still haven't figured out how she has her first feeding at 5 AM and gets up at 6 AM), and gave us some of the formula that they use. They also had used up all the pictures of the two cameras we had sent, and also gave us more pictures of themselves and the orphanage that they had taken. They were great. Then some more pictures right there - so we had to wake her up for that little event. We then went back to our room; played for a good hour, got her saying things like "da" and "ba" and giggling. At that point we saw that she has 7 teeth, with the 8th erupting on the lower left, and that she has a dimple on the right cheek.

Then it was the first bottle. Gulped that down - she had a little cough and sounded a little congested (plus pawing at her right ear); gave her a some medicine and after 1/2 hour, she's right back to playing with all the toys we give her. She's very attracted to red - we see in the pictures that the cribs that surrounded hers were almost all painted red.About an hour later, she's breathing better and slowing down; so a couple minutes of rocking, and she's asleep. She's very sweet; Cil's calling her "sugar bear" because of the outfit she was wearing. I'm working on getting the pictures uploaded. I'll post another update when I get them on board. It was quite a flurry between arriving from the flight, to going to the store, finally back just in time to prepare. It all worked out beautifully.

Travel and Arrival!

Well, the schedule did not go as planned. First, things were going great! Got to the gate and walked right up, 2 hours plus early. Things got ugly in Chicago....engine problems. After sitting on the plane for hours, they let us off the plane for a few minutes to make calls etc. After doing a reload of the plane and sitting for a few MORE hours they decided that having BOTH engines with trouble wasn't a good thing. Yup, you guessed it, both engines went crazy!So they put us up for the night and told us to be back for an 8:00 flight - nope, 9:45. Ugh.Needless to say, we finally have made it!

Beijing is an amazing place. There are sooo many people, cars and bikes - it just kind of boggles the mind. Note: if you come to Beijing - don't drive! Or walk for that matter. It's the most terrifying thing to do around here - nobody will stop for a bike, pedestrian or car no matter how big (buses included!). Whew...Because of the time that we arrived yesterday and the fog issue that we landed in, we haven't gotten any pictures yet to show you. We were fortunate enough to be able to still do the Hutong tour and were able to visit a Kindergarten (ages 2-6). You have to see the video of that one! The kids are so interesting and gregarious. We were able to visit one of their "dance" classes and were greatly entertained. The Rickshaw guy was an absolute hoot. You could tell he could pick up on a few of the things we were saying or commenting on because of his chuckles though he never really spoke to us....hmmmm

Today is a new adventure: The Great Wall and Tiananmen Square and possibly an acrobatic show this evening. We'll keep you posted as to how it went.