a sight for sore eyes

this is down the dirt road at the village yesterday. it just took me by surprise to see such a beautiful tree in this filthy village; again-i don't mean that in a mean way. but i think of it as God saying, "hey-see, I'm everywhere!" i just wish they knew Him, and not that fat little budha-guy!

farming

i just love the ones that shows them working. i don't mean that to be mean, but for some reason it's fascinating to me. hmmmm. guess it's just b/c their ways are so ancient! see how she is squatting? must be an asian thing, cuz all the koreans do this too. waiting for a bus, sitting around chatting w/ friends-squatting. no bad knees here!

more village pix

laundry day. our guide told us that the chinese do not have dryers. i doubt these people in this village even have washers.

a t-shirt to match...

this was on the bus yesterday. notice her sleepy friend in the background. myah's shirt says "Pretty, " fitting, huh?! grandma(s) and grandpa(s)-see my two teeth?!

peek-a-boo

this was after lunch-they took us to a rug factory, then back to the hotel. big day. neat day. and also the last full day in myah's province, hubei. tomorrow afternoon us seven families and our guide fly to the guangdong province to meet up with the other AWAA families. we will be in the city of guangzhao; where the american consulate is located. we've heard a lot of neat things about this city, so we're looking forward to it. pray for us and all the other families as this will be the girls' first plane ride. perhaps we'll get a 'feel' for how they'll do on the loooong one back to the states on wednesday. more later, from southern china. PS myah's 'tummy issues' are all better; thanks for your advice and prayers. now she has a bad cough and lots of snots; hey! you'll be proud, i haven't gagged once and i've been sneezed on, nose wiped on, and have even wiped it off of her with my bare hands and onto my own clothes! yea me! ha.ha.

awwwww

big day for these two; wait, myah's sleeping, but i think kev's praying that we don't have to go to another chinese dinner. but we did anyway! wow! eating out with a little one is a lot of work! i think about 3 different things were spilled at our table alone! i hope we took enuf pix and video for miss myah; since that village was so similar to where she spent the first part of her life. anything we video/get pix of here is all she has as her 'story.' i hate that part of it the most, for her! but i rest knowing that adoption is our Father's plan.

beautiful picture

these ladies were so cute! the one on the right is 90 years old and was standing in the middle of the road with her cane, helping all of us cross the road! thru our guide interperting, she said had she known we were all coming, she would have worn her pretty dress! isn't this picture amazing? then they wanted a picture with us! ha!

snapin' beans w/ a friend

i love this one, too. this was across the street from the village. what is so amazing to me is that here these people have practically nothing-and they're still so happy! what's wrong w/ us americans?

old world china

wow! i just LOVE this picture! this is what i think of when i think of china. here's a water buffalo (??) pulling the farmer on skids behind him thru the fields. wow!!! this is in that same village.

talk about bundling...

okay, i've told you how much they want their babies bundled. check out this little baby! it was a baby of one of the locals, but dang!!!! we were all sweating, can you imagine how hot this poor little one is? UNBELIEVABLE!

the locals

the people of the village were happy to see us and tried talking to us. they were so happy. they really seemed excited to see us. we are amazed at how quickly us americans with these precious babies can attract a crowd. anywhere we go, within a few minutes, there are people gathered around. our guide had given us cards in chinese to show interested on-lookers that explains to them that we are from america, here to adopt babies. we've not encountered one single person that isn't happy for us! we get a lot of thumbs up! and a lot of cheek-pinchers too (on our babies)

more views in the neighborhood

not sure if that's an electricity power pole or telephone (dad, i know you know what it is!) but there was a television on in one of the bedrooms. i highly doubt they have phones. there were not bathrooms in the homes either.

inside a farm house

no kidding, i actually gagged in two of the rooms inside this house. and people live here! i asked our guide if us coming here and taking pix embarrassed the people. she said they don't know how we live in the US, so they are totally content and think that they are normal, middle-class people with normal, middle-class conditions...click on this pix to get a close-up of the dead chicken hanging on the left wall. there were poultry running in and out of these homes and up and down the dirt roads. us americans, aware of the bird flu, were a little freaked out!

cute as a button

here we are on a bus ride to the countryside. today they are letting us go away from the city to see how the people in the country live. get ready-this hurts. our guide said the babies' foster families more than likely lived in the country, just like the next few pix are about to show. it still hurts my heart to think she was in these conditions for 11 months...

sleepy, but content

this was on our walk back from the park and KFC. i just have to show you what i mean when i say we have such a sweet, sweet baby. here she is, looking oh-so sleepy, been taken out of the familiar room she knows, run across a busy street, chinese women all in her face, loud music and cars honking everywhere; yet she never fussed! she had her hands just like this the whole way back-folded like she was posing. and just calmly watching everything zoom by her. what a doll!

the road conditions

here's kind of an example of what i've been telling you about. bikes, cars, bussess...you name it-they're all on the street together.

the colonel goes to china

the food was good, even cold. altho, they didn't have the yummy KFC biscuits we americans love, it was almost like a breadstick-but you KNOW i'm not complaining! and we decided that's going to happen a lot more now that we're parents; and we're totally fine with it!

not too sure

this is one of the ladies who was surrounding myah at the park. she motioned for me to let her hold myah. i did. myah didn't fuss, but was obviously not too sure about it. she wanted me to take her back! melted my heart! here's this lady who looks and was speaking chinese; what myah's seen/heard all her little life so far-and yet she wanted her mommy! awesome!

ordering off a chinese menu

here's paul and kevin trying to decifer what the pictures mean at KFC. fuuuunny! when we got back to the room with the food, poor baby myah had another 'constipation catastrophie'-man! that is SO hard to watch. she was standing on kev's lap, facing him and would just pinch his neck during the pain. pooooor girl! she was sooooooooo exhausted from trying to 'go' and was past her nap anyway, that while standing there on her daddy and pushing, she literally fell asleep! her eyes closed and head dropped; but only for a second. then back to hurting again. she was SUCH a good girl-it was like she was trying to hard to still be her sweet little self, but just had to cry out with the pain. (yes, again-i was crying right along with her). we finally took her up to paul and beth's room (sophie's parents) and used one of their glycerin supositories (SP?). but after an hour and 15 mins, STILL nada! she even pushed the supository out! she was so super tired and wore out by this time, so we went down the hall and knocked on shery's door (our agency's guide). she told us to wait 20 mins while she called the other guide; they showed up at our door with some 'chinese oil' little bottles. they'd gone to the pharmacy for us! it was like a baby enema..oh! i'm sorry if i'm getting to graphic here-again, this is for the grandparents! : )
we had to undress myah and lay her on her tummy (which she hates anyway) on the bed. as soon as we laid her down and she started fussing, both shery and christina went to work. they got down in her face and loudly kinda beat the bed next to myah's head and kept saying 'boo-pah' real fast. it worked! later they said it means "don't worry. don't cry, it's okay." christina did the enema thing, then they picked her up and quickly sat her on the potty. and BAM! it was instant! poor sweet myah sat there as they held her and kevin and i talked to her and i was kissing all over her head, yes-still crying of course-and just a few minutes into it, you could SEE that she felt better! sweet, sweet baby! thank you Lord for christina and shery! it was absolutely fascinating to watch them in action! we are SO impressed and oh so thankful for them. okay, awhile later, wiped out myah finally dozed off so kev and i ate our cold KFC in the hallway. didn't want to take ANY chances on waking that sweet baby after all she'd been thru! what a nite!

a brag moment

the lady with the little boy translated what these other ladies were saying; they said that myah is the most beautiful out of all the babies there! ahhhh, how sweet! we saw the same ladies again in KFC (yes, we ate at kentucky fried chicken!) a little later-they were so happy to see her again...

close-up

sorry if i'm adding too many pix, but (a) i can't help it, and (b) her grandmas and grandpas need every little pix they can get! : ) look at that sweet button nose!

drawing a crowd

okay, so we bundled her up so we wouldn't get 'scolded' by the chinese women-and yet they were now saying (thru a passerby that translated for us) we had her bundled up too much on top...they lifted the blanket off her legs, then said she wasn't bundled enuf on her legs. so they unfolded her socks and pulled em up higher on her legs and pulled her pant legs down, then tucked her blanket around her legs, sheesh! there were about 5 of us who took our girls to the park and MAN, did we get a lot of stares! there was a young guy and girl looking at everyone...she was crying. just made me wonder...could she have been a mom who had to put her baby up for adoption? anyway, these ladies just wouldn't stop talking about myah! all we could say was 'thank you' in chinese and other than that-we'd all just laugh; cuz there was absolutely no way we could communicate, yet it was fun!

where's myah?

okay, so they've harped on us and harped on us about making SURE we bundle these little ones when going outside. i think we got that covered! this coat just swallows her, but she liked it cuz she could chew on the zipper!

um, look BOTH ways, sir!

let's get out of the room!

okay, so we've been couped up in our room all day-let's go out and see the city!

daddy and daughter, oh so happy

check out the chunk of skin from kev's neck that she's pulling! someone in our group said her face; features, color-reminded them of a geisha. i said, 'well, as long as she doesn't become one!"

myah-happy to see melody!

here's another fun friend of myah's.
we are very much enjoying the friends in our group. a lot of us went to the park this afternoon, but in order to get there, we all had to cross the street-aaahhh! crossing the streets in china; much danger! it was HILARIOUS! i guarantee if someone had been taping all of us running across, we'd have won the 10K on america's funniest home video! here we all were; a big ole pack of white people; babies, strollers and cameras, dashing in front of busses, cars and crazy moped drivers. oddly enuf, many of them actually stopped-and i looked up to see a taxi driver really getting a big kick out of the sight!

la-la-laaaaa

nope, not miss myah. but this is part of the show at the museum kevin went to today. he said it was really neat, but the turquois shopping wasn't, whew! the first thing he said when he got home was, "i missed you guys so much-how is she?" good daddy!

i'm a big girl

here she is, miss america-or is that miss china?

congee time

congee is what people-adults and babies alike eat for breakfast. it's a rice-y soup kind of thing. and yes, she likes it!

the brush is for myah, not daddy

hi everyone! this is a pix from yesterday-hope i didn't already post this one. anyway, kevin is with the rest of the group on a day trip. they are going to a local museum, lunch and then to a turquois factory-guess that's a big thing here in hubei. they left at 9 this morning and won't be back til 3, which kevin and i agreed-was too long of a day for the little cutie-patootie. both yesterday and today she is only awake for two hours, then gets so sleepy. she took a total of FOUR naps yesterday and is on her 3rd one right now! (it's 1:19pm here). when we went to lunch and the 'mall' yesterday-she slept just fine in the baby bjorn, but we didn't think doing that to her two days in a row was good, plus she would have had to take 2 naps in it had we gone today; no thanks! and, i had no interest in the museum OR the lunch, as we all know, so i volunteered to be the one to stay here with her. besides, we all had pizza hut deliver last nite and there are leftovers! oh yeah, this is funny-yesterday at lunch, i was putting a disposable bib on myah and couldn't figure this part out...it said, "FOLD ME IN." to me, it looked like FOLD MEIN; mein as in CHOW MEIN, ha! i think i've been in china too long!
anyway, she and i have had fun here today, altho we both had a cry session when she tried to poo-poo. (isn't that just what you wanted to hear?!) poor baby, i think she's consitpated and all i could do was hold her and cry right along with her. it was horrible! she just looked at me and i could do nothing! ugh! i was able to feed her some baby food prunes, but she didn't want a very much, so i'm hopin it was enuf to help! should i keep you posted, hee.hee. as soon as kevin gets back, i'll upload some pix we took of her eating breakfast this morning; i forgot to download em onto the computer before he took it on the trip! thanks to all of you who are leaving comments; remember, we can't actually 'view' the blog site from over here, no idea why. but kev's parents read some to us when we're on the phone. it's awesome and sometimes just stinkin funny to hear what you all are saying!

concentrating...

mommy, daddy...

can i have anything i want?

see what i mean?

this baby girl is absolutely beautiful! she loooves this phone! i think she's calling you, grandma/grandpa brinley/gordon! i wish i could capture a good pix of her smiling. wow, it makes my heart leap when i see it!

lunchtime entertainment

when she wasn't smiling at everyone or jumping up and down on our laps (she loves that!), she was sitting ever so contently on our laps, chewing on/gagging on her spoon while we ate lunch.

interview

this is us this morning, having an interview with the officials. they wanted to know why we wanted to adopt from china, if-after being with her for a day now-if we wanted to keep her, (paleeeease!), if we promise to take good care of her (yes, as you guessed, i was crying thru this, too!) and what kind of an education we will give her. then we had to do our fingerprints in red over our signatures as well as her foot! : )

profile

here's the prettiest girl i've ever seen! her head is kinda flat in the back, which we read can be from the babies laying on their backs in their orphanage cribs all the time. well, she wasn't in an orphanage but for the last week or two-someone else told us it's genetics. they told us to start noticing adult chinese people's heads; that a lot of them have flat-back-heads, too. oh yeah, we learned that she didn't have any other brothers/sisters in her foster family. and that the box we sent her never arrived; too bad.
oh well, hopefully it landed in someone's hands who really needed it!

myah and sophie

we've become good friends with another military family here; this is their happy, happy daughter-sophie. she can stand up well and even take steps. miss myah can't stand alone yet, and just takes a few steps when we're holding her hands. and we are TOTALLY fine with that! we are so excited that we'll get to watch her learn to walk. the only thing is, she must not have had much 'tummy time.' she doesn't like being on her tummy for very long at all. which means, she can't even crawl! poor, sweet baby girl. so, we're going to be laying her on her tummy on her blanket w/ toys a little bit every day. she really needs to learn how to crawl!!!! we learned in our adoption course that it really helps develop certain parts of their brains, so that's gonna be our goal. crawl, sweet baby, crawl! by the way, we must be getting the hang of it, with a little bit of crying and a whole lot of sssshhhh'ing, patting, rubbing, swaying and singing-we got her to sleep! she'd been rubbing her eyes again. we wrote down her nap times today and man! she's only up for about two hours b/t each nap! that sounds like a newborn to me! but then again, they say these babies may sleep a lot at first-cuz they've been thru sooo much; they're just exhausted. kev decided he was in need of a nap as well. we're so happy to have all this down-time here. they've even arranged for pizza hut delivery tonite, yea!

sleepyhead girl

tilt your head

sorry. but i wanted to show you how she sleeps with her arms out to the side. man, does she ever love that paci! we're trying to just give it to her when she gets sleepy; seems to be working!

tear-jerker

another one from our friend. made me cry all over again. look at her lookin at her daddy for the very first time. can you believe she didn't cry? at least out of fright from her outta-control-sobbing mommy!

rewind

this is from a friend's camera; this was the very first moment of 'us.'

tied-on diaper

so sad! and over this was a pair of split-pants; where the crotch is literally sewn to where it's slit. i'm SO glad she's outta the foster care/orphanage system.

phone call...

oh yea! it's working. another girl in our group is having trouble as well-this is supposedly 'high speed' but it's not quite, so maybe afternoons are gonna be the times when the traffic is lighter and when i should post em. just to update you, my beautiful baby girl is sitting on her daddy's tummy right now, talking in her sweet little voice and playing with toys. we went to a group lunch and she was the center of attention. she is SOOOOOOOOO happy! and SOOOOOOOOOO stinkin cute! it still brings me to tears sometimes just to look at her. she is striking to me! her eyes are unbelievable; and i know none of these pix are doing it justice. after lunch, we all went to the carrefour mall for supplies. LOTS of curious chinese people, and a few 'thumbs up' from them! little miss myah slept during the whole 1.5 hr long shopping trip in the baby bjorn. at one point, she was just looking up into my eyes, resting her head on my chest and my tears were running down my cheeks. she is a treasure, and she is ours! we are blessed beyond measure, and we give all the glory to God! okay, i'll quit rambling and add more pix.
this was from yesterday afternoon. by the way, she came to us in THREE layers of clothes! check out in the next pix how her diaper was TIED on! oh my! poor babies!

general info

ugh! we can't figure out why the pix aren't posting!!!! anyway, we just googled metric conversions and this little peanut only weighs 13 pounds-and she's 11 months old! i know i've not been a mother very long, but i'm hearing my motherly instincts tell me that perhaps the reason why she is so restless in her sleep is b/c her belly is just not getting full?! i can't believe how tiny she is! we were able to convert and figure out some directions off of her 'nestle' powdered milk package via flashlight in the wee hours of the morning; that way, as soon as she woke up this morning, we already had the thermos of tap water boiled and set the bottle in it to warm up as well. she drank it like a champ! whew! i think we finally got something right. what a sweetie, she doesn't even complain! anyway, she was only up for about an hour-was real happy, played with her toys-and then the eye-rubbing started again. i jumped in the shower while kevin got her back to sleep. i wish you guys could see him with her! it melts my heart! and she is just so breath-taking! we just keep saying over and over how beautiful she is! anyway, b/c of all the comotion last nite w/ her being so upset-we were totally wiped out and decided we needed to go to bed as soon as she fell asleep. so, we are STARVIN MARVIN right now, but she's napping. i told kevin to go eat while i do this, then i'll go once he's back. i just took a pix of her sleeping, i really hope we can figure out what's wrong w/ the pix-posting part; she's an absolute angel! she likes sleeping w/ her arms out to the sides; she must know her daddy's a pilot and she's pretenting to be flying. ps can you kiss a baby too much?

we made it thru the first nite!

hey guys, for some reason-i'm having trouble with blogger this morning; perhaps i'm so tired i cannot remember how to use it? she is AMAZING! she was so happy from the minute we first held her all the way til she just rubbed her eyes and konked out at 6:30. no fussing at all! woke up an hour later, tried feeding her some more. man, trying to figure out how to use chinese formula/rice cereal, not possible! then it hit. all of a sudden it was like she figured it out-that us funny looking people weren't giving her back to who/what she knew. she cried so hard for about an hour (along with mom!) and you parents know what i'm talking about. NOTHING would console her. she wanted me, then as soon as i'd take her, she wanted kevin...eventually, kevin just sat down with her and we got out this toy phone (thanks, jason and susan!) that she loves. she calmed down and eventually dozed off. so she slept from 10pm to 6:30 this am, but was very restless; i.e. which means we just cat-napped all nite. we learned she LOVES her paci, but ends up pulling it out in the nite, therefore losing it. now we know why everyone told us to bring a flashlight! she only cried out twice, and as soon as we gave her the paci, she immediately stopped. anyway, thank you Lord for finally calming us all down. it absolutely broke our hearts when she was so worked up. we were both crying just hurting for her-we can't even imagine how scared she is or what she's thinking/going thru. kevin later told me that was the hardest thing he's ever done! by the way, he is one awesome daddy! at any movement or peep she made last nite, i'd look over and he was already leanin over her crib! anyway, we need to figure out how to both get ready while also keeping her content. we have to go to bfast (oh yeah, we're officially REAL parents now-we haven't eaten since lunch yesterday!) then onto do some paperwork. from now on, i'll mostly post pix, not much journaling. keep praying for us! we need wisdom to know what to do! thanks!

not laughing yet

she had on THREE layers of clothes!

here she is!

me-bawling! her-absolutely fine! thank you, Lord!

first family picture

all i remember is that they called out her name and i went right up and took her, bawling-of course; oh yeah, me! not her! i don't even remember where kevin was-i know he went up with me, but i just reached for her without even thinking. she just looooked at me, and here i was-weeping. she never cried!

1 hour til myah arrives

okay, so here we all are, in the conference room one hour til the babies arrive. we filled out a few forms that the officials will use to get her chinese passport ready. it only took about 30 minutes, so the remaining 30-we went back to the room, put up the paperwork, then bought her some apple juice to have a sippy cup ready-just in case. kevin saw the babies/nannies (orphanage workers) in the lobby, i glanced over real quick, then decided i needed to get to the conference room before i passed out! i all of a sudden got REAL nervous and a little light-headed and hot! it didn't help that the room was extremely warm either. anyway, a little more paperwork had to be signed (see next pix) then after we signed it, they handed each family a photo album the orphanage had made. (we both got really choked up when they announced we'd all be getting one)!

myah's crib

each of us adopting families walked into our rooms today and had these cribs already set up for us, how sweet! you may need to click on the picture to enlarge it, but notice that the 'bedding' is actually like a sleeping bag! neat! there's also a cute little pillow in there.
and yes, we've already gone back and forth over who's side she's sleeping on; hee.hee. what new-bys we are! oh yeah, they also provided each of our rooms with a baby bathtub as well. oh-and don't forget the gas mask in the closet! just like in korea! oh my!
alright, time to get all our paperwork ready and head down to the conference room; aahhh! my stomach just flipped! and this time, for real-is the last time i'll be posting without our baby girl. get ready for fun, fun pix of her from here on out! wooo-hoooooo!

ancient, i tell ya

this guy was just walking down the sidewalk, carrying a heavy load of something. see what i mean about their way of working compared to ours?! oh, by the way-it's fairly warm here today and notice his coat. everyone is layered! and our guides can't stop stressing enuf to us of the importance of layering our babies! they said they don't even want us taking them to the swimming pools, bummer. anyway, as we start posting pix of miss myah, and you're wondering why we're in t-shirts and she's in long-sleeved outfits and her coat-it's cuz we're trying to respect their ways of things.

8.5 hours and counting

yeah, i'm lying again; still no myah. this is us at the beijing airport this morning, getting ready to board air china to the province of hubei, into wuhan city. the flight was only an hour and a half long-then we loaded onto a bus and had a one hour drive to the hotel. it is PRETTY here! very green, neat landscaping, beautiful yellow flowers everywhere (canola oil) and quite a bit warmer than in beijing. there are 'only' 8 million people here in wuhan (the capitol of hubei), compared to beijing's 14 million; so here, there's much less buildings and a lot more open fields. i hope to get a chance to take pix of the workers in the fields. it's exactly like you see on tv; bent over at the waist and wearing those bamboo hats. again, these people (esp the older generation) are such hard workers! anyway, it's now almosts 2:30pm here. we all will meet in the conference room of the hotel in 30 mins to start some paperwork. then, our babies will be here at 4pm!!! we just got thru praying for them now, as they're all on a 3 1/2 hr bus ride from the orphanage; keep in mind, many of these girls have never been outside, let alone in a bus. poor babies!

i lied!

good morning, i mean afternoon to YOU guys. okay, remember how i said on that last post that the next time we do this, we'll have her? i lied! it's definitely hitting me now! i woke up at 4:30am (alarm was set for 5; kev was already awake) and neither of us could go back to sleep. i could tell my breathing/heart rate is a little elevated and i'm feeling a little shake-y as i write this; like how you feel when you're in a hurry and still trying to accomplish something-you know what i mean? anyway, i guess this must be what it's like when you're rightd about to give birth-not well rested, anxious and the nagging question burning in your mind...IS IT HERE YET???? ugh! still have about 11 hours to go, ugh! okay, we're gonna get up and get ready to go. just wanted to let all you people out there that were wondering "how can she be so calm?!" see that the calmness is subsiding and i'm reeeeeally starting to feel it! oh yeah, this is neat-i woke up with this song on my mind/heart: you ONC'ers will know which one i'm talking about..."He has turned my sorrow into gladness, He has turned my sorrow into joy" isn't that just like God?! He is SO awesome! oh my gosh, here it comes; i'm starting to cry thinking that 'this is theeee day that the Lord has made' and He doeth all things (very, very) well! i'm so humled to think that He chose ME to take part in His magnificant plan of adoption! ME! i'm so undeserving! but yet He chose me! not only did He adopt me; He also chose me to take part in this plan and get to experience a fraction of what He feels like when He adopts us into His family! oh my gosh! i can't believe it! we are so blessed! OKAY! now it's 'hit' and i want my baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! : )

TOMORROW WE GET OUR BABY!!!!!!!!

yes, it is less than 24 hours now (17 hrs to be exact!) until we come face to face with this baby we've loved in our hearts and minds for the last 13 months! aaahhh! (it's starting to hit me a little bit, FINALLY!) we learned today that the babies in the hubei province (myah's province) who've been in foster care (her) were taken to the orphanage 1-2 weeks ago; UGH! this ripped my heart apart! poor little babies! anyway, i'm trying not to think about it and focusing on tomorrow's joy...anyway, we have to be on the busses at 6:20am to catch our 8am flight to hubei. it's only a 1.5 hr flight there, but then an hour bus ride to the hotel. we'll get there about 11am, china time. then at 3pm (ugh! lots of down-time.), we go down into the conference room where we begin some paperwork. and at 4pm....drum roll, please, the babies arrive! oh my goodness; i can't even fathom the gravity of what our emotions are about to experience! so the next time we publish any more journals/pictures, we'll have her! oh my goodness, we'll really have her! i guess i need to preface that; MYAH-WILLING, we'll be posting something tomorrow nite! : )
well, guys, here's hoping all us families get a good nite's sleep-cuz it's our last nite for forever, without children! woooo-hooooo! we hope you ALL are doing well too and enjoying the journey.
okay, my eyeballs are stinging and i've GOT to get to bed. biggest day of my life happening just hours away. love you ALL!

the last supper

such americans, i know-i know. pizza hut, you're asking?! well, did you see that picture i posted earlier from our lunch? keep in mind, we've been eating that kind of stuff the last two days-and after another full day of sight-seeing and climbing the wall, when we had yet another chinese dinner; i got crabby. ate my usual: rice, a few bites of fried pork, some peppers and sprite. so, as soon as we got back to the hotel, we went down the street with another couples' daughter and had us some REAL food! it was soooooooooo good! and this, my friend-was the best way to spend our 'last supper' together; at least the last un-interrupted, warm-temperatured-food meal for quite awhile, because.............

woah!

trying to give you a clear picture of how steep this climb really is.
craaaaazy, i tell ya! by the way, this is pretty much how it was on the climb; me lookin back at kevin, hee.hee.hee. (you know i'm never gonna let him live this one down!!!) altho i think i know who'll be hurtin tomorrow morning, and it'll be his turn to rub it in!

we've only just begun...

here we go-at this point we had just barely climbed a few stairs. oh, and just for the record, i made climbed up to the 3rd tower; kevin stopped at the second! woooo-hooo! it was hard, yes-but kind of exhilarating too! i was just in awe that we were here, climbing this massive, historical landmark; very cool! i actually wanted to keep going, but i knew my knees would be screaming at me tomorrow if i did, just cuz the way down is so painful. even then, only having gone up to the 3rd tower, my legs were like jelly when i got back down. it's a good thing we won't be holding our babies with our legs tomorrow, cuz we're all gonna be very sore!

the great big wall

this was awesome! here we are, arriving at one of the 7 wonders of the world, the great wall of china. there were tons of people and lots of heavy breathing (a very steep climb). it's too late and i'm too tired to look up all the stats about how long it took to build, how many miles it spans, etc-but i do know it would take a person two years to walk the entire length. it's only been done by one person, an american woman; you go, girl!
PS if you double-click on any of these pictures i've posted, you can see them a lot more clearly...

self-explanatory

this just cracked me up! i'd never seen this before; and the other side of the bathroom, all the signs showed a 'western-style potty' and said SIT. hahaha!

and the picture you've all been waiting for...

THE SQUATTY POTTY!
can i just say right now, from the words of lee greenwood, "i'm (so) proud to be an american!" do we americans have it good, or what?! granted, using squatty potties does work your quads, but paleeeease! these are yucky! and what's worse, are you ready for this? you aren't supposed to flush your TP, so it's all in that trash can. UGH! talk about stinky bathrooms! i thought i was used to this from living in korea and using one of these every day at the school where i taught english, but i was wrong! i actually don't think one can ever get used to this! p.s. you must bring your own TP, too!

hungry, anyone?

ah, yes-another authentic lunch. ten bucks to whomever can name everything you see here. i purposely tried to 'ruin my lunch' on the bus ride to the restaurant. i ate a granola bar and some crackers with cheese. this lunch actually was better than anything we've had so far, but still- it's just a few bites of rice, some veggies (if identify-able) and a bite or two of mystery meat. needless to say, this is getting real old-real fast. altho we are getting really good at using chopsticks!

next stop-the jade factory

after church, we went to an EXPENSIVE jade factory. here is a man actually carving it. pretty cool, but not really our taste and way out of our price range.

BICF

Beijing International Christian Fellowship
this was our first stop of the day, and what a great way to start it out! this is obviously a Christian service, which means no chinese people are allowed inside! you have to be a foreign passport holder and yes, you have to show your passport to get in. we guessed there were approximately 500 people there and man, i was emotional within the first few minutes of being there! how amazing to be praising the very God who is 'illegal' here in this country! the singing was awesome and the sermon, outstanding!

bicycle buddies

this isn't the clearest picture, but i wanted to show you a very common sight. it's mind-blowing watching these people riding in the steets, just inches away from busses and cars, whizzing and honking by them; they don't act scared at all. they have to have nerves of steel!

the wheels on the bus go, screeeech!

i took this picture out our hotel window this morning-just to show you what we ride around in. there are actually 3 of these taking us around everywhere; this is the largest travel group on record for our agency, which has been running for 10 years. there are 60 adopting families in our group, many have brought along siblings and grandparents; so the total number of people is over 100! anway, this picture was taken right before we left for our church service this morning. funny thing is, about 15 minutes after i took this picture, we had a minor crash with a taxi; i told you the driving is CRAAAAZY here! we're actually surprised this hasn't happened about 10 other times already. the driver was just getting ready to drop us off at the hotel where the church service is held, and BAM! everyone was totally fine, except the driver of the taxi couldn't get out of his car b/c we hit him directly in the door! thank the Lord, we were going super slow in the parking lot!

if tomorrow never comes

remember garth brooks' hit, 'if tomorrow never comes?' well, trust me, for you all back in america, it does (since we're 15 hours ahead here in this part of the world)! okay, i wanted to just tell you a few things here, without a picture and needed a catchy title. first of all, we are unable to actually view the website; don't know why, so every time i post something, i just have to hope it makes it...then we wait for kevin's mom to email us and tell us how many new ones appeared. having said that, that also means we're unable to read the comments many of you are writing. again, kev's mom and dad just tell us who actually sent one-so we apologize for not replying to any of your comments-but we simply cannot. oh yeah, please keep in mind how 'off' our bodies are with this new time change, and forgive my type-o's : ) and one other thing-THANKS SO MUCH for all the prayers! one of my biggest thing was not getting sick; and we feel AWESOME! praise God! last nite, we had another great nite of sleep and actually got 8 hours. and this afternoon, which was nite-time to our bodies, it actually didn't seem as bad as yesterday afternoon; so we're adjusting! thanks again!

work, work, work

these guys were working so hard at T-square yesterday. keep in mind the summer olympics is being held here in beijing in 2008, so there is a lot of construction/refurbishing going on all over the city. these guys are pulling up bricks, notice the lack of tools, and throwing them all in a big pile. once they're all pulled up, they'll lay a new layer with new bricks. and this area is HUGE! our tour guide said the actual floor of bricks is 14 layers deep-of bricks! don't worry, these guys are just re-doing the top layer. but still-the workers are so old andhaving to work so hard. it's really sad to see the faces of the older generation here. they're so wrinkle-y; it's hard to imagine all they've been thru in their lives, it's almost like their faces say it all. i keep thinking how neat it would be to bring over a team of americans and all our advanced tools/machinery-and show these guys how to use it. i bet they've never even anything like what we have. wow! God truly has blessed america!

beep, beep

i took this picture out the bus window yesterday-it's part moped, part car??? the driving here is absolutley crazy, and would be impossible without the horn. the rule is, as a pedistrian, YOU have to stop for them (cars, busses, etc) because they WON'T stop for you. oh my! i hope to get a picture of all the people on their bikes. no wonder why they're so little! they eat so healthy and most of them have only a bike as their mode of transportation!

typical meal set-up

after the summer palace, we went to a silk factory (very interesting) and then onto a peking duck dinner. again, yea for rice, coke and veggies. notice the fork as part of the place setting for us americans! after dinner, we finally came back to the hotel. this day was packed; we were gone almost 12 hours! they do this to help adjust us to the time change. but at about 2 o'clock this afternoon, you could tell the whole group was getting tired (that was 11pm, phoenix time, to our bodies). we were all a lot less talkative, we walked a lot slower and enjoyed the bus rides a lot more. they told us today was the most tire-some day. tomorrow we'll be back to the hotel at 6pm-ish and won't do nearly as much walking; altho-we'll be climbing the great wall-so i don't know which day will wipe us out more!? well, the tv is off, kev seems to be asleep and my eyes are stinging. good nite from beijing, and good morning america!

spring is in the air

the magnolias are starting to bloom in the summer palace.
this was the first time all day that we saw blue sky. until then, it was the typical hazy, brown-ish color; exactly like korea. much of china, so far, reminds us of korea. oh my gosh, i just looked up at the tv to see what kevin is watching-sumo wrestling! i guess it's only fitting since we're in china!

summer palace

after lunch, we visited a pearl factory where 'mom' and myah got a few things; we picked out a pink peal necklace to give her on her 16th birthday. then we went to the summer palace where the emperor and his family vacationed. it sits on this man-made lake and is made up of many old buildings. it was also a neat place, but was packed with people! it's so funny watching the chinese people watch us! at the forbidden city this morning, some chinese people wanted to take a picture with us and many chinese were taking pictures of a little blonde girl in our group.

first authentic chinese meal

after T-square and the forbidden city, it was time for lunch. oh my. let's just say, thank the Lord for rice! hee.hee. each meal is served 'family style' on a big lazy susan. on a few dishes, we all just guessed what they were. the soup and jasmine tea were really good; the fried pork was good and well, so was the sprite. p.s. we made sure to bring plenty of american snacks with us on this trip-it's a good thing!

Tian'anmen Square

we woke up this morning (to the sound of honking cars outside our hotel) at 6:30, which meant we had about 7 hours of greeeat sleep.
we had a huge breakfast and met more of our group, then we all set out at 8:45 for some sight-seeing. first stop-tian'anmen square and the forbidden city. this place is huge! T-square is actually the largest square in the world. it was windy and a little cold, but neat. the big picture of the man behind us is chairman mao. he is the one who established china's infamous "one child policy," which turns out to be the very reason why we are getting a daughter from here. interesting, huh?

big bird

here's our 'ride' for the next 11 hours. thankfully, kevin had called ahead and reserved our seats, so we were in the bulk-head. nice! well, it still was a looooooong flight, but at least we had a little more leg room and no one reclining back in our laps! we saw 4 movies, ate some mildly-scary-chinese stuff and slept for a total of about 30 minutes. ouch! it was fun walking around and meeting more of the families, but the most fun part of the trip was at 5:30pm china-time; we landed! going thru customs was a breeze and our agecny's "guides" were there to meet us right away. we got on a bus and they explained what our itinerary would be for the next two days then checked us into our hotel. we've now been up for over 24 hours and of course, now that we're here, we're wide awake!

send-off party!

as we were driving down our street on the way to the airport, there stood our neighbors amy and sleepy-head son, steven. TOO CUTE!

rise and shine!

today's the day! we're on our way, little miss myah!
our good friends, the stitzels-who will be leaving for russia any day to adopt their 2 kids-came and got us at 6:15 this morning. by the way, for those of you who are wondering, we slept totally fine last nite and even hit the snooze button once! by the way, no-it STILL hasn't "hit me" yet! we're leaving TODAY and i still am calm. anyway, we flew from phx to san fran-and as you can see in this picture, our agency sent every family Tshirts so we could spot eachother in the airports. it was so fun! we found another couple from chandler in the phx airport right off the bat, thanx to the shirts. once we landed in CA we started seeing more blue shirts. there were 10 families total on the flight from CA to beijing.

our last date...

well, this is it-the last date nite as we know it-at least without having a babysitter or bringing myah with us! we went to a movie and then to PF Changs; ha! like we won't be getting enuf chinese food for the next two weeks! well, here we go-we've been married over 9 years now and this is our kick-off to parenthood, wooo-hooo!

an OSU surprise shower!

(march 22nd) today, angie, my friend/roommate from my OSU days came over to see us before we left...well, up she pulled in her little mini-cooper and it was full of gifts. my college friends had secretly been planning a 'virtual shower' for me and had sent everything here to angie! i totally did not see that one coming! it was awesome! you guys are FANTASTIC! thanks soooooooo much! i love you guys! GO POKES!

the conference call

last week, our agency and all FORTY-THREE people of our 'travel group' had a conference call. kevin and i went to the stitzel's house (we don't have high-speed internet still) so we could watch it on the internet as well as participate in the call. it was an informative two-hour call with a Q&A time at the end. during the initial 'roll call' at the beginning of the call, kevin and i looked over at eachother and we were both choked up! and that was just the roll call! it was pretty emotional listening to everyone's introduction of themselves, where they were from, what province their baby is in and what her/his new name is. (for those of you that know me well, you know that kevin had to do the introductions for us, cuz there was a lump as big as a baseball in my throat!)

checking the weight...

on the in-country flights while in china, our weight allowance is only 44 pounds, so we're having to pack LIGHT and check each suitcase with the scale. most of our weight will be the meds for myah (they tell you to take a lot of medications, anticipating any illnesses) as well as clothes (in 2 different sizes), snacks, bottles, and you got it, PINK HAIR BOWS! kevin and i decided that we're only taking 4 outfits a piece for us and only 2 pair of shoes. hmmm. let's see if i can stick to that!

baby laundry!

okay, all you moms out there, you have to admit that the first time you washed your baby's clothes before he/she arrived, it was FUN! i told kevin this was probably the first and last time i can say i really enjoyed doing laundry, hee.hee.

ONC Shower

(sunday, march 5th) today was such a fun day...my awesome friends from church (orangewood nazarene) threw me a BEAUTIFUL shower. it was at the gorgeous home of one of my friends who lives on a golf course. there were white-table-clothed round tables with neat aisan centerpieces all in the grass and chinese paper lanterns and market umbrellas and food galore around her pool. i remember thinking while i was sitting down to eat, "man! i feel like i'm at some posh resort eating at a fancy luncheon!" the ladies of the church were so generous and once again, i'm going to be writing thank you's for weeks to come! the food, the fellowship, the friendship and the gorgeous weather made this day absolutely wonderful, but the group prayer we had at the end of the shower made it PERFECT! thank you ladies for all the work you put into making this day so special! i'm going to miss ALL of you SO much!!!! (above: the fun hosts, renee and judie)