Day Three!

So It’s 4 am again.  😀

Hope is doing phenomenally well.  She is such a smiley child.  Katie is also doing great and has not stopped talking since we landed in China!  I thought it was a little anxiety but I’ve decided that it is just being away from Jay!  Who knew she could challenge Jaden in the chatterbox department?

It is Wednesday morning and today Hope will see the orphanage people again.  I’m a little worried about this for Hope.  She obviously cares about these women (and is cared for) but I feel that it has the potential to hurt her.  

Tim and I walked to WalMart yesterday and I baby-wore Hope.  It was fun to get out and about on our own and the girls both did well and had fun.  Hope wouldn’t let me out of reach though and was more touchy than normal (which is saying something as she is really working on filling her touch bucket).  She was so relieved that she was giddy when we got back to our hotel.  Tim and I felt that she must have thought we were bringing her back to her former orphanage.  I’m worried that when she sees the orphanage folks, she will think we are giving her back.  I want to believe that she would consider that a sad thing but of course, she might think it was a good thing too.  Either way, it stands to be a wrenching thing for her.  If she is happy with us and wants to stay, seeing them will hurt, if she is happy to go back, seeing them leave will hurt.  

The only time she has cried since she joined us has been at bedtime.  Each night, she clings to my hand as silent tears run down her cheeks.  I don’t know the meaning of the tears, perhaps she misses the other littles more at night or maybe nights were hard for her at the orphanage.  Maybe the tears are just a way to release big emotions that build up all day.  Either way, it hurts this mama’s heart to see her sad.

Will y’all join me praying for Hope?  I don’t want her to let today steal her happy.  I hope this gives her a little closure and  confirmation that we will never abandon her.  

Gotcha!

Its 4a.m. And I’ll make this fairly short but we have Hope!

She is doing amazingly well so far.  She and Katie are doing great together and Katie is really trying hard to be a supportive big sister.

Gotcha was quick and to the point but there were some surprises.  Apparently Hope is one of the director’s favorites.  The director was tearful and obviously sad to see Hope go.  She asked if she could give Hope a special necklace that the director had gotten for both Hope and for her own daughter.  She also asked if she could keep in touch as her daughter lives in the US.  This was a first for us.

Hope is not potty trained yet, which is unusual, in our experience, for the orphanages.  They seem to generally train fairly early.  So, oops, we did not bring changing pads, wipes , diapers or a diaper bag.  Of course all of this is available here, it was just not exactly what we expected.  She is also a serious chunk.  Our others have been thin to the point of concern but goodness, not Hope.  She is seriously so heavy that I “oof!” When I pick her up or when she plops into my lap.  She already comes over to me and raises her hands and says “oof” to me when she wants up. 😂  She spent several minutes just getting up and collapsing back into my lap because Katie thought it was so funny.  Hope and Katie both had a good laugh over the abuse of my bladder.  (Sorry if that’s TMI.) She also doesn’t seem to have an off switch at meal times.  The only way to distract her is to leave the food which is tough because, (for those of you that have ever had a meal with Katie, you know where I’m going with this) Katie is the proverbial turtle at meal times.  Hope had eaten an entire plate of cut up fruit before Katie had finished 2 little squares of watermelon.  This is going to take some time to figure out the best way to keep both girls healthy.

Tim has been glowing he’s so happy to have our girl.  She definitely prefers mama right now she’s willing to let him feed her.  Initially she didn’t let him pick her up but she’s already over that.  She’s warming up to her daddy much more quickly than her big sis did and that makes Tim a happy daddy.

Ten hours til Gotcha!

Well, here we are.  

We have reached Beijing, and in less than 10 hours we should have Hope with us.

This is our fourth adoption journey, and in some ways it has felt like a somewhat comfortable routine, but in some ways it has been so different. 

At this point, our biggest concern is how Hope is going to feel over the next few days and weeks.  (Not how she will act, but rather the feelings, thoughts, and emotions that she will experience.) 

We can only pray that she will somehow have some sense of peace, or at least that peace may come somewhat quickly. 

Try to imagine leaving everything you have known ... and being placed with strangers who look different, sound different, smell different, and act different than anyone that you have ever been around. 

Even as an adult, I would be overwhelmed if you dropped me down into a culture that I had no previous knowledge of and expected me to just accept this as my new life.  And since I cannot imagine experiencing this as an adult, I certainly cannot imagine what this will be like for a 3 year old. 

The good news, though, is that we do have faith that she will adjust and accept love. We are confident that love will win in the end, but we just pray for her to have a sense of comfort during this journey. 

Thanks for everyone's prayers back home!  They are greatly needed and appreciated. 

The great news is that in just a few hours she will no longer be an orphan.  Instead, she will be part of a family that is ready to love and cherish her and is ready to shower her with love. 

Our expected meeting time is 8AM in Beijing on Monday, which is 7PM back in Oklahoma (counting the the time change). 

We'll be in touch soon!

🐥🐥🐥🐥🐥🐣

I800 approval and new Pics!

Yikes.  This has been such a slow process.  We’re doing what we can to speed it along but aren’t having much luck.  BAAS sent us forms that were out of date which caused our first set to be rejected, the lockbox was super slow to get ours sent on to USCIS and then we got Officer Blaylock who is notoriously slow.  We were approved 9 days ago and still do t have GUZ number yet, which means we can’t go to the next step yet.   If we get what we need tomorrow, and we get our RTF, which is the letter that our agency uses to be able to drop our Article 5, quickly, we may still make it to Hope in mid-March.  Chinese New Year is going to slow things up but we really, really hope to get our paperwork filed before the holiday begins!

We got pics of her with her family day cake we sent so we know that she has been told that she has a family.  At 3.5 years old, I don’t know how well she understands but at least we know she is aware.
😀 We sent her a pillow that has all of our pics on it and a little photo album so she can be prepared that we look very different from the ayi that take care of her.

I pray for her frequently, I’m always worried that something may happen to her shunt before we get there.  I’d love for y’all to join us in praying for her health and for these final steps to go quickly.

Pictures of our caboose!

We may be 8-10 weeks out and at LOA our agency will try to get an update for us.  Often we get to send a few questions and sometimes they are answered.  This time we didn’t ask any questions we just asked how she was doing.  They sent us a little video of her doing some fine motor skills activities and a few still shots.

Updated report

1、 Current measurement，height: 94cm、weight 15kg、head size: 51cm、chest size: 55cm、length of her feet: 13cm，number of teeth:16

2、 She is a outgoing girl with a ready smile.  She likes to interact with others. She is a bit shy with strangers. Currently she walks freely and likes to do exercises and she likes to copy the teachers. She likes to play with different kinds of toys including fishing and puzzles. She can say phrases with three to four words in them.

She has grown so much!  She is growing into her head size and they have let her hair grow!  She is adorable.  I can’t explain medically how this would happen so rapidly and so I just have to say God is good.

She is going to tower over Katie once she gets home!  She is already about K's height and weighs about a pound more.  I’ve bought a couple of sister sets in 3s and 4s.  If she is really as big as they say she is, she may get the 4's,  😀
Life in the Sanford family is about to become very interesting.

LOA!

We have officially gotten word from China that Hope is to be our daughter!  The “LOA” Or Letter of Acceptance, is the paperwork from China saying that they have matched Hope’s file to ours and that they see no issue with the match.  They are requesting our signatures that say we will accept her and understand the obligations and responsibilities that come with that decision.  Wouldn’t it be interesting if we had to sign a document that said we understand that our child was to be accepted and cared for regardless of any issues anytime we were pregnant?

As a very unexpected bonus, I connected with another mom-to-be of a Beijing child.  Her little boy had a birthday around Thanksgiving and they allowed her to send a birthday cake for him and his CWI sibs.  She had a 39 second video that they sent as proof that they used the money for her child.  (The video or pics are often one of the main reasons parents send the money for a birthday party.)  This particular CWI rarely ever allow people to see any child that they are not matched with and so it was very unusual that a couple of other children were in the video.  In that video, I not only got to see Hope for a few seconds, I got to see my very first bit of mischief from Hope!  She reached over and poked the birthday boy.  For some reason it really tickled me.  😂 I can’t really explain why, I think I just enjoyed seeing a little of her personality.

Typically, travel is 8 to 10 weeks after LOA but we are coming up on Christmas, New Year’s and then Chinese New Year.  This will certainly delay us but I am really, really hoping for the last week of February.  The timing would be incredible.  As our oldest,Laura, is now a fully licensed physician, she could keep the office running for us but she would have to take vacation from her current position to do so. She is only allowed to use 5 vacation days in any given months and even then, it is only allowed in certain months.  As God’s timing is, this timing is perfect!  Both February and March are months that she is allowed to request vacation and by falling at the end of one month and the beginning of another, she may be able to work for us for a good portion of the time we would be out.  She has even offered to give us a “Friends and Family” discount.  😁 I can say, with only a little bias, she is an awesome doctor and we would be incredibly blessed to have her keeping an eye on our patients and our other kiddos.  Mitch, bless him, has not hesitated to say he will watch the boys for us in March, (using his vacation) but I will feel less guilty if his sister is here to share the fun.

So, we would love to have prayers for God's perfect timing, for health for Hope until we can get there, for understanding by the littles at being left home, for patience and peace for my awesome bigs and for acceptance for all of the variables that we can’t control for Tim and me.

FINALLY we are LID

This has been a much slower process than for the first three.  (The wait for USCIS to approve our I800a was 80 days versus about one month on the other three, for example.) I am not being particularly patient with the process because I know how much quicker it can be.  On October 27 we were able to FedEx our dossier of paperwork to BAAS to be sent on to China and we found out today that we are officially logged in to the system in China!  From here it could be 4-5 months, give or take.

We have elected not to tell the little kids yet because that is a long time to be asked “When are we leaving?!”  I expect there will be some adjustments for the littles, particularly for Katie.  She is certainly used to being the family princess and may not enjoy sharing that title.  We are not sure yet who will travel on this trip.  Our inclination on this decision is leaning toward bringing only Katie in hope that it will help the two little girls bond.  Knowing that it is because of Hope that Katie gets a trip to China may be the tipping factor in encouraging Katie to accept a new family member.

We haven’t set that in stone and can’t until we know the dates.  The question of who will be with Jay and Ian hasn’t been fully answered.  Mitch is willing and had already scheduled out for March because before we decided to bring Hope home, we had a big,tropical, adults-only, 30th Anniversary trip planned.  We are praying for March travel (although Mitch may not be😂).  Traveling with 3 going and 4 coming home would be incredibly cheaper and simpler than traveling with 7 bringing home 8.   Even with that in mind, we may not be able to leave all of our travel-loving kids behind.  We are so blessed that all 5 are great travelers and love any trip that involves a hotel.  Maybe we should be hoping for a lottery win instead of March travel...but then I’d have to buy a lottery ticket.

Homestudy approved

Both our homestudy agency and our placing agency have approved our homestudy now.  At this point we wait to get the final copies in the mail and then we start with US immigration paperwork.  We are about 10 days or so behind our timeline with Jay, so we will have some idea as far as timeframes go.  With China having some new rules in place, I expect that China's end of the adoption process may take longer this time but who knows?
This child that is to become ours has some scary medical issues that I hope we are able to handle.  She should be here just before we get our fourth family doc in the family, so I expect it will all work out.  Brain things are scary.

Homestudy to BAAS

The homestudy process is so bizarre.  They come in to your home with plenty of warning and look around and then tell you that after 3 adoptions, you're still ok for the fourth.  No new murder convictions or FBI issues, so go ahead.  Only it takes WEEKS for this endorsement, thousands of dollars and many intrusive questions.  Then we get to send is to our placing agency who also take weeks to review it and then finally you get to proceed with what everyone knew you would be able to do anyway.  Weird.

PA for Hope

Well, here we go again.  :)

Almost 2 weeks home!

One, 2,3,4,5,6,7--1,2,3,4,5,6,7--1,2,3,4,5,6,7.  How many times have I done that already?  I'd try to guess but apparently that is as high as I can go right now.  I used to laugh about the time my mom left my sister, Susan, at a gas station when we were on vacation; I won't laugh anymore.  For some reason 5 kids is the magic number that makes us big enough that we have to count to be sure that we are all there.  It is also the number, apparently, that makes us big enough that we look like an "agency" when we go out.

We were out having pizza for lunch one day when a lady ran up and asked what agency we were with as we tried to leave.  She had been watching us and with Ian not speaking but babbling incoherently, Jay with his (happy but) super sensory self, and exhausted (and so) clingy adorable Katie-bug the lady had assumed they were autistic.  She said they were so well-behaved that she wanted to enroll her autistic child.  She looked uncertain when I told her they were all 5 my kids.  I expect we will get many more uncertain looks in the coming years.  :)

Eating pizza for lunch has been the only time we've had to eat out since we got home;  which is incredible and brings me to my next stream of thought...hang in there with me.

Yesterday, Tim and I went to the first Emmaus meeting since we've been back.  (It is an ecumenical group of wonderful people that have been very emotionally supportive of our journey.  In fact, when God started nudging us toward our children in China, He used this group as his "nudgers" quite a bit!)  There is enough scripture instructing us that our Emmaus friends never questioned "why?!"  (James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."  Psalm 68:5 "A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling."  Psalm 82:3 "Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.")  

Yesterday, though, I heard something that bothered me ... although the why of it isn't easy to articulate.  Someone who truly was trying to compliment us said that we were his heroes.  How to deflect that without sounding snotty or artificially humble, hmm.  Tim and the kids and I aren't doing something "heroic".  We are trying to follow where God leads us and we are being a "father to the fatherless" (or at least mother, in my case), but adopting is not the only way to follow this scripture.  

The people that came up with the idea of starting a Meal train for us, the ones that signed up to bring us yummy homemade meals for the last 10 days, the people that kept our office running so that we could go to China, the people that made sure that our lawn got taken care of and the patients that didn't leave our practice because we were gone for a month, these families were also being defenders of the fatherless.  Not everyone is called to adopt but everyone is called to do something. 

This really struck me yesterday when we got back from the Y to find dear friends at my house dropping off incredible fresh shucked corn and homemade meatballs and fresh baked chocolate chip cookies that they had worked harder than I had yesterday for my kids.  What an incredible thing that is, that someone who gets nothing out of it but a thank you card, would spend considerable time being sure my family is well fed.  

So really, who are the heroes?  

Random notess about getting home and the last few days.

So we made it back to Tulsa!  We had lots of friends and family present and Mr. Social did great!  It was funny when he saw Naomi and started chasing her around the airport lobby.  :) I also thought it was sweet that when he saw NaiNai, he asked Tim where YeYe is.  That helps me know that he really did get to see the picture book that we sent (or he could have just been being logical).  

The flights all went exceptionally well other than very little sleep.  The kids all got about 4 hours sleep in the last 26 hours with Jay maybe a little less and Ian maybe a little more.  The grown-ups mostly got considerably less.  The only time we had an American delay of flight was the DFW to Tulsa leg tonight and it wasn't bad, we came in about 50 minutes late.  Bless the hearts of our friends and family that met us, that put them out fairly late for a work night!  

Ian seemed very pleased to meet his new family and extended family.  Tim and I were talking tonight in the car on the way home about sort of hating that they call the nannies in the orphanages "Aunties"  or Ayi.  That is the same term for aunt as in my sister (or sister in law).  When we introduced him to Auntie tonight we sort of half wondered if he didn't think she would be his new caregiver.  She is from Thailand and he thinks she speaks Chinese, he just rattles off mandarin and she smiles and nods although she doesn't understand him any better than I do.  :) 

One snafu I didn't anticipate was on the DFW to Tulsa flight, the bulkhead seats (that we had 3 of) were an exit row.  So that meant the little were supposed to all sit together across a row with only one adult.  At that point, Katie had about had enough and wanted Mom and Dad.  Eventually, we got a lady to switch to the bulkhead and let Tim move back although she wasn't too thrilled.   It all worked.  :) 

The last few days were fun at HK Disney but I think we were all ready to head toward home.  At one point when we were at Disney, Katie said "I want to go home!"   When Tim asked if she meant the hotel, she clarified HOME.  Ian has been a little more subdued than he had been since he started seeing a lot more non-Asian people in the airport but on the final leg, when we were walking toward security, he asked Tim if we were in America yet.  When Tim said we were, Ian gave a big fist-in-the-air pump.  Loved seeing that even when it is becoming more real, he seems excited about it.  

We are in the car as I speak, Mitch is driving the van with the luggage and Nai Nai (yes, the van that was dead at extended parking when we got there) and Tim is driving the van with the rest of us.  Mitch is the only one of my five currently awake.  

I think jet lag is a little like labor; you forget how bad it is until it happens again.  Tonight I apparently kept saying Naoma and Jessie instead of Naomi and Jessa.  (Sorry, Jessa and Naomi--thanks for not correcting a crazy lady!)  Even when Laura corrected me, it still sounded correct in my head.  I will definitely not get back into the office until my head has cleared some.   (Not a place I want to say one thing and mean another!!)  We took 4 weeks with each of the first 2 adopted kiddos but will probably not go that long with Ian.  He is adjusting so well and being older, I think he will understand more easily when we can't both be home together with him.   One thing that should make it much easier this time is having wonderful friends that set up a Meal Train for us!  We have about 2 weeks that we have friends that have committed to bringing by dinner.  Oh, to not have to cook in this muddle brained state is going to be wonderful.  :)  :)  

There is probably a lot that got missed in the blog in the last couple of days.  I'm going to make a blog about HK Disney in a few days (I hope) with lots of pics.  As a minimal commentary about the last few days of the trip:  the mood stayed good for all concerned, it was incredibly hot in HK but even with that, everyone did well.  None of the kids (or grown-ups for that matter) had a bad case of gimme's at Disney.  I wondered how that would go.  Ian asked for things on occasion but was mostly perfectly fine with being denied.  We allowed them to get some souvenirs but always as a planned thing.  One tim allowed at literally the last few minutes of our Disney extravaganza was the light up Mickey light sabers.   (they were lots of fun carrying thru the airports)  I think he said yes because of how much he enjoyed watching the wonder and excitement on all 3 faces during the night time Light-Up the Night Parade.  The Hong Kong Disney hotel was magnificent.  HK Disney is a great end to the adoption trips because it is still Asian for the newly adopted kiddo but is a little more American for the rest of the family.  If feels a lot like home at the end of a long trip.  Its hard to be unhappy at Mickey's house.  Katie got to do all of the random transportation things that she kept saying that she wanted to do "Once we get Ian" like boats, trains, planes, vans, buses, teacups, Dumbo and horses (on the carousel, that is).

I will try to add photos tomorrow.  Thanks SO MUCH FOR ALL THE SUPPORT; it would have been a much more dificullt journey without all the help we'ver received along the way!

It is now Thursday morning and I am still looking at a mess of a house!  We came home to a nice clean house and then brought 7 people and 11 suitcases full of dirty clothes, souvenirs, and other random stuff into the house.   It isn't pretty!  We have our clothes sorted at least, so that's a start.  I think life will be easier once we find a new normal and get things back in order.  We are already much closer to a normal sleep schedule than I could have hoped for though and for that I am very thankful.  It is amazing how much sleep affects life.  

One of the hard things about international adoption is that you come home from that incredible trip and are so jet-lagged that everything seems harder than it should.  Yesterday for breakfast, I had decided pancakes would be an easy, well accepted choice.  We had left-over fried rice from Auntie as well.  So when I was looking for Bisquick, I realized that the 2 cups that we had were not going to feed a family of seven.  (I will eventually learn to put things on the shopping list sooner, at least as long as I am cooking for 7 at each meal.)  In China, breakfast usually included rice or noodles and so I asked Laura to "Warm the K-Y please."  When she gave me a very confused look, I pointed to the rice.  To which she responded, "Shall I warm the rice instead of the K-Y?"  (To those who don't know me personally, I am a family med doc who does ask for K-Y frequently but not usually at home.)  Luckily, I have a daughter with a good sense of humor.  It is so weird that random things pop out of my mouth that have very little to do with what I thought I was saying.  So, if you call my house, bear that in mind and take whatever I say with a grain of salt for the next week or so!  Not enough Bisquick and asking for random things still ended in a lovely breakfast of cake-batter pancakes and shrimp fried rice.  :)  

We also got our first "Meal Train" meal last night!  It was wonderful and included vegetable beef soup, salad, buttered french bread and fresh cut pineapple.  We devoured it happily.  Ian had three bowls of the soup, which also made me happy.  I have been nervous about feeding a 10 year old who has primarily only eaten Chinese food and have been very relieved to see him enjoy American foods.  I thought it was funny that the friends that brought the meal, the Nichols, whose daughter is from the same SWI as Ian, got to answer a very confused child about why they were bringing us food.  She asked her mother several times why they were bringing us food.  Her mother's answer of "to be helpful" just wasn't cutting it, so finally she asked her if we had a kitchen!  Hehe, it makes me giggle just to think about it.  

The China Daily Report

Well, here is today's blog ... THE CHINA DAILY REPORT, the Friday night edition ... I will leave the Hong Kong version to the girls. As mentioned in Tracy's last blog, we had to split up because the U.S. is unable to print visas right now. Supposedly it is a "global" problem, not unique to China, so they are working hard on fixing it. Um, maybe reboot the computer? Just saying. 

Anyway, the adoptive families are hearing all kinds of answers to the question "when will they start printing visas" ... answers ranging from someone's senator's office who said 12 hours ago that the problem is already fixed and they are ready to print the visas (nope) ... to "it will take a week" (I hope not!) ... to "they will print them on the weekend and issue them on the weekend" (I'm not holding my breath on that one) ... to our guide's answer, which is basically "who the heck knows ... I will let you know when I know something" (sounds realistic to me).  

Basically, we are hoping and praying that Ian's will be issued by Monday so that we can take a van to Hong Kong and fly out with he rest of the family on Tuesday

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In other news Jaden is doing incredibly well ... He is sharing, being patient, and not being too jealous of my time. The only time we run into issues is at bedtime when we are reading books because I run out of arms for the kids to pile onto and Jaden likes to snuggle at bedtime.

In my last blog I had some of the kids quotes ... Here are a few more Katie quotes ... 

"I love my Ian"

At the hotel where we were when we got Ian ..."This is the Ian hotel" ... That was the official name as far as she was concerned.

Katie after Jaden fell asleep one night ... "I love J!"

Katie to dog on the street ... "It's ok, we won't get you" ... ???? :-)

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Ian has been with us for 10 days now.  

As we have spent the past 10 days together, I have only seen further confirmation of my initial impression that Ian appears to have a very caring and generous heart. There are many examples, and I can only remember a handful of them right now ... Here are a few examples.

............

After the initial excitement had settled down at Gotcha Day, Ian brought each of us a cup of water.

Ian asked Jaden if he wanted more fries at lunch at the end of our first meal after gotcha instead of eating the last few himself ... And trust me, food is a BIG DEAL to kids from orphanages. 

Jaden fell one day during our walk, and Ian immediately went to comfort him. Katie bumped into something later and Ian immediately ran to help her, too.

He has really wanted Katie to play with him, but he is not really sure how to get her to play so he tries stuff and then backs off when she needs some space. They seem to connect best in the evening time when they are supposed to be settling down for the night :-) 

He shares snack nicely with J and K. If we give him a snack, he wants to make sure they get one, also. Also, if he gets a yogurt drink (which all here of them love and at least J and K would forgo food to drink) he wants to get them one, too.

Ian esp likes to help with anything that is physical, such as carrying suitcases, getting suitcases off of the belt at the airport, pushing the luggage cart, carrying bags, etc. 

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Here are some random observations and thoughts re: Ian ... 

He enjoys food. I have learned that when he says he wants five of something, he really means it. If it is a food he particularly is in the mood for he will give a big dramatic move and hold up four or five fingers with a big smile. (It works every time, by the way)

The first time we had pizza delivered by room service, he was very excited and shouted "PIZZA!!!!!!" ... we actually had to order more pizzas for that meal. :-). 

He enjoys a very wide variety of foods including American style food, Chinese food, sandwiches, some of the (seemingly) bizarre combinations of food that are put on the buffet here, and he can put away lots and lots of fruit (esp bananas and watermelon). He likes desserts, too, but is not excessive with them.

He still enjoys telling people "hello" and "goodbye" and "good morning" ... Always with enthusiasm and always happy to show off his English language.

He likes to do most things for himself but he will accept or ask for help if he needs it.

Ina likes humming and seems to have a very good pitch and a good musical ear. He enjoys dancing when he hears music, dancing in the elevator, etc.  

The other day we heard him singing "Let it Go" from the movie Frozen. :-)

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Tracy messaged me a few minutes ago that they made it in to the Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel and have a busy day planned tomorrow. I will leave those details to her, although it sounds like they will be a lot more busy than we are here in China so I don't know if they will be able to blog or not.

Tomorrow's plan here is busy but not on a scheduled timetable. It looks like this: a run for me in the park, then some swimming, basketball, kickball, playing on the swing set, more swimming, more kickball, a walk, more swimming and who knows what else. Also, I plan to start working harder with Ian on his English skills and I want him to help me with my Chinese pronunciations, too.  

By the way, if anyone is wanting to learn Chinese I highly recommend Serge Melnyk ... he has podcasts that you can listen to, but you can also get private lessons from him via Skype and those really helped me a lot with my pronunciation.

I have joked on my prior two trips to China that Chinese folks must not really speak Mandarin because they could never seem to understand what I was saying, even though I was speaking mandarin so well ... This time the limiting factor has been when I don't know WHAT to say, but thanks to Serge's help I seem to be (mostly) understandable with what I DO say.  

He really helped me get a better grasp on hearing and speaking the tones (still not well, but much better!) 

Certainly his lessons helped me a lot with communicating with Ian, which has been priceless! Anyway, I recommend his services if you want to learn more mandarin ... He TOTALLY customized our lessons as I needed, which was fantastic. For example, as much as I would like to be able to read Chinese writing, it just was not realistic so he removed those completely from our lessons at my request.  

Also, the last two lessons were just back and forth about scenarios I might encounter during this adoption trip and about how to communicate with Ian. Several times when I have been talking with Ian I have sent a silent thanks for Serge's help and I can here him gently correcting my pronunciation. :-) 

http://www.melnyks.com

Sorry about that detour, but he really helped me so I wanted to get that info out.

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Well, that's it this evening from China.  

Good night all (well, good morning for you, but good night from here since we are 13 hours ahead of home.)

the Guangzhou Safari Park and Visa issues

We we had a wonderful day yesterday at the Safari park.  Four of the five kiddos took a nap on the way there in preparation for the busy day.  (Dad may or may not have also napped.)  ;)
All 5 kids seemed to enjoy it.  We saw lots of animals up close and personal and got to feed elephants, giraffes and goats.  It was 90-95% chance of thunderstorms all day which kept the locals away and it isn't yet summer vacation in China so that also kept domestic visitors to a minimum.  There were many times that we thought we had the park to ourselves!  Usually, the park is wonderful but is madness as far as the number of people.  One of the interesting thing about the Chinese culture is their total lack of belief in taking turns or standing in line.  Usually it is a free for all with people literally pushing people on to or off elevators or subways. We enjoyed having a quiet day.  We only had about 10 minutes of heavy rain and that happened to be when we were indoors eating ice-cream anyway.  It was incredibly hot and humid but it just reminded us of our growing up years in Mississippi.  It also gave us good reason to have ice cream 3 times yesterday!

Ian's SWI had warned us that he likes to run off or perhaps just that he is easily distractible on outings and so I was worried about losing him  but we had no problems at all.  He would occasionally test boundaries some but he showed absolutely no defiance or sneakiness with it.  Again, I will say it was a huge blessing to have such an empty park.  :)  Usually all of thee available trains are running and it only looked like one or two was running yesterday.

We had our pick of seats at the shows and durin the dinosaur exhibit, we had only our own kids screaming with delight (fright?).
Now, on to some not so good news.  It looks like Tim and I will have to separate for a little while.  :(
The American Consulate is still saying that the visa system is down.  It has to be fixed in Washington, DC and since it is now way past working hours in the US, the likelihood of it being resolved today is low.  That means staying here until Monday for Tim and Ian and having me and the rest of the kiddos going on to HK and leaving as scheduled.  We could all stay but that would mean paying for the two rooms here and the 2 in HK.  You have to cancel 1 week in advance for HK and obviously it is too late for that.  So by us going we can just keep the smaller room here for Tim and Ian and the rest of us can go ahead and do the days at HK Disney as per the plan.  I'm not thrilled about it; I don't like dividing the family but I also hate to disappoint the littles and not let them see Disney.  If it isn't resolved by Monday that means changing the flight plans too.  Ugh.   There is still a chance it will work out in the next few hours...

Anyhoo...I'll update as we get info.  We appreciate the good thoughts and the prayers!