Curveballs...

I have not posted in awhile.  I just didn't have it in me. This has been a very emotional and hard several days. 

My latest post here on the blog was titled "Last night in Guangzhou".  Ha ha well the joke was on me!!  It wasn't our last night there.  That was last Thursday. We just arrived in Hong Kong this afternoon (Monday).  We were supposed to pick up the Visas for the girls on Friday the 27th, head to Hong Kong for the night, then fly out on Saturday the 28th.  Well, the US Consulate had some kind of computer issue and they were not able to issue the visas for the girls' passports.  Apparently this very rarely happens.  Our guide told us this has happened only one other time in all her years of doing adoptions. Ugh!!  I don't even really know what happened, but it sure messed things up. Daniel's 11th birthday was on the 27th and it did not make for a very happy birthday celebration.  Instead it was a very sad and tear-filled night/weekend.  It is really hard knowing that we should've been home 2 days ago.  And yet, here we sit.  The girls and Daniel have done wonderfully, especially considering they have been cooped up in a hotel room for the last 14 days.  We are all at the end of our ropes to say the least.  I must say this is ranking up there high as one of the hardest things I have gone through.  I feel like a wimp to even say that, but it has been HARD!  I miss my sweet kids back home and my husband!! I miss everything I think!  Lol Our trip which was supposed to be 15 days has turned into 20 days and included almost another $7000 added to the expense.  

As if adoptions don't already cost enough.  And we have our own US government to thank for it.  Ugh!

I am sorry to be a downer here.  This is definitely not a happy post.  Like I said, I haven't even been able to bring myself to post anything before this.  I do feel better tonight to be out of China, but we still have one more day and night to hang out in our hotel room before we get to start our trek back home. 

I just wanna go home!!!!!  (said face down on the floor crying and pounding fists)

It was really cool to get to Hong Kong, though!  It really is a beautiful and amazing city. The water and the green mountains combined with super tall apartment buildings and other skyscrapers really is very neat and different.  This does not look like China at all!  :) We crossed 4 or 5 big bridges and as we did we watched airplane after airplane coming in to land at the airport.  I know I probably said this before, but this is really a busy place!  So many planes coming in from everywhere in the world!  It is just amazing to me!

I will be even more amazed when we are on one of those planes and finally actually leaving!  Woot!  Please pray for us for safe flights and for the girls to do well.  They really have been doing great so far, and I hope they will continue to on the flights. 

I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has prayed for us and supported us during this time!!  It means so much to us!  Also, to the people who have donated to our FSP and have blogged and posted about our situation, you are amazing and awesome!  Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for that support!  It truly means the world to us!  

I will try to post one more time before we leave.  It is late here and I need to go to sleep. Here are some pics from our drive to Hong Kong.  

In China still...on the way to Hong Kong

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 At the port of entry to Hong Kong 

 Here we got our passports looked at and some kind of laser/sensor gun pointed at us.  I have absolutely know idea what that was for...  

  Looking across the water to the city.

One of many planes that continually fly into this place.  This just happens to be a FedEx plane.  Lol 

 Apartment buildings!!  Wow!!!!  I can't even imagine how many people live there.

I can't remember what these things are called, but they go across the water here and then head up the mountain in the distance.  They go all the way up to the towers you can see up on the top of the mountains up there.  Pretty amazing.

Last Night in Guangzhou

Well I haven't updated the blog since Monday so I thought I better do it while I had the chance.  Today is Thursday and we had our U.S. Consulate appointment this morning.  It went well and it felt good to officially be at this point in the process. We had to take an oath with about 6 other families while we were there.  I actually got kind of choked up during it.  This whole week has been very emotional for me, so it is not surprising.

Getting ready to go to the Consulate

  

Outside the Consulate building waiting on our ride.

The girls are doing pretty well.  We had one meltdown with Ai the other day at naptime, but other than that she is doing fine.  She mostly just likes to hang out and play with toys.  She also watches Daniel play or listen to music on the iPad.  Ruby is busy and she likes to be doing things.  She checks everything out and loves to put her shoes on and take them off.  She also likes to watch Daniel play on the iPad.  They are really good and easy girls most of the time! 

Yesterday we had the girls' TB tests read and everything was fine with that. Yay and thank goodness!  Then we went shopping at Shamian Island.  It is a place where many adoptive families go to shop and used to be a very busy place.  There is a hotel there called the White Swan that many families stayed at, but apparently it is being renovated right now and so the island is not as busy anymore.  We didn't get to stay too long mainly because of the rain pouring down on us.  But we managed to get to a couple stores and picked up some things to bring home.  After we got back to the hotel, Daniel wanted to go swimming so we went back up to the pool.  It was cooler because of the weather we've been having but the rain had stopped. Unfortunately there were mosquitoes out, and the kids all got a few bites.  The mosquitoes here are vicious!  Here is what Ruby's back looked like after just one bite:

 I put some benedryl cream on it and it looks much better today.  

 

The rest of the day today we will just probably stay inside and out of the rain. We are planning to go out to dinner with a family we met here at the hotel so hopefully the rain will stop soon.  They are also adopting a little girl with DS so I am excited to get to visit with them!  

We have one more sleep here in Guangzhou tonight and then head to Hong Kong tomorrow afternoon!  Yay!!  I will spend tomorrow making sure everything is packed up, organized and ready to go.  Please pray for us for safe travels during our 3 hour van ride.  Also, please pray that the weather will clear up and that there will be no problems getting out of Hong Kong.  I have heard that it's supposed to be better, but right now it is not looking that way.

I will leave you with some sweet pics of the girls in the Chinese outfits I bought.  

The Final Countdown

Well, it is Monday night in China now. We have only 5 more sleeps before we get to fly home. Boy, I sure do miss my husband and my baby girls and my sweet boys at home.  I even miss the dry Colorado weather!  Yesterday and today were kinda hard. I've had to force myself not to think about home too much or I would fall apart. Funny how we counted down the sleeps until we left for China and now we are counting them down again to come home!  Lol  

Today we went to have the girls' medical appointments done. It wasn't so bad except for the TB injection.  That wasn't fun and I'm glad it's over with.  Lol  We will have to return on Wednesday to have the TB test read.  Please pray that the girls don't have a reaction to the test.  That would definitely not be news I wanna hear... 

 Waiting on the medical exams today.

I realized I haven't really posted much about the girls or how they are doing. They are adjusting amazingly well.  We have had Ruby with us for exactly one week now, and Ai for 5 days. 

We expected Ruby to have more of a difficult time adjusting, but she is doing great!  It is obvious that she has been well cared for and can receive love and affection.  She is confident, smart, and bossy.  She is also potty trained and we have only had one "accident".  She likes to play with dolls, stickers (thanks to my friend Tammy for the sticker book) and her magna doodle.  She is also very funny and can be super silly, too.  We are thankful that she is adjusting so well.  We have only had a few episodes where she was upset to the point of crying and one of those was today when they did the TB injection.  She will let me hold her and rock her when she is upset.  She still has a ways to go with attaching and accepting me as mommy, but we are off to a great start!  Oh did I mention she is potty trained?!  Ha ha

Here's a cute video of her eating. She scrapes her own chin with the spoon when she is eating and I was trying to catch it on tape. Once she realized I had the camera on her, she stopped.  Lol

Ai is doing pretty well, too.  She has come a long ways since gotcha day.  She still prefers Daniel over me, but she will come to me when he is not an option.  At least she is not reaching for every Chinese person that walks by like she did the first couple of days!  Lol  She loves to ride around in the stroller and she waves at everyone as we pass by.  She will say mama and baba (daddy) and she is already signing "potty".  She also knows the words to some of the Chinese kid songs we downloaded onto my phone. So cute when she sings along to it. She also loves her baby doll.  She will hold that baby up to snuggle with her and pat its back just like a real mommy!  So funny!  She loves the light up balls we brought and the big beach ball, too.  Most of all she LOVES music.  I have some cute videos of her dancing.  Here's one...hopefully it will post right.

                                                  Ai loving on her baby doll.  So cute!

Here's a few more pics from today.  Daniel took these this morning during breakfast. It is the same waterfall from my previous posts and some fish swimming around in the water below.  Hopefully we'll get some more pictures tomorrow since we don't have to rush off anywhere after breakfast in the morning.  

We have a free day tomorrow.  Wednesday we get the TB test read and then we get to go shopping on Shamian Island. Thursday is our Consulate appointment, and Friday we will pick up the girls visas and then drive back to Hong Kong around 4:30.  Then Saturday we get to head home!!!!!!!!!  We are definitely counting down the days now...  Only 5 days til home!!!   Woot Woot!

Weekend in Guangzhou

Sorry I have not blogged since Friday morning.  At least I think it was Friday.  Lol  My brain hasn't been working too well.  I think the excitement and busy-ness of last week finally got to me.  I am so glad we made it to Guangzhou, but now I just want to rest, hang out, and recuperate.  

Friday afternoon we went to pick up Ai's adoption paperwork and headed straight to the airport.  Our flight was supposed to leave Changsha at 5:30.  Well the flight got delayed and we ended up leaving about 7:30 after sitting in the airport a couple hours and in the plane for almost one.  We finally got to Guangzhou about 8:45 and met our guide at the airport.  We were so relieved to finally make it to the hotel and we just wanted to go to bed.  

 At the Changsha airport with our wonderful guide Wendy. 

Waiting for our flight. 

 Ai's first airplane ride and Ruby's 2nd.  Both girls did really well on the flight.  Praise God!

Our hotel in Guangzhou is AMAZING!  It's probably the most impressive hotel I have ever stayed in. Very beautiful, we love our room, and best of all it is air conditioned even in the hallways!!  Lol 

 A really neat waterfall at the hotel.  View from the top. In the mornings at breakfast we sit right at the bottom of this waterfall.  It is really pretty.

 An amazing staircase in the hotel. 

 Walking around checking out the hotel.

 Big brother helping Ruby with her shoes.

The swimming pool on the 4th floor.  Very cool. 

Saturday we got up, ate breakfast and went grocery shopping.  Then we sat down with the guide and did the paperwork for our consulate appointment on Thursday.  After that Daniel and I toured the hotel (yes it is that big), took a nap, and went out to dinner with a group of adopting families.  Today we are going sightseeing with our guide.  I am not sure exactly what we're going to see, but it should be fun.

I will leave you with some pictures of the girls and Daniel.  There is a little playroom in the hotel and they had a good time playing.

I will try to post again this evening with some pictures from our day today.