Our last full day in Nanjing

We started our day with more sight-seeing today. We went to the Nanjing Museum. I know, a museum? But it was very interesting; some great handcrafted items that left us wondering how any human could be so talented. It was an interesting place, and Jeron did not get lost. We tried putting Jadyn in a stroller just for the tour and she would have none of it, so we carried her around and she was happy.
Our second stop was at a Jade factory. Jadyn’s Chinese name means Beautiful Jade, and of course with her new name being Jadyn, this was a neat place to see. All the items there were made in her province and from Jade rock found here as well.
We purchased a Jade bracelet, baby size, which is still a little too big. Our coordinator bartered a great price for us, so we put her to work a second time for Kim. We ended up with two beautiful pieces for a fraction of the asking price. Jadyn is all girl and loves pretty things. Her arm was ready and waiting to try it on.
We will spend a good part of the afternoon doing paperwork for her visa and passport. We fly to Guangzhou tomorrow evening. We are sad to leave Jadyn’s province, but hope to return when Jadyn’s is older and can enjoy her history.
I’m including some pictures of our little Jiangsu Beauty (as the girls are known here) She tries so hard not to laugh at us silly acting parents. Jadyn is opening up slowly; you can just see the grieving on her sweet little face, it breaks our hearts. She adores her silly Aunt Kim, but we are being careful not to let her bond to her before us. She is willing to come to both Ames and I every time we ask her. Ames got her to walk alone in the lobby today for a good 10 minutes; it was great to see her be independent.
We heard rumors that a tropical storm is headed for Guangzhou tomorrow; please think of us, as we have a 2 hour flight there. I’m not a turbulence lover and this will be Jadyn’s first flight!

Sight-seeing

Today we woke up and went sight-seeing with our coordinator to a beautiful silk broadcloth factory, the machines used to make this fabric were completely mind blowing; it takes 2 works an entire 8 hour day to make 2” of silk fabric. They use to use these machines to make the Royal family clothing; they are now used for framed artwork. They are ran with pure manual labor, no electricity. The work they do is extremely beautiful. I could not take many pictures as it was not allowed. Some of the items on display are many, many centuries old. It was fun to see and learn. Poor Jeron got lost in the building and by the time Ames & I realized each other didn’t have him, here comes someone from our travel group bringing a sobbing Jeron to us. I felt horrible, we held hands the rest of the tour!
We also went to a place called Nanjing City Gates, 600 years ago they built this huge brick and cement wall to protect the city. Each brick is stamped with the name of the man who made the brick so if it didn’t stand the test of time, they could located and umm… destroyed, to say it nicely.
Jadyn had a good time flirting with Kim and I during this tour, she loves to be outside, the little smirks you see on her face is her way of holding back a big smile. She is just so darn adorable and sweet. She really thinks her Aunt Kim is a funny person. She woke up today not wanting Ames to hold her, this makes him so sad. But by breakfast she was back in both of our arms. He carried her around both tours.
A little of what we have discovered about our little girl-
She sleeps very well and at night, 10 hours straight! She will eat anything we offer her. She loves congee cereal (it tastes awful, like over boiled rice water) but she will eat a large bowl every morning at breakfast. She is very thin, she looks so long but I think it’s just because she is so thin. She is about a year behind in motor development, right on target, if not above in mental, she is very smart. She LOVES her new clothes and shoes. Also toys and books, they hold her interest for a long time. She will sit in our laps and play for hours. She is afraid of Jeron, not sure if it’s the blonde hair or the fast moving boy. The pictures of them together, she had no idea he was that close to her! We can’t wait for you all to meet her.
Thank you all for your wonderful comments and e-mails, I love reading them all! 2 more days and we fly to Guangzhou for the last leg of our trip.

Sleeping Cuteness

We have had a busy day with lots of paperwork, but we wanted to share some more pictures. We will contintue to update!

We've got Our Girl!!

Jadyn is adorable! She will go to Ames & I both. She is very shy right now, but she loves her new toys. I will write more later, but here are a few pictures I know you were waiting for!

One More Day!

Today we flew to Jadyn's province, met our new guide and checked into another hotel. It is just as I pictured it would be here. Very authentic. Beijing seems to be much more modern than the rest of the area. Our hotel is very nice, we are on the 11th floor. Kim is right across the hall from us and is sharing her room with Jeron. After tomorrow I'm sure they will be glad of the arrangements. Jeron continues to be a huge hit in this province as well, he's getting better with the smiles but will not make eye contact at all unless we ask him to say hello back.

Today at the airport he was told he was a beautiful boy with beautiful eyes. he's not impressed at all, we think it is sweet, the local people just light up when they see him and he can have a crowd just standing around looking at him for several minutes at a time.

I unpacked Jadyn's suitcase today, ohh how strange this feels. We will actually have a toddler tomorrow morning. We will meet her at 10:00 am Please check for an update, I am locked out of our blog still but will try my best to at least send some pictures home to be uploaded asap!

Busy Day!

We left our hotel at 8:30 am with 18 other families for a day of sight-seeing, First we went to Tinanamen Square, A very beautiful place, but it was so hot and humid out, I felt sick. The crowds were so packed-in everyone kept loosing our tour guild. I was so afraid we would loose Jeron, he had to hold our hand all day. That didn't make for a happy 7 year old. Nor did the fact that he is like a little movie star here, people would literally walk up to him and stare and ask if they could take his picture, he started crying at one point, if you know Jeron he has a personal space bubble, and please don't pop it!. Our guild told him "the Chinese just love you boy, you so handsome, they like you white hair and you white skin" It makes me laugh just typing it. As the day went on he got better and better with it. One Mother actually took his hand and had him hold her daughters hand, so cute.We were treated to a awesome Chinese lunch, we all had duck and lots of stir fried veggies. The air conditioned restaurant felt so nice. And yes, Kim and I both used that hole, I mean potty. After lunch our group left for The Great Wall, it is just as beautiful as the pictures Iv'e seen. Kim and I climbed the first phase and that was it for us, Jeron and Ames kept on going and going, they were wringing wet once they came back down, Jeron was so excited. That has been by far his favorite. About an hour into the tour it started poring rain, thunder and lightning. We all headed back for the bus, the storm was so intense it took over 2 hours to get back to the hotel.We have to be out of our room by 5:00 am tomorrow the bell boy will be knocking at 4:10am for our luggage, we have a 8:00 am flight to Jiangsu Province. ONE more day! We have been told we will get Jadyn in the morning on Monday.

Another Small Update

We have had a super lazy day, I'm so glad we came a day early to rest up before our sight-seeing starts, the jet lag is awful. Here are a few pictures from our day of doing nothing. The view from our room is very nice, as you can see the housing here goes from super worn down apartment buildings to beautiful high-rise apartments. People driving BMW's and others riding worn out bikes with their family on the back. Eye opening for sure. Our hotel is wonderful, the staff is amazingly helpful.

Thanks everyone for the comments and e-mails. I am locked out of our blog here, so I'm sending my updates home. 2 more days and we meet Jadyn, We can hardly wait.

We Made It!!

After 25 hours of continuous travel we landed in Beijing around 8:45 pm last night That was the longest ride of our lives. I was soo ready to get off that plane. We collected our bags, found our agency guild and headed right for our hotel. The beds never looked so good. We slept all night, which is our daytime normally. We woke feeling great.

Here are a few pictures from our day of travel.
The picture of the map, is actually the TV screen in the plane that I watched for over 11 hours, anyway it shows our in-air progress, I snapped this picture right as we crossed the International Date Line.
Jeron was a great traveler, took a couple naps, played legos and watched some movies.

Tomorrow we will tour Beijing with the rest of our adoption group (18 other families)
The next day we fly to Jadyn's province and the day after that we will meet our baby girl!

It's time!

We are packed and ready to go. Our dog, Lucas and fish, Gold Tooth are with our awesome neighbors, Thanks Guys! We are leaving for Portland soon. We will drop G off with family and go to my sisters for the night, we need to be at the airport by 4 a.m.

I'm not sure if we will even go to sleep tonight. Not only am I not a early morning person, I'm not a good long trip car/plane rider, please wish Ames me luck.

We have waited for this day for over 3 years, it just doesn't seem real yet. We are both excited and nervous, worrying ourselves sick over what we may have forgot to pack, the weight of the bags, ect.

What has me the most worried is meeting Jadyn and how upset this entire life change is going to make her. Her grieving for her family at the orphanage is really going to tear at our hearts. We will do whatever we can to make this time the easiest for her.

I will try and update between flights tomorrow, we have a lay-over in LA and one in Tokyo.

Our Girl!

We sent Jadyn this little dress a couple weeks ago, this would be her first fashion show for Mom & Dad!

I hope they took the tags off after this picture was taken!!

One more week!

2 week from today........

We will be in the air, on our way to Jadyn.

I have a super sized packing list that I have narrowed down to what I think we might need in China. Scratched off what I know I won't need and what we don't have room for. I'm left with 4 pages of items I hope to fit into 3 suitcases. I'm by far packing the most clothes for Jadyn. I have put lots of baby outfits into a large zip lock, airtight bag and vacuumed the air out. It is now a flat bundle. Boy those thing are a great invention. A girl needs variety and this is a great way to pack it!

We have ordered an adoption medical kit that has just about everything you would need for skin infections to pink eye. I'm hoping we won't need any of it, but want to have it just in case. If we don't need it then another family may.

Did I mention we got our plane tickets for a mighty good price, 4 round trip tickets and 1 one-way ticket for $5,400.00!

We fly home during the middle of the night, so hopefully Jadyn we will get some sleep to help pass the time!

Happy 4th of July America!

I can officially say, in less than a month, we will have another little American citizen to call our own! The countdown has begun, our plane tickets are purchased, all our appointments in China are confirmed.

Ames & I have been busy getting more paperwork ready to take. Kim and I received our Chinese visa's to enter the country of Jadyn's birth. Ames & Jeron's visa's should arrive this week.

I have an appointment with our pediatrician next week to get prescription medication to take as a precaution for Jadyn & Jeron in case of ear infections, skin infections etc. We want to have western medication on hand.

As planned, we are flying out of Portland, Oregon EARLY the morning of July 29, and through Los Angeles and Tokyo before arriving in Beijing the evening of July 30 (China time). We'll spend 3 days in Beijing sight-seeing. On Aug. 2 we will fly to the Jiangsu province capital, Nanjing. Aug. 3 we will receive Jadyn!! We will stay in Nanjing for the next 5 days awaiting her passport. The evening of Aug 7, the 5 of us will fly to Guangzhou. This is where the American Consulate is located and where we apply for her visa to permit her into the USA. This process takes about 7 days.

We will fly home on Aug 13, again laying over in Tokyo and Los Angeles. As soon as our little girl's feet touch the ground in Los Angeles, she will become an American citizen! There, we will complete all our U.S. Customs paperwork so that upon arrival in Portland we are immediately free to meet with our waiting family members. I hear there will be quite a crowd awaiting our new little American. Not only have we awaited this day for over 3 years, so have our family and friends. We love you all!

WE ARE GOING TO CHINA!

We got our invitation to travel today (TA)!

Looks like we may leave July 29 for an extra day of sight-seeing in Beijing. I will post more information, as soon as we get it. Right now we are scheduled to get Jadyn on Monday, Aug. 3