This afternoon I got the email I had been waiting for, our itinerary.
March 27th arrive in Beijing, stay at Wangfujing hotel over looking forbidden city
March 28- Temple of heaven in the morning, lunch at Dai Jia Cun rst. and Hutong tour and Chinese acrobat show in the afternoon.
March 29-Meet and tour with Meng Lei and Sun Li, two music professors from Qing Dao
March 30-Fly to Urumqi, stay at the five star hotel Hoi Tak
March 31-Meet LUKE in the morning, adoption done in the afternoon
April 1-Free day
April 2-sightseeing Museum
April 3-sightseeing, local market
April 4-Get our papers back
April 5-Fly to Guangzhou and stay at the White Swan hotel
April 6-free day(meaning shopping of course)
April 7-Medical exam for Luke (Lily will be happy it is not for her)
April 8-Consulate appt-farewell dinner
April 9-go to consulate in the morning, get visa in the afternoon
April 10-Long journey home!
Our guide for the journey is Children's Hope international employee Elsie.
There will be our family and three others traveling to each of the three cities together. There are 24 families in all but everyone splits up and goes to the province where their child is waiting after Beijing and then we all meet up again in GZ. Our four families (the female half anyway) have been emailing like crazy the past few days comparing information.
ok, now I just have to get to feeling better so I can get it all done. John will do his packing the morning we get ready to leave, he is only responsible for himself. I have been the hunter and gatherer for the trip, buying all those cute little bottles of this and that and picking out gifts for guides and officials and aunties.
One more day of work to get through. It is going quickly.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Can't Sleep
So, what does one do when they can't sleep (due to fits of coughing) at 2:30am?, why they get up and drink some hot Chai tea and blog.......yes, I have managed to catch a cold of sorts, so far just a tight chest and nagging cough. I have been trying to stay healthy but I think the stress of it all has caught up. My fear as I told John is that after coughing my way through the flight, the Chinese will pull me to the side to make sure I am not bringing something dreadful like TB into the country. I remember another adoptive parent telling me it happened to her because she was having allergy issues and the passengers reported that she did a lot of coughing on the plane.Like I don't have enough to worry about!
Today is the day when we will get our final travel plans, including where we will be staying. We will also get that final big bill covering all lodging and in country travel. I'm sure it will be a bit more expensive this go around with Lily included and the fact that the kids are older and that flights are priced by age. I am just anxious to get the final details of where we will be staying.
Lily has been showing signs of anxiety. She had a full blown melt down last week, the kind where you can't understand a word she is saying, it is just "Na, Na, Na" over and over and a look of "you can't understand what I am feeling." Finally after trying to hold her and comfort her she calmed down enough to tell me she was scared to go to China. You have to think of what must be going through her head at this point. She knows she is from China and she knows we are going back to China. I asked her if she was afraid Mommy and Daddy were going to leave her in China and she shook her head yes. I assured her that we would never leave her side for a moment while in China and to think of this as a vacation. She had such a good time on our trip to Disney World that she insisted we needed to stay and live at the hotel we were staying at. I told her China would be like that too, wonderful hotels, a room to share with Mommy and Daddy and a new brother too. She seemed to digest that information and the melt down was over.
Lily says the cutest, sweetest things sometimes. While Lily, Yue Jia and I were in the car yesterday Lily said, "I miss my real Mom." Since she has said this before I knew right where she was going with it, but Yue Jia interpreted it to mean that Lily missed her birth Mom. I took the bait and said, "Lily, where is your real Mom right now?" Yue Jia asked her, "did you dream about her?" to which Lily replied, "no, she's sitting right in front of me driving the car!" I love being referred to as her "real Mom." Lily has quite the imagination and often refers to her imaginary Mom and Dad and big brother. She likes to tell funny stories about them that mirror image something from our family and then she laughs and laughs. I've never referred to myself as her "real Mom," that is totally a Lily expression. I often wondered if her "imaginary Mom" was really referrencing her birth Mom, but one day Lily told me she had three Mom's, "one in China, one imaginary Mom and you Mom!" I guess it takes three Mom's to raise one little girl.
Well, my tea is gone and I think I'll try to get a little sleep before another work day begins. Work has been very hectic this week. I had to close a restaurant and spend a lot of time with them on education and inspections before they were allowed to reopen. I will not be able to reach my inspection goal by the end of the week and feel bad leaving anything undone. It is not the end of the world and I'll just have to pick up where I left off when I get back in May. My co-workers are great and even though we are short three employees, not one of them has complained about me leaving and stressing them out with more more work and three new employees to train starting next Monday. Ok, the only one who has complained is my boss, but he says it in a joking manner. More later after we get our final travel plans this afternoon.
Today is the day when we will get our final travel plans, including where we will be staying. We will also get that final big bill covering all lodging and in country travel. I'm sure it will be a bit more expensive this go around with Lily included and the fact that the kids are older and that flights are priced by age. I am just anxious to get the final details of where we will be staying.
Lily has been showing signs of anxiety. She had a full blown melt down last week, the kind where you can't understand a word she is saying, it is just "Na, Na, Na" over and over and a look of "you can't understand what I am feeling." Finally after trying to hold her and comfort her she calmed down enough to tell me she was scared to go to China. You have to think of what must be going through her head at this point. She knows she is from China and she knows we are going back to China. I asked her if she was afraid Mommy and Daddy were going to leave her in China and she shook her head yes. I assured her that we would never leave her side for a moment while in China and to think of this as a vacation. She had such a good time on our trip to Disney World that she insisted we needed to stay and live at the hotel we were staying at. I told her China would be like that too, wonderful hotels, a room to share with Mommy and Daddy and a new brother too. She seemed to digest that information and the melt down was over.
Lily says the cutest, sweetest things sometimes. While Lily, Yue Jia and I were in the car yesterday Lily said, "I miss my real Mom." Since she has said this before I knew right where she was going with it, but Yue Jia interpreted it to mean that Lily missed her birth Mom. I took the bait and said, "Lily, where is your real Mom right now?" Yue Jia asked her, "did you dream about her?" to which Lily replied, "no, she's sitting right in front of me driving the car!" I love being referred to as her "real Mom." Lily has quite the imagination and often refers to her imaginary Mom and Dad and big brother. She likes to tell funny stories about them that mirror image something from our family and then she laughs and laughs. I've never referred to myself as her "real Mom," that is totally a Lily expression. I often wondered if her "imaginary Mom" was really referrencing her birth Mom, but one day Lily told me she had three Mom's, "one in China, one imaginary Mom and you Mom!" I guess it takes three Mom's to raise one little girl.
Well, my tea is gone and I think I'll try to get a little sleep before another work day begins. Work has been very hectic this week. I had to close a restaurant and spend a lot of time with them on education and inspections before they were allowed to reopen. I will not be able to reach my inspection goal by the end of the week and feel bad leaving anything undone. It is not the end of the world and I'll just have to pick up where I left off when I get back in May. My co-workers are great and even though we are short three employees, not one of them has complained about me leaving and stressing them out with more more work and three new employees to train starting next Monday. Ok, the only one who has complained is my boss, but he says it in a joking manner. More later after we get our final travel plans this afternoon.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
More photos of Luke appear...
Here is another photo of a much younger Luke. In all Kelsey emailed me 25 photos from 2006. Priceless photos from an earlier time. His pouty full lips give him away in the photos.
I've made yet another run to Walmart for trip supplies. I have a feeling our two suitcases are not going to be enough. Our neighbor, Ross Bebout has vounteered to take us to the airport and pick us up, saving us the parking fee for 15 days. It did not seem to phase him to know that our flight leaves at 6am!
We had another birthday celebration for Logan and Lily on Friday night and John's sister Kim and her friend Michelle joined us too. It was a great meal at Fuji's Japanese Steakhouse. I had just inspected them on Tuesday and gave them a clean bill of health. Lily was not too crazy about the flames shooting up off the grill, in fact she hid under the table for that part, but we all enjoyed the food. John's Mom bought the kids a trampoline. Ok, I have heard all the horror stories, but we did get a large one (13x14) with padding all around and high netting on all sides. Lily gets on the big trampolines at gymnastics and loves it. Now our backyard is completely full. It is a kid's dream with a tree house, sandbox, swingset and trampoline. The netting around the trampoline locks and with our 6' privacy fence I don't think we will have problems with other kids getting on it when we are not around.
It looks like another busy week as the countdown goes on.......
Friday, March 7, 2008
What a coincidence!
Ok, try this one on. I get email from a woman named Kelsey Milliken who says she found my blog as a link on someone elses blog and she has traveled to Urumqi two times and has pictures of Luke Tian Bo as a little guy, how cool is that?
she sent one today and it certainly does look like his round little cheeks. She has more photos saved on disks. What a wonderful surprise to see this part of his life. Makes me kind of sad too knowing that I wasn't there for him. See what you think.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
More Birthday Photos
Just wanted to add a couple more photos from Lily's birthday at home. School was cancelled all day so Lily got to play out in the snow with Yue Jia. Today, even though she is already 4 she is bringing healthy snacks to school and wearing her "birthday girl" pin. She told me today it feels good to be "big."
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Happy Birthday Lily!
today is the official birthday for Miss Lily. She woke up at 6 and started in on her presents. She got a princess activity book with over 500 stickers (a busy book for time on the airplane), a Hannah Montana wig, a microphone with stand and speakers, a doctors dress up kit and a cheer leader puppet. Lily also woke up to the surprise of 6" of snow and no school until 1pm! (she gets out when they call off school at the university) Public schools are out today so she and Yue Jia are in the process of putting on layers to go outside sledding. Looks like Mom is the only one going to work today (boohoo)
We had a Chuck E.Cheese party for Lily and friends on Saturday and I've posted a few photos from that. For some reason Lily kind of freaked out when Chuck E. appeared. This coming from a girl who hugged every Disney character while we were in Disney World at Christmas. Maybe it is because I refer to Chuck E as "the big rat."
We had a Chuck E.Cheese party for Lily and friends on Saturday and I've posted a few photos from that. For some reason Lily kind of freaked out when Chuck E. appeared. This coming from a girl who hugged every Disney character while we were in Disney World at Christmas. Maybe it is because I refer to Chuck E as "the big rat."
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Travel Dates are set, hopefully!
As long as Darren at AAA can get us the flights we have decided to leave on Wednesday March 26 so we will arrive in Beijing on the 27th. We will have all day on the 27th and 28th to sightsee. Children's hope has a planned tour on the 27th to go to the Temple of Heaven in the morning, lunch at Dai Jia Cun Restaurant, Hutong Tour and Chinese Acrobat show in the afternoon. A whole day of tourning and lunch for $60/adult and $40/child, sounds like a good deal to me.
On Saturday we hope our professor friends from Qingdao University will take the train over and go with us sightseeing. John wants to go to the Great Wall again as he thinks he can climb more stairs this time, HA.
Sunday the 30th our four families will fly to Xinjiang and get settled in and on Monday the 31st, we meet our new son for the first time. The adoption is finalized on April 1st. I asked our exchange student Yue Jia if there was an significance to April 1 in China, and she said, "you mean foolish day?" Oh just great! It means the same thing there. She assured me it was borrowed from Western culture and not a Chinese original.
I'm now in the hunting and gathering mode for the trip. I've had the suitcases out and every once in awhile I'll toss something in. I feel like we are pretty well organized at this point. We should get our visas back this week and our brand new money came into the bank yesterday. In China they are very picky about the condition of our money, it must be in pristine condition, no ink marks, no creases. We were able to order brand new $100 this time around.
We should be flying back to the US on the 10th of April. If we leave early on the 10th, we may even make it back late on the 10th (gain 13 hours) It is a very long trip and I'm hoping our two 4 year olds will be sleepy on the way back. More posting to come.....
On Saturday we hope our professor friends from Qingdao University will take the train over and go with us sightseeing. John wants to go to the Great Wall again as he thinks he can climb more stairs this time, HA.
Sunday the 30th our four families will fly to Xinjiang and get settled in and on Monday the 31st, we meet our new son for the first time. The adoption is finalized on April 1st. I asked our exchange student Yue Jia if there was an significance to April 1 in China, and she said, "you mean foolish day?" Oh just great! It means the same thing there. She assured me it was borrowed from Western culture and not a Chinese original.
I'm now in the hunting and gathering mode for the trip. I've had the suitcases out and every once in awhile I'll toss something in. I feel like we are pretty well organized at this point. We should get our visas back this week and our brand new money came into the bank yesterday. In China they are very picky about the condition of our money, it must be in pristine condition, no ink marks, no creases. We were able to order brand new $100 this time around.
We should be flying back to the US on the 10th of April. If we leave early on the 10th, we may even make it back late on the 10th (gain 13 hours) It is a very long trip and I'm hoping our two 4 year olds will be sleepy on the way back. More posting to come.....
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