Hanging out in GZ

Not too much new going on right now.  We are just sort of hanging out biding our time until it is time to come home.  We have done some more exploring around town which is always an adventure.  :)  This morning, we had our consulate appointment in which they basically just needed to make sure all of our paperwork was in order for them to be able to issue Ellie's visa to come to the States.  We get to pick that up tomorrow and then on Wednesday we pack up and take a flight up to Beijing where we will stay over night before catching our flight home on Thursday.  We are on the downhill swing now for sure!

 I can't believe that we have only had Ellie for a week now.  She fits us so perfectly and seems to be understanding that we are her momma and baba or at least ok with being with us.  What an answer to prayer!  We are still going to need to be cautious about certain things when get home though just to make sure she really understands that we are it for her.  Not just anybody can be momma anymore.  Because she changed foster moms in the past couple of months, and now has changed who 'momma' is again, we want to make sure that there isn't any confusion that any woman who is nice and snuggly can be the one to take care of her.  That means that we aren't going to have other people holding her for awhile or doing basic care type things.  It is just going to take a little time to establish and cement her understanding of the sort of hierarchy of relationships for her.  Please don't be offended if we ask that you not hold her or ask her to come to you.  It is just the best thing for her right now.  Thanks in advance for your support and understanding!  ;)

Here are a few pictures from the past couple of days.  We are so excited to be starting to think about transitioning home!  :)  Though I am not looking forward to going through that jet lag again!

The party bus we have been traveling around in with the other families.  :)

We went to a King's tomb (didn't end up being as cool as it sounds) and Ellie at least thought that the kids room was fun.  Especially the box of pebbles- until she tried to eat them.  ;)

The daddies playing on the stairs with the girls.  :)

The CRAZY busy streets we had to navigate.  There are no words to describe
the craziness of this experience.   Your senses are assaulted in about every way possible.
I am definitely just a small town girl.  :)

So thankful for friends while we are here.  :)

Little friends hanging out.  It is so cute to watch them learn things from each other.  :)

Getting Ellie's visa.  She is soon to be the newest, cutest little American citizen!  :)

Exploring the beautiful Shaiman Island.

Ellie with one of the most famous statues for adoptive families on the island.
She fits right in. :)  Whenever we stand still for very long and especially if we stop and
take pictures we end up drawing quite a crowd.  Within a minute of snapping this picture we
had a group of people around us taking pictures of her and us as well.  So weird.

So much cuteness!

Eating pictures are just so cute :)

Sleeping pictures are even cuter!  :)

We braved the streets again in search of dinner. (I know it is blurry but it just captures
the chaos of it that much more accurately)  ;)

When all else fails....  ;)

The girls just chillin' in their strollers together.  :)

Apple eating :)

And just for fun, because this is too cute to not share, Ellie got ahold of an apple and knew just what to do with it.  :)

We are having so much fun with this little girl!  :)

Exploring

After some much needed quiet reflection time during Ellie's nap, we were ready for an adventure so we set out with Mark and Jodi and LuYana in search of Shaiman Island and a famous Adoptive family go to restaurant call Lucy's.  It is fun being in GZ now because since all families adopting from China end up here, I know a lot more about it from pictures and blogs of other families who have gone before us.  :)  Mark celebrated a 'big' birthday ;) on Friday but was caught up in the transition from Luyana's province to GZ as well, so we had a celebratory dinner.

We found Lucy's!  

The birthday boy and his beautiful wife.  So thankful that we get
to experience this all with them!

This gem of a statue was outside the restaurant.  The guys were a
little too eager to take a picture with it... ;)

They were far less eager about their visit to the public bathroom in which they found these entertaining signs: 

In case there is any confusion about what type of man the restroom is for

No comment needed... ;)

And though I know this post is already pretty long because it is a catch up of a couple of days, I wanted to share some of the fun sights from our walk to the island.  It is a couple of blocks from our hotel through winding streets full of little shops.  The area we went through is mostly a pet market so there were all kinds of animals and pet supplies.

It is amazing what they can haul around on a bicycle!  

All in all, being in GZ has been a very welcome change.  We are with friends in a place that is more used to Americans and can speak English much more reliably and overall just feels more welcoming to us.  We have had several people stop and ask us about our daughters and have overall let us know that they think that it is a good thing that we are doing.  We still have some exploring to do and some time to spend here, but I find myself looking forward to it more than I did in the province and I am thankful for that.  Thanks for following along and offering all of your love and encouragement along the way.  It has been so good to feel all your prayers as we have experienced the ups and downs of this trip!  

Reflections

I have missed blogging a couple of days in the transition to Guangzhou.  Friday was an exhausting day between walking in the freezing cold through a park to try to kill some time between check out and our late flight, killing more time (over four hours) in the airport, one silly, overly tired girl fighting sleep the first part of the flight, and then getting all our luggage to a waiting van, driving to the hotel, getting checked in and then finally settling down for the night around 1 am.

Finally conked out on the plane

Tired Ellie and Baba at the GZ airport.

Saturday morning, we met up with our friends from home that are here picking up their little girl and another family from our agency picking up their older son, to head over for the kiddos medical appts.

Trying to figure out a fork at breakfast :)

So happy to have gotten a piece!

On the way to the medical appt Ellie licked the lid of our coffee mug and
 learned about the sweet goodness of momma and baba's 'black gold'.  ;)

Mmmm, so good!  ;)

The medical appointment went pretty well.  They did a basic look over just to make sure there were no major medical red flags for entering the States.  I was so thankful that she is under two, though, because she did not have to get a TB test done where they take them into another room without you to poke them.  So awful.

Mark and Jodi's little girl, LuYana, and Ellie were plotting a
way out of the medical area.  :)

After the appointment we stopped at the store to get a few things and look what we found... I was a happy momma.  :)

GZ is a lot warmer than Taiyuan.  It has been a very happy change.  It is nice to see some green around and to be much less bundled.  Tomorrow is a high of 66.  Perfect.  :)

Green trees!

After getting back to the hotel, Marcus stayed downstairs with our guide to get some paperwork for Ellie's visa done and I took her upstairs to nap.  While she napped, I had a chance to sip my caramel macchiato and watch the world outside our window.  Our hotel is right in the middle of a busy area of shops and markets.  Lots of activity going on for sure.  As I sat watching this foreign world go by, I reflected on our time here so far.  

It has been such a journey and we have only been here for a week and a half.  I have been stretched in so many ways.  Experiencing a culture so different from ours that has a whole different set of social norms has been exhausting.  I am not used to being stared at so much and it is disconcerting to not know what people are thinking, and even worse, saying about me.  Up until the time we got to GZ, it has been so hard to know what the people around of us thought about an American couple with a Chinese baby.  (Thankfully, it has been a much better experience since we have been in GZ.  Because the US Embassy is here, people are much more used to seeing Americans and even Americans with Chinese children and people speak more English so you can actually interact a little more).  

There is a busyness and chaos here that is so far from the life of a small-town that I am used to.  And yet, as exhausting as it has all been, and as eager as I am to get home and be with our other two kiddos that I try to not let myself feel the full force of how much I miss them, there is a hesitancy in my soul about leaving.  Not because this is home for me, but because this has been home for our daughter.  This is the land and the people that she was born into and there is something so bittersweet about taking her away from that.  She will not remember all the sights and sounds and smells and tastes of this place and so I want to make sure that I don't forget.  I want to somehow store it all up for her so that as the years go by, she will know where she is from.  So that she will somehow still feel the roots of the place that was planted deep within her from birth.  So that she will know that though she is every bit an American like the rest of her family, she was born into an exotic world full of beautiful people with a deep and rich love of their land and country and people.  This place is so beyond what I have known but because of this country and these people, our life has been blessed beyond measure by a brown eyed, brown skinned, joyful little girl that we would not have ever met otherwise.  By making Ellie one of our own, we have in a way, tucked a piece of her world and her people into our hearts to be treasured and thankful for for the rest of ours.  China is now a part of me, just as it is a part of her.

To be continued...

Things we have learned about our Ellie girl

Hey all!  Today is our last day in Taiyuan.  Tonight, we will be taking a 2.5 hour flight down to Guangzhou (GZ for short).  We are not exactly thrilled that our flight doesn't leave until 8:30 but what can you do?  We are hoping that the transition will go smoothly and are really looking forward to our time in GZ.  We are looking forward to time with friends, being in a more diverse area where they are much more used to seeing Americans and even Americans with Chinese babies and we are looking forward to being halfway through our trip and closer to being home.


I thought it might be fun to post a few odds and ends of things we have learned about our little girl this week.  :)

1) She is super smart.  She is curious and creative and picks up on things quickly.  She has started to learn what some English words mean and is great at mimicking actions.

She found something to stand on to try to help her reach a little closer
to the electronics mommy put out of reach.  :)

2) When she does manage to get ahold of said electronics we have gotten to see her feisty/mad side when we take it away.  She generally does a lot better if we ask for her to give it to us instead of telling her no and taking it away.  And she has already figured out how to swipe to scroll on our iPhones.  :)

3)  When she eats a whole segment of a juicy tangerine, the juice comes out her nose and then makes her sneeze.  It is kinda adorable.  ;)  Helps clear out her sinuses at least.  Haha!  (Because her palate is open, things can go straight from her mouth to her nose and visa versa.  There is just an opening throughout the middle of the roof of her mouth.)

4)  She loves to color and draw.  I packed some crayons and a coloring book but I am keeping those in my back pocket for the LONG trip home in case she doesn't sleep much. For now she is enjoying the pen and paper from the hotel.  

5)  She is a really happy girl and loves waving at people from the safety of mommy's arms.  :)

6)  Her palate doesn't stop her from eating one bit.  This girl can put a grown man to shame.  ;)  We have yet to find something that she doesn't like and you would never know that she has a cleft.  I mean, look at this picture.  She will gnaw a piece of corn down to the cob.  :)  (she does have to tip her head back to drink so that it basically goes right down her throat and not up through her nose.)  We also know when she is done eating because then she starts to try to feed us.  :)

She loves corn on the cob.  :)

7)  Her mommy and daddy are over the moon in love with her and can't believe how blessed they are with this little girl!  :)

Noodle arms and kisses :)

Another day closer to home.  Ah, that is such a sweet thought.  We are thankful for our time here in China to get to know the culture and land and people that Ellie comes from but we are definitely missing home.  We are so ready to be all together as a family again.  We are ready for familiar sights and sounds and smells and tastes.  We are definitely ready to blend into a crowd again too!  It becomes exhausting to be stared at and talked about all the time when you don't know what they are saying or thinking.  I am thankful that Ellie is such a happy girl that they can at least see that she is happy with her strange American parents.  ;)

Today we were thankful for a laid back morning.  It was windy last night so it was the most clear of the smog that we have seen it.  We have been here since Sunday and today was the first day we realized you can see the mountains beyond the city from our window. :)

This afternoon, we headed out to visit a museum about the history of the Shanxi province.  I generally love museums and would have really enjoyed it today but I am not sure who thought that a 20 month old child would want to visit a three story history museum.  Once again, she would not let daddy hold her at all so at this point in the day, I can barely lift my arms they are so worn out from carrying a wiggly little toddler for several hours.  Even typing feels like a lot of work right now.  ;)

About half way through, momma's arms needed a break and Ellie was feeling pretty restless too so we decided to take a little snack break on a bench.  Two floors up, two cleaning ladies came over to the railing and stared at us the whole time.  I eventually decided to just take a picture of them doing so.  ;)

The ladies hanging out up on the next level watching us.  

Ellie, totally unaffected by our audience.  :)

For dinner tonight, we ate at one of the restaurants in the hotel.  I was craving a hamburger and french fries like crazy but sadly, the hamburger was not quite what I had hoped.  The french fries were good though and Ellie began her "Americanization" tonight with being introduced to french fries dipped in ketchup.  :)  Both of which I am sure she had never had before.  She reached for a fry on my plate and after that first taste, she was hooked.  Then Baba dipped on in ketchup for her and she kept just licking it off the fry and going back for more.  :)

Then it was time to snuggle up with Baba for her bottle and bedtime.  I cracked up when I saw how she had her ankles crossed, kicked back and relaxing with her daddy.  She really made some big strides with daddy today as long as we were in the safety of the hotel room.  :)

Best part of the whole day though?  By far it was that I got my first kiss from her.  A big open mouthed, slobbery kiss.  :)  So adorable!  Daddy even got some today too.  :)  Love this little girl.