We're home!!!

After a long 28 hours, we made it home! We are glad to be home. Adam did very well traveling.

Last Day!!

It’s been a busy few days! On Sunday, we went on a tour to a Buddhist Temple called the Six Banyan's Temple. It was very beautiful; we even had the babies blessed by a Buddhist monk. We also visited the Provincial Folk Art Museum and the Arts & Crafts shopping center. It was a fun, but very HOT!! It was 97, with 85% humidity, and yes, no air conditioning. Zhi enjoyed riding in the backpack and checking everything out. On Monday, we had our appointment at the US consulate to take an oath and to submit our documents to receive Zhi's visa. He will be a naturalized US citizen when our plane touches down in Washington DC. Today we are packing! We also had our "famous red couch" photos taken. It is a tradition for adoption families and groups to have their photos taken on the red couch here at the White Swan. Zhi wasn't so happy about this. We are looking so forward to coming home!!! We depart for Beijing early tomorrow morning, then leave Beijing tomorrow evening at 6:25pm!

 I would like to say thank you very much to our very supportive family and friends who have helped us along this journey. It has been a very long 7 year journey, but WORTH EVERY SINGLE STEP. We have been so incredibly blessed with an amazing, beautiful child. Your support has meant so much to me.

In Guangzhou

We made to Guangzhou last night. Zhi did great on his first flight. We left our hotel at about 1:45 in the afternoon and arrived in next hotel at about 10:00 that night. The plane was delayed for an hour, of course once we werealready aboard. We kept Zhi busy with his snacks and drinks, but not knowing when we would take off we began to worry that we would be out of snacks before the plane departed. However, he feel asleep about ten minutes after takeof and woke up abour 5 minutes before landing. I was worried about him napping till 6:45, but decided to go with it. It worked out well since we were up past bedtime. It is so beautiful here. We had Zhi's physical this morning then enjoyed walking around the beautiful parks.

Still in Zhengzhou

We are on our second day of "free" time. We did plan to go with the group to the Henan museum today, but Zhi is not feeling so well. He is having some serious tummy troubles, so we decided to stay close by. We have been taking walks, playing, and going to the pool. Although, you risk your life trying to walk on the sidewalks here...I also went on a shopping trip with some of our group for essentials at the Lotus center. That was a good cultural experience. We are really looking forward to going to Guangzhou tomorrow! We have been amazed at what a great job our agency does. That have done an outstanding job of organizing everything! Our agency rep here is so helpful and so great. She actually went out at 9:00 last night to get us medicine for his stomach. The group we are traveling with is also so wonderful! We are so thankful to be with them!

It's final!

Yesterday we finalized our adoption. Zhi is doing great!! He is bonding very well to us. He is an amazing little guy. He is very happy and very sharp!! He loves to play; he especially loves Ms. Cynthia's singing gingerbread shape puzzle! We learned that Zhi was living in a foster home in Beijing since his surgery last August. We are soooo in love!

We have been blessed.....

beyond words!!

The Great Wall

Zhengzhou

We have already arrived at our second destination, Zhengzhou. This city is the capital of the province where our son lives. We will be meeting him tomorrow!!! We received some updated information today on Zhi! It sounds like he really likes to eat (sounds just like me!). We were also told he is active, lively, and gets along well with others. He is also walking. And the last statement is "he likes animals very, very much, especially the little cats and dogs"

ps I'm having trouble getting my pictures to upload; hopefully we can resolve this soon!

Beijing

     We had a very busy and great day touring Beijing on Saturday with our travel group. Our group is great and we are really enjoying getting to know everyone. There are six families from all different states. For five families, this will be their first child; one family has a child they adopted from China three years ago. Three families are adopting boys and three families are adopting girls. I guess we will look like the Brady bunch...

     Our first stop was the Jade factory. Jade is very highly regarded to the Chinese people. Our next stop was the Great Wall. It was simply amazing. We were able to climb quite a ways and it was quite a workout! Next, we visited the Olympic village where the 2008 Olympics were held. It is home to the "Bird's Nest" stadium and the water cube where Michael Phelps won all his medals. Last, we went to an acrobatics show. It was quite unbelievable; I sat on the edge of my seat  most of the time, hoping no one was going to die. The traffic was like nothing, and I do mean nothing, like I ever experienced before.

We made it!!!

We made it to China and all is well. Ready to go to sleep! We will be touring the Great Wall tomorrow!

Almost....

Time to go!!!!

The Plan....

7/14/11 Fly to Beijing
7/15/11 Arrive in Beijing; Free day
7/16/11 Tour the Great Wall of China
7/17/11 Fly to Zhengzhou
7/18/11 "Gotcha Day" ; meet our little guy
7/19/11 Adoption Registration
7/20/11 Free day or tour
7/21/11 Free day or tour
7/22/11 Fly to Guangzhou
7/23/11 Physical
7/24/11 Free day
7/25/11 Consulate Appointment
7/26/11 Receive visa
7/27/11 Fly home:)