Still here!

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days. Life has been crazy. Allen comes home today and we can't wait. The boys have had baseball practice or games all week. Caleb had a game yesterday. They won 12-10. They were up 11-2 and had one bad inning with lots of errors. They still pulled it off though. Caleb went 2 for 3, I think. One of his hits was a double, then he stole third and home. They have two more games left. Right now they have only lost 1 game.

We're doing well and adjusting to having a 4th child. She sleeps great (10-11 hours a night) and takes two naps a day. God is so good. She's always happy, unless you take something away from her that she wants. When we got her almost a month ago, she wasn't even sitting up. She can now feed herself when she's in her highchair, hold her bottle and she's working on crawling only she goes backward instead of forward. I think I remember the boys doing it this way too. I'm sure it won't be long until she's all caught up. I'm not rushing this because I know soon she'll be off and running. There's a country song out called "You're gonna miss this". I keep thinking about that song and how fast life goes by. I know that I will miss this stage that we are in right here and now. I love what stage all the boys are in, as well as Sarah. I try to just enjoy the moment and take it all in.

Allen has had the computer and camera all week. As soon as I can, I will post more pictures. I have heard from several of you that you want to see pictures. They're coming!!

College Graduate

A friend at church today reminded me that as of today I am a college graduate. She also graduated today, but didn't walk either. I just didn't see how that would be possible with 4 kids, a husband in the States, and jet lag. The certificate is what I really want. Now I guess I'll have to get a job when we move back to the States.

Today was beautiful here. It got up to almost 80. Hopefully tomorrow will be nice as well. We are going bowling before Caleb's practice. As for now, I'm off to bed!

Jet lagged back in Germany

We made it back to Germany yesterday. The boys were so excited to see us. They absolutely LOVE their sister. So much that they won't leave her alone, well atleast Daniel and Joshua won't. She will go to Caleb because he's not in her face all the time. We are a little jet lagged, but it helps that the boys are not.

Our flight from Honolulu to Minneapolis was not too great. Sarah didn't sleep all that well. It was a 7 1/2 hour flight, but since it was domestic, there were no meals included. I could not believe this. We did purchase what I call a boxed nasty (sandwich and salad) which made me sick. Both our parents were at the airport in Indy to pick us up, as well as Delilah and Mary Grace from our trip. It was good to see them all.

I was sick for most of the day and night Wednesday. Thankfully I started feeling better Thursday so I could make the flight Friday. The flight home was great. We had no problems on Northwest Airlines, except for the Honolulu to Minneapolis flight.

So, now we are getting settled. I'm trying to get my house back in order. It doesn't seem as though the cat had too many parties while we were gone. Allen is still at his parents house. He and his dad went fishing yesterday. I know he really needed the break. I will try to post as often as I can, but our computer at home is really slow.

Thanks for all your prayers and for following our journey. God bless you all!

More Pictures

Still not a fan of the water

USS Arizona Memorial

A view of the island from the lookout

Hello down there

We've really enjoyed our time here. It has been great seeing Bill, Lynne and the girls. My how they've grown. We picked up Sarah's passport today so we are ready to head back to Germany. We fly out to Indiana tomorrow. I know Allen's family and my parents are looking forward to meeting Sarah. Her personality comes out more and more each day. She is just so fun. Boys, you are just going to love her. Tonight and tomorrow we will finish packing. Thankfully we are flying on an Airbus 330 so it should be a fast flight since we can watch whatever movies we want. Thank you again for all your prayers!!

Hawaii - Need I say more?

Nuuanu Pali Overlook

Beach on Hickam AFB

Daddy and Sarah

Mama and Sarah
For my coworkers. Now I'm braggin'!!

Two weeks since Gotcha Day!

Two weeks ago today, Sarah was placed forever in our arms. Can you believe it? She is doing so well. Yesterday we went to the Dole Plantation where they grow the pineapples. Then we went to see the sea turtles. Sarah was not too impressed with the beach. I'm not too surprised because she doesn't really like any sort of sensory things like that: sand, grass, trampoline, etc.

I cannot even begin to tell you what a huge blessing it has been to have Bill and Lynne here. Lynne has taken us to all our appointments to get Sarah's paperwork finished up. It has been so wonderful. We really miss living near them. When we all lived in Clovis, we would get together for game night. We did this with the Noltes in England too. It is so wonderful to have such good friends that God has placed in our lives. They have really grown attached to Sarah, as well.

I'm starting to get packed since we leave soon. Boys, you are going to love all the stuff we got you. Thank you for all your prayers. They were, and still are, greatly appreciated.

On the Beach

Beach Bums

Not a fan of the water

On Turtle Beach

Hey, How you doin' ?

More Pictures

Flower Girl

The 5 girls all from the same orphanage

From left to right: Mary Grace, Piper, Lily, Sarah and Jordan

A new U.S. Citizen with our friend Tori

I know you all would rather see pictures. So here you go.

She's an American Girl!

It's official! As of 9 am this morning (Hawaii time) Sarah is an American citizen. Our interview this morning was more of a review of her paperwork, a couple of signatures and 30 minutes later, we had her certificate in hand. Sorry, but cameras were not allowed and she fell asleep on the way home so she is napping now. When she wakes up, we will get some pictures of her with her certificate and post them. After that appointment, we applied for her SSN and will have that in a couple of weeks. Then we applied for her American passport and we pick that up at 2pm on Monday. Praise God for everything falling into place and coming together. We know that it was all planned that way but patience is not our strongest quality. But everything is in His timing.
Thanks again for all of your prayers and all of the help we have received from all of you.
More later

ALOHA!!!

Well we made it to Hawaii. We had a very good flight and Sarah couldn't have been better. We kept her awake the entire time we were at Tokyo and when we boarded we gave her a bottle and she went right to sleep. She slept the entire 6 hour flight and woke up 30 minutes prior to landing. We got all of our stuff together and headed toward immagration. When we got there, it was as if they were waiting for us. We told them that Sarah was adopted and they took us to a sepreate window and the agent took her package and we were on our way out the door in 10 minutes. Our friends Lynne and Tori met us and got us settled in at their house. We had our first appointment for citizenship at 1:45 today and we will go back at 8 am in the morning to finish it up. Then at 10:30 we have her passport appointment and after that, its just waiting for everything to be processed and finalized. If everything goes well we should be completly done by tomorrow afternoon.
Thank you for all or your prayers while we were in China.
More later
Allen

Honolulu bound!!

Hi everyone! Just wanted to put an update out there. We are currently in Tokyo. We leave in 3 hours for Honolulu. We watched the others from our group leave for Detroit. We were with 2 of the couples since we left Indy 2 weeks ago.

Sarah is feeling MUCH better. Thank you for your prayers. We can't wait to get her on US soil. I only have 4 minutes left so I must go for now! Take care and God bless!!!!

Almost ready to go!

We had our appointment today at the US Consulate. This was by far the easiest part of the adoption so far. They gave our guides copies of all our passports, told us to look at them, then hand them back. After everyone had done this, we all stood and raised our right hand. The man who worked there asked us if all the information we had provided was true and correct. We all said "I do" and we were done. Wow! That was easy.

We are waiting for our luggage to get picked up. Our bus leaves at 5:30 am. We have quite a long layover in Tokyo, so we are hoping to locate the USO. Maybe we can also get a nap. We should have access to the internet at the very least.

We ask you to continue to pray for those affected by the earthquake. We did have one family in our group that was there just last week. They told us at the consulate today that they have been in touch with all the orphanages in that province and all the orphans are ok. There are still so many others who can use prayer though.

It's hard to believe that we left Indy two weeks ago. As much as we have enjoyed experiencing Sarah's birth country, we are ready to step foot on US soil. Lynne, get the Dr. Pepper ready with lots of ice. Allen would like a Mt. Dew. For those of you who have been here, I can't wait to brush my teeth with sink water!!!

Please pray for our safe travel. We will talk to you soon! We can't wait for you all to meet Miss Sarah!

God bless!

We're fine!

I'm sure most of you have heard about the earthquake in China. I just actually heard about it, so I'm not even sure when it actually happened. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that we are fine. There was one family that was in that province just last week. It does sound like it was a pretty bad one, so I would ask you to pray for all those who where there.

Tomorrow's our last day and we are on our way home. We are ready for everyone to meet Miss Sarah!!! You are just going to love her.

Daddy, Sarah, Mary Grace at our favorite place, Lucys.

Inside our Hotel, The White Swan

Inside our Hotel

These last couple of days here we are just waiting on the paperwork at the American Embassy so we can finish the adoption as far as the U.S. is concerned. We did go to a Buddist Temple and an Art Gallery today so it was a light day. Afterwards, Sarah and I stayed at the hotel while Dawn and one of the other moms went shopping.

The first picture is at our favorite eating place, Lucys. Its good food at a good price. The next two pictures are inside our Hotel. The waterfall is 3 stories tall and the pond is full of fish. Very peaceful.

Tomorrow is our big day with the U.S. embassy. We finalize the adoption and she will be officially ours in both the Chinese and US eyes. All that is left to do is get her U.S. citizenship finalized while we are in Hawaii.

Happy Mother's Day!!

Playing in the play room - riding on the zebra!

Sarah and Lily - the two sick ones of the group are feeling MUCH better!

A Chinese Honda Odyssey - I think I'll keep mine, Thanks!

Happy Mother's Day to our mothers, sisters, our "other" mother (you know who you are) and very special friends and other family who are mothers. We hope you have a great day! Oh and Happy Birthday today to my mom! I love you!!!

Today was a good day. We spent the WHOLE day shopping so of course it was a good day. We started out buying pearls. I've never owned pearls before, so that was pretty cool. Then we went to a jade place.

After that we came back to the hotel, ate some lunch (meal #4 at Lucy's) and then shopped for FOUR more hours. Boy are my feet sore. I think I'm almost done shopping. I have a few more gifts to buy.

Can you believe that it's Sunday are we leave Wednesday morning? It's gone by so fast. I know my friend, Lynne, can't wait for us to get to Hawaii. I am so thankful for her. What a blessing to have someplace to stay for the six days that we will be there. And she's so gracious as to be our taxi driver. I love ya!

Well, I'm extremely tired. Boys, I miss you so much, especially today since it's Mother's Day. I hope you enjoy your day though. Don't forget to give your special gifts to whoever you are staying with. We love you!

Oh, and an update on Sarah. She seems to be doing a little better. She actually ate very well today - the first real solid foods since we got her one week ago today. She is still on the road to recovery, but we are making progress. Thanks for your continued prayers.

Blessings to all!

Medical Exam Day!

We had Sarah's medical exam today. Everyone has said this was very easy. In and out sort of thing. Not the case for us. Let me say that I was in no way, shape or form prepared for what we experienced. There were 3 stations to go to and at each station the doctor signed off on a piece of paper. The first station was weight and length. She does actually weigh 21 pounds and is 28.7 inches long. The next station was the ear and throat station. This is where the trouble began. First she looked in her ears and said there is a lot of wax. On big deal. Then she looked in her throat. Then again and again. At this point the look on her face is not good and she had me look in her throat. I was not prepared for this. There were huge white sores at the back of her throat. She then immediately took off her socks and started looking at her feet and hands. This is when I went to get our guide. She wasn't sure how to explain it to our guide so that she could tell us in English, so off to the last station we went. Mom is not doing so well at this point. Remember that we have just found out 2 days ago that there are now 22 confirmed cases of hand-foot-mouth in the province we just left.

At the last station the doctor just kept looking her over, listening to her lungs, looking at her arms and back again, etc. Thankfully the guide is there the entire time. Then he went to get the previous doctor (so sorry to everyone who was waiting in her line). The he gets up and says "Follow me." So off we go to another room. This room has even more doctors. At one point there were 5 doctors talking amongst themselves (in Chinese, of course) and looking at Sarah. She is not taking this so well and you can imagine how well I'm doing. Thankfully, Catherine our guide never left our side.

So the end result is, they think she is allergic to the the amoxicillin. They gave us something else to give her. They also gave us the name of whatever is in the back of her throat to google and see what it is. We were the first group to get to the exam place and our family was the last family out of our group to leave. I honestly don't know what I would have done if it weren't for Catherine. Allen held up so well. He was my strength because I was about to lose it.

Your prayers would be greatly appreciated because she still is not well. I can't wait to get home and get her looked at there. Thanks in advance for your prayers for little Sarah!

Last day in Nanchang

Mommy's Girl
Daddy's Princess

In front of the symbol for Longevity at Elephant Lake

Today we went to a place called Elephant Lake. It was really pretty. I would have included pictures, but I know Sarah is really what you want to see. Afterwards, we went to a porcelein shop. It is all made right here in Jiangxi Province. We got a tea set and some chopsticks.

The doctor came to the hospital this evening since several of the babies are sick. She said Sarah has a severe case of bronchitis and the amoxicillin isn't enough. So, she is prescribing something else for her to take in addition to the amoxicillin. Hopefully she will start feeling better soon.

Tomorrow we leave for Guangzhou. I think we are all looking forward to it since it is our last stop before we come home. I will say though, we have gotten used to having high speed internet.

Time to eat. Please continue to pray for Sarah!

Boys, we love you very much!!!

Day 4 in Nanchang

I love my dollie, Auntie Jules and Marissa!
One of three famous temples in China

Sarah and Aaron

See, I can smile....

....or I can be serious!! Either way I'm cute!

We had a pretty good day today. We went to a famous temple today. It is one of three famous temples in China. At least we think it's a famous temple. We need to ask our guide to be sure. Afterwards, we went to a Chinese restaurant. It was fabulous. We really enjoyed it.

Sarah was so tired by the time we headed back to the hotel, but we managed to keep her awake. When she got up from her nap, she had spiked a 102 fever. So we started motrin/tylenol and it seems to have come down. We are now thinking that she has prickly heat instead of scabbies. That's good at least. After nap time, another mom and I went to a shop next to the hotel. Apparently Sarah did not like the fact that I had left. Allen said she would not stop crying. By dinner time, her fever had broke and she was back to our Sarah. Happy, happy, happy. Please pray for her, that all these "issues" will pass and she will feel better soon.

One of our stops tomorrow is to a porcelein shop. Yeah! Shopping for porcelein! I had some more laundry done today. Sarah's items were free so I had ALL of them done. The rest of the items (8 items in all) came to just over 7 yuan which is just over $1. I would never do laundry again if it were that cheap back home.

Enjoy the pictures of the princess. We are off to bed! Love you all!

The rest of our day!

I know the pictures are what you are wanting to see. Here are some of the best. I can't even begin to tell you how much we are already in love with her. After our trip to the Children's Hospital, the rest of the day of pretty uneventful. We did go to the People's Park this evening. Then we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant with our guide. I'm not sure what we ate, except for the rice and Coke, but it was good. I think we tried it all. There was a lot of food and the total was only $14 per couple. Can't beat that! Our guide said the place we are going tomorrow is even cheaper. This place was a little fancy, I think, because there was a show while we ate also.

So, a little bit about the in China. Let's just say if you think the driving where you live is bad, you obviously haven't been to China. We were thinking that it may be a close tie between Italy and China, but now I think China may win. All their traffic laws are meer suggestions, if they have any laws at all. We saw a round sign once with a trumpet on it with a line through it. This I'm guessing meant no honking. Well, that's about all we hear from our hotel room all day and ALL NIGHT LONG. If you want to turn, you turn. No matter if someone else is coming or if there are people in the street. It is unbelievable. There are white lines on the street, but I haven't seen anyone pay attention to them yet. What we find absolutely unbelievable is that we have not seen ANY accidents. We all have commented that there would be so much road rage if this type of driving happened in the States. They just seem to go along with it. No yelling, no finger gestures. Just horn honking. All I can say is, I'm glad it's not me driving.

First Trip to the Hospital

First of all, sorry there are no pictures. I know that's what everyone enjoys the most. I will post more later. We had our first trip to the doctor today. One other family was wanting to have their daughter looked at, so I decided to take Sarah too. As much of an adventure as it was, we are both glad that we did. Turns out the other family's daughter has pink eye and Sarah has bronchitis. They both have red throats. They wanted to give Sarah an injection, but I told them I had antibiotics at the hotel. They asked what it was and were statisfied with what I told them. They did give her some other Chinese medicine for the cough. Not so sure she will get that though.

Anyway, we took a taxi to the Children's Hospital of JiangXi Province. Wow! That was an experience. We walked several places before we found where we were supposed to be. We had to wait quite a while before our guide, Catherine (Praise God for her!) figured out where we were supposed to go and who we should talk to. Anyway, I had the privilege of seeing a Chinese diaper change and also the alternative method. That will have to go in another post.

The whole experience cost 32 yuan for the doctor visit, including medicine, and 11 yuan for the taxi ride. Total in dollars? $6. No that's not a typo - six dollars!

So we are back at the hotel. I had bought an orphans medical kit before we left. It had amoxicillin (just add the water) in it and a few other Rx things for pink eye and diaper rash. It also had a bunch of other things (non Rx), but after today I would have paid what I paid just for for the amoxicillin. Thankfully I have a friend from high school whose husband is a doctor and he helped me though this whole thing, especially with the dosage. Thank you, thank you!

Tonight we are going to a park for some sort of fountain show and a Chinese dinner. I will post pictures then.

She's ours!

We had our interview today with the adoption officials. She wanted to know if we were happy with her, why we wanted to adopt her when we had children of our own, how would we educate and raise her, and promise to never harm, abuse or abandon her.

mom and dad with Ling Wu Yun Orahood, soon to be Sarah AlisonMei Orahood


We got to see the orphanage director again today. She was very happy to see Sarah and all of the girls. We asked our guide to translate a note we wrote to Sarah's foster mom. It thanked her for taking care of Sarah, told her how much we loved her already, that she has 3 brothers waiting for her at home, and that her new name is Sarah AlisonMei Orahood. The director was very happy that we did that.

In the eyes of the Chinese government, she's officially ours!

We had a very busy day. We met with the Chinese adoption officials today. The first stop was back to where we got Sarah yesterday. Then we went on to the notary official, and finally to the passport application. SHE IS OURS!!! Next stop - Wal-Mart and KFC. We just picked up some water, soda and oreo cookies along with a few other things. Then we were back at the hotel. Everyone was exhusted! We all passed out. Sarah normally sleeps for an hour and has been asleep for 2 1/2 hours and is showing no signs that she is done with her nap yet. So for now all our adoption paperwork in Nanchang is finished. SHE IS OURS! Our guide will pick up the passports on Friday and we will be off to the airport. At the next stop, we will finish up the American side of the adoption. Did I mention that She's ours!?!?

Boys, I'm so glad the weather has been nice. Your sister is going to love having 3 brothers to hold her. She LOVES being held. And she loves to play. I can't wait for you to meet her. Hope you have a great day at school. We miss you and love you so very much!! Love, Mom and Dad

Blessings to you all!

Allen and Dawn

Test blog

I think I may have figured out a way to post from where we are. I'm sending out a test blog to see if anyone replies.

It was a long morning and we are all going to take a nap. I will post more with pictures when we wake up!

Good Morning with Sarah

Our first glimpse

Sleeping Beauty

Pretty girl

A smile from the pretty little girl

We had a great night.  Sarah slept all night.  We tried to give her a bath this morning.  She wasn't very excited about it.  We went to breakfast and had a great time with her.  Her personality is really coming out.  She had one bite of scrambled eggs and would shake her head "no" everytime I tried to give her anymore.  She did, however, nod her head "yes" when I drank my orange juice or when I tried to give her something she wanted.  She ended up eating some congee, which to me looks like runny rice, and some very liquidy yogurt.  Now we're back up in the room for 30 minutes and she has fallen asleep in her crib.   Here is some information about the province she is from.  It is a very rural and poor province.  It produces mostly rice, but also some wheat, cotton and fruit.  It takes 100 days for rice to grow.  They plant more rice as soon as it's harvested.  Jiangxi is famous for it's porcelein (we're in trouble now).  It is the only city in China that has been producing porcelein for over 1,000 years.  60% of the province is mountains and hills, 20% is flatland and 10% is water.  I know, that's only 90%.  She didn't say what the other 10% is.  August 1st is a very important day in this province.  It is the Chinese Army Day.  An uprising started 8/1/1927 and last for 14 years.  For those of you who don't know, that is our anniversary.   We have an appointment in 20 minutes.  I will try to post more later.  Thank you to my niece who is actually posting these for me.  I am e-mailing her and she is posting.  Most of us, even those in other provinces, are having trouble connecting to blogspot.  It should be better at our next stop.    Blessings to all.  Thank you for your prayers! Love, Allen and Dawn   A note to the boys:  You are going to love your sister.  She loves to be held.  We know she is going to love you!  We hope you are having fun.  We hear the weather has been nice.   Have a good day at school!  We miss you!  All our love, Mom and Dad  **Note from the niece.  I tried several times to rotate these pictures of her to no avail.  Sorry!  If you have trouble just rotate your computer screen. :)**

Introducing Sarah

Love at first sight!

I couldn't resist pinching those cheeks!

Playing with Baba

With the orphanage director

There are no words to describe today.  God is so good and Sarah is so perfect.  We have not had any tears yet.  She is all seriousness.  We did get some smiles out of her after dinner though.  We found out that she likes rice.    After we got her, we came back to our hotel and changed her diaper and clothes.  Allen played with her while I made her a bottle.  He was able to get some giggles out of her.  No problem taking a bottle.  Then we went down to dinner.   She is starting to open up more and more.  She is such a good baby.  Shannon, she is almost exactly the same size as Grace.  And she is every bit of 21 pounds.  Her cheeks are solid and so are her thighs.    We had some paperwork to sign this evening.  Then we came back up to the room and got her ready for bed.  She didn't even cry herself to sleep.  I put her down and acted like she was going to fuss, but never did.  She just went to sleep.  Wow!  That's awesome.   We are all so tired.  Hopefully we will get blogspot working.  We leave Friday so it may not be until we get to our next province.   Thank you all for your prayers.  God grace is so good.  We are holding evidence of it in our arms!   Blessings, Allen, Dawn and finally Miss Sarah!

Can't sleep

Ok, so I hadn't planned on posting until tomorrow. But, it's now 1:40 am and neither of us can sleep. This has been the norm since we've been here. We go to sleep around 10 pm, sleep for 3 hours and feel like we've slept all night.

There are 12 families in our group - six non-special needs and six special needs. One of the special needs families got their daughter on Friday afternoon. She was at a children's home called Bethel. It's for blind children. This couple in France sold everything they had to open his home for blind children in China. She said when they went to get Hope, the other blind children at the home sang "Open the eyes of my heart, Lord". As they sang the Cherry Blossoms were falling outside behind and it looked like it was snowing. She said it was amazing.

In the non-special needs group, there are six families, as I've said. You may be wondering why I have referred to getting the babies instead of getting the girls in our group. That would be because one family was referred a healthy baby boy. Yes, they were just as surprised as you are. This is their first child, so they did not specify a gender. They were quite suprised when they got the call that they had a boy. He's 15 months old. He's in the same province as the girls, but at a different orphanage. We should get all the babies at the same time though.

15 hours and counting!

Oh, and to Crystal who was born on 4/7 and Diane who was born on 7/4, guess it's good thing you weren't born in China. We love you both regardless of what day you were born!

More about our day!

Here is some more Chinese history for you.

Because of the Olympics, the government is encouraging more public transportation. Remember that the bus is only 40 Chinese cents to use. Beijing originally had 2 subway lines. It now has 5 lines and will have 8 by the time the Olympics start. By 2015, there will be 19.

Mandarin is the formal Chinese language. It has 4 tones and each tone means a different thing. Our guide told us that if our child keeps saying BaBa (which means daddy), but doesn't want daddy, it may mean that she has to poop. Good thing to know.

Lucky numbers in China are 8, 9 & 6 which is why the Olympics will begin on 8/8/08 at 8 pm. If your car plate has an 8 in it, it will cost you more money. Most people get married on a lucky number day.

Chinese don't like the numbers 4 & 7 because their sounds are very close to the sound of death and angry.

If you see a car with red flowers on the hood, someone has just gotten married. If there are black flowers, someone has died.

Income in Beijing is about $400 per month. In other places it is about $40 per month. This is the reason why houses are more expensive in Beijing.

The emperor' used to use silver chopsticks to see if food had poison in it. The poison would change the color of the silver in the chopsticks.

One last thing. I am SOOO glad I started getting in shape this past January. Boy did it help when we were walking the Great Wall. After today, I think I an do just about anything. I climbed the Great Wall, learned to use a squatty potty (when you're desperate, you're desperate) and ate an interesting dinner.

Less than 12 hours and we leave our hotel to fly to Nanchang. We get Sarah less than 2 hours after we land. I figure this should barely give us enough time to take our suitcases to our rooms. After being in labor for 2 months, my nurses would probably be telling me it's time to push. We can't wait to see her precious face.

Our next post should include pictures of the princess!

The Great Wall - Not for you smokers (hint, hint Woody; Burn-Z, P)

The Great Wall

Today, our journey took us to the Great Wall. We spent 2 hours there and spent the majority of it climbing to the first watch tower. To visulalize how steep it was, at some places, you could reach out and touch the steps in front of you without bending over. The steps were uneven, different heights and very worn but it was worth every step.

View from the first watchtower

Some facts about the tower. It is over 4,000 miles long and covers 7 provinces. From where our first picture was taken to the first watch tower was 478 steps. It doesnt sound like a lot but the second picture shows just how steep it was.

The Birds Nest

On the way back to our Hotel, we were able to drive through the Olympic Village. The structure above is called the birds nest and is where the opening, closing and track/field events will take place. It was completed last month and is capable of holding 100,000 people. There is still a lot of construction going on with the games beginning in August.

We also visited a Chinese Restaurant and the Emperors Summer Palace and returned to the Hotel completely worn out. So it will be, dinner, pack and early to bed for tomorrow we travel to Sarah's province and get to hold her for the first time.

More later,

Allen

Some things about Sarah

We got a checklist of questions that were asked about Sarah. Here is what we found out.

1. She takes three 8oz. bottles a day. The bottles consist of 4 spoons of formula and 4 spoons of rice cereal. No wonder she has cheeks like she does. She also eats congee, steamed eggs, crackers, vegetables or noodles.

2. Her nicknames are Lu Yun or Bao Bao which means good baby.

3. She likes her doll and playing hide and seek.

4. She goes to bed at 8 pm, takes an hour nap during the afternoon and sleeps in her own crib.

5. She gets upset if her foster mom is too busy to hold her, she likes to go outside, and she's not afraid of anything.

6. She can say dad, mom, grandma and dada (in Chinese I'm guessing).

7. Her foster mom's name is Wu Mei Jin.

8. She is active, outgoing, loves to smile and is not afraid of strangers.

Sounds like she will fit in fine with our family. I'm sure everyone in Germany is loving the fact that she's not afraid of strangers. I found it interesting that her foster mom's name has Mei in it, especially since Sarah's middle name has Mei in it as well.

That's all for now. We're off to the Great Wall!

What time is it in China?

If you have not been able figure out what time it is in China compared to where you are, this is what I can tell you. We are 6 hours ahead of Germany, 13 hours ahead of Virginia and Indiana (eastern), 14 hours ahead of Kansas (central), 15 hours ahead of New Mexico (mountain) and 16 hours ahead of Seattle and Phoenix (pacific). Lynne, I'm not sure what timezone Hawaii is in. So hopefully from that you will be able to find out what time it is where you are vs. where we are.

One thing I forgot to post yesterday. I had posted that we learned that there were 18 million people in Beijing. Well, we learned last night that there are 3 million cars. We have never seen so many cars and people in our lives. We're still trying to figure out who wins the worst driver award - China or Italy. So far it's a close tie but China may win.

Acrobatics Show

Tonight we went to an acrobatics show. It was really good. Sorry there are no pictures. Cameras were not allowed. After the show, we came back to the hotel and grabbed something to eat. I tried to repack the suitcase a little since tomorrow will be pretty busy. We are going to the Great Wall and Summer Palace. Only 2 more days until we get Sarah. We are all very excited.

One family got their daughter today. She was on the Special Needs list because she's blind. The home she was at is here in Beijing. We all can't wait to meet her.

I can't wait to post pictures of the wall. It's supposed to rain tomorrow. Pray that it doesn't. We'd like to have good weather for our once-in-a-lifetime experience. Through all of this, God has been so faithful.

Thank you for your prayers. Goodnight from China!

Touring Beijing

Tian'anmen Square

Male dragon in Forbidden City

Dawn with the daughter of one of the families traveling with us.

Today we toured Tia'anmen Square and the Forbidden City. Tia'anmen Square is the largest square in the world and is where many celebrations and military reviews are held. The Forbidden City was built in 1417 and is where many of the emperors from the Ming and Qing dynasties once lived.

Some things we learned today: China has 1.3 billion people. It is around the same size and the US only has 3 times more people. Beijing has 18 million people. In the east 700 people live in 1 sq km. In the west 2 people live in 1 sq km.

There is one family traveling with us that brought their 3 children. The two girls were asked so many times today to have their picture taken. It was unreal. At first it was kind of funny, but after a while they were tired of having their photo taken.

We also found out today that we will get Sarah around 4:30 pm on Sunday. That's just two hours after we land. We are really excited. Tonight we are going to an acrobatics show. I will post more pictures when we get back. Oh, today 3 other families and us went to lunch. We had no idea what we were ordering other than duck. We got Peking duck and fried rice. It was so good. It ended up being under $18 per couple. We didn't think that was too bad considering how much food we got. We are hoping to get to the Hard Rock Cafe, even if only for the t-shirts!

Until later this evening!