Day 10

10 days...REALLY??? That's a LONG time people!

So today was a good day, yet a really bad day all at the same time. Good day because Hannah made great strides with her daddy today, yet bad day because her daddy was VERY sick. Hannah too is still hanging on to her cold and we may have to start her on an antibiotic.


We started out the day on "Stork Island" with Hannah's medical appointment. This was a real joke if you ask me (but nobody did), but it's all part of the process. She was given a great report, and we were sent on our way.











We left the medical building and spent about an hour walking around Shamian Island.


Then we did a little shopping before lunch at Lucy's American Bar and Grill. It was a beautiful day sitting out on the patio eating cheese burgers and singing along to Air Supply...we are in China, right??? :o)


This is one of her MANY silly looks she gives...She fits right in with our family, don't you think?


The boys and I walked around to explore the hotel while Daddy and Hannah took naps. This place is BEAUTIFUL y'all!!!! Just happy to be in a clean place where we can walk the street without everyone having to wash all the black HEAVENS ONLY KNOW WHAT off our feet. Nasty I tell you! Oh, and we even saw a little bit of blue skies for the first time since we left the states...NO JOKE!





Charlie was really not feeling well today (he did start his antibiotics...hope they are the right kind for what he has) so the rest of us set out for some Mexican food while he stayed back at the hotel. :) The food was not bad I have to say. I cannot tell you how thankful I was to see that Hannah liked it...sorry, but you cannot live in this family unless you like Mexican food.


If you think of it, would you please pray for Charles. He is having a really hard time with Hannah not embracing him as fast as he would like. She has made small steps towards both boys every day, but has been much slower to letting him in...and he is SO aware of it. It just breaks my heart! I think too he is missing his mommy time too, and that is really hard with a little one who needs so much attention right now. We keep encouraging him to be patient, and tonight after putting Hannah down I spent some time laying and cuddling with just the boys (even though I was SO TIRED). He really needs the prayers y'all!


Hannah continues to make baby steps everyday, but she still has a couple of moments every day of complete melt downs. Most of the other families are dealing with the same thing with their children, and I am so thankful to feel their support and true understanding (however, I wish none of our children had to go through this). It's not a fun thing to watch! The crazy part of it is that before and after we have the happiest child in the world. I can not explain how hard this is on our own emotions. I just wish there was something we could do to take away all her pain and confusion, but all we can do is pray and believe that God one day will.


Because with our God ALL things are possible!!!! (Matthew 19:26)

Day 9

Sorry I'm just getting to this, but with all the travel, getting in SO late, being SO tired, and Charlie and Hannah still sick it was just impossible to think of pulling out the computer to blog. :( Still not much time and Charlie now has a fever (NO KIDDING), so I will just let the pictures tell the story (isn't that the only reason you logged onto my blog anyways??? Enjoy!











Oh how happy this made Mark!!!!! They held hands all the way to gate.












I know she looks happy here, but she cried at least 1/2 the trip...and even though she is finally starting to take to her daddy that is not who she wanted during her fits while on the plane. UGH!











Our new guide, Simon. Whatever Simon says, we do!!!!!


Our new 5 star hotel...frankly after the last one we would have been OK with a 3 star. This one is S-W-A-N-K-Y...THANK YOU GOD!!!!!





The End!

Day 8

Wow! There is SO much to blog about I just don't even know where to start and I really need some sleep, so I'll just have to do my best to get you caught up on the day.

First we went back to the Civil Affairs Office to finalize our adoption in the eyes of China...it was a very simple, yet big moment for this little girl.


And an emotional and proud moment for us as her family.


Then we headed over to visit the orphanage she spent her 1st few months and last couple of weeks in. As we pulled up and she saw out the window where we were she melted down instantly, and we weren't sure if we would make it off the bus. Then she settled down and was fine from that point on. She didn't even seem to have any connection to the place.



This building is only about 3 years old and is considered to be one of China's model orphanages...and it really was...for an orphanage. Complete with Mickey Mouse greeting everyone as we drove up.








Then they presented each family with a care package where we got her health records, developed photos from the camera we sent her, CD of other pictures they took, copy of note given from birth parents, and a few other things...SO glad they did this for her!





Then Mark found a picture of Hannah hanging on the wall with pictures of some of the other children who are still there, and it was a happy moment to hold her in my arms knowing she is not an orphan in this place any more.


Then we began our tour...while wearing blue shoe covers (It's a very well kept place).


First stop....a classroom.








Then on to the bedroom where all the children were sleeping. Charlie and I spent most of our time walking around talking to and touching the children. This part was not easy. Charlie had a hard time with this part, but the good news is that most of these kids already have families coming for them. This was Hannah's old bed.


Then on to the playroom that is used when the weather is bad and the children cannot go outside.


Where we met her nanny.


Then is was time to go, and oh how great it felt to walk away from here holding her in my arms listening to her say, "Bye Bye" and wave her hand. This was the only time I started to tear up. I just didn't feel any connection to this place, I guess because of how little time she spent there. Now if this had of been her foster parent's home it would have been a whole other story...they probably would have had to build a dam to hold back the flood.

Next stop of the day was the silk museum here in her province.


We had a little tour of how silk is made, then were taken into a room for a real fashion show...with a real runway and loud music. :)



It was really fun for us girls, and Hannah was mesmerized!


The most beautiful model was this sweet little asian girl dressed in a cute dress...just a real beauty who really knew how to work the crowd, and the crowd loved her!!!


Funny, she looks like someone I know???


Oh wait a minute, that's MY daughter! :)


After lunch we were finally back in our rooms for naps. :) Busy day!!!

Hannah is starting to loosen back up and let the 3 boys in a bit more...baby steps right??? I've been letting the 3 of them be the ones to feed her, and that seems to be helping. Mark was so excited tonight when she let him feed her the whole banana. Y'all, I cannot tell you how much this kid loves his new sister!!!!!! So the banana thing was HUGE to him.


We all really enjoyed our last dinner here at our favorite Pizza Inn.


Then because of the rain we let Kevin hail his 1st taxi (yeah Kevin), and we all piled in like a bunch of clowns at a rodeo to head back to our hotel for more packing. Good times!


I cannot tell you just how happy we are to be leaving Hangzhou... EVERYTHING about this place has been SO HARD (except getting Hannah of course). However, I can't believe we will soon be in the last leg of our trip. Tomorrow we hop on yet another plane to Guangzhou...where every child adopted from China has to go through to finalize the adoption with the US Consulate.

It is a little sad to think that Hannah will be leaving her home here, and all the things that are familiar to her. The next province will be very different from here, and they even speak a different language. Please pray for her as she makes more changes, and flies on her 1st airplane.

We are all just praying she does not have one of her melt downs while on the plane...poor girl still has several uncontrollable crying spells every day (these are so hard on all of us). All I have to say is, "Hannah, lets go bye-bye" and the poor girl instantly starts screaming with a panicking fear...SO SAD!!!! She really has a great fear of being left, and understandably so. :(

P.S. I did not wake up sick today. Just sore throat and heavy chest from all the smog and cigarette smoke here...way worse than in Beijing! So nasty!!!
Everyone else seems to be on the mend. :) Thanks for the prayers.

P.P.S. Our video camera fell out of our bag today and no longer works...this makes me SO SAD!!!! Praying for a miracle on that one too.

Good night!

Day 7

Well, today was a bit better...I guess. Less crying, but still very withdrawn in many ways. She has become very detached and fearful of Charlie...and the boys, well she has not really wanted anything to do with them from the beginning (except take food, which they are always happy to do).


Again this is very normal for a child to pick one person to meet all their needs and shut everyone else out, but it's SO HARD to see it happen. The boys are being so sweet and trying so hard with her, but she will not even let them come near her. Charlie has handled it pretty well, but I can see it is breaking his heart. We both know it is a temporary phase, but the boys do not understand it very well. We just keep encouraging them to not give up.

The orphanage director told us when we got her that she had a VERY hard time after being brought back to the orphanage from her foster home, and that she is very much an introvert. She tried preparing us for her to have a hard time; we just couldn't believe her that first day. Oh, we believe now!!! I am glad we at least got a glimpse of what's to come, because it gives us hope.


Oh, did I mention Charlie is sick???? :( Praying I'm not next.

In spite of all the ugly in our day, we did enjoy getting to see a better side of Hangzhou...It was AMAZINGLY beautiful!!!! West Lake (not Ross' Westlake) and the tea gardens took our breath away. Our tour group went to an incredible "tea" village and received a lecture about all the medicinal properties of green tea. Did you know the Chinese Universities offer a 4-year degree on "tea"? I guess coffee would be a masters program. We also learned from our lecturer, Dr. Tea, how much the Chinese dislike the Japanese. Understandable I guess when you hear them talk about WWII. Overall it was very interesting and the village was very beautiful.



We ended the day on a good note. Charlie was able to bribe Hannah with a banana (FYI, Charlie says people are not allowed to call her Hannah Banana) and she seemed to warm up to him a bit. She also possibly started to turn a corner with the boys - she started watching them play and even slowly followed them around a little this afternoon. We're praying that she will be giggling and chasing them by the end of the trip. We're also praying Charlie can stop bribing soon so she won't become the first overweight Chinese person we've seen here. But really, if you tried to feed Americans half the things they eat here, we'd all be skinny too! Some of it is really scary!


Tomorrow morning we go to the orphanage. We don't really know what to expect and we're a little nervous of how it could impact Hannah and the other little girls. I mean she's two years old and will most likely have some understanding of what that place means. Please pray for Hannah and the others that God will somehow use this trip tomorrow to cement the bond between them and the parents.

Enough for now, gotta go to bed. Feeling like I may be getting a sore throat too. :(

Psalm 27:10 Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord (and my adoptive parents) will receive me.

Day 6

Wow! What a difference 24 hrs. can make! The day started out fine. Hannah slept through the night (outside of coughing and moaning from time to time due to the nasty cough she came with). She woke around 7 am, and had a bit of confusion on her face, but still happy. We all ate breakfast, and skyped home for the 1st time. Another great day, right???

WRONG!!!! Out of NOWHERE something happened (what, we are not sure), and from there she fell apart. This is very normal for most adoptive children (especially the older they are), but I guess we let our guard down a little too much and a little too early. She became very fearful, and nothing seemed to calm her down. Very withdrawn, and would go from almost hiding in my arms to kicking and screaming to the point it was hard to hold her. We asked our adoption guide if she thought this was just due to her cold, and she said she thought she was just going through the typical grieving...Oh how I was just hoping it was the cold.

We set out for lunch (KFC today...BLAH) thinking it would help since she likes to be outside, but it was only a temporary fix. She began to really fuss, then fell asleep in her carrier. Due to this being way before her nap time, we were now way off her normal schedule...bummer! Things got progressively worse as the afternoon went. We finally laid her in her crib later in the afternoon, and I patted her to sleep...poor thing cried herself to sleep. :(





About 40 minutes later she woke with a night terror (this can also be normal, but again we were hoping and praying we would not have to deal with this). She did settle and go back to sleep on the bed next to me, where she slept a good hour and a half more.





She woke crying and still somewhat afraid and withdrawn, but finally began to pull herself out of it about the time we left for dinner (the nicest most up-scale Pizza Inn we've ever seen...I'm not kidding). Hannah did great, and even sat in a high chair most of dinner. She was back!!! The rest of the night we saw the same smily, happy, playful girl we had yesterday...even giving kisses at the table. Thank you God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





It was a really hard day to see her act this way, and to feel SO helpless in that moment...broke our hearts. Please pray for her to have fewer moments like this. However, I know it is normal and even good for her to grieve in this way...so maybe you should just pray we will be calmer and more patient to just let her get it out. YUCK!!!!!

P.S. You might also pray for our friend Amanda who is traveling with us, she came down with a cold yesterday. In spite of her cold she is being such a trooper (while in another country)...they too read all comments, and love hearing from their friends and family. Please pray the rest of us can keep our health, and that Hannah too will wake feeling better.

FYI, the reason for all the narly fast food today was mostly due to a very nasty experience last night with the Chinese food...even Hannah wouldn't eat most of it, and she's from here.

Good night prayer warriors. We are so thankful to have you at a time like this!