Many firsts

Obviously, bringing a new person into the family is accompanied by many "firsts", like first visits to mundane local places. Here she is riding in our car's car seat for the first time (she is tolerating it better than expected), probably eating a fortune cookie for the first time (her fortune said "You will make many changes before settling satisfactorily"), and touching Peoria snow for the first time (the Zunyi City area has gotten snow in the past, but we do not know how frequently). We are still dragging under jet lag. Bugs (our pet rabbit) has returned home. Katie is showing cautious interest.

Very Tired

We are all very tired with jet lag. I hope to put together some more serious blogs in a couple days, we'll see how things go.

Home

Made it home late Friday night. The Bosmas were there to greet us at the airport with 2 signs - one welcoming Katie home and the other wishing Kris a happy birthday. They (and others) also left food and other things at our house for us. Katie said "wow" a lot when we showed her around the house. The whole homecoming was more emotional for me than I had anticipated. Everybody else is in bed, time for me to go as well. Thanks, all, for your support.

Last Full Day in China

Today's adventure consisted of a trip back to the American Consulate to pick up Katie's Visa and immigration papers. Most of the families in our group left today so there are only 5 families left. I went to the Consulate with 3 dads from other families to get the stuff. We took a hotel shuttle over which dropped us off and returned to the hotel. We got our paperwork with no problems and then our guide was going to get send us back in a taxi, but she could not get a taxi to take us. Apparently it was shift change time and none of the empty taxis were taking passengers. The hotel shuttle eventually came back with a family that our guide had to take to the train station. We went along to the train station, helped see the family off (they were from Seattle - I think the son said they live in Shoreline, actually) and then found a taxi at the train station taxi stand. Our guide, Shiyan, said she is definitely ready for a break after dealing with this big group. She was at the airport for 5 hours this morning trying to make sure the other 24 families made their flights, etc. This group also contained her first ever positive Tb test. That little girl had her 3rd negative test yesterday and will be leaving tomorrow morning with us. Thank you for praying for them.

Tomorrow is going to be the longest day of our lives - literally. We leave the hotel at 5:30 tomorrow morning (3:30 pm Thursday, Peoria time) and get home at 10:30 pm on Friday (12:30 pm Saturday, China time). So, you could say that our Friday starts at midnight here (10 am Thursday in Peoria) and goes until midnight in Peoria (2 pm in China) which is 38 hours. So, regardless of how smoothly our day goes - it will be the longest one of our lives. Please pray that all does go smoothly - no delays, lost luggage, illness or out of control children.

I also understand that we are in for severe thermal shock when we get home (especially Katie). The high today was easily in the 70s - I was toasty warm in my long sleeve shirt and pants while looking for a taxi. Friday evening's weather in Peoria is predicted to be around 2 degrees. Yikes. It had at least warmed up to 16 degrees on the morning we left Peoria!

This is likely our last update until we get home (maybe on Saturday). Good night.
Karen

Red Couch Day

This morning I took Katie on a long shoulder ride along the Pearl River waterfront. The water itself is kind of scary looking and doesn't always smell that good (kind of like the Illinois River), but I did see a couple of homeless people bathing/swimming in it. The waterfronts, however, are nice and there is a nice light show every night. The light show and all the construction are in part motivated by the fact that Guangzhou will be hosting the Asian Games this year.

After breakfast we joined the herd of people getting their pictures taken on the red couches on the 2nd floor of the hotel. That is a big tradition of the many China adoptions that pass through the White Swan. There were so many people and so much confusion that somehow we did not get our "official" picture taken. Irritating, but I think we got some nice ones taken by ourselves anyway.

This afternoon we herded onto buses to go to the "swearing-in". It was lot of waiting with about 60 other families to get called forward to sign a piece of paper. Then all the parents at once had to raise a hand and swear (by what?) that the information that we provided the consulate was accurate to the best of our knowledge. Some factoids: of the 25,000 US to China immigration visas issued last year, 3,000 were for adoption, and 57% of these were for special needs children.

Katie's mood has been up and down today; I guess the rest of ours has been too. Kris has had a rougher time than I had anticipated. She wants to bond with Katie and be a good sister, but she is also a much older sister with a budding maternal instinct. Katie often (but not always) tests her as a rival sibling and that has been tough on her. She could use your prayers, too.

I think we need to get home soon. Though we (I) do not look forward to "catching up" with 3 weeks of lost time at home, we want to get to more stable home turf. Enough with the hotel living already :*)

Dean

Visa appointment, shopping and love you

Today was our Visa appointment at the U.S. Consulate. It was very anti-climatic. Our guide actually went for us so all we had to do was wait in our room in case she called with a problem. We waited for a couple of hours, just to be sure and then decided to head out and do some shopping. I hate shopping in general, but the shops around here are so cute and the owners/workers are so friendly. I am a horrible negotiator and everything is negotiable - though they always tell you, "no, no this is already special price". We are not very good at holding our ground, though and though we have not paid the asking price, we haven't really gotten the price down very much. I am really bad at garage sales, too.

Other than shopping, we really did not do much more than hang around and enjoy each other's company. I am getting lots of hugs and kisses and SOMETIMES I am even allowed to carry Katie when we are outside. She is definitely more willing to walk with the squeakers on her shoes, but she doesn't want to be held back by holding hands, so we have to insist that she be carried at times. The streets on the island are very narrow and there is barely room for one car and one person on the road. Most of the sidewalks are closed because of construction so it is really not a good place for a 3 year old on her own power.

The highlight of my day came at bedtime. First of all, Katie is a big imitator and she is repeating most of what we say and using a little big of English on her own (hi, hello, bye-bye, NO, and hey - for example). I was getting my good night hug and kiss and I said, "Love you" to Katie. She responded with the most precious and enthusiastic "Love you" back that I almost started to cry. Instead, I did a little dance and clapped, which she thought was funny. She was not so enthusiastic 45 minutes later when I relieved Dean and laid down with her until she cried herself to sleep. Was it the 45 minute nap or the orange soda at dinner that made going to bed so hard tonight? We may never know. She looks so peaceful over there now with Mickey in one arm! I can't wait until you all get to meet her. Once she opens up, she all comedian.

Tomorrow we have "red couch" pictures at 10 and "swearing in" at 2:15. If you don't know what that means, tune in tomorrow and find out (actually, tune in even if you do :) ).

Karen

We got the orange soda at a Subway restaurant tonight - the other soda flavors available were Pepsi, 7-Up, grape, and we think green apple (not too bad for a test sip, but not what we want to drink for the entire meal). The meal was pretty western, and multiple sources assured us the veggies were OK to eat (recall we really have to watch out for that because we do not know how well they have been washed). Barbeque flavored potato chips seem to be popular in China, and tonight we had Lay's "Mexican Tomato Chicken Flavor" potato chips. It is hard to find "plain" potato chips, and I don't think I have seen corn chips as we know them.

This area is a bit more racially diverse than anywhere else that we have been in China. We were definitely a minor minority in Guiyang - in the 10 days we were there we probably saw less than 10 white individuals. It did not bother me too much, except when we got lots of people staring at a white guy with a 3 year old asian girl on his shoulders. What bothered me more is my linguistic ineptitude. What is kind of fun is when someone comes up to you and wants to try their English out on you, or wants their picture taken with our blonde Kristine. We have heard similar stories from others.

Anyway, here is a pic of me entertaining Katie with a marionette at a stand during shopping tonight.

Dean

4 more nights

Today was pretty low key. Our big event for the day was getting Katie's Tb test checked - it was fine. We were supposed to meet our guide at 1:45 to walk over to the clinic, but she did not show up. She had been at the U.S. Consulate and got stuck in traffic. She returned around 3:30 and we went then. We had a great dinner at a local Cantonese restaurant and took a walk in the riverside park next to the hotel to watch the nightly light show over the river. We actually have a great view from our hotel room, but it was fun to watch from outside as well. Katie had a great time. We danced to the music that was playing. She gave me several hugs which I didn't have to ask for (but certainly didn't mind) and even asked me to pick her up (by raising her arms to me and saying, "Mama"). This is not so rare in private, but unheard of in public. We saw the family with the little girl who tested positive for tb at the park. She has to have 3 clear chest x-rays before she can leave. She had one clear one today. Hopefully, the next two will be clear as well.

Only 4 more nights. I will be so happy to be home, but I am truly glad that we have had this experience.

Karen

Chinese Church, Paperwork and Squeaky Shoes

I think today went by faster than any since we arrived. Maybe because I took a nap this morning (I was starting to get a headache so the family cleared out and let me rest which completely did the trick). Dean went to the Catholic Church on the Island this morning (we decided not to try that with Katie yet). It was in Cantonese, but he was able to follow along for the most part. Kris and I stayed in the hotel with Katie who only cried for a few seconds when Dean left. We had a snack to tide us over and then played. Kristine got to babysit for the first time while I took a quick shower. Kristine reported that "she only threw two fits and I gave her candy so she would stop".

I attended a meeting this afternoon to make sure all of our paperwork was in order. Thankfully, I think I had all of the papers I needed. Our consulate appointment is on Tuesday and that is when we will find out for sure. We don't actually have to go to the consulate - our guide does that for us and then calls us at noon to let us know if everything is in order. Hopefully, that will go smoothly.

While I was at the meeting, Kris did homework and Dean and Katie went for a walk to a market just off the island. He said it was a huge food market kind of like the bird and flower market we went to in Guiyang. He reported that it was a feast to his senses with all the sights, sounds and smells.

For dinner, we went with a huge group of families to the Italian restaurant on the island. The food was good, but it took about 2.5 hours for some of our food to arrive. Most people had eaten and gone before Kristine finally got her food which she didn't even like. We sat with 2 families from Wisconsin. One family is from Fitchburg (near Madison). They are adopting their 3rd child from China - a feisty 5 year old. Please pray for this family. Their new daughter tested positive for tb (with a chest xray) and they don't know when they will be able to go home. Needless to say, they are a bit stressed out right now. (Katie's skin test looks fine, by the way). The other family is from Mayville which is 1/2 way between Milwaukee and Madison. They are adopting a 2.5 year old with developmental delays due to surgery on her spine. This is their first child. The mother is an early childhood teacher like me - she owns her own preschool, in fact. They will be returning to Chicago on the same flights as us. Both of our children have similar personalities - including a dislike for sitting still - so we can be miserable for 14 hours together.

On the way home, we stopped in a shop and bought Katie some new shoes. She needs something pink to wear so it is more obvious that she is a girl. Her blue shoes, orange coat and short hair make most people think she is a boy. We can't do anything about the hair or coat yet, but at least she has pink shoes now. The big thing here is to get squeaky shoes. They squeak just like a dog toy when she walks - which she loves of course. The salesman assured us that we can remove the squeaker whenever we want to. Dean is hoping the squeakers motivate her to walk more when we are out and about. We also bought the girls each a traditional Chinese dress. They couldn't wait to try them on when we got back. We will put them on again soon so we can get some pictures. It was too close to bedtime tonight.

Only 5 more nights and we will be heading home. Katie and I are getting closer everyday - I can help her get dressed, put on lotion, take her out on walks by myself, take her to the bathroom and get her ready for bed. She still wants Dean and only Dean when we are out in public, but she shares her food with me and lets me talk to her, which is an improvement. She and Kris and having more positive interactions - though the sibling rivalry is definitely still present. That goes away, right? Please don't answer that - I know the answer, but I am trying to deny it!

Enough babbling for now, good night!

Karen

Visa photos, medical exam and the White Swan Hotel

Our day started off just like most of our days in China - with a big buffet breakfast. Dean and Kristne even found pizza on the breakfast buffet - though they decided not to try it today. Kristine was too busy filling up on fried dumplings. There were other adoptive families all around us at breatkfast, but we didn't actually meet any until later. After breakfast, we trotted over to a little shop and had Katie's picture taken for her visa. This is when we finally got to meet some of the other families that are here with our agency. There are around 26 families in our group and most have special needs and/or older children. It was so nice to meet other people going through what we are and swap stories. Only about 6 families went for the photos - the rest had done that the night before. However, all of the families went to the clinic for the medical exams at the same time. Talk about chaos - twenty six families - at least 3 people per family- all waiting for the same 3-4 stations. Once we got through the first 3 stations (which was only for our families), we had to merge into the rest of the clinic already busy on a Saturday morning and wait forever to get the tb skin test done. We were one of the first families through the first part and the dead last to finish the tb test. Katie did pretty well, considering the circumstances. She really doesn't like other people talking to her, much less touching her, so she fussed when she got weighed and measured and wailed when she had to take off her pants and shoes. She watched the person ahead of us get the tb skin test so she was already crying when we took her into the room for that, but as soon as it was done, she was fine. She was a little concerned that she was bleeding, so I put a bandaid on it and then she forgot about it. She passed all the medical exams, by the way. We get the tb test results on Monday. Pray that there will not be a false positive (or a true positive for that matter, but I am not worried about that).

After that, we were all happy to head back to the hotel and chill out for a while. The hotel gives new adoptive families a gift when they stay here. I don't know what the boys get, but the girls get a white Barbie Doll holding a Chinese baby. They have a partnership with Matell, apparently. It may be a little odd, but Katie seems to like it. She calls it "Mama" and "Mei, Mei" and gets mad when Dean turns the baby upside down. However, when I took her for a walk around the hotel, she realized she was holding it as we left the room so she turned around, dropped it and kicked it back into the room. So much for maternal instincts.

She and Kristine had a great time playing in the play room downstairs. This is another part of the hotel's partnership with Matell. They designed the room and supplied the toys. The toys were pretty babyish and Katie didn't want anything to do with anyone else in the room, but she and Kris had a good time together.

At dinner, she had us laughing so hard. As I mentioned, she has a serious sweet tooth and her dinner came with a scoop of ice cream. She was so excited to see the ice cream. She took a tiny bite of the whip cream, rolled back her eyes in delight, set down the spoon and said, "Ah". The spoon was up again soon, though. Dean tried to distract her and sneak a bite and we thought that it had worked until she turned back and noticed it was gone. She gave Dean an evil look (Dean looked a little scared, actually) and she smacked him and yelled what we were pretty sure were Chinese obsenities at him. We all burst out laughing - even Katie- but she kept her eye on Dean for the rest of dinner. He asked her for a bite and she finally gave him a tiny bite. I got three bites and one was pretty big. I guess it pays to be patient and not try to steal from Katie. The people at the next table - an adoptive family from Wisconsin (Wausau), were laughing, too.

We also did some exploring in the area. Guangzhou is a huge city, but the hotel is on a small island on the Pearl River. The island has a lot of little shops that cater towards Westerners - especially adopting families. When we walk around, I feel like the locals see dollar signs rather than people, but they are very nice. The entire Island is literally under construction. You cannot see the faces of any of the buildings, half the streets are closed even to pedestrian traffic and there are fewer shops than those who have been here before remember seeing. Dean is disappointed that there is not a McDonald's on the island. It is also pretty cold. It was maybe in the 40s today, but it is usually in the 70s at least this time of year. There are 2 pools - but both outside and totally not useable. Maybe it will warm up by the end of the week - or will that just make it harder to come home to Illinois in January/February?

Karen

Made It to Guangzhou (formerly Canton)

We got word yesterday that our flight was changed to this morning, rather than this evening. After we got to the airport this morning we found out that information was not correct. Since we were already checked out of our hotel, our guide took us to a park for a while, then to lunch (like yesterday, good food, but some of it hurt), then window shopping at a store, then back to the airport in the afternoon. Katie was fairly impatient waiting in the terminal. I am farly convinced she has never seen a plane up close until today. We got her a little Matchbox type plane days ago and she never seemed to know what it was about (though we tried to show her). Today I showed her a plane taking off for real and then demonstrated with the toy plane and she got the picture. Once she got on the plane she objected to the seat belt, of course, and to not being able to have the tray table down every time she wanted to, BUT she liked being served food and she really liked peeking out the window over Karen (belted-in of course). She was so excited by the landing that she kissed Karen for the first time. It was dark by the time we landed, but I can tell we are in a much more westernized city than Guiyang, and perhaps even Beijing. Cruising down a large smooth highway into town at 75 mph felt so fast. The famous (among adopters) White Swan Hotel seems pretty nice. There is another adopting family next door (I hear a child once in while). Tomorrow morning is more official stuff and I am tired, so good night from us and good morning to you!

Dean

Last day in Guizhou - visit to Miao village

Today was our last day in Guizhou and it was a fun one. We drove (or were driven) 3 hours to a minority group village (Miao). About 1800 people live in the village, though we only saw about 2 dozen, I think. A group of women dressed in traditional costume met us at the gate to the village. They sang a greeting and offered us rice wine (yuck!) from water buffalo horns. Kris was glad that she was not offered any. Our guide explained the traditional clothing to us. They wear the symbols of their culture because they do not have a written language to remember it by. We then toured a traditional house. They had a tv in the kitchen, but otherwise it was very traditional. There was a huge pot of what looked like soup simmeringing in the corner. It was food for the pigs. Most kitchens have two such pots with one smaller than the other. The big one is for the pigs and the smaller one for the people. In the next room, the ladies that greeted us and a man did a little dance for us. We got to join in on the second round. The women danced and the man played a handheld pipe instrument (called a Leshui or something like that). We saw another room that had pictures of past leaders and family members on the walls. This was a place to worship their ancestors and past leaders in hopes of securing good luck for them and for themselves in the future. We walked around the village and saw their terraced fields (we were up in the mountains) and had a great view of the village all nestled into the hillside. It was very beautiful - even in January. No tourism tour ends without a gift shop, so our next stop was their "market" where they sold some handcrafted materials - beautiful embroidery, etc.

Our next stop was a Chinese Restraunt in the Autonomous region of Kylie. Our guide ordered some "not spicy" food for us and though we ate 6 hours ago, I am still full.

Katie did pretty well on the trip. Dean had the task of keeping her occupied in the back seat. I am still really worried about the car seat when we get home. It may be a while before we make it up to Wisconsin!! The only bathrooms available all day were "Eastern toilets" a.k.a. "Squatty Potties" so we had to buck up and use them. Once we figured out how to adjust our pants, it really wasn't a big deal. Now I really feel like I am in China. :)

Tomorrow morning we leave for Guangzhou. We got Katie's passport today. We were surprised that they used her baby picture in it instead of a more recent one, but it looks like her so I am not too worried about it. I am excited about moving on, but a little nervous about fitting all of our stuff into our suitcases! I suppose if worst comes to worst, I will have to make a trip to Walmart to get another suitcase. I think we can do it though.

Karen

Good night and I will hopefully send the next update from Guangzhou.


Dean's comments:
-the rice wine was not all that bad and we only had a few swallows of it - it did warm one up a bit.
-the dance, though I clearly had no rhythm, has to be one of the highest points of the trip so far
-I'm very glad we had the chance to see this village
-some of the "not spicy" food still had a little kick but we are wimps and it was quite tasty. I kept wanting to eat the noodle soup though my lips were burning.
-it is ironic that we will be heading east toward what we believe will be a more westernized city

Dean

Wednesday, January 20

We had a really low key day today so there is not much to report. We mostly hung around the hotel except for when the room was being cleaned (in other words, our afternoon walk). I am looking forward to tomorrow's all day trip to another village, though the 6 hours in the car should be interesting.

Katie continues to talk almost exclusively in Chinese, but she clearly understands quite a bit of what we say. She will occasionally repeat phrases that we give her - like "I'm three" (while holding up 3 fingers). She knows and says "bye-bye" without being prompted. She doesn't always respond to "Katie", but she does often enough that I am convinced that she knows we are referring to her when we say it. She doesn't always respond to Jiayi, either for that matter. Selective hearing is what they call that, I believe. She absolutely loves sweets and is a good eater in general. She seems willing to try most foods - unless they are green vegetables! (again, sounds familiar). She likes some spice in her food, but not as much as we thought at first. She loves KFC and french fries so at least I know she will eat something when we get home.

Sorry no pictures today - not really anything to take pictures of. Hopefully tomorrow there will be more.

Have a great day and keep praying.

Karen

Visit to Zhen Shan

OK, I'm babbling again tonight-or shall I say this morning for you all. Um, let's see...Katie woke up at 6 am as usual and we ate breakfast at the hotel. After that our giude took us to a village about an hour south of town called Zhen Shan. Guizhuo province is known for having lots of (like 80) ethnic minorities (majority in China is Han). The biggest minority in the area is Miao (a.k.a. the Hmong - part of the ethnic grouping that includes all those refugees that migrated to Wisconsin and elsewhere a few decades ago). There is a strong possibility that Katie is ethnically Hmong - but I think Karen already covered that. Anyway, today's visit was to Zhen Shan, an enclave featuring another minority referred to as the Buyio. It was challenging to keep Katie occupied during the drive, but we muddled through. As Karen mentioned seat belts are still problematic. On the way there and back, we got a peek at some of that karst topography that southern China is known for, with the steep, lush limestone hills. We also saw a fair amount of terraced fields for rice paddies. On a bright summer day this would all look stunning. Even on a hazy gray January day, when the paddies are dry and brown the view was impressive. As a shutterbug I have been struggling to to find a killer shot of those limestone hills, but something always seems to clutter up the shot. The best vantage that I have had so far is of the towering hill along the reservoir near Zhen Shan (in the background of the shot that I sent earlier) . The town itself is quaint with a odd mixture of old and new. People are cooking with coal stoves (and propane torches) but there are TV sets, and I saw what looked like a digital thermostat. We got a couple locals to don their ethinic festival clothes for us (embroidery is big among many of the minority groups). It got us wondering: If tourists from far away came to our house what would they take pictures of? Our stove? Our bathroom? I guess in retrospect I pointed my camera to the oldest looking stuff, but there was lots of newer stuff, too. In many places China looks so run down, but I know from house-hunting during late winter that without snow winter can be pretty ugly. At least the area is warm enough that there are some green plants and even flowers. Everywhere, even in the countryside, it seems like there is so much under construction or renovation. The labor seems a lot more manual here. I'm guessing that might be due to a large, cheap labor force, but also in crowded areas (this backwater city has over 3 million people) there might not be much room for larger machines. The traffic here is crazy. The days of everybody on their bicycle are gone (though we have seen any number of rolling contraptions). Our driver here (Mr. Wu) is the best urban driver I have ever met.

After we got back and had a late peanut butter on cracker lunch we stepped out again because our romm had not yet been cleaned. Karen and Kris found a place to read in the hotel, while Katie and I took a walk (well, she rode on my shoulders as usual) along the river walk to a scenic pavilion/bridge a few blocks away. Turns out there was some sort of music/dance performance being shot there, with four sets of dancers, camera booms, the whole nine yards. I'll probably never know what that was all about. The sun came out during our walk and it got warmish - I probably did not need my winter coat.

We got resettled into the hotel room and Kris and I again hit KFC in WalMart for takeout dinner (Karen's idea, believe it or not). Katie is to the point where she does not cry very long when I leave - she probably just wants to get out of the hotel room. I think I noted that the WalMart here is somewhat similar to that in the US. I have fun looking for all the products that you find in the US with Chinese labels: Coke, Pepsi, Frosted Flakes, etc. The shopping carts (called trolleys here) pivot on all four wheels, not just the front two. Kris has done quite well with that. The strangest section to my eyes is the grocery section. I have seen live lobsters in grocery stores before, but this store also had live fish, snails, turtles and frogs! No, I did not accidentally wander over to the pet section, and, no, I did not see any dogs, though my guide tells me there are some markets where they are sold.

After dinner we unwound in the hotel room and we put Katie to bed about 8-ish. Tomorrow should be a pretty quiet day. Maybe we will trek the 30-40 minutes to Pizza Hut. Even the items on that menu look a bit different than what you might expect, so we will see how gastonomilcally brave we feel. :*)

Free Day Number 2

We had another Free Day today and it actually went quite well. Katie and I are getting along much better. She still won't have anything to do with me outside of the hotel, but otherwise, we are fine. She insists that Dean carry her everywhere when we are outside yet she is not all that cooperative even when he is. Outings can be quite exhausting for Dean and I feel bad because I can't help. At least I am able to do more inside the hotel now, which helps.

The best part of our day was getting and eating dinner. Dean and Kris left around 4:15 to go get some stuff from Wal-mart and try to order something from the KFC there (doesn't that sound like something they would do in Peoria - it seems so surreal that we are actually in China). They had a great time navigating Wal-mart and successfully ordered a great (not healthy, but delicious) meal from KFC. They met a family from Californina who are living in China for a couple of years in order to learn Chinese. They are in the process of adopting a child from Ethiopia because it is cheaper and faster than China. They had a baby and a toddler as well. They were so excited to find Americans to talk to. I wish I had been there, but Katie and I were having some serious bonding time back in the hotel. She cried for the first minute or so after they left and then we settled in and played. We played hide and seek (she has one place that always hides), talked on Kristine's calculator turned into a cell phone - I think she set up a play date with Luke Nicholson for when we return :), watched a kid's show on t.v. (her turn to know exactly what was going on while I was clueless), had some goldfish crackers and more. She even sat on my lap while we were watching t.v. and for a little while we ate dinner. Actually, we inhaled dinner. We got a bucket of chicken that tasted just like at home (Katie loved it), some bread and corn on the cob. I think we had it all gone in about 5 minutes. You would of thought we had not eaten in a week. There were no temper tantrums and the bill was less than 400 yuan. It was great. I don't know that we can do that everynight, but it felt good tonight. When I left to come check e-mail, Katie actually cried because I was leaving. I am guessing it was mostly because she wanted to get out of the room, but a little part of me was happy - is that wrong?

Not looking forward to 4 days cooped up in our hotel room, we asked our guide to help us set up an additional tour for tomorrow. We are renting a car (they come with drivers here) and heading for one of the minority villages about an hour away. Thankfully, our guide is coming with us. I wasn't sure if I was up to doing that alone (I know Dace and Susan have done that kind of thing - but I am not so brave). If all goes well, we might try to go to another village 3 hours from here on Wednesday or Thursday, but we will see how Katie handles tomorrow first. Something else to note - they do not have car seats at all here. There are seat belts, but I have yet to see one used. Katie is in for a surprise when we get home and she has to sit in one! But that is a challenge for another day.

Karen

Guizhou History

Today, we got to go to the Guizhou Museum. There, a tour guide took us through the history of the province, starting with the days when the area was covered by an ocean and sea lillies (crinoids) and sea dragons (semi-aquatic dinosaurs discovered here in Guizhou) lived here up until today. We learned a lot about the local population of the area. You may or may not know that 95% of the Chinese population is one nationality - Han. The other 5% is made up of over 60 different minority groups which are collectively called the "minority people". Guizhou's population, however, is 38% minority and even has an independent region near Guiyang for one of the minority groups. Zunyi, which is the city where Katie was found and raised so far, has a large Miao (pronounced "meow") population. There is no way to know what Katie's nationality is, but there is a good chance that she is Miao. Miao is one pronunciation of the chinese word, another used in other parts of Asia and may be familiar to many of you is "Hmong", The Hmong people in the U.S. are mostly from Laos and Cambodia and emmigrated hear after the Vietnam war. They share a common background and in many ways a similiar culture to the Chinese Miao. Like the Hmong, they do not have a written language of their own, so they use their art to pass on their culture. They are famous for their silver smithing, batik (wax resist cloth dying similiar to the Russian Batik eggs) and embrodiery. It was really interesting to learn about. We bought a couple of items for Katie that represent the Miao culture even though we don't know if that is her nationality, it is a big part of the city where she was born.

We took a walk this afternoon and found a Pizza Hut. It was too early for dinner so we did not eat, but we looked at the menu. The only familiar pizza was a Hawaiian Pizza (ham and pineapple) - everything else was very different. They also offer a lot of other foods - pasta, rice and others. We are planning to try it sometime this week though. Eating dinner at the hotel is a little stressful. First of all, we are staying in the nicest hotel in the city (and it is really nice) so the restraunt is very fancy. Starting at 6 pm, they have a very elaborate buffet which allows us try new foods, but it is very expensive. Also, we have a very active and vocal 3 year old who thinks the restraunt is her own personal dining room and doesn't understand why she needs to sit still, not throw the food she doesn't like on the floor and scream when she does not get her way. Somehow it seems easier to handle these things at Pizza Hut or KFC (these are everywhere, but watch out for the spicy chicken and the menu is in Chinese), than at the hotel. The breakfast buffet is fantastic and is included in our bill so we try to fill up there every morning, have a light lunch in our room and then eat dinner somewhere. We are working on the somewhere.

Things are going as smoothly as one can expect (those of you with 3 year olds - or who have had one - imagine spending up to 20 hours a day couped up in a fancy hotel room in a foriegn country for 10 days and then throw in the fact that the 3 year speaks a different language and just met you a couple of days ago), but I am really ready to get home and be surrounded by my friends and family (and my own kitchen!). This morning at breakfast, we were trying to strategize the 14 hour plane ride followed by jet lag. It does not sound like fun at all, but I started crying (yes, in the fancy restraunt), thinking about the fact that we would have friends there on the other end. Dean and Kris, of course, are wonderful. Dean is taking on the lion's share of parenting tasks due to Katie not wanting me to do things like bathe her or take her to the bathroom. I can feed her, play with her, button her pants after she is done in the bathroom, etc. in the hotel room and hold her in the elevator, but as soon as we leave the elevator she wants nothing to do with ANYONE except Dean. We are definitely making progress, though. She is very smart, stubborn and independent. I am sure some of the Chinese we don't understand is "I do it myself!". Kristine is busy trying to keep up with school work. It is a challenge not having the benefit of attending class (which, I guess explains why she actually goes to school when she is home), but she is working hard. She is learning what it is like to have her sister get into her stuff and how to share her parents. She is a little overwhelmed at times, but we are trying to get enough sleep so we can keep going. There is a lot of joy in our days as well (in case I sound like I am whining). Katie is very entertaining and being in China is absolutely fascinating. We are learning so much about this part of the world. I am really glad we all got to come and experience this together. I can't wait to share it more fully with all of you when we get home. Keep praying for us - we can feel the prayers.

Karen

Here are some pix I shot on a different camera today that could interface better with this hotel computer. The orphanage director told us Katie was not all that good with chopsticks, but she blew us away when she was playing with cotton balls today (Karen's great idea).

Dean

Saturday 1-16-10 in Guiyang

Guiyang really lights up some of its buildings on weekends - some with shifting light patterns that look like, for example, rising bubbles.

Today our guide took us to what she referred to as the "bird and flower market". It is an open air market with lots of plants and animals for sale. We just window-shopped (not that there were many windows) and took in the sights, sounds, smells, and touches. I think we all liked the aquarium store the most - they really made up some cool freshwater aquariums. Sorry, no tasting at this market for us...sad to be so conservative, but we have managed to all be healthy so far, thank God. I save my eating adventures for the buffet at the hotel. Katie hardly flinches at some southern China food (spicy, tangy) that will make me hurt a bit (but I'm a wimp when it comes to hot food). Today we found some congee (rice boiled into a soupy mess) at the breakfast buffet, and Katie practically inhaled it. I was less impressed with its blandness. Later, the family took a stroll to a scenic pavilion/bridge just a couple blocks from the hotel.

Not as many meltdowns out of Katie today, I think, and there was some progress on the bonding with Karen. Your prayers continue to be appreciated. This has clearly been a trip of a lifetime for us and we appreciate that deeply, but we miss home, too.

Dean

PS. Sorry to report that the annular eclipse that was visible across a good chunk of China was clouded out for us. However, the weather has been warming and was almost mild today.

PPS. I think I will have all the songs memorized from the automated piano in the hotel lobby, which can be heard from the restauant and the computer workstations (still have not solved the power issues to charge Karen's laptop). "Let it be" just started.

Free Day in Guiyang

Good Evening (or morning in your case),

We had a "free day" today - meaning that we were on our own with no guide all day. Since venturing out of our hotel room is always an adventure, we decided to stick close to home, so to speak (although, Katie must think this is where we live at this point). We hung around our room until after lunch and then wandered around the area right by the hotel. We decided to try Walmart again on our own this time. Maybe because we had been there before and maybe because we actually paying attention to where we were going rather than trying to keep up with our guide (Aggie is her name), but it didn't seem so overwhelming this time. We found what we wanted, checked out and found the exit with only a small tantrum at the checkout when she had to give up the book she was holding so we could pay for it. We were impressed with the number of children sitting in the children book aisle reading the books (I wonder if their parents were shopping).

Katie is definitely at the stage where she is testing the limits. Throwing toys, spitting and jumping off the bed (or from one to the other) were the big ones today. Time out seems a bit dramatic at the time, but she doesn't seem to be going back to the behavior that caused it, so it seems effective. Overall, though, she is doing well. We think that she might be starting to mix some English into her speech, but she does it so fast, it is hard to tell. Dean is pretty sure that she told him "No shi" earlier - a combination of "No" and "bu shi" which means no. I am kind of hoping she corrects that one before we get back to the U.S. because it might be slightly misinterpreted there! :) She is clearly starting to understand some of what we say, but there is so much. What a road in front of her. She is smart, though, so she will get there.

Tomorrow we are going to a museum and a "bird and flower market". This should keep us busy for a little while.

To back track a little, we found out as soon as we got to Beijing why our trip is so long (3 weeks instead of 2). Guizhou, the province where Katie is, does not do as many adoptions as other provinces so they are not as efficient. It takes at least 8 working days to process the paperwork and get all the documents we need. Other provinces are able to streamline and it takes only 3-5 working days. We are the only family in Guizhou right now (though there were 2 in the last group), so we arrived 5 days before the rest of the group, had our Beijing tour and left before the rest came. We will meet up with them in Gaungzhou. At first, I thought that was cool because we would get more individual attention (which is true), but now I am wishing there was someone else to venture out with, especially on free days. Our guide, Aggie, works for the group that organizes all adoptions in Guizhou. She is a local resident. She is really nice and her tours are great, but she does not stay at the hotel with us like our guide in Beijing did, so we are on our own a lot.

I am not as tired as the past couple of days - it is amazing what a good night's sleep can do for you. I am hoping to continue the pattern. Good night on this end and happy Friday to all of you.

Karen

Day 3

Woke up this morning and looked out the window across the parkland they built over the underground Wal-Mart to the big jumbotron tuned to CNN and found out the Haiti earthquake. Keep them in your prayers - there are some quite impoverished people in the world, and some sections of China remind me just how blessed we all are. You can tell by the babbly nature of the email that Dean is writing. Overall it was a good day. Kris is upstairs doing homework and Karen is trying to get some much-needed sleep. Katie did not put up as much of a battle tonight, but she was tired all day. Katie has her own language that is a mix of Chinese and speech impediment - e.g. we and our guide figured out "nee han" is a twist on the Mandarin "nee can" (she has difficulty with hard consonants) and means "you look!" It is uncomfortable for me to be the one she bonds to most (something is wrong with the order of the universe there), but Karen and Kris are handing that fact gracefully. It is stressful to pick our battles carefully and balance the risk of spoiling vs. big public international meltdowns. What a culture shock! I so wish I knew the language better, but I only have myself to blame. Tina your picture book has come in handy, and I use that little black journal you gave me a lot. Dace and Susan the travel clothes work well. Today our guide took us to Quinling Park. The trip there was through construction and some very slummy neighborhoods (see above), but the park is beautiful and green even in January. The wild monkeys (macaques) were OK, and the park contained the largest Buddhist temple in the province. Not at all in our realm of previous experience, and beautiful, but we'll stick to Christianity. Anyway, I have lots of little details I could bore you with and an obscene number of pictures and movies to download if we ever work out the power issues. Thanks all, for the loans of the memory chips - we are still on the first 2 GB chip.

Day 2

Day Two (January 13, 2010)

Computer issues continue to plague us, but we are working at still getting these out each day. The hotel staff is still looking for a transformer for us so we can plug in our electronic devices. We are here for 10 days total and we are not holding out much hope at this point. The battery on the computer is not dead yet, but we are trying to conserve it. I am using the computers in the business center which is fine for internet access, but not processing our pictures. So, I am not sure when we will have pictures. I am sure it could be figured out, but we are pretty busy with Katie right now so I am not sure how much energy we have to figure it out.

But anyway, we made it through another day. Things are going about as well as we dared hope. I think the biggest "problem" is that she doesn't have jet lag and we are still dealing with that ourselves. She is very energenic and keeps us on our toes. She is definitely warming up to me, but once she gets upset, Dean is the only one that can calm her down. She is definitely a "Daddy's girl". Of course, she still loves to play with Kristine. She calls Kristine "jia, jia" which means "big sister" and just before bed tonight, she pointed to the pillow we sent her a couple of months ago with our picture on it and named each one of us "Baba" (Daddy"), "Mama" (Mommy) and "Jia, jia". She has not called us that directly yet, though. She loves to color, look at Dean's camera, wrestle with Dean and play with her toys. Most of the time she very active, though I got her sit for 1/2 an hour playing with the travel game Kristine got from Aunt Tina and Bob for her birthday. It has little pieces of different shapes that she placed on the game board that had a raised grid (like a piece of graph paper). It was fun to watch her concentrate on fitting the pieces together until she got them all on the board, then put them back in the baggie, then dump them out and start over. My job was to help press the pieces down into the grid. Occasionally she would purposely place one crooked so I had to "help" and she would smile at me while I fixed it. Very sweet.

This morning, our guide (Aggie) took us to a park near the hotel where we watched people exercise in the park (Tai Chi - some were using swords) and rented a paddle boat and cruised up and down the river for an hour. Next she took us to the biggest and most popular shopping center in Guiyang - Walmart. It is across the street from our hotel and completely underground. It is a supercenter, so it included a grocery store. There were New Year decorations, candy, etc. everywhere - just like Christmas in the U.S. (and it is over a month away -- Feb. 14 this year). They call it the "Spring Festival". The store was extemely crowded and if it were not for our guide, I am sure we would still be there. It was a labyrinth. I am sure it is not really that different from our Walmarts if you account for the different language and cultural items for sale, but to me, it was quite overwhelming. We were doing really well until our guide directed us to a snack food that is popular with Chinese babies (3 year olds are still considered babies here). When Katie saw them, she wanted them right then and thus began our first temper tantrum in public! Whew - I am glad that is over. Once Dean got her settled down and I paid for our purchases, it was lunch time, so we went to the KFC in the store. Again, familiar but very different. The chicken is not made with the Kernel' Original spices, but peppers and boy was it spicy. It was a good thing we had a big breakfast in the hotel this morning.

After this, we were dropped off at the hotel and had the afternoon to ourselves. Kristine didn't sleep well last night and she was feeling very overwhelmed. I also didn't sleep well so Dean and Katie (both of which slept fine) out for a walk so we could rest. We didn't sleep, but it helped. We made it through the rest of the evening and Katie was sleeping soundly when I came done. Overall, I figure I am not as tired as I was right after Kristine joined our family 11 years ago and Katie slept through the night and is potty trained. Thankfully, we are all healthy. Hopefully, we will all sleep soundly tonight and be ready for another adventure tomorrow. Tomorrow we are planning a trip to a popular area park that features wild monkeys! :)

There is so much more to say, but this is pretty long already so I will stop. We are learning a lot about China. Dean will probably write tomorrow.

Karen

The Big Day

It has been a really long day and we are all exhausted, but the event we have waited for (longed for) for the past 3.5 years has finally happened. We arrived in Guiyang around 11 this morning, went to the bank to convert our US money to Chinese money, checked into the hotel to prepare for the big moment and then met our guide who accompanied us the the adoption center.
We are the only family in Guiyang, so when we walked into the room, she was right there waiting. Her foster mother dropped her off at the orphanage this morning and the orphanage director brought her to Guiyang (about a 3 hour car ride). She was quite terrified and didn't want anything to do with any of us at first. We all got down on the floor to "play" with her, but it was ultimately Kristine who got her to open up and eventually laugh and smile. The two of them played while Dean and I filled out paperwork (I was shaking the whole time). We asked a bunch of questions to the director through our guide and she had a lot of answers. After a brief ceremony, the ophanage director and her staff left and our guide took us back to the hotel. Dean picked her up to carry her to the car. She shed a couple of tears on the way to the van, but in the van she laid her head on his shoulder and looked around. She was fascinated by the fancy lobby in the hotel (the fanciest one in the city) and by the time we got to our room she was ready to play. She colored with all of us. We "think" she can count to 10 in Chinese (she at least repeats after us and we think she rattled off the numbers on her own, but it was hard to understand). She talks to us quite a bit, but we don't know what she is saying. She got really excited about the view from our 27th floor window ("Wa" she said really loudly - we think that means "look" because she has used that quite a bit). Later, Kristine got her to repeat the numbers 1-10 IN ENGLISH - crystal clear. Very Cute. We ordered some dinner in our room, but she didn't want to come to eat. After we ate, we decided it was time to take a bath, so I stripped off all of her layers (at least 5 on the top and 3 or 4 on the bottom) and gave her a bath. She was NOT HAPPY. She seems to be rather attached to her clothes. She is still mad at me for that. Dean can get her to do just about anything, but she is wary of me. I am not worried though. We will have plenty of time to bond and I know that we will be fine. I am glad she is bonding with Kris and Dean now because they will go back to school when we return and they will not have as much time with her. It is good that they have a head start. She finally ate dinner (fried rice) and Dean is attempting to put her to bed right now. I need to get back up there and see how it is going.

Thank you so much for all your prayers. We can definitely feel them. There is so much more I would love to share, but I am tired so I will save some for later.

Karen

Internet and China

Facebook and Blogspot are not available in China, so if you would like to receive e-mail updates from us, please e-mail Karen at kcampbell(at)bradley.edu. Let her know if you want to receive text only or text and pictures (2-3 pictures per update). So far everything is going well. We get Katie on Tuesday afternoon.

T minus 1 day

Wrapping up the packing. We are pretty ready I think/hope. I do regret not learning Mandarin better. Not sure yet when I will go to bed tonight - I need to balance plans to sleep on the plane with needing to be on my toes tomorrow :*) We had about 6 inches of snow on the ground at about 6 am, and there have been snow flurries throughout the day. Many schools got cancelled today, including Bradley and Peoria Christian. Many, including me, felt it was unnecessary. Kris was waiting for a teacher to get her homework to her today. I think Kris was the most unhappy child to hear school was cancelled as any child I have ever seen. However, things came together and now she has all her homework. Tonight I put the car seat in the van for Katie - I forgot what a pain those are to work with in the cold and dark. After that I strapped on my snowshoes and wandered around the yard. I' m getting some float out of the shoes; a couple more good snowfalls and we should be in really good shape!

T minus 2 days

Here are pix from trips to Chinatowns in Chicago and Seattle. We are still poking at packing for China. We brought Bugs over to some friends house for a long baby, er, bunnysit. I'm going to miss him. We are loading up a couple MP3 players with music - one Kris owns and the other on loan. We have also been loaned a bunch of extra camera memory cards. We are still awaiting many of the travel details in China and a snowstorm has moved into the midwest. We pray both of those issues will be essentially resolved by Friday morning. UPDATE: I went to check on the snow (2.5 inches so far) and there was an envelope in the door with the schedule (thank God)! A few details:

Fri., Jan. 8 - Peoria to Chicago, Chicago toward Shanghai

Sat., Jan. 9 - arrive Shanghai, Shanghai to Beijing

Tues., Jan. 12 - Beijing to Guiyang, receive child

Fri., Jan. 22 - Guiyang to Gaungzhou

Fri., Jan. 29 - Guangzhou to Shanghai to Chicago to Peoria

Today a quote from the movie Apollo13 popped into my head. Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell said "All right, there's a thousand things that have to happen in order. We are on number eight. You're talking about number six hundred and ninety-two."

T minus 4 days

Still poking away at packing. Took down most of the outdoor Christmas decorations now that the feast of the Epiphany is done. The icicle lights will have have to wait for better weather to come down, say, May.

Some comparative latitude data:



Seattle, WA 48 N


Sturgeon Bay, WI & Green Bay, WI 45 N


Madison, WI 43 N


Chicago, IL 42 N


Peoria, IL 41 N


Beijing, China 40 N


Virginia Beach, VA 37 N


Montgomery, AL 32 N


Shanghai, China 31 N


Corpus Cristi, TX & St. Petersburg, FL & Guiyang, China 28 N


Havana, Cuba & Guangzhou, China 23 N


Honolulu, HA 21 N

T minus 6 days

Cold here in the midwest. You can see the open water along Kickapoo Creek "steaming" this morning. The local PBS affiliate is running Hawaii-themed shows this evening - seems almost cruel to do so, but in the plus side we saw some things in the shows that we saw on our visit there in March of 2004. We have now shot over 10,000 pictures with this camera.

Another number of note: for the past 2 years Peoria has received about as much rain (over 100 inches) as it normally receives in 3 years. These 2 very wet years are quite a contrast to the intense drought conditions of 2005.