WAITING PATIENTLY FOR OUR ARRIVAL

We were greeted by many family and friends at the Boise airport and it was so great to see them all!! Especially Kaleb, Lucas and Chloe who we missed terribly while we were gone!! But they had great fun staying with Wayne & Pernille for a week, my Mom and Paul for a few days, and Dave and Hester for a few days. We were able to see and talk to them on the computer with web cams & talked on the phone almost everyday which helped a TON! But of course we are so glad to be home and all together again with Gracie!!

THE NEW RAINSBERRY FAMILY OF 6!!!

GRACIE MEETING EVERYONE AT THE AIRPORT

WEDNESDAY, 7/25/07; BOISE AIRPORT

After 3 flights and two airport layovers totalling over 20 hours we FINALLY arrived in Boise!!! Gracie did really great on all of the flights especially for the fact that we had to wake her up at 5:00 am the morning we left Guangzhou. She slept about 8 or 9 of the hours in the way of naps. Scott and I got a few hours of sleep in the way of naps. So, of course we were all exhausted when we arrived but ecstatic to be home and see all our family and friends at the airport!

BREAKFAST AT OUR HOTEL

Gracie loves to put her feet up wherever she is at! We have many photos of her like this. You can see the Koi pond behind her. It is a very beautiful setting and quite the spread on the breakfast bugget tables! There was raw salmon, rice, noodles, but we stuck with the Amerian options of bacon, toast, omeletes, french toast, and fresh fruit. We have gotten quite used to & spoiled by the wonderful breakfast buffets!

EMMA & GRACIE ON THE INFAMOUS, WHITE SWAN HOTEL RED COUCH

This was too funny! Gracie had actually been sitting there for about 5 minutes just fine. Then, when Emma came and was not happy after a few minutes Gracie decided she should probably start crying too!

BEAUTIFUL GUANGZHOU BRIDGE LIT UP AT NIGHT

FEEDIN' THE MONKEYS

Tuesday, 7/22/07

Hello everyone! Sorry I didn't get a chance to blog yesterday! We had a very busy and full day! After breakfast we did a little shopping. Then we had to go back to our hotel room and be available for our guide to get a hold of us just in case the US consulate had any questions about our paperwork. So, I used that time to start packing and cleaning up our room a bit. Then, in the afternoon we went to the Guangzhou Zoo. It was really fun but EXTREMELY HOT & HUMID!!! We got some video of two bears wrestling and jumping in their water hole! It was so fun to watch! Gracie and I also walked down into one of the monkey exhibits and got to feed them out of our hands! One of them even jumped on the back of my shoulder! We got back to our hotel and had a little bit of time to freshen up before we went on a dinner cruise. The inside of the boat was somewhat air-conditioned but it was still pretty warm and the food was pretty ummm... interesting. After dinner we went up to the top of the boat, which was open, and got to enjoy the views! The lights on the buildings off the river were so beautiful!! Again, we would have been able to enjoy it for longer but since it only cools down about 5 degrees at night and the humidity is the same, we headed back inside to enjoy the views with a little bit of A/C. I had tried Benedryl on Gracie in the afternoon and obviously it doesn't have the "drowsy effect" on her because she only took about a 15 minute nap all day! So, she was really tired the whole Cruise and being really loopy/delerious/restless. She finally fell asleep about the last five minutes of our cruise --of course. But it was a lot of fun. But we definitely will not be giving it to her for the plane ride home! We did some more bartering this morning and then this afternoon we boarded one of three buses full of Americans headed to the US Consulate to be sworn in and receive our children's Visas. I thought she became a US Citizen today but I guess she will when we pass through customs & immigrations in Portland on Wednesday. No one is allowed to bring cameras to the US Consulate so we have no pictures of that. The rest of the day we did some walking around and then packed up to head home! It is about 11 pm Tuesdau night here in GZ and we have to be up at 5 am so we can leave the hotel by 5:45 am. I am sure hoping for some shut eye on the plane! We have a ton of pictures but I need to get to bed so that's why you're just getting a few for now. :) We are so ready and excited to get back to our other three children and see all our family and friends! Of course we know that everyone is really wanting only one thing---TO SEE & MEET GRACIE IN PERSON! We love you all and will see you soon!

Tuesday, July 24th, 2007

The bus ride back to the hotel after our "swear in" at the US Consulate.

SUNDAY, JULY 22ND

We had another great day! Gracie is such a sweetie and has already stollen our hearts and got us wrapped around her finger! Scott has had to scold her a few times for grabbing his glasses and for some reason she thinks it's really hilarious when we tell her "no, no". So, Scott had to say "NO!"very firmly to her today and she buried her head in his shoulder and just cried & cried. It about broke our hearts. She is learning some boundaries but still mostly thinks it's just hilarious for us to tell her no. She is so good and really a pretty easy baby. She is a great sleeper, eater, and pretty easy going. It's great that she will nap wherever because with three active older siblings who are on-the-go she's going to have to nap where she can at times! She had a lot of fun in the pool tonight and sacked out when we got back to our room. Tomorrow we get to go to the Zoo and on a dinner cruise. We are really looking forward to that!

OKAY, THIS IS FUN!!

NOT SO SURE ABOUT THE POOL...

WE SHOPPED 'TILL SHE DROPPED!!

SO PRECIOUS!

HAVING FUN SHOPPING

Saturday, July 21st

Being in GZ has been awesome!!! There is so much more to do here and everything around the hotel is catered to families that are adopting!! Tons of shopping vendors and a beautiful park. And on our way to the medical examination for Gracie I spied the STARBUCKS!!!! Which was right where we headed afterwards and it was total heaven!!! Since I'm up so late doing our blog it's probably going to be the first place I go in the morning!!! :) We are having so much fun with Gracie as she continues to open up and let us into her world! She is such a sweetheart too and loves to be helpful to us! She tries to clean up and "helps" us dress her. She absolutely loves looking at herself in the baby mirror that we brought and likes to sit right on toop of it as with many othe r things. She is laughing like crazy with us now and is quite the little character! Well, I'm off to bed now so I'll try to post more tomorrow.

SCOWLING AT ALL THE OTHER FAMILIES AT DINNER

There are five families here adopting from Small World Agency and our guide made arrangements for us to go out to dinner togethr. We were sitting at one end with our friends , Eric & Melody & their kids, and Gracie just sat in this position scowling down at all of the other families. It was super funny at first but after 20 or 30 minutes and her refusing to eat or drink her bottle I realized she was pretty much frozen. I picked her up and sat her on my lap and she finally relaxed and I was able to feed her. It was really weird! I guess she didn't like sitting that close to people she didn't know.

GIGGLING UP A STORM!!!

Up until today, we have gotten some big smiles out of Gracie and Scott got a half laugh out of her Thursday morning. But, today we broke through and finally got full blown giggling and laughter!! It was sweet music to our ears!!!

CHINESE MEDICAL CLINIC

All families have to go through a medical exam with their child before we can leave the country. This doctor was very adamant that we make sure to get Gracie to a cardiologist as soon as possible and she thinks she needs surgery immediately. It really upset me the way she said it through our guide translating it to us. Everyone told me that she was probably just making sure we knew of her heart condition and that it's just her job to make it seem urgent. We do already have an appointment for her 3 days after we get home and so I'm very glad I made that appointment before we left. She was checked by an ENT and everything was good on that front. With a bottle, a big breakfast, probably a wet diaper and her clothes on she weighed a whopping 16.9 pounds and is 30 inches long. But at the rate she is eating it can't stay that way for long!

FRIDAY, JULY 20TH

We mostly worked on packing up for our flight to Guangzhou today. Gracie continues to do just do great! She slept the whole 1 hour flight here to GZ. The White Swan is about 45 minutes from the airport and so we got to the hotel around 8 pm. We unpacked a bit and then decided to go and walk around the main floor of the lobby. OH MY GOODNESS!!! It is absolutely amazing! There is a waterfall with a huge koi pond at the bottom right in the middle of the main floor. There is a mini-mall with all kinds of shops on the main floor too. The pool is beautiful and outdoors so we will definitely be checking that out tomorrow. Scott swam in the pool at our other hotel and advised that Gracie and I not because it didn't seem to have any chlorine in it. The Gloria Plaza was a very nice hotel too but pales in comparison to The White Swan. We will take some pictures tomorrow and post them. Well, Scott & Gracie are already asleep so I had better get there too. We have to be up early for her medical exam in the morning.
P.S. We never ended up taking her to the hospital in Nanchang. We remembered that she was going to have a medical exam here and we didn't want to sit around in a foreign hospital waiting room if we didn't absolutely have to.

HEADIN' TO GUANGZHOU

Here we are with the Duffy's and our guide Evelyn at the Jiangxi airport today. It was sad to say goodbye to Evelyn. She was so great and helped us so much! She gave us her e-mail address so we can stay in touch and send pictures.

TRYIN OUT THE SCALE

Gracie was having so much fun climbing on and off the scale. Scott had it out for weighing our luggage to try to make them as even as possible. China airlines only allow one bag per person with a 44 pound weight limit so we had to be creative in our packing. She got really upset when Scott took her off and set her to the side so he could weight them. Then, she was fine again when she could play on it again.

GRACIE LOVES FRIES

ZONKED OUT!

Gracie zonked out while I was talking to my friend, Pernille, on Skype. We were going to go out for one last walk on Pedestrian Way in Nanchang but since she fell asleep Scott went out on his own and brought us back McDonalds for lunch.

THURSDAY, 7/19

Our guide, Evelyn, took us to a rural area in Jiangxi about a 40 minute drive from the city where we are. She was willing to have the driver take us all the way to Tong gu, where our girls are from, but the Duffy's and us both decided against it. It is about 3 1/2 hours away and we just didn't want to put the girls through a 7 hour round trip ride in one day. So, we opted instead for this countryside tour of what she said was probably very similar to where our girls were from. It was quite heartbreaking. The locals were so sweet and friendly but the living conditions were less than desirable.

We had a really great day with Gracie and her spunkiness and fiesty side are becoming quite evident! She loves to get into things and has really been exploring our hotel room. As we were trying to pack up and get ready to head to Guangzhou tomorrow she was "helping". Which of corse meant she was pulling things out of the suitcases! She was so sweet though because several times she would go find something and hand it to Scott to pack. She did not enjoy her first bath several days ago but now loves them! She was splashing like crazy tonight and eating the bubbles!

We are sad to say goodbye to Evelyn but really looking forward to heading to Guangzhou tomorrow!!!

OUTHOUSES BY THE RICE FIELDS

These outhouses drain right into the rice fields.

RICE FIELDS

DRYIN' OUT THE RICE

Every house we saw had rice drying on the ground right outside their doors.

LOCAL WOMAN

This woman was so sweet and was telling us how beautiful Gracie is. Our guide told us she was probably in her 90's. She was working hard and so cute in her pearls and earings.

MIDDLE CLASS RURAL NEIGHBORHOOD

NEIGHBORHOOD CHILDREN

These children were very friendly and kept sticking their heads in and out of the door saying "Hello!"

MORE LOCALS

KICKIN' BACK AT PIZZA HUT

Gracie loves food! She has not turned down one thing we have put in front of her! And pretty much finishes every last bite! Yeah, one non-picky food kid!

LOVIN' LOTION

Gracie loves to put lotion on! Here she is trying to rub it on her shoulders like I have been doing. She is soooo smart! Before we went out tonight, we were in our hotel lobby and I needed to put some lotion on her. So, I opened the tube and bent down...well she grabbed the tube and started squeezing! It took me a few seconds to undo her grip and she squirted a whole bunch out. She thought it was great and so did the bell boy who was standing there laughing at the whole scene!

She really has very good fine motor skills. It's those large motor skills that need some work.

GETTIN' A SMILE

We had some really special bonding time tonight during her bedtime bottle feeding and right after. She would drink her milk and then try to feed it to me--it was very sweet!!! And as you can see here I got some good smiles out of her while we were smooching and cuddling.

THE SCOWL

WEDNESDAY, 7/18 CONTINUED

Gracie took a really short nap today and then just played in her crib for about an hour. She was babbling and singing and even pulled herself to standing and was pointing outside the window!!! This was huge and so wonderful to see her come alive!!! Then, we took her out and put her on the floor to see if she would crawl (her foster parents said she could) but she can't. She does scoot herslef around on her bum but we will definitely need to keep working on the crawling thing with her. She had such a better day today and I imagine each day is going to just get better and better!

MOTORSCOOTERS EVERYWHERE!!!

The streets are absolutely insane around here! There are tons of people driving motor scooters and sometimes a whole family will be riding together. We saw a Dad letting his little boy stand in the front while holding onto the handle bars. And they just weave in and around the pedestrians and the other cars and buses. We saw a city bus and a taxi in a wreck right on the corner where our hotel is. The people just got off the bus and ran to get on another one & the people in the taxi did too like it was nothing! The pedestrians do not have the right away here and you feel like you're in a live game of FROGGER! It is quite frightening!

A STORE GIRL WITH GRACIE

We were in a store browsing and one of the girls who worked there unbuckled Gracie from her stroller and took her out. The Chinese are very forward and think nothing of doing things like this. Gracie wasn't too sure about it at the begining, then in this shot she was definitely starting to feel uneasy and then seconds later I had to rescue her because I could tell she was starting to get panicked. When I took her I could feel her little heart racing--poor thing. Then, when we were walking down the street another lady stopped us and yanked her sunhat off and said "too hot!" and pointed at her sweaty head. Then she pushed her to a sitting position and we got the impression she was saying she needed more air in the back. We just nodded and said okay and went on our way. This would never happen in the US! We get starred and pointed at all the time and even have people taking our pictures. They are smiling, laughing and often say "Nice to meet you!" because apparently they think that is a greeting. Pretty funny.

SPLIT PANTS

See those buns sticking out? No joke, this is how all the infants and toddlers who are not potty trained are dressed in China. And when they need to go they just go no matter where they are!!! We ate at a McDonald's tonight and a lady ran her kid out the door and just let him whiz right on the concrete stairs that led up to McDonalds. And the family who is traveling with us from Spokane saw a boy squatting and doing his #2 business right on the floor in the hospital waiting room! And someone came right over and cleaned it up. So gross!!!

PLAYIN' IN THE CRIB

A MUCH BETTER DAY!!!!

Gracie really started relaxing today and seems much more secure. She still panicked a few times when she couldn't see Scott or I for a second but these were few and far between instead of the norm. She didn't reject me at all today and even cried once when I walked away even though Scott was still with her. So, hopefully that was just a one day phase. She does do this really funny scowling thing with her eyebrows that totally reminds us of looks Chloe used to give people when she was littler. I've got to try to get a picture of it!

SMILIN' & PLAYIN' IN THE STROLLER

CHINESE DANCING GIRLS

We watched a show in the Pavillion and it was very fascinating with beautiful Chinese music. Gracie seemed to enjoy it.

WEDNESDAY, 7/18

This is us and the Duffy's from Spokane in front of Teng Wan Pavillion. There were beautiful bonzai gardens, huge koi in several ponds surrounding the pavillion. It was really spectacular and had it not been so scorching hot and humid and for Scott's lingering upset stomach then we would have stayed there all day!

YESTERDAY, 7/17

Yesterday was a pretty rough day. Scott and I have both had really bad upset stomachs and needed to stay close to the bathrooms! We took some medication that totally knocked me out and I slept from 3:00 in the afternoon until 7:30 this morning. I woke up for a little bit last night but was extremely weak and could barely get up to use the bathroom! So, that is why I didn't blog yesterday. Gracie had the worst day yesterday and many times just completely shut down. She would burst into tears if we moved her or if someone other than us looked at her. She sort of rejected me a bit yesterday and would cry if she couldn't see Scott (he is a cutie so how could I argue with her?). I tried not to take it personal but it was definitely not something I've ever experienced with any of our other children. Since I was so sick and out of it for most of the day it was actually good that she preffered Scott. We went to the biggest, local park in Nanchang, Porcelain Shop Lane (Nanchang is the Porcelain Capital of the world), a Chinese Wal-Mart, and KFC for lunch. It was about 95 degrees with 85% humidity--ughhh! I think if it hadn't been so hot & we had of felt better that we would have had a better time but those are the breaks. We did have some interesting experiences. We were taking a break in some shade at the park and some Chinese people came over and started talking to us (our guide was with us and translated). They were commenting on how beautiful Gracie was and how great they thought it was that even though we had our own biological children that we were adopting. Then, they looked at Gracie and I's hands and said we were calcium deficient and gave us their Amway cards. Pretty funny but they were very nice. Wal-mart was very different of course. We did buy a children's Chinese CD and DVD to take home for Gracie, some Pepsi for Scott & some diet Coke for me (the only place you can get diet apparently). We opted for KFC because the authentic Chinese food has not been agreeing with us but it was not the same! The fries were pretty good but we could only take a few bites of the chicken sandwiches. We are so homesick and soooo ready to just get home! Guangzhou is much more Westernized though so we're looking forward to that!

LOVIN DADDY!!!

PEOPLE'S PARK IN NANCHANG

NOT HAPPY WHEN PUT DOWN!!!

DAY TWO WITH GRACIE, JULY 16TH

Gracie slept quite well last night in bed with us. We had several hours of appointments today but now we are just waiting for her passport to be ready before we can head over to Guanzhou for the last part of our trip. She is still doing pretty good but we can tell a definite difference in her demeanor when we return to our hotel room & it's just the three of us. She is definitely more engaging when we are out & about. It will just take time for her to adjust. But she is making very good eye contact with us which is HUGE! We are taking her to the doctor tomorow because she seems extremely weak and we think is probably malnourished. We have started her on a multi-vitamin, changed her formula because we've been told that the one she was on is not a good one and might be wwhy she is malnourished. She is really just skin and bones and it is breaking ur hearts because she just seems so fragile. She is a very good eater though and gobbles up everything we give her! So, I don't think it's going to take long for her to catch right up to where she should be and become healthy and thriving. Hope you enjoy some of the pictures from our day today.

HOLDIN' DADDY'S PEPSI BOTTLE

FISH LIPS

MEETING THE ORPHANAGE DIRECTOR

GOOD NIGHTS SLEEP!

HOPE YOU ENJOY ALL THE PICTURES

I will write more later but we are all exhausted. Gracie is doing absolutely amazing!
She has had a few tears and I'm sure will have a few more but really she's doing great!
We have to do a bunch of official paperwork and running around to different official buildings tomorrow but I will try to post again later tomorrow. She is so sweet and won't let us put her down for anything which is just fine with us!!! We're soaking it all up!

ZONKED OUT AFTER THE BIG DAY!

LETTIN A SMILE SNEAK OUT!

LOVING WATERMELON FOR DINNER!