PICTURES

Thursday, 7/12/07

FLIGHTS & GETTING SETTLED

Well, we made it here safe & sound! We left on Thursday morning, Boise Time, and arrived in Guangzhou China on Friday evening, China time. We got a few hours of sleep on our flights and a few hours of sleep in our hotel last night and plan to try to get to bed early tonight, Saturday, because we have a very big day tomorrow! We have an amazing g guide, Evelyn, who is 26 years old and just incredible! We totally love her already! She told us that Jiangxi, the province which is like our sates, is very small compared to other provinces in China. There are 44 million people! 2 million in the city of Nanchang! And 4 million in the outskirts of Nanchang. I need to ask her how many live in Gracie's city of Tong Gu. She told us that we will be leaving our hotel tomorrow afternoon, Sunday, at 3:30 pm and will get Gracie at 4:00 pm. This will be 2am Boise & 1 am Spokane. I will definitely need to take some tylenol pm or something tonight or I don't think I will get a wink of sleep and I know I'm going to need it! We will do our best to post when we get back to our hotel after we get Gracie so be sure to check our blog Sunday morning. Love you all!
P.S. Our blog is blocked from us being able to see it after we make posts so if you want to write to us then send it to our e-mail address.

NERVOUS INSOMNIA

It is 3:39 am Tuesday morning and I absolutely can not sleep! It's not that I'm not tired because I definitely am but my brain just will not shut down! I feel like I have not had time to really be excited about getting Gracie lately because of all the preperations for our trip. And all weekend Chloe and Lucas were running 102/103 temps! And then there's "little" things like someone making an offer on our house this morning and they want to close on July 23rd!!! Of course we will be in China so we are now preparing a Power of Attorney document for some good friends of ours to take care of this while we are gone! I'm really hoping I can catch up on some sleep during our very long flight from Portland to Tokyo!

LEGACY OF AN ADOPTED CHILD

My good friend Kim printed this poem out for us and gave it to me at Gracie's baby shower. Hope you enjoy it. Thank you Kim!

Legacy of an Adopted Child

Once there were two women who never knew each other.

One you do not remember, the other you call Mother.

Two different lives shaped to make you one.

One became your guiding star, the other became your sun.

The first one gave you life, and the second taught you to live it.

The first one gave you a need for love. The second was there to give it.

One gave you a nationality. The other gave you a name.

One gave you a talent. The other gave you aim.

One gave you emotions. The other calmed your fears.

One saw your first sweet smile. The other dried your tears.

One sought for you a home that she could not provide.

The other prayed for a child and her hope was not denied.

And now you ask me, through your tears,

The age-old question unanswered through the years.

Heredity or environment, which are you a product of?

Neither, my darling, Neither. Just two different kinds of Love.

I would add:

You are a product of God's love and a Heaven sent gift to us!!

SHOPPIN & PACKIN

I took the opportunity to do some travel errands & shopping on Scott's days off this week and got a lot done! I went to our bank and wired money to China. This is actually a huge benefit our agency offers so that we don't have to carry a VERY LARGE sum of money like most people do when they go. I also had to "order" money that will be here next week--crisp, fresh bills to take for spending money. Due to a lot of money laundering, they are really particular about foreign currency they exchange. We also had to request that they write down each bill's serial number so we can prove our money is not counterfeit. Plus, we will have to write them down again in China when we actually exchange them. SHOPPING! I got the prescription filled for Gracie but kind of felt like a "junkie" by the time I had all the medications in my cart that are suggested for us to bring "just in case." Here are a FEW: infant & adult tylenol & ibprofen, infant & adult cold medication, infant & adult benadryl, hydrocortisone cream, Lotrimin, oatmeal bath wash & lotion, simethicone drops, orajel, teething tablets, emitrol, cipro, dramamine, tylenol pm, pepto, rolaids......I we really blew the immunization thing for us! We were supposed to have gone through several series' of them over the last six months but somehow we completely spaced it! We are going to go in this week and at least get the first doses which we're told is better than nothing. OOops!! Some practical items I bought: neck pillows, eye masks, & earplugs for sleeping on the airplane rides, money belts & passport holders, various sizes of Ziploc bags (to pack everything in for customs), travel containers to put toiletries & such in, an international outlet converter, DIAPERS (haven't had to use those in a while!!), bottle brush, binkis....Some fun things I bought: gymboree bubbles (best bubbles in the world!), cute bathrobe for Gracie, couple of bath toys, Elmo board books, turtle stacking toy, cute sunhats....Items we bought to donate to the Tonggu Orphanage where Gracie is from: socks, "fun" underwear, headbands, candy bracelts & rings, bubble gum, fun pencils, erasers, stamps, stickers, construction paper, balloons....Gifts for Gracie's foster parents, the Tonggu orphange director, our travel guide in Nanchang & Guangzhou, Civil affair officials, the caretaker who will bring her to us......Wheeeew!! It was fun but I hope I have everything I need as I'm not one of those "I love to shop" kind of girls! Only 10 days until we leave!!!!

FOUND A GOOD PEDIATRICIAN!

I interviewed a pediatrician this past Thursday and am very happy with her. She is from the Phillippines, where we had originally thought of adopting from, and has a 6 year old daugher. She was very sweet and very understanding of our need for antibiotics for Gracie to take with us to China just in case she needs them. Plus, it is literally one block away from Gracie's pediatric cardiologist!!! This is a huge answer to prayer!

THANK YOU!!!

I am working on thank you cards but just wanted to say THANK YOU so much to Aurora, Kim and Cassie for the sweet shower for us in Gracie's behalf. And a big thank you to Connie Hickman for being gracious enough to open her home up for it! We were overwhelmingly blessed by everyone's generosity! We are in awe of God's goodness to us through each one of you and truly our words can not express how thankful we are! We love you all very much!!!