Guangzhou

On Tuesday we left Nanchang and flew to Guangzhou. It was Lu's first time in a plane! All I can say is pray for our 15 hour plane ride home with a lap ticket - Lu is a wiggly, squiggly little girl! She did fine as far as air pressure, but she did not want to be held the whole flight - she wanted to be out and about exploring. It's going to be a long trip home, I'm afraid!

Lucy's first plane ride!

Guangzhou is completely different from Nanchang. Completely. Nanchang wasn't a tourist therefore it was a much safer city. There were mostly natives of the Jiangxi province living there and we stuck out like a sore thumb! But the people were so friendly and so genuinely interested in us. Here in Guangzhou it is more of a melting pot with such a wide variety of people - all of them on a mission. It's fast paced and busy and much more western. I really do miss the connection I felt with the people in Nanchang. However, there are so many more people in Guangzhou that speak English and it is quite a bit easier to get around. Another plus is the traffic noise - in Nanchang there were horns blaring all the time day and night. I think the horn is equally as important as the car there! There were a million scooters and bikes on the road, but here in Guangzhou traffic is much more civilized. I think Jason said that scooters aren't allowed all of the time so you mostly see cars and taxi's on the road. There are some bicycles, but not like Nanchang. Another plus is air conditioning! In Nanchang even though the temps were in the 70's the hotel turned off the AC. We were roasting all the time! I packed mostly for cool fall weather, but we really just needed shorts and t-shirts the whole time. Poor Lu - in Nanchang the people would come up and scold you if they could see any of your babies skin. They felt like babies should wear 4 layers of clothes. She was sweating all the time, it was crazy! But in Guangzhou it's a little warmer, the AC is still on and no one cares if cute little legs are hanging out of dresses. Ahhh.. comfort!

Bryan in the hallway to our hotel room - his head is about 3 inches off the ceiling!  My poor giant is so out of place here in China! This is the first hotel we've been to that offered us 2 double beds instead of 2 twins, though. If you can imagine the two of us have been cuddling up together in a twin bed for  the first twelve days of the trip! It's been wonderful getting to stretch out a bit - we won't know what to do with our master bed back home!

Since the US Consulate is in Guangzhou and all families adopting from any U.S. agency have to apply for Visas here we have met a number of adoptive families. The hotel feels like adoption central! Families are continually coming and going and we've enjoyed meeting them at breakfast and hearing their stories.

Doing the mounds of paperwork together before our visit to the U.S. Consulate.

Jason and Jocelyn are our CCAI reps here and they are taking great care of us! The first day we got Lu's Visa picture taken, had a physical exam and then spent hours working our way through Visa application paperwork. Apparently the U.S. is the most difficult government for the Chinese to work with, but thankfully our reps have it down to a science - they literally took us line by line and told us what to write on each of 5 forms. The next day we were off to the US Consulate to file the paperwork. Everything went smoothly and now Lu is officially our little girl! Hooray! What a feeling! Today we get our Visa's and we are free to go home! We travel back to Hong Kong on Saturday and then fly out to the US on Monday. We built in a couple extra days just in case! As a surprise to Jaden we are planning on going to Hong Kong Disney on Sunday if all goes well. All of us are so ready to go home! Jaden said two nights ago, "Mom, I think I'm homesick.
I miss my friends and all the fun I have with them."

Waiting at the doctor's office.

A heated game of battleship while we wait.

Lu was not impressed with the doctors or nurses!

We had the opportunity to get all the babies pictures taken in Chinese traditional clothes that we bought for them - it was darling!

Our little China doll!

Our whole group at the China Hotel - minus Jaden who is sick and resting in the room.

All 9 girls! The twins were not happy about the arrangement!

My girls - Charity & Natalie, Beth & Delaney, Melissa and Rylei.

Daddy and Lu.

Jaden got a silk, too - he looks awesome in it!

Our prayer request today is for Jaden who is not feeling well at all. Two nights ago he woke up at 10:30 and proceeded to throw up every hour for the next 6 hours. He was able to get a little sleep in between waves of nausea, but none of us slept real well that night - even Lu was out of sorts. One of the ladies in our group is a nurse and gave Jaden something to help him stop throwing up and stop the diarrhea which worked great, but his stomach is still really queasy. Unfortunately the next day was our consulate appointment - the day we file our Visa paperwork and the adoption is complete in the eyes of the U.S. government - not a day we could skip! He was a champ getting up and getting a bath and getting ready while we cleaned up the room. In the middle of it Lu had a blow out diaper like none I've ever seen! We were trying to clean up puke and then all of the sudden we were cleaning up poop while trying to rush to breakfast one at a time and find clothes and pack a diaper bag and where did we put those passports - it was a crazy morning! Jade got a good nights sleep last night and we are praying he'll be feeling much better today.