We are home!

It had been a very long day, but we are finally home! Our flights were all on time, our luggage did not get lost and Delilah was a great traveler. Poor baby is totally exhausted (as are we!) and she fell asleep in her new crib without even noticing that she was in a new place. We shall see how long she sleeps... hoping for most of the night. Forrest and I have been awake since 5 am China time on Saturday morning. As I type this it is nearly 1 pm in China on Sunday. So we have been awake for about 30 hours! No wonder I feel like I can barely type this..

So all is well with our family. The boys were very happy to meet their new sister and we were SO happy to see our boys! On to the next adventure.... Forrest and Tracy

Our last post from China!

Hooray! We are going home! We had a wonderful time here and feel very privledged to be bringing Delilah home with us, but we are ready to be back home with our boys! Tyler, Luke, Weston and Drew-We miss you so much and can hardly wait to see you on Saturday. :)

We had a nice day with our guide Kelly. She took us on a tour of Bai Yun Montain which is also known as "White Cloud Mountain". We rode an electric tram up part of the way and then walked up a little more before turning around and heading back down. It was not as hot as it has been but it was warm enough to keep us from going all the way up to the top. After the mountain, Kelly took us to the older part of town to see some of the shops.

When we got back to the hotel, Forrest and I went out to find some lunch. In Changsha we ate alot of room service because the prices were REALLY low and the food was really good. Here the room service and hotel resturants are a little out of our price range so we have been eating out alot. Forrest is still good with the Chinese food. I have felt like the need to have anything "American" this week. Finding places to eat is the challenge. We have been eating alot at "Lucy's" which has both Chinese and Western foods. The trick is finding Western foods that really are like home. Everything they try to make "American" is just a little different...not always in a good way.. Today we went to a resturant that had a menu with both Chinese and American foods. Forrest had his usual spicy beef something or other and I asked for a "tuna sandwich". Well I THINK there was some tuna in it somewhere. It was mostly onions, pickles and thousand island dressing. Even Delilah (who eats anything and EVERYTHING) wouldn't eat it without crying. :( I ate the french fries and then remembered that there were milkshakes on the menu. I ordered a mint milkshake and the waitress (who was new to English) didn't understand. That should have been my indicator.. The milkshake was not like what we have at home-it was milk with mint flavor and floating ice cubes. It was then that we remembered that milk is on the list of things to avoid, along with the ice so we didn't drink it--chalk it up to another experience in China. :)

We have a 5 am (China time) wake up call on Saturday morning, which is actually 8 pm Friday night for those of you in San Diego. While you are sleeping we will be flying and getting closer and closer to home. Our next post will be from home! Forrest, Tracy and Delilah

Outdoor Markets and Children exercising

Since our group has all gone home, Forrest and I have alot of free time. We went for another walk today and found a local school with all the children exercising to music. There were at leat 5oo children-all dressed alike-all dancing with the exact same choreography. There were "teachers" walking along the rows making sure no one was getting out of line. Apparently exercise is very serious because a few of the kids were getting a little to silly with their movements and they were quickly reprimanded. :) There were so many kids that I had to take photos in sections of the crowd. I could not fit them all in one frame.

The next photos are from yesterday when Forrest and Delilah went to the outdoor herbal and pet markets. No we did not buy anything! The first picture is of all the different turtles for sale as pets. We have seen turtles sold as food but these were definitely for pets. Happy to hear that. :)

This photo is just one variety of puppy that was for sale. There were about 100 different puppies there for sale. These are priced at 100 Yuan which is about $15 American dollars.

This photo is from the herbal market. Apparently live scorpions are good for your health. You paid for them and then the woman would select the right amount for you using chopsticks.

These are dried sea horses. Forrest said they had HUGE containers of them everywhere. Not sure what you do with them though..

Later this afternoon we are going to the U.S consulate for what should be our final appointment. We are taking an "oath" and picking up Delilah's Visa. I think tomorrow is another free day and then we come home on Saturday! We will report more tomorrow... Tracy

Some extra pictures-including the SPLIT PANTS!

I was a little under the weather today so I don't have a whole lot to report about the day, but since I never have enough room to post all the pictures I want to each day I thought I would catch up a little with some that I wanted to share.

The first two photos are from an old historic house that we visited. The statue was beautiful all in gold and "jewels". The Koi were in a pond in the same courtyard.

The next picture is Delilah in her favorite thing-the old beat up stroller that we have on loan. She loves being in it and I don't know what we are going to do without it at the airport on the way home..

The next photo is one I HAD to take to show the famous split pants! Look carefully and you can see that the little one is not wearing a diaper. The pants are split so they can go whenever they need to, wherever they are!

And the final photo is of a product that was for sale in the infant dept of Walmart. It is a mini swimming pool for babies! The babies heads are the only part above water held up in the floating ring and they just float alone in the trashcan sized pool. Amazing what China thinks is safe!

More on the herbal market and pet market tomorrow.. Forrest took some photos while he an Miss D were there, while I recovered from being sick.. AGAIN! Tracy

Red couch photos!

It is tradition when adopting from China and staying at the White Swan Hotel, to take photos on the "red couch". Today was our day. We dressed Delilah in a traditional Chinese outfit and lined her up with the other children. Not everyone was happy to be on that couch, but Delilah took it all in stride. :) We also took a photo of the families together in front of the waterfall. It is a really beautiful location for photos.

Later in the day we went to the Pearl Market which is basically a 6 story mall filled with small pearl (and other jewelry) shops. Our guide Kelly took us to one that she knew was reputable and we were able to select pearls based on size, color and quality. I had never shopped for pearls before but I knew I wanted to get something for Delilah to save for when she is older. We selected 2 strands and watched as they hand knotted them into a necklace and bracelet for her. The store had big bags of pearls everywhere! I have never seen anything like it!

Miss Delilah LOVES being in a stroller so we try to walk as much as possible and we finished our day with a walk around all the shops. The shop keepers are all very friendly and REALLY good at talking you into buying things. Some even use their pets to get your attention. We walked by the tiniest most adorable puppy and we stopped to take a picture of it. The owner held him up and smiled for us, but then invited us into the "dog's shop". How could we say no?

Tomorrow we are going on a group excursion to a market that will have herbal medicines and pets.. That is too interesting a combo to pass up! :) Tracy

White Swan Hotel and another visit to a "Walmart".

Well we have been to Walmart, but today we ventured to Carrefour which is pretty much the same.. but is was a chance to get out and see the interesting Chinese products so we were up for the trip. Our group first visited the Chen Family Temple which was another beautiful location with lots of trees and intricate details on the buildings. We then got back on the bus and headed to carrefour. We found a couple unique things and also had to buy some diapers. I was so impressed with myself for finding them right away.... only to realize later that we bought "pull ups" by mistake. :( Delilah has a friend here that was adopted on the same day. He is 7 yrs old and he loves to share his Chinese snacks with her, so now she is totally hooked on these tiny vanilla pancake cookies. Luckily we found 2 bags of them today! We will be bringing them home as well as roasted green peas, which are better than they sound! We had some on the plane the other day.. it is the Chinese version of honey roasted peanuts I guess. :) We took a few pictures of the water fall in the hotel lobby today.. We wanted you all to see how beautiful it is.

The medical exam went well. I would call the process organized chaos. All the families wait in one room to complete 3 stations. One was a general overall physical exam, one was an Ear Nose and Throat exam and the last was weight and height. Delilah weighs 20.4 lbs and is 29.5 inches tall. She was very quiet and easy to examine but she was also silent and seemed to not be able to do anything we know she can do... like hear. We have found that when we are alone with her she is a crazy, rolling, laughing wild girl, but the minute someone knew is watching her she stops everything and becomes a ragdoll that tries to hide her face. She seems to be really shy.

Tomorrow is the red couch photo day! All the families will get together and we will line up the children on the "red couch" here in the White Swan Hotel for a group photo. I can hardly wait! Until tomorrow.... :) Tracy

We made it to Guangzhou!

This afternoon we left Changsha at 3pm. After only an hour of flying we landed safely in Guangzhou. We exited the plane on the tarmac and had to board a small bus to drive to the terminal. I was lucky that a man saw me with Delilah and offered me his seat. Forrest stood holding on to a bar and together we balanced our 4 carry on bags + our carry on baby :) Our guide Kelly met us at the airport, she picked us out of the crowd easily... that seems to happen alot here! We arrived the famous White Swan Hotel and it is as beautiful. There is a HUGE waterfall and Koi pond in the lobby. There is a bridge to cross the pond and we will definitely be taking some family photos there before we leave. We checked in and left right away to take a walk around the many shops and resturants that surround the area. We ate dinner at Lucy's which is known here for its American menu. It was a nice change. :) There are adoptive familes everywhere we go here. All the shops cater to adoptive familes and all of the stores have very friendly English speaking employees. The first store we went to loaned us a stroller for the week, free of charge. They offer great deals on souveniers, have a laundry service and were very sweet with Delilah. They gave her a tiny jade bracelet and a story book. We went to another shop where the store owner wrote Delilah's name along with the Chinese characters and meanings free of charge just for visiting his store. Of course we did not have trouble finding some things to buy from him. :) So far we are really enjoying it here! Tomorrow we have a 9:30 meeting time to go for the children's medical exams. Hoping that goes well. I will update again tomorrow.. Tracy

A visit to a 1000 year old University

Today I am feeling much better! Whatever bug I picked up was a bad one! Forrest has done a great job being a single parent for the last couple days. :) I definitely could not have been here without him.

We went with our guide Amy on a tour of the Yue Lu Academy, it is one of the oldest universities in China. There were beautiful trees and flowers everywhere. The buildings were very intricate and we had a chance to hear a song performed just for us.

Delilah is doing great! She was staring directly into my eyes today and babbling. I decided to try saying "Ma ma" and she said it back! It was more like "Mmmmmaa" but that is a start! She was definitely listening and trying to mimic what I was saying.

Forrest was eating noodles today and Delilah was watching him so he grabbed a noodle with the chopsticks and put one in her mouth. It was hanging out so he went to pick it up again and before he could do it.. Slurp. The noodle was gone! The girl likes noodles. :)

Tomorrow we leave for Guangzhou and we will meet up with our original group again. We are looking forward to seeing all the children with their new families. We also can't wait to see the White Swan Hotel that we have heard so much about. Until tomorrow... Tracy

Goin for a walk

We had some down time today away from our guide, she was off helping some other people. So I decided to be adventurous. Tracy wasn't feeling that great today so she stayed at the hotel with the baby while I went for a walk. I thought I would go to a local shopping plaza and check it out. The plaza was about 2 miles from the hotel but the city here is very pedestrian friendly. There are lots of pedestrian bridges and tunnels designed to keep people away from traffic, similar to the Vegas strip. The primary modes of transportation here are bicycle, moped and motorcycle. Traffic here is insane, there is very little regard for traffic laws and the local police here dont seem to care about enforcing it. Motorcyles and motor scooters frequently drive on the sidewalks with pedestrians, you really have to be alert. I finally made it to the plaza. This was one of the largest shopping areas I have ever seen. The say there is over 2000 stores here, although most of them were very small shops. It was a little intimidating going without a guide but I managed. Well, it is getting late and I need to go to sleep so we will post tomorrow. Until then:-)

Park and Museum day

Today we went to Martyr Park and the Hunan Provincial Embroidery Museum. The park was fascinating, we arrived there at around 9:00 am. It was very similar to Balboa Park, there were thousands of people there doing all kinds of things like traditional chinese dancing, singing, playing instruments, Ti Chi and exercising. There was a giant lake in the middle of the park where you could rent all kinds of boats. There was several small fishing ponds filled with Koi fish. You could rent a fishing pole for about 1.50 and catch the Koi fish and take them home for a pet if you wanted. It was very bizarre. We then went to the Hunan Provincial Embroidery Museum. Apparently the province of Hunan is where traditional chinese embroidery was invented and perfected. The museum was full of lots of incredible embroidery pictures, the neatest ones were the double sided pictures. There would be a picture of a tiger or something on one side and when you flip it over there was a completely different image on the other side. Overall it was a good day, the weather has been very nice in the high 70's low 80's. The baby is doing well also she is very laid back and doesn't fuss much at all. It's almost time to go eat dinner, maybe we'll have some chinese food tonight. We miss all of you and we'll talk to you later:-)

A visit to a museum

Today we spent the morning at the Hunan Provincial Museum. It houses the artifacts from the tombs of Hunan's Royal Family. The family ruled the province in 200 BC and the tombs were unearthed in in 1973. They actually had the mummified corpse of the mother which was..well..interesting. Forrest was a celebrity today and was asked to pose with a local for a photo. We also were surrounded by a HUGE group of school children who wanted to practice their English on us. They were all very cute waving and yelling "Hello! Hi!" Enjoy the photos! Tracy

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We got her!

Sorry there was no post yesterday we were having trouble with our internet. Yesterday we spent the day at the civil affairs office getting Delilah. It was very interesting seeing all of the different families getting their children. We saw some very heart breaking moments of other children that didn't want to go with their new parents. We were very lucky, Delilah seemed very happy with us from the start. She appears to be very healthy but, is also very developmentally delayed most likely from lack of attention at the orphanage. She has the motor skills of a 4-6 month old baby. She definitely seems to be making improvements just in the 24 hours we have had her. We realize that we have a lot of work to do but we are very confident that she will catch up. Today we spent the day doing some shopping around town. We went to a Walmart here in Changsha and whoa was it different. The food section was completely different than in the US. They sold lots of live food there like frogs, turtles, crabs and giant fish that you net yourself. Needless to say we didn't purchase any live food. We left with a few items and then went to a children's store to buy some things for Delilah. We had heard about the really good baby shoe prices and had to see for ourselves. We are going to have to do some creative packing to find space for the 6 or 7 pairs Tracy found...but leather shoes at $8 a pair had to be bought! Tomorrow we are going to a park, hopefully we will be able to show you some pictures of it when we get back assuming our internet connection cooperates. Forrest

Our first day in Changsha.

Today started with a 4:30 am wake up call. We had to be ready to leave the hotel by 5:30 am. It was not a problem since we are still not completely adjusted to the time difference and we were awake around 2 am. :) We expected to miss out on breakfast since the hotel did not start serving until 6:30 am. We had no idea that our day consisted of not one but two breakfasts. Waiting for us at the front desk were packaged breakfasts for every person in our 10 family travel group of around 25 people. It contained a banana, a hard boiled egg and 2 of the best tasting sausages we have ever had. They looked a little odd but were really good! Once we were all accounted for, we boarded the bus and headed to the airport. Because we were all going to different provinces, our guide had to get some help. We had a total of 3 guides to assist the 10 families. We made it thru security with LOTS of scrutiny. They were very interested in the powdered baby formula that I was carrying in my backpack, but allowed me to go thru. The airport was HUGE. We walked for a long time and the group kept getting smaller and smaller as the guides were taking them to different gates. Eventually it was down to 3 families and 1 guide. Forrest and I were going to one gate and the guide and other 2 families had to go an opposite direction so the guide just said to "go that way". We went and hoped for the best. We followed the signs and went down 2 levels to the correct gate where we had to board a bus to be taken to the plane! It was standing room only on the bus, REALLY hot and Forrest and I were the only foreigners on board. When the bus stopped we got out and boarded the plane by climbing up some stairs. We sat in a row of 3 next to an older woman who of course only spoke Chinese. She was very nice and kept touching my arms and then showing me her 2 layers of long sleeves. I think she thought I needed to be warmer. :) The on board announcements were in Chinese and then in English, which I thought was nice since it was ONLY for Forrest and I. :) Right after take off we were served another breakfast. Our flight was less than 2 hours and we were given, scrambled eggs, hash browns, snow peas, sausage, a fruit cup and a croissant with jam. You all know what you would be served on a U.S flight that was less than 2 hours....maybe a snack-definitely not an entire meal. The flight was easy and when we arrived at the airport, we found our luggage quickly and didn't even have to look for our new guide, Amy. She spotted us. I would guess we were easy to find. :) Changsha is much different than Beijiing. The weather is cooler and today was very gray. I am not sure if that is normal weather or not. Hoping for some sunshine tomorrow for our big day. We are meeting Amy and one other family in the lobby at 10:30 am to go to the Office of Civil Affairs, which is where we will receive Delilah! From what Amy said, it will be very quick. We already completed the initial paperwork this afternoon along with the other family that is here with us. Ready for something unbelievable? The other family whom we just met today, lives in San Diego! Mira Mesa, actually. How crazy is that? They are adopting a 7 year old boy. It is unbelievable that we are only one day away from meeting our daughter. :) No pictures today since we haven't done anything except travel but there will definitely be some tomorrow. :) Tracy

More photos from our day..

Sightseeing Day

Today we had a full day of touring. We started off at Tian'an men Square and walked to the Forbidden City. The architecture was amazing with tiny details on everything. Next we went to lunch at a big resturant that also houses a Cloissonne factory. We took a short tour of the factory and were shown the 7 very intricate steps taken to make each piece of art. Then we went to the resturant. The food was delicious. We are with a group of 10 families and we all shared 3 big round tables. The dishes were on a big lazy susan in the center of each table. After lunch we boarded our bus and headed to the Great Wall. It was a beautiful clear blue sky day, which our guide, Grace said is very unusual for Beijiing. Forrest and I made our way up the STEEP steps of the wall. I was able to make it up to the first level, just barely, and Forrest went quite a bit higher. He was one of the few in our group that went that high. It was an amazing experience. After the wall, we were back on the bus for about an hour, we drove past the Birds Nest and the Water Cube, both drawing a big post olympics crowd. Our day ended with a trip to McDonalds that was just a little different from home. :) Tracy