Day 3

Today we spent a few hours at the Beijing airport -- the first family had to fly out a couple of hours before our flight, so we spent some time talking with Dion (our guide) and one of the other families that we just spent the past 3 days with. We took a short (less than 2 hours) flight down to Nanjing. It is a little dreary here so far -- Beijing was bright and sunny, though very cold. Nanjing is cloudy/foggy and rainy, but noticibly warmer -- which is very welcome!

At any rate, we checked into our hotel, the Mandarin Garden Hotel and our guide here, Nancy, showed us around. The hotel is next to a bunch of shops, a mall and a Confucious Temple. It is a very neat and interesting area, much more friendly/cozy/welcoming than Beijing, at least so far.

It's funny, but the people of China use their horns it seems just as often as they use their breaks -- it's a good thing we are on the 10th floor of this hotel (a non-smoking floor, which is awesome!!!!) -- the cars are constantly honking their horns outside our window. Hopefully we are far enough away that we will be able to sleep...

Not that we will be able to sleep 'cause in about 14 hours we will be meeting our Lilly!!!!! We are told that we will meet her at the Civil Affairs Building at 1030 in the AM on 2/1. The excitement is crazy!!! We (well, Alicia) immediately set out to get all the baby items out of the suitcases and set up the room to prepare. There is a neat crib here with a little pillow and blanket.

Well, that's all for now -- tomorrow's message should have some pics of our new family member!!!!!

Day 2

Well it was another extremely long day. We started around 8am -- arived back at the hotel at 8pm. We went to the Great Wall of China -- lovingly referred to by our group as "the great STEPS of China" as there were hundreds of thousands of steps to climb. The views were stunning -- although next time we come to China it will need to be in warmer weather as everything looks brown and dead. We then went and stopped by the "Birds Nest" and "Water cube" from the 2008 Olympic Games. Followed by a tour/climb of the Summer Palace. These were all amazing things to see, but a lot to see in one day. Tomorrow we meet our guide at 8am, go to he airport and fly to our province!!! Gotcha day is getting closer!!!!

Day 1

We arived in Beijing around 4pm local time -- didn't get to the hotel till 7pm. We are with a group of 2 other families and our tour guide Deon.

The next day we went to the Temple of Heaven and Tienamen Square and the Forbidden City. There are many people and cars and buildings everywhere in Beijing, yet right in the middle of this are areas like the Temple of Heaven -- with acres upon acres of trees and other open spaces - it is really amazing. We'll gotta go get some sleep --- each day in Beijing seems to be a long day!!!!

We are not able to access blogspots from our Hotel room, so Ashley (Alicia's sister) will be updating it for us -- thanks Flash!!!!

So, the moment has finally come -- we are all packed -- well, still need to pick reading material (hopefully Alicia doesn't plan on taking all those books!). Note the Panda and "puppy" in the middle are Tristans, he wanted to help. Mommy and Daddy felt bad for him, so we took him to the Build-a-bear store and he made a teddy bear -- can't see it but the bear is wearing an Eagles jersey. He named him "Eagle". We'll be leaving tonight to go to a Hotel at the airport. Flight leaves Dulles at 0930 on Wed. Hopefully we'll be able to carry all this luggage! We are so excited to go and meet Lilly!!!!

January 17, 2010

10 days until we leave to go get our little girl!!! Joe and I are getting everything ready for our big trip. We have all of Lilly's clothes washed and her room is all set to go! We even went out and bought a new double stroller (which Tristan just loves!)

We set up this webpage so that all of our family and friends can get updates of our journey with Lilly. Although we have heard of some people not being able to blog from China but if that's the case Ashley (my sister) will keep the blog up and running. Please keep us in your prayers (especially our little girl who is going to be going through a lot in the next few days)

In case you're interested this is what our travels entail:

Leave from Dulles Airport (DC) Jan 27th fly to Beijing

Then flying to Jiangsu (get Lilly here)

Then flying to Guangzhou (the US consulate finalizes the adoption)

Then we come home by flying back to Beijing then fly to Japan then to Dulles

(all this flying with a 14 month old!!!! Prayers please!)

We plan to come home on Saturday Feb. 13th (the day before the Chinese New Year and Valentines Day!)