Made it to Guangzhou

Made it to Guangzhou last night and finally got checked in to the hotel at about 11pm. When we got off the plane it was 97 degrees and very very humid. Adriana was very good on the plane. She got a little crabby just because it was past her bed time. We are staying at the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou. And yes the air conditioning is great in the room. It was actually chilly when we walked in. It is very nice and much better than our last hotel. The breakfast buffet is great to stock up on Western food.

This morning we had to take Adriana to get her Visa photo and then we went to get her medical exam done. We woke up this morning and started our ritual. We gave Adriana a bath and she didn't seem to hate it. Everything was fine and we were done with the exam in about an hour. Everything is close here so you can just walk there. It is an island we are on. Its very nice here and its just full of small shops and parks.

Tonight the group is going to a restaurant. Its pretty cool going to these places as a group. They put you in a private room and the table has a large lazy susan in the middle. The guide just keeps ordering food till its stacked up in the middle. Then you just spin it till the food you want is in front of you. I think the last time we ate like that with all you can eat and drink cost us a total of about $15.00. You walk away stuffed. They do have some strange food that I wouldn't even think of trying. There has been some we tried but wished we hadn't.

When we got in at 11 last night I had to go out on a water and soda run for the room. I passed a restaurant with all the big fish tanks in the front where you pick your meal. They had fish, eels, prawns and things I couldn't identify. I went with a few other couples to a 7 eleven a few shops down the road. Some of the places are open 24 hours. The hotel has two very nice pools. Maybe tomorrow afternoon we will jump in for a swim. Tomorrow morning we go on a half day tour to the Chen Family Temple. Then on the next day we go to another half day tour to Yuntai Park.

I'll post soon. Hopefully it will be cooler tomorrow.

Leaving for Guangzhou tomorrow night.

All is well. Adriana has been eating and sleeping great. I just put her to bed in her duck pajamas. Its funny but when you put her in her crib there is no fussing at all. She is usually asleep within a few minutes.

Yesterday we went on a half day tourto Teng Wang Ge. It is a famous Chinese pagoda type building. It has been hot and humid. Its gonna be worse in Guangzhou. Today we went on a half day tour to XiangHu Park. It is a beautiful park with a lake and lots of trees. There are people dancing, singing and excercising alone and in big groups.

Adriana was funny at one of our lunches. We fed her some noodles and they were hanging out of her mouth. She knows how to slurp them right in. She was a hit as everyone was watching. Today she did the same thing with the noodles. But when she slurped the last one in her head dropped and she fell asleep. She has been a very happy baby and she smiles all the time. We can get her to giggle and laugh too. She wasn't too happy about her bath today though. I think we timed it before she was fully awake from a nap.

Tomorrow we have some brief paperwork to do at 9:30 am then we have to leave for the airport around 5 or 5:30 pm. Its under a two hour flight so it shouldn't be too bad.

Traffic is ridiculous here. Between mopeds, bycyles, cars and truck all zooming through the intersection at the same time all heading into different directions. I video taped some of it but I just can't believe there is not a million accidents a day here.

We can't wait to get home. Cindy has still been waking a 3 in the morning. I have now been exhausted so I've been doing pretty good. I usually get up and make some coffee and wait for Adriana to get up. We go down for the buffet breakfast. Adriana has been eating scrambled eggs, banana's, rice congee, noodles along with her usual rice cereal and formula.

Tomorrow we should be getting Adriana's passport. Today we got her Birth Certificate.

Should be fun in Guangzhou. We are looking forward to different Scenery. The guide said that this is one of the poorest Provinces in China. It is very industrial and the smog is very bad here. They normally don't even see the sun because it never gets through the smog. It poked through once in a while.

Hope all is well. My next post will be from Guangzhou. Only a week left and we will be home. Can't wait to get my computer fixed so I can post more photo's and some video.

Cindy has been laying out all of Adriana's cloths each day. Its funny some of the cloths just fit and others are large on her. She seems long but has a good belly on her like her father. People keep telling us that she looks like me.

Yes she says "Dada". But I can't take any credit she said that within an hour of getting her. I keep rubbing it in with Cindy though.

I'll be posting in a few days.....

Still doing fine...BUT...

Still doing fine Hello all, We are fine but the power unit in our computer got fried. I will not be able to post any photo's or video's until we get back. My dad is going to post this post and then he is going to retrieve an email address that will let me post via an email. We are in the business center getting charged by the minute. We are still in Jiangxi. Yesterday we were at he Civil Affairs Office to do paperwork and were interviewed. After about four hours we were officially declared the parents of Adriana in China. They also gave us a gift. It is mug with photo's of Chinese children on it. Today we went to the notary and were interviewed again. 5 minutes later we were done. We then went shopping at Walmart. It had lots of strange foods and smells in the deli section. I saw chicken feet and lots of unidentifiable meat with bones. It has been very warm and humid out. The baby's all seem to be getting all tired and cranky by noon. Tomorrow we are going on a half day site seeing trip then going to a famous Chinese restaurant for lunch. We are tiring of the taste of Chinese food. Tonight all the families called in there order to our guide and he is placing our order for Papa John's Pizza. Yes all the way to China to have a Papa John's Pizza. Adriana has been terrific. She has only wimpered a few times when getting tired. When you lay her on her back in her crib she is out in about 2 minutes with no crying. She eats everything you put in her mouth. She doesn't drink much. I wish she would drink more but she will only drink 6-8 ounces a day. She eats scrambled eggs, rice congi and rice cereal. Thursday is another half day tour to a park. Then on Friday we pick up our Passport for Adriana and fly to Guangzhou Friday night. I will try to post every two or three days.

More pictures

The second picture is crappy quality but it was just cute.  She just stared at me trying to take it all in.  It seemed like within an hour we had her smiling and just having a blast.  She plays with her Giraffe and frog towel the most.  Haven't given her a pacifier and am wondering if we could get away without starting that.  We will see...

4:17 am and I think I'm starving to death

Cindy and I finally got out of bed.  After we did paperwork last night we brought Adriana back to the room and I laid her in her crib.  She just laid there quietly watching me walk around.  After about 10 minutes she fell asleep.  She has been such a good baby.  She was then center of attention in our paperwork meeting. She was making noises, smiling and just being a happy baby.  Not all of the children were that happy.  Lots of crying.  They were just all sooo tired at this point.  In the paperwork it said that Adriana's bedtime is 7pm and she gets up at 5am.  She was yawning away. 

 At one point in the meeting we had to dip our fingers into a red ink sponge and put our fingerprints by our signatures on documents.  Cindy was holding Adriana while I readied the paperwork.  I laid out all the papers for Cindy to print.  She turned back around to finish and saw that someone in the room had taken the ink.  Just then I looked around the other side of Cindy and saw Adriana holding the ink pad!  She had a red forehead and hands.

I'm typing in the dark.  Adriana is still sleeping.  At about 12:30 am, she made a few noises so we both jumped out of bed and instituted "Code Red."  Just a blur in the room and we double teamed Adriana with a diaper change.  It was like a pit stop at the Indy 500.  She fell right back to sleep.  Cindy and I were in and out of sleep but just laughed out loud at times.  People are honking their horns all night at the intersection outside.  I can't believe there is that much to honk at.

Adriana appears healthy.  She has a little rash here and there.  I think its heat rash from having her dressed so warm.  A little diaper rash that will hopefully clear up in a few days.  She also has a few spots that look like nasty bruises.  .

Cindy is taking a shower now.  We have to be in the lobby to leave at 8:30am.  We are going to the Cival Affairs Office to do a half day of paperwork.  I have the diaper bag packed and ready to go.  Cindy is just trying to figure out what cute outfit Adriana will wear today.

Adriana didn't eat much yesterday.  I gave her a bottle and she just chewed on the nipple.  I finally mixed some of her already made formula with some rice cereal and fed it to her out of a bowl.  She ate that up fine.  Hope she takes a bottle today.  It just might have been too much excitement yesterday, might be the different nipple, might not like the new cereal....


Ok, I think I just heard her...   Nope just might stomach growling.  I think I will share Adriana's breakfast.

It's a girl

At 3:07 pm our guide called our room and said to come down to the 7th floor because he has a baby for us.  We got off the elevator on the 7th floor and they immediately handed Adriana to Cindy.  Adriana didn't cry and still hasn't cried.  We have made her smile and she's been fed.  Here are some of her first pictures.  We were back in our room 2 minutes after we got her.

Our hotel and hotel view Nanchang Jiangxi, China

Lots of smog and traffic

Cindy at the computer

Melon soda

Gross, gross, gross

Made it to Nanchang, Jiangxi China

We are all checked into our hotel room.  There is a wedding going on in the hotel so fireworks have been going off.  Huge strips of larger than firecrackers set off in the street in front of the hotel.  I tried video taping through the open window but had to close it because the huge plume of white smoke made it to our room on the 9th floor of the hotel.

In the bus from the airport, our guide told us that Adriana will be brought straight to our room!  Gotcha day will take place in our room.  I'm ready with the video camera.

I already made a water run to a local market.  We should have enough for a few days.  We got an updated info sheet on Adriana.  It says she is active, keen to mimic, loves music, likes toys, talkative, always smiling, energetic and an extrovert.  She likes to play games and be held.  The update says she weighs 8kg and she is 11cm.  For teeth it says 2/2  which I would take it as 2 on the top 2 on the bottom.  She wakes at 5:30 am and goes to sleep at 7:00pm.  She mainly eats milk and rice cereal.  She also eats congee, noodles, eggs and meat soup.

Its 1:00 in the afternoon and she will probably be here around 3:30pm.  There are 8 other adopting families here that came with us.  We already have paperwork scheduled for 7:30 tonight.

The area around the hotel is run down and looks very poor.  The guide says the traffic is worse here than in Beijing.  He says it's allot of pedabikes.  I can hear them beeping right now, constantly beeping.

On the plane ride over here from Beijing, we had a large group of women sitting in front of us.  One kept turning around and staring at Cindy.  A little while later, about 8-9 of them stood up and were staring at Cindy and started laughing.  They just kept laughing, we have no idea why.  Then I woman took a picture of me.  It was strange because we've heard they like to take pictures of blonde people but they took the picture of me (dark brown hair) and Cindy was excluded.  Very weird.  They served us a meal on the plane.  It was some kind of meat sandwich, salad with a brown egg we could identify at first.  It was brown all the way through.  Also they served congee.  It's white rice with allot of liquid added to it.  It was certainly different and let's just say we are very hungry right now

The hotel is very nice in the lobby and in the corridors.  Our room is pretty nice however I don't think they know what a vacuum is.  Right now we have nervous energy.  We're thinking the knock on the door could come anytime even though it just over two hours away.  We've heard from others they can come early.  From what our guide told us, we don't ask any questions now but tomorrow instead.  That's why they gave us an updated information sheet on her.  We think they may be bringing her to our room because they have a wedding going on, not sure.

We'll post after her arrival!