Happy Easter!

I wish I had more time to write but I am really worn out.  Just trying to figure out life right now.  Emma goes back to school tomorrow and I have a 1st Birthday to plan (it will be very small).  We are doing very good and the best thing is my mom got ALL the laundry done and it is put away!  A family of 4 sure can produce a lot of laundry for a 15 day trip!  I promise I will get this blog updated with the rest of our trip once thing settle a bit!  I do want to say thanks again to all the followers and the wonderful comments!  I am glad so many of you enjoyed following our journey and I hope to be able to keep going for Lauren's first years as I did with Emma.  I am glad that I touched many of you, helped some of you and was able to share our journey.  Please keep following!  I know so many of you have blogs of your own that I follow but haven't been able to check in on!  I hope you are all doing well and I hope to stop by soon!

We are home!

A few days late for this post but we made it home safe, sound and exhausted.  I have so much to catch up on and many posts and photos to do.  I will try very hard in the next day to get it all caught up.  Emma and Lauren did fabulous on the flights home.  I know when the people around us saw us get on with 2 kids and one being a baby they were worried but they did great.  Other than the roller coaster of a decent and landing we had which prompted both kids to throw up along with several adults all went great.  We were delayed getting home on our last flight and walked in the door at 11:45 pm.  We were greeted by Grandma and Grandpa and loads of balloons.  Once we pulled in our drive was we had baby girl decorations all over the house and yard.  My friends are great.  It felt so good.  We have had minor jet lag issues and it seems we might have gotten Lauren over the hump.  So with that all said we are doing great! 

More later but for now... I hope you all have a blessed Easter Sunday!

Red Couch!

Guangzhou

Have you ever had that feeling that you are living in the Twilight Zone or like a black cloud just seems to follow you around?  Ahhh well we have and do!  So many people have said how much they loved the time they had in GZ.  They were sad to leave. They say all the wonderful things and I was sooooooo looking forward to it.  What I would like to know is when did any of those people actually have time to enjoy it?  Is it beautiful?  YES!  Without a doubt the Island is stunning!  But I can' say we are enjoying out time here.  We have felt very uninformed by our agency and feel we have been left to fend for ourselves.  Up to this point everything was good.  We felt we knew what was going on at each step and so on.  Now we feel like we are lost.  We want to do the touring that is offered and try and do dinners with the group and that is about all the time we have.  Shopping?  When do you do that?  I ran frantically around to stores tonight trying to get some shopping done.  Our agency took us to the Jade and Pearl market and gave us a whopping 45 minutes to shop.  I can't shop like that.  We had NO idea what we were doing!  I am so thankful that we got some shopping done in Fuzhou.  We wanted to buy gifts for friends and family but I hate to say this it is all we can do to get the shopping in for the girls. 

Baby food!  Wouldn't you think that since we are on the adoption capital island in China that there would be a store that sells baby food?  Wouldn't you think that it would be everywhere since there are currently at this time 1 million adoptive families here?  I understand we are very lucky to have such a young baby but really... no food for the baby?  I am sorry but that is crap.  I have so many black cloud stories but to be honest I just want to forget them all. 

Here is what we have been doing the past couple of days... We had our medical examine on Saturday.  That was a complete and utter mess.  Mark about lost it.  Stick 2 million babies in a room and poke at them and you will understand the volume of crying and scared kids.  Then stick 10 million Chinese guides in the mix with all the shoving and pushing and you will understand what it was like.  The entire thing was a joke to be honest.  Thank the Lord for the last doctor we saw as he was very calm and nice.  Lauren cried the entire time!!!!  Here are a few photos.

All in all she past with flying colors.  We are very happy about that.  If this was what socialized medicine looks like... well repeal the bill.  I was already against Obamacare... NOW I have lived it and it SUCKS!

Ok, now  that I got that all off my chest... our family nucleus I doing amazing!  Lauren is a dream child!  The Lord blesses us again!  We couldn't be more in love with this little girl.  She is amazing.  Somethings we have learned about her...

1. DO NOT mess around about food.  When she is ready to eat you better be ready to feed her. 

2. Your spoon must contain food at all times.

3. She only likes to drink her bottle after all major food is eaten.

4.  She is happy!

5.  We already have several games we play. She loves High 5, sticking her tongue out and our fav dancing machine.  That I still need to get on tape.

6.  She loves to crack herself up.

7. She will give kisses to me and I love it.

8. She will attach Emma every chance she gets.

9. She loves her daddy.

10. She really goes with the flow!

11. She sleeps all nigh!

So much more but I would run out of room!

We have our Consulate appointment tomorrow to get Lauren's Visa bright and early so I really need to got to bed!  I hope to be caught up with my posts before we get home.... not sure that will happen.

I also want to once again say thank you for all your comments.  They really are so sweet.  I wish I had time to write to each of you but I am hanging on by a very tiny thread at this point.  Just know that each and every comment has meant the world to us!

No time to write but pics included!

CWI, Xi Chan Buddhist Temple and Guangzhou

We finally made it to Guangzhou!!!  To say we arrived worn out, hungry and just over all things China is an understatement.  Seems we aren't the only ones running on fumes around here.  Tensions are high. However, this place is beautiful!  I think once we get a good night sleep we will be in a better place.

In the mean time I still need to catch up so... on our final day in Fuzhou  we visited the orphanage that Lauren was in for the first 8 months of her life.  Sadly we were not allowed inside at all.  I was really upset about that.  They did let us take photos of the outside.  I am hoping I will run across someone that has been and can share with me.  We also drove by the location she was left.  It was an Air Force Base so we were not able to stop there either.  Mark did his best to take pictures during a drive by but they didn't turn out very well.  After that we visited the Xi Chan Buddhist Temple.  It was so peaceful and calm.  Mark and I keep saying how it was the most clam we felt all day.  I am so glad we decided to go.  Emma was truly affected by the God that watches to make sure you are good and true or else he will step on you.  She got really freaked out by that one.  We took lots of pictures and wish so badly that China would have a clear blue sky day so the pictures would look crisp and not smokey. 

Since Emma was so good that day we rewarded her with a trip to the local dinosaur museaum.   We couldn't believe that they had one.  She was in all her glory sharing dinos with her Mei Mei!

Once we finished up with the Dinos we took a nice wal back to the hotel for our final night in Fuzhou!

More back up posts.

Once again I need to back up.  I am hoping to catch up so I can fill you in on the current happenings, which include a visit to a Temple, long walks around the lake... and Kristina I could help but think of Hunter when we went to a Dinosaur museum.  Emma was in all her glory!  But first....

The silk factory in Beijing was really neat.  I wrote about it but didn't really get into the pictures.  I was amazed at how strong the silk was once it was all put together.  The silk is the cocoon that the worm spins.  It is unraveled, washed and stretched out.  Once it is all spun together it is so strong that you can't break it.  I know there is a lot more information to go with all of this but I really can't remember.  Mark might but he is still sleeping so I am just going to run with it. 

In this last picture you will see the silk duvet covers in the back ground.  At this point in the tour it became a sales pitch to buy the silk comforter, which we almost did.  Had they been in GZ I would have but with the weight limits for luggage in China that wasn't and option.  We did buy the girls a dress and scarf.

Evan~  Well I have to tell you about Evan.  Another family in our group who are from New Jersey have a son named Evan.  He was adopted from China 4 years ago.  He is 5 years old and the sweetest little boy you have ever met.  For the 3 days we were in Beijing we never saw him not have a smile on his face.  Well seems little Evan fell in love with Emma and she was all he could talk about.  He would follow her around and just stare longingly at her.  If Emma would do something so would he.  Funny how a few times he didn't want to do something mom and dad wanted or needed him to do and would be upset about it.  Like putting on sunscreen, Emma would ask him to do it and you guessed it he would!  His dad made a funny comment that we just loved at how he is already letting a woman boss him around.  Enjoy the pics of these two little cuties!