Hutong Tour and more

We all rested well and woke up this morning to a beautiful day in Beijing. We went to breakfast and everyone actually found something that they liked to eat....I have replaced my daily Coke with hot tea....very good, even Colin and Pryce liked it. We then went to the Hutong area of Beijing. We rode on rickshaws through the hutongs and stopped in to visit a local family. They served us tea and really seemed to enjoy our company....they thought the boys were cute of course and laughed at the things they had to say....they even offered for the boys to come back and stay with them for the Olympics....now that would be something. After our tour, we visited a porcelian shop where they actually make the porcelian....the porcelian was beautiful. Colin chose to sit at the potter's wheel and make his own porcelian bowl. Pryce said no to that but chose to paint a plate instead. Of course the director wanted us to buy the items but the plate alone would have cost us $65....not exactly the deal we were looking for. Ryan talked him down to $45 but we still left without the plate. We then came back to the hotel and met up with our new friends, the Mohrs. They will be traveling with us the entire trip and are also adopting a baby girl from Chongqing with a cleft lip and palate....the girls are only 2 weeks apart in age. The Mohrs also have a 5 year old son that the boys have really been enjoying spending time with so far. We made our first trip (and I am sure not the last) to McDonalds for lunch....just like in America, McDonalds was located inside the WuMart....so of course we went to WuMart after lunch....COKE finally, they have COKE....and water of course, we needed water....anyway, all is well here so far....the boys are working hard on their schoolwork as I type, then we will rest....tonight we are planning to go to HardRock Cafe for dinner and then onto an acrobat show....take care everyone and thank you for the prayers....

We have arrived....

Hello to you all! We arrived safely about an hour ago to our hotel in Beijing. Everyone did great on the flights, including Beth. Of course we all made a bet on whose bag would get searched first going through security...the boys won, it was Beth's both times....and security even chose her to do the full body search.....unbelievable. The boys were most impressed with their visit to the cockpit of our 747. We were most shocked by the fact that in Japan you can actually board the plane with a hand held lighter yet they would not let us take peanut butter on unless it was placed in a plastic bag....who would know. Of course, Pryce and Colin met a Chinese girl on the plane that they were both taken with....she taught them a few new Chinese words and they made her laugh a lot. It did not take our guide anytime to say to me "you have your hands full, one is a lot but two - they are busy" Anyway, thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers....we are so thankful to be here safe and sound.


No wonder we got here so fast......

What do you do after 20 hours of playing Gameboy and Nintendo DS?.....Play more.

China Bound

In one hour and 9 minutes, we will be leaving (potentially) for the airport....WOW! In six days, we will be holding our little girl and sister for the first time. This process has been so amazing! It is really unbelievable to me that it is finally going to happen. Surreal is the best word to describe it. Please pray for us, our safety and health. Also, please pray a special prayer for Mason-Kate. I can only hope that she will feel our love the minute we hold her and know that she is in a safe, comfortable and loving place!

Until Beijing....

Mason-Kate

Mason-Kate's name....those of you who know us, know the story but others are wondering how we named our little girl. I love family names. Mason is a family name on my dad's side of the family. I used to work for an attorney whose mother's name was Mason. I can remember the day that I talked to his mother for the first time on the phone and she told me her name....from that point on, I was sold on the name Mason for a baby girl. Fast forward several years (and two little handsome boys later) to April 2006 when we began the "paper chase" for our adoption from China. I was still hooked on having a little girl "Mason". Ryan, on the other hand, decided he liked the name "Kate". Beautiful name, but I wasn't sold on it. So, we would talk about the adoption or paperwork that was involved, etc., etc. and I would always refer to the baby as "Mason" and Ryan would smile and say "Kate". Well, the boys like to please both of us so when they would refer to the baby, they would use both names together and thus we have the name "Mason-Kate".

Wo Bu Ming Bai

This is the thing....the title of this post says "I don't understand" in Chinese....and I really don't understand. Here is the scenario....this morning I began to actually put things into our two giant suitcases. I rolled all clothing, I stuffed all toys in between the rolled clothing, I packed food (Pryce is going to definitely need that)....then I accomplished something that I have never been able to accomplish before in all of my traveling days, I actually zipped the giant suitcase (without having Ryan sit on it, you know, to smush everything down). It zipped beautifully, even allowing room to add extra things in the zip pocket on top. WELL, here is the next thing....I called Ryan upstairs to see my packing beauty all zipped, nothing poking out, etc.....he comes up the stairs, promptly puts our weight scale on the floor and proceeds to weigh the beautifully packed suitcase. IT WEIGHS 50lbs! AGGHHHH! No matter how beautifully packed the suitcase is, it can only weigh 44lbs (that is the Chinese way). I just don't understand.

Meanwhile, we told the boys that today they could be the parents and take charge of the house. They get to choose what we eat, what we do, what we don't do, etc. Well, Pryce has taken this to heart and every five minutes or so, he starts barking out orders for us to fold clothes, cook, make up his bed....unbelievable.....Colin (thank goodness) has taken pity on us and tries to help so we won't be punished for not doing all the work Pryce assigns.

Colin's birthday (and other things)

Well, as many of you know, it has been a wonderful crazy week at our house! In the midst of our adoption packing madness, we stopped to live in the moment and celebrate Colin's 8th birthday. What an exciting day! We started off the morning with our birthday tradition of cake for breakfast....then Colin opened his favorite gift of all time....a Nintendo DS. My favorite part of this is when he "sold" Pryce his old Gameboy Advance for 19 cents....amazing! I wish we could have found a deal like that. Then we celebrated with Colin's friends after school with a party at Monkey Joe's. Our party coordinator, Ethan, gave Colin's group the award for being the loudest party ever! Fun was had by all! At bedtime I told Colin about the night he was born....the craziness, the excitement and the joy of his birth! I love to tell the boys "their" stories. Anyway, we received some exciting news on MK yesterday as well. She has apparently been in foster care since November. She is an extrovert and energetic, she weighs almost 20 lbs and is 27 inches tall....she is very attached to her foster mother and does not like strangers....this will make for a very interesting Gotcha Day. Please pray for MK to feel peace with us! We are so excited to finally be meeting her and we just hate for her to be scared. Our Gotcha Day is scheduled for March 17 (St. Patrick's Day). We are very excited to be traveling with another family who is adopting from MK's province and orphanage. Their daughter is 2 weeks older than MK. They also have a 5 year old son so the boys will have a friend to join them on their journey. We are so excited!

Slight Change of Plans

We had a slight change of plans to our itinerary. We will now be leaving on the 11th instead of the 12th as planned! The flights we were looking at on the 12th were booked solid, so we had to move it up a day. I've made changes to the itinerary listed below to reflect the changes.

By the way, today is Colin's 8th birthday!!! There's lots of excitement in our home these days!