Coming Home!

January 28-January 29, 2015

Our last day in China was bitter sweet.  We bonded so tightly with the other families, so saying goodbye meant lots of tears.  

Here is Annabelle and Jackson.  They were both from Wuhan and bonded the two weeks we were there.  We will miss his squishy face!!

Here is Annabelle with her BFF Bonnie.  She was the first one other than us that Annabelle held her arms out to.  We will miss her!

Here are the 3 families (including us) that were in Wuhan together.  The bond we have with these families are so tight and we will always have this special life experience shared with each other.  I love them all deeply.

This girl right here was such a HUGE support to me during our trip in China.  Dorinda and I connected through facebook last spring and God made it clear we needed to travel together.  Our husbands claim we were separated at birth and I agree!  I will terribly miss seeing her every day.

We were very anxious to get home to our boys and family.  Our flight left at 1:15am Thursday morning.  We needed to check out of the hotel by 5pm and the shuttle did not come until 8:45pm Wednesday night.  After checking out we decided to make one last trip to Carre Four (their version of Walmart) to get a few last minute things and kill some time.  You can get to the store by taxi and we had a sheet of paper requesting our destination in Chinese for the cab driver as well as a business card of the hotel to get back.  When we were finished with our shopping we tried to get a taxi.  We waited 30 minutes and there wasn’t a single taxi that was available.  It was getting late and we started to panic about missing our flight.  So……we caved and took a rickshaw bike ride back.  Let me tell you….this guy must have designed video games with his spare time.  The tiny hairs on our face blew off and the hair on my head was standing straight by the time we got to the hotel.  The driver decided that any road rules did not apply to him at all.  He ran red lights, went the opposite direction on 1 ways and thought driving on the shoulder was a piece of cake.  I had wondered if he was showing off just to hear the silly Americans giggle like little girls in his buggy.  We both felt like this was a GREAT way to end our trip in China.  PS not recommending this for anyone for safety reasons of course….

We got to the airport at 9:30pm and our guide walked us around to find the ticket booth for Korean Air.  I cannot say enough wonderful things about our agency, Holt.  They think of all the details and make sure we are well taken care of.  Since it was not 3 hours before departure the ticket booth was not available.  He found out where we needed to wait and we chilled for about 30 minutes before getting our boarding pass.

Here is something we found while exploring the airport...

Once we got our passes, we had to clear China’s customs gate.  Oh how I wish I could have taken a picture!! There were policemen and signs saying NO photos.  Never did I feel so far out of place.  We were the only Americans out of several hundred people in line.  What a melting pot of the entire world!  It was very neat seeing so many different regions and races of people waiting in line.  When we got to the gate they take your picture and look at your passport to make sure that #1 the country you are entering will allow you to come and #2 the name matches across the board.  Once we cleared that a huge sense of relief came over us.

Annabelle slept maybe 45 minutes at the airport then stayed away until 3am China time!  She fell asleep for a few minutes on the flight to Seoul then about an hour during the 4 hour layover in the airport.  I slept a little in the chairs too.  When we got on the plane we were able to keep her awake until 8pm Texas time.  Our goal was to try and get her body adjusted to the new time zone since China was 14 hours ahead of where we were going.  She slept 6 hours on the plane to Houston until the flight attendants turned on the lights to serve our 2^nd meal.  After that meal she was able to go back to sleep for another 3 hours. 

Korean Air was absolutely amazing.  They let you spread out across several seats to get comfortable.  Luckily, our plane was only half full so we had 6 seats for the 3 of us.  Annabelle spelt across two while one of us would sit on the aisle seat next to her.  The other 3 seats we would take turns sleeping laying down.  By the time we landed in Houston her sleep schedule was on Texas time. SCORE!  We were very fortunate on this very long 15 hour flight!

When we got to the airport it was a huge feeling of peace.  We were HOME in the USA!  Never have I felt more proud to be an American and feel such honor for all the men/women who fight for our right to freedom.  I know now more than ever what a privilege that is.  You hear stories and I’ve always been proud but living in another country for 2 weeks that does not have that freedom will give you a new appreciation that is priceless. 

After we cleared customs….which was a BREEZE….I had to take Annabelle to the Immigration office.  In China, they gave us paperwork wrapped in plastic that is necessary to give Immigration in the USA.  We were under strict instructions NOT to touch the paperwork or open the seal.  Jeremy guarded it with his life in the backpack up until this point.  We were so nervous that something would happen to it because it would mean Annabelle not being able to enter the USA!  When the Immigration officer ripped off the plastic I seriously jumped!  He stamped a few things, filed some of the paperwork then said, “ok you’re good”  My heart stopped.  What?  You mean that’s it?  I’m good?  That’s it?  It’s over??  

Butterflies overtook my stomach and I leaped from my chair so we could go see our boys!  I sit here in tears thinking of what it felt like racing down that long hallway and seeing our boys jumping up and down.  It took every ounce of my body to not snort and sob like a complete crazy lady. 

Here's a link to the video on you tube:

http://youtu.be/JPBPfuezHtk

Next on the agenda….AMERICAN FOOD!!!!  Where else could we go but Cracker Barrel?  The food never tasted so good!  Annabelle ate mashed potatoes (her new favorite food thanks to KFC in China) and some yogurt.  Sitting at that table with our parents, aunts/uncle and my grandmother was one of the greatest moments to end our journey to Annabelle and begin the new journey of her life here.

US Consulate Appointment & The Pearl Rive Cruise

Yesterday we got up early, we had to leave the hotel at 7:40 AM, and went to the US Consulate to apply for Annabelle's visa. There is only one picture of us before leaving for our appointment for the US Consulate because we could not take a cellphone or a camera. We could only take ourselves, wallets, toys without batteries and any other small, limited number of things for our child.

Outside of the US Consulate was a mad house! There were hundreds of Chinese waiting to get in so they could get temporary visas to travel to the US. Our guides said it is like this every day, all day long. We were able to get past the crowd and take an entrance for adoptive parents. We had to go through security, then we took an oath as a group, then we submitted our paperwork and everything was finalized.

Between the US Consulate and our evening activity, Brooke and her friend Dorinda went on a shopping extravaganza with a local guide. But that is a blog post in it's own right and Brooke will post that later.

In the evening yesterday we went on a river boat cruise on the Pearl River. We had Papa John's pizza delivered to the ship and we ate on board. Then we cruised around the Pearl Rive for just over an hour.

Here are some pictures of the scenery from the cruise. The tall tower that is in different colors is a TV tower here in Guangzhou.

Today we will get Annabelle's visa and then we can travel. Late tonight we leave for the Guangzhou airport with our flight leaving at 1:15 AM (Thursday morning). We will arrive in the US (IAH in Houston) on Thursday morning at 7:50am. Yes, we are traveling back in time. 

It has been quite the journey here in China and we could not have done this without our excellent guides and the other families who we have spent our days with here. We will miss all of them.

See you soon.

- Jeremy

Chimelong Safari in Gaungzhou

Yesterday we went to the Chimelong Safari, which essentially was a zoo. This zoo is famous for their panda triplets and everyone was excited to see them. We started by going through their drive-thru safari in a little train; notice the Mercedes-Benz logo on the front? I didn't know Mercedes made little vehicles like this, part of me wondered if they just slapped those on there so they would look classier.

The drive-thru safari was very good, the only negative I had was that people could drive their own cars through and they would block our view from the train. The animals were right there, you could literally reach out and touch them if you wanted to, except for the dangerous animals who were behind a big ravine. 

The zookeepers would come out and feed the carnivore animals, like the bears, wolves, lions and tigers by throwing meet to them. It was awesome! We saw the bear stand up to catch his meat and it was very cool. 

This place was huge! After we got off the drive-thru safari we had 2 hours to explore and it was not enough time to explore this massive zoo. We first saw some Red Panda's, which I did not know existed, and they are very cool. Cute and cuddly, kind of a cross between a cat and a raccoon, I started calling them catcoons. The we went and fed some giraffes, yes, we fed giraffes. For 15 Yuan, which is less than $2, we bought a twig with leaves and fed the giraffe. It was worth every penny!

I heard somewhere that a family that feeds giraffes together, stays together...or something like that. Besides feeding the giraffes you could feed pretty much any animal in the zoo for a few dollars. One of our friends fed the tigers by throwing chunks of steak and chicken at the tigers. I saw one dude who was trying to feed the elephant a banana by throwing it at his mouth - he missed and hit it in the head. 

The only other thing here that was not good was the food, which really would apply to China as a whole. First thing we saw when exiting the drive-thru safari was a popcorn stand and we were so excited. Popcorn! Really!? Awesome!! Only it wasn't butter popcorn, it was caramel popcorn, which wasn't very good. Major let down. Really craving some good ole buttery, salty popcorn. 

We passed on the "American" Hot Dog, one because Brooke can't eat it and we wanted to share and second, look at it. Need I say more? We settled on a grilled chicken with white rice. Sounds good right? Wrong. It tasted like chicken that was cooked in Spaghetti O's sauce. N-A-S-T-Y. It earned the eternal nickname of Spaghetti O Chicken.

The other big part of this zoo was the panda exhibit. They had something like 12 pandas, which includes triplet kid pandas. 

This post is getting long, so I will leave you with a couple of funny signs we saw at the zoo.

You Can Slip, Just Do It Carefully.

Read the Notice

Shamain Island

January 25, 2015

Today we went to Shamain Island which is about 15 minutes from the hotel.  It was beautiful!  There was a lot of European influence around plus beautiful tropical scenery.  We felt like we were in New Orleans.  There were beautiful gardens and brass sculptures all around.  The most famous one was with the missing child.  It’s tradition to have your child stand in that spot and get their picture.   

 There was also this beautiful Catholic church on the island.  They were closed so we were not able to go in but I imagine the stained glass was stunning.

 For lunch, we ate at Lucy’s. This is another traditional stop for adoptive families to eat lunch.  The menu was a site for sore eyes!  Hamburgers, peanut butter and jelly, grilled cheese and more American food!  One of the families had a 4 year old American boy with them who screamed with joy when he heard there was peanut butter and jelly. The Asian influence food looked great too.  The food was great but the service seemed to take forever.  It’s very strange at all the restaurants we’ve eaten at they just bring you food as it comes ready.  Everyone had completely finished their meal before my quesadillas came out.

 After that, we came back to the hotel and “rested” a little in the room.  This child is FULL of energy.  She loves to play and play all day long.  She has to keep moving and does not appreciate it when we like to stop and soak in all the scenery or shop.  She is letting daddy get more involved which is a huge answered prayer for this tired momma.  Staying busy helps keep her entertained and keeps us from not thinking about how much we miss our family back home. 

 

Here are some more pictures of the European architecture.