Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Home!!!!!
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!! We arrived safely home 8/28/11 at about 5:00 A.M.!!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you to all who prayed for our flight!!! God answered!!! The flight went soooooooo well!! Jianna did great!! She knew that Mommy and Daddy wouldn't walk on demand AND I believe having the two weeks to bond went a long way to making her feel more secure.
We received information our last evening before the "big" flight home that hurricane Irene was on the way and that there was an even larger typhoon looming to threaten our trip home. We quickly learned that the typhoon would hit the day after our departure!!! Whew!!! I never really thought hurricane Irene would affect our coming home!!! When Mom lightly mentioned that they will come to detroit to pick us up, if needed, I was sure there would be no need!!! Besides a quick prayer, I immediately pushed the thought out of my mind as we had to finish preparing for the long journey home.
I find it VERY hard to believe a 15 hour flight can go quickly!!! I mean, think about it. Fifteen hours, on an airplane with 4 (FOUR) children. We each had our own monitor for choosing our own movies/music or watching the flight via an on flight moving map!!! How cool is that!!! Yes, I know I am a geek, but watching the flight and all we were passing by in the world was the most fun to me!!! I would often point out to the kids, "We are flying over Japan." I really thought I would get excited replies, "Oh wow, Mom, we learned where Japan was last year!!" I had visions of the kids asking, "Wow what else are we flying past?" I just couldn't get past the blank, monotone "Cool." replies. grrrr!!! Don't they KNOW they will probably NEVER fly past Japan, Russia or the Aluetian Islands......well at least for a LOOOOONG time!! I was wishing I could have called my sister, sister-in-law or one of my fellow homeschool Mom's (someone, ANYONE) just to hear them say, "Hey we learned about that!!!" "This is reinforcing the learning from last school year" or "They (my children) will forever have a map in their head of the geography they learned." sigh, shaking them and saying, "This is EXCITING!!!!" probably would have also not received anything but weird looks from both my kids and our fellow passengers!"
Anyway, back to the flight.........HOLY COW, it FLEW!!!! We didn't sleep much and at one point I prayed to God to help us sleep at least a little. He again answered, (I think I wasn't specific enough). Julia slept about 2 hours, Joshua and Jacquelyn 4, Jianna, off and on for about 4, David 2 and me, uh hem, about 10 minutes, total. I dozed three times to be woken by questions from my little ones having trouble with their electronic devices. There is a blessing in that though! I did not get a huge headache as I usually do when I can't sleep AND I have NEVER before gone for more than 24 hours (I actually cannot remember how many hours we ended up traveling.....it was something like 36 hours, if I remember, my brain will not function that deeply right now to add it up either, I will tell you in another post). Anyway, I have never gone without sleep for so long and felt sooooooo good!!
Hurrican Irene, I have little so say except that it never occurred to me to have all of you pray for clear weather to return home!!! Isn't that kind of prayer usually reserved for winter around here?!?!? LOL!! There is another huge blessing in having our flight from Detroit cancelled, no it wasn't that we received a better flight, no it wasn't that we ended up flying into Harrisburg instead of Newark NJ, it was Mom and Dad coming to the rescue!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhh!!! (that is one huge sigh of relief). When I told Dad we'd have to stay in Detroit until Monday, I barely got the sentence out of my mouth and he said, "No, we're leaving now and we'll figure out the details on the way." Our heroes came in their shining armor-like vehicle equipped to hold 8 people AND all our luggage!!!!! If it weren't for them driving out to pick us up, we'd still be in Detroit waiting at yet another hotel to come home. The earliest flights are scheduled to go out Monday afternoon and we likely would have been able to fly home Tuesday!!!! Instead, we got some MUCH needed rest today!! Mom's response to our thanking them, "That's what parents do, besides, I have never seen that part of the country."
Well, I am off to bed. Our little cherubs are sleeping soundly. It feels so good to be home!! Before I go, some pictures......
We received information our last evening before the "big" flight home that hurricane Irene was on the way and that there was an even larger typhoon looming to threaten our trip home. We quickly learned that the typhoon would hit the day after our departure!!! Whew!!! I never really thought hurricane Irene would affect our coming home!!! When Mom lightly mentioned that they will come to detroit to pick us up, if needed, I was sure there would be no need!!! Besides a quick prayer, I immediately pushed the thought out of my mind as we had to finish preparing for the long journey home.
I find it VERY hard to believe a 15 hour flight can go quickly!!! I mean, think about it. Fifteen hours, on an airplane with 4 (FOUR) children. We each had our own monitor for choosing our own movies/music or watching the flight via an on flight moving map!!! How cool is that!!! Yes, I know I am a geek, but watching the flight and all we were passing by in the world was the most fun to me!!! I would often point out to the kids, "We are flying over Japan." I really thought I would get excited replies, "Oh wow, Mom, we learned where Japan was last year!!" I had visions of the kids asking, "Wow what else are we flying past?" I just couldn't get past the blank, monotone "Cool." replies. grrrr!!! Don't they KNOW they will probably NEVER fly past Japan, Russia or the Aluetian Islands......well at least for a LOOOOONG time!! I was wishing I could have called my sister, sister-in-law or one of my fellow homeschool Mom's (someone, ANYONE) just to hear them say, "Hey we learned about that!!!" "This is reinforcing the learning from last school year" or "They (my children) will forever have a map in their head of the geography they learned." sigh, shaking them and saying, "This is EXCITING!!!!" probably would have also not received anything but weird looks from both my kids and our fellow passengers!"
Anyway, back to the flight.........HOLY COW, it FLEW!!!! We didn't sleep much and at one point I prayed to God to help us sleep at least a little. He again answered, (I think I wasn't specific enough). Julia slept about 2 hours, Joshua and Jacquelyn 4, Jianna, off and on for about 4, David 2 and me, uh hem, about 10 minutes, total. I dozed three times to be woken by questions from my little ones having trouble with their electronic devices. There is a blessing in that though! I did not get a huge headache as I usually do when I can't sleep AND I have NEVER before gone for more than 24 hours (I actually cannot remember how many hours we ended up traveling.....it was something like 36 hours, if I remember, my brain will not function that deeply right now to add it up either, I will tell you in another post). Anyway, I have never gone without sleep for so long and felt sooooooo good!!
Hurrican Irene, I have little so say except that it never occurred to me to have all of you pray for clear weather to return home!!! Isn't that kind of prayer usually reserved for winter around here?!?!? LOL!! There is another huge blessing in having our flight from Detroit cancelled, no it wasn't that we received a better flight, no it wasn't that we ended up flying into Harrisburg instead of Newark NJ, it was Mom and Dad coming to the rescue!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhh!!! (that is one huge sigh of relief). When I told Dad we'd have to stay in Detroit until Monday, I barely got the sentence out of my mouth and he said, "No, we're leaving now and we'll figure out the details on the way." Our heroes came in their shining armor-like vehicle equipped to hold 8 people AND all our luggage!!!!! If it weren't for them driving out to pick us up, we'd still be in Detroit waiting at yet another hotel to come home. The earliest flights are scheduled to go out Monday afternoon and we likely would have been able to fly home Tuesday!!!! Instead, we got some MUCH needed rest today!! Mom's response to our thanking them, "That's what parents do, besides, I have never seen that part of the country."
Well, I am off to bed. Our little cherubs are sleeping soundly. It feels so good to be home!! Before I go, some pictures......
Jianna LOVES the swimming pool!! She's the cutest girl with a mohawk, I've ever seen. lol!
We took a tour of the Beijing Hutongs!!! That was a lot of fun! It was really neat to see how many Chinese people still live and have lived for hundreds of years!
In the months leading up to our China trip, Joshua only wanted to see one thing.....PANDAS. We saw them at the Beijing Zoo and the Guangzhou zoo!!
I haven't forgotten, I am still working on posting a video. Thanks again for praying for our family! By the way, I have now enabled the comments section....I think. LOL! I tried before but wasn't sucessful but I think I fixed it now.
Friday, August 26, 2011
We're coming home!!!
Hello everyone!!!
It has been a wonderful few days!! Jianna is making great progress each day!! She is such a sweetie and it is nice to see her personality starting to really show. Her first English word was "up." She says some Chinese words too, her favorite word is zi chen (I think I spelled it right), which means goodbye. She understands much of what we say already as she is like a "sponge" and just absorbs every word. When I tell her to chew something well, she knows what I am saying and exaggerates her chewing.
We had our consulate appointment yesterday and received Jianna's visa last evening!!! That means that she is now cleared to come to the United States. When our airplane touches down in Detroit Michigan, she will be a United States citizen!!! Our visa was supposed to come today and since it came so early, we were able to leave earlier for Hong Kong. What a nice surprise that was! How does that help? Insead of arriving in Hong Kong at midnight tonight, we arrived about 2:45 P.M. and makes a relaxing stay at our newest hotel before our long journey home.
Thank you to all of you who are praying for us!!
Jianna has cut two molars this week, so she has been through quite a bit over the last two weeks. Some days she is really at ease and is upbeat and playful and then some days are a little more challenging. Today has been a pretty good day. She wakes each morning a little more at ease. Jianna gets really upset if I lay down though. She doesn't throw a temper tantrum but looks really serious, almost frightened and breathes heavily like she is going to cry. My guess would be that she is not used to seeing any adults lay down. They were at work when she saw them. She enjoys playing with Julia, Jacquelyn and Joshua.
She did GREAT on the 4 hour ride from Guangzhou to Hong Kong this afternoon! Please continue to pray for our flights home. We will be traveling for a total of 26 hours!!!! Another adoptive Mom told me right before she left for her trip home, "Just remember, you do not know any of the people on the flight and you will never see them again. LOL!!! Jianna cried virtually the entire trip from Beijing to Guangzhou, but she was just beginning to bond with us AND she was teething, so we are hopeful our trip home will be a blessing to those traveling with us. ; )
Thank you again to all of you who have been praying for us, please pray that our flight from Detroit to Newark tomorrow evening isn't cancelled due to Hurricane Irene.
Love,
Kirstie
It has been a wonderful few days!! Jianna is making great progress each day!! She is such a sweetie and it is nice to see her personality starting to really show. Her first English word was "up." She says some Chinese words too, her favorite word is zi chen (I think I spelled it right), which means goodbye. She understands much of what we say already as she is like a "sponge" and just absorbs every word. When I tell her to chew something well, she knows what I am saying and exaggerates her chewing.
We had our consulate appointment yesterday and received Jianna's visa last evening!!! That means that she is now cleared to come to the United States. When our airplane touches down in Detroit Michigan, she will be a United States citizen!!! Our visa was supposed to come today and since it came so early, we were able to leave earlier for Hong Kong. What a nice surprise that was! How does that help? Insead of arriving in Hong Kong at midnight tonight, we arrived about 2:45 P.M. and makes a relaxing stay at our newest hotel before our long journey home.
Thank you to all of you who are praying for us!!
Jianna has cut two molars this week, so she has been through quite a bit over the last two weeks. Some days she is really at ease and is upbeat and playful and then some days are a little more challenging. Today has been a pretty good day. She wakes each morning a little more at ease. Jianna gets really upset if I lay down though. She doesn't throw a temper tantrum but looks really serious, almost frightened and breathes heavily like she is going to cry. My guess would be that she is not used to seeing any adults lay down. They were at work when she saw them. She enjoys playing with Julia, Jacquelyn and Joshua.
She did GREAT on the 4 hour ride from Guangzhou to Hong Kong this afternoon! Please continue to pray for our flights home. We will be traveling for a total of 26 hours!!!! Another adoptive Mom told me right before she left for her trip home, "Just remember, you do not know any of the people on the flight and you will never see them again. LOL!!! Jianna cried virtually the entire trip from Beijing to Guangzhou, but she was just beginning to bond with us AND she was teething, so we are hopeful our trip home will be a blessing to those traveling with us. ; )
Thank you again to all of you who have been praying for us, please pray that our flight from Detroit to Newark tomorrow evening isn't cancelled due to Hurricane Irene.
Love,
Kirstie
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Ni Hao from China!!
Hello everyone!
We've been very busy while here in China. Lots of appointments and paperwork. We arrived in Guangzhou late Friday evening. We had Jianna's Medical appointment on Saturday and today was a day of shopping!!! We are now with a group of other adoptive parents.
We get so many stares here in China. First because blonde hair is not something that is often seen and also because we have a little Chinese girl with us. : ) People stop and count how many children we have. LOL Large families are not common here. The Chinese people are very curteous and welcoming.
We have another day of shopping tomorrow. Some things we have learned about Jianna. She LOVES music, bannanas, yogurt and dancing. She can get pretty cranky if she doesn't get her way but is learning that tantrums don't work with us. : ) We had a rough couple days with hitting and tantrums but yesterday and today have been better. Here are some recent pictures.
Love,
Kirstie
We've been very busy while here in China. Lots of appointments and paperwork. We arrived in Guangzhou late Friday evening. We had Jianna's Medical appointment on Saturday and today was a day of shopping!!! We are now with a group of other adoptive parents.
We get so many stares here in China. First because blonde hair is not something that is often seen and also because we have a little Chinese girl with us. : ) People stop and count how many children we have. LOL Large families are not common here. The Chinese people are very curteous and welcoming.
We have another day of shopping tomorrow. Some things we have learned about Jianna. She LOVES music, bannanas, yogurt and dancing. She can get pretty cranky if she doesn't get her way but is learning that tantrums don't work with us. : ) We had a rough couple days with hitting and tantrums but yesterday and today have been better. Here are some recent pictures.
Kirstie
Arrived in Guangzhou Friday August 19, 2011
Hello all,
It is Friday 8/19 about 10:52 in the evening and we have arrived in Guangzhou! Everyone is in bed....Mom and Dad soon also. The plane ride went okay. This is one area where I would appreciate a LOT of prayer!!! Jianna seems to think that I should carry her EVERYWHERE....where she wants to go WHEN she wants to go there. NOT good on an airplane, I am particularly worried about our flight in one week. I am not certain how much behavior modification I can accomplish in one week. : ) One of the stewards actually came to get her at the beginning of the flight because she was, "disturbing the peace and the quite," as Tigger would say. They allowed me to walk around the plane almost as much as we needed.....not going to work on a 13 hour flight.
Our last two days in Bejing were BUSY. Paperwork, Great Wall and sleeping. Guangzhou is BEAUTIFUL!!! Our hotel is really beautiful. We'll try to update soon with pictures and possibly a video.
Love you all! Thanks for holding down the fort at home!!!!
Kirstie
It is Friday 8/19 about 10:52 in the evening and we have arrived in Guangzhou! Everyone is in bed....Mom and Dad soon also. The plane ride went okay. This is one area where I would appreciate a LOT of prayer!!! Jianna seems to think that I should carry her EVERYWHERE....where she wants to go WHEN she wants to go there. NOT good on an airplane, I am particularly worried about our flight in one week. I am not certain how much behavior modification I can accomplish in one week. : ) One of the stewards actually came to get her at the beginning of the flight because she was, "disturbing the peace and the quite," as Tigger would say. They allowed me to walk around the plane almost as much as we needed.....not going to work on a 13 hour flight.
Our last two days in Bejing were BUSY. Paperwork, Great Wall and sleeping. Guangzhou is BEAUTIFUL!!! Our hotel is really beautiful. We'll try to update soon with pictures and possibly a video.
Love you all! Thanks for holding down the fort at home!!!!
Kirstie
Monday, August 15, 2011
We're all together!!!
Monday August 15, 2011
Hello everyone!!!
This little one is a delight!!! She is smart as a whip and seems to be adjusting well!!! She gets soooo much attention with 3 siblings and is a ham!!! She slept sooo well last night, actually better than David and me!! When she woke, we could tell she wasn't quite sure she was so happy about where she was. She just layed there looking at all of us. I thought she was going to cry and then when I put my hands out to pick her up, she smiled and leaned toward me!!
She has a spunky side and doesn't like it when we tell her no, but she listens.
Her favorite game is the classic, "I throw it on the floor, you pick it up." She thinks it's pretty funny that she throws something and we all try to keep it from hitting the floor. She likes to pretend something is hilarious by putting her hand up to her mouth as she pretends to laugh.
We have some great news!!! She has feeling in her feet!!!!! According to the orphanage, she is walking. We have found that she can bear weight on her legs but prefers to sit and be carried. She really has little to no interest in standing and walking. She cannot get herself into the standing position but can sit up herself. It appears as though she has no visible symptoms from the spina bifida!!!!!! She will need to be evaluated when we arrive home because she could have issues down the road, but for now all appears to be REALLY good!!!
I have often commented on how chunky she is and yesterday we found out that after the orphanage found out she had a family, the staff started taking turns taking her home with them to spoil her!!!! : ) She had 4 nannies that rotated taking care of her and her "roommates." Everyone comments on how healthy she looks!
Today was a paperwork day. Tomorrow we go to the Beijing Zoo. Josh can't wait to see the pandas.
More later!!
Love,
Kirstie
Hello everyone!!!
This little one is a delight!!! She is smart as a whip and seems to be adjusting well!!! She gets soooo much attention with 3 siblings and is a ham!!! She slept sooo well last night, actually better than David and me!! When she woke, we could tell she wasn't quite sure she was so happy about where she was. She just layed there looking at all of us. I thought she was going to cry and then when I put my hands out to pick her up, she smiled and leaned toward me!!
She has a spunky side and doesn't like it when we tell her no, but she listens.
Her favorite game is the classic, "I throw it on the floor, you pick it up." She thinks it's pretty funny that she throws something and we all try to keep it from hitting the floor. She likes to pretend something is hilarious by putting her hand up to her mouth as she pretends to laugh.
We have some great news!!! She has feeling in her feet!!!!! According to the orphanage, she is walking. We have found that she can bear weight on her legs but prefers to sit and be carried. She really has little to no interest in standing and walking. She cannot get herself into the standing position but can sit up herself. It appears as though she has no visible symptoms from the spina bifida!!!!!! She will need to be evaluated when we arrive home because she could have issues down the road, but for now all appears to be REALLY good!!!
I have often commented on how chunky she is and yesterday we found out that after the orphanage found out she had a family, the staff started taking turns taking her home with them to spoil her!!!! : ) She had 4 nannies that rotated taking care of her and her "roommates." Everyone comments on how healthy she looks!
Today was a paperwork day. Tomorrow we go to the Beijing Zoo. Josh can't wait to see the pandas.
More later!!
Love,
Kirstie
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