Another day in Taiyuan

Greetings folks and fun seekers, It was an ok day to day here.  We started with breakfast and then to the museum.  Keep in mind that we are dealing with a province that has 5,000 yrs of history.  Our guide says that's more than any other province.  It was very impressive.  Ally still somewhat shuts down when we go out anywhere and also when we get in the touring van.  I think she equates all of that with the massive trauma she just went thru.  When at meals however, she is a hand full.  She is going to give BJ a run for his money.  So after touring we came back the hotel for lunch, then to the room and Ally started pigging out on all the food we have here.  Only some of which is healthy.  Then nap time.  Then more pigging out.  Keep in mind she has been high on intake and zero on output since we got her, if you know what I mean.  So after nap and second pig out, she started to cry in my arms.  She has latched onto me the last two days and distanced herself from Jo, so it was odd that she was crying in my arms.  She cried for about alf hour and we laid down together and she cried a bit more.  So don't know if this was a bad parenting upset stomach or grieving or both.  After a few hours though she came out of it and she has been active the rest of the night.  Pajama time has come, late, and a last minute bathroom.  Finally, output!!!  So, I am writing this and we are about to hit the hay.  Also i needed a reason to post the latest pic......:)  Good night all, we will see you in the morning.

Jim

P.S. Alex, nice pajamas eh?

The fat lady.....She has sung!

It's official, she is ours!  We signed all the papers today.  Of course you really don't know what your signing so we may have just signed our three boys up for the Chinese army :)  They also interview you and ask questions like "Was she as described?"  Yes.  "Do you want to continue with the adoption?"  Go ahead, try and pry her out of my arms!  Of course I didn't say that but that's what I was thinking!  We didn't do the best job with the gifts we presented to the people doing the work, but they were okay.  We however were not only given a daughter, but also a beautiful scroll with a poem written in Chinese by their most famous poet Lee Bai (sp?).  In hindsight though, can any gift we give to them compare to the gift of our daughter?  So our family is complete now as we see it.  Three phenomenal sons, and one fantastic daughter.

We have all just awoke from naps, Jo has redone Ally's hair and we are going to go shopping along the main drag here.  It's pretty cold so I don't know how long we will last but we are going to give it a go.  That's all I have at the moment, but am sure it wont be long before I need to share another picture with the world.

My girl

What a difference a good long cry and a 2+ hr nap makes, I feel way better….:)  Ok, so it was Ally not me.  I am sure there is much more grieving to come but when Ally woke up, I thought it might be an opportunity for me to break thru to her.  So I grabbed the magna-doodle and showed what it was all about.  Within minutes I had her laughing and playing with it.  Most important though was that I could touch her and so could Jo.  I have no doubt this is not over, but it is a great ending to a long day.  She also ate a little for us.  Very little, but it's a start.  We will see how breakfast goes tomorrow morning.  I wish you all could be here for this.  There is something extraordinary about this.  Good night from Taiyuan.

Gotcha!!!!

Today was a very busy day for us.  After our flights were cancelled yesterday we were booked on the train for this morning.  It was a very nice ride and fast.  The highest I saw us going was 236 kilometers per hour, which translates to just over 146 mph.  As we would say in Vermont, wicked quick!.  I can tell that me talking engineering stuff is just driving someof you nuts cause you want to hear about our beautiful daughter.  Keep your drawers on, I'll get there.  So we got to Taiyuan about 10:30 and were met by our new guide Emily.  She promptly told us that we would head out to "gotcha" at 2:30.  Wheew!  we had some time.  So we made it to the hotel despite the 10 different drivers that tried to kill us on the way.  Oh, by the way, other that the Norwegian couple we came her with on the train, I think we are the only caucasions among the 1 million plus chinese here in Taiyuan.  Stare, stare, stare.  Pretty funny.  No one has stopped to practice english yet, but it is only a matter of time.  So we got to the hotel and had lunch.  Pretty darn good.  Shanxi province noodles are excellent as is their vinager.  So, after lunch we noticed our guide hanging out in the lobby area, so we went to talk to her and make sure we didn't mess up the schedule.  We decided it was a good time to to go to the bank and exchange the bulk of the cash.  So we did that and it was it's own mini ordeal.  It then threw us a little late.  No problem though.  So we got everything together and headed out for gotcha.  Of course the bank ordeal kept us from getting nervous and now we got very nervous in a very short period of time.  So we jumped in the van and let our driver brave the death match style traffic of Taiyuan once more.  It only took about 20 minutes to get there and we made it before the children so that was good.  That gave us some time to get ready and do some paperwork.  We also took the blankets that my mother and her friends hand made for the orphanage.  They were very well received and appreciated.  So, we had some paperwork to do and since I was shaking i was nearly worthless for that and Jo hip checked me off the couch so she could tackle the paperwork.  Soon enough that part was done, and in marched the two children.  Ally was looking pretty confused and scared.  She was brought to us and put in Jo's arms and Ally was just so confused.  Jo went into mom/teacher mode and got out the stickers.  Soon we had a smile on her face and she was laughing a bit.  That however, was all about to change.  as soon as she saw the orphanage worker who brought her leave, the tears began and the crying was very real.  She didn't melt down at this time and she did ok when we went shopping for some food next door to the Civil Affairs office.  In the car though the whimpering started.  We got back to the hotel and once in the room the full impact of the grief hit her and hit her hard.  We learned that she had a foster mother, father, grandmother, grandfather and older brother.  So she has lost a lot, everything she's known.  She cried for about an hour.  During this time she would not let us take any clothes off, not one of the three layers of pants or one of the six layers on top.  It got to a point though that it was not going to get any worse so Jo went for it.  That oddly didn't go too bad.  Next was an attempt at a bath.  Not for cleaning, but for calming in case she was used to baths and this might calm her.  No such luck.  So, she has finally cried herself to sleep, naked, laying on her jacket and covered with one of the blankets my mother and her friends made.  Yeah, we couldn't let go of the ladybug one.  So that is our day.  I've got to go and get some things done for tomorrow, so I am signing off.  I'll leave you with some pictures of the worlds most beautiful daughter.  Oh, and as we had hoped, if there was to be one of the parents she is rejecting it would be me.  This is very normal, but I have yet to hold her in my arms.  It will come and sooner if I don't push it.  Later, Jim

Snow, snow, and more snow!

For those of you that know our itinerary you would expect that we are sitting in our hotel room in Taiyuan City preparing to meet our daughter tomorrow.  Well, you'd be wrong.  We are instead sitting in our hotel room in Beijing riding out one of the worst snow storms in memory for Beijing.  It has shut down the airport for today and also they say tomorrow.  Sooooo, instead of flying out tonight, instead we will take the high speed train tomorrow morning.  We will awake at 5am and be at the train station for the 7:30am train which will get us to Taiyuan City in plenty of time to get our daughter.  We will have very little if any time to get to the hotel and prepare and it is certainly possible that we will get her on the way to the hotel.  The train takes 3 hours, so not bad and quite honestly it will give us a good view of the countryside.  That's the quick and dirty, so know I will talk about our day.  We started out by heading down to breakfast knowing that our cyber friends Peggy, Patrick, and their beautiful daughter queen Lilly McCole had arrived that night and may be at breakfast already.  Sure enough they were and we went to introduce ourselves.  There was also one more couple there with a little daughter too, but we weren't sure who they were and did not introduce ourselves.  Little did we know that couple would come into our lives a bit later in the day.  So, it was snowing at a pretty good clip and on the schedule today was a trip to the forbidden city and then on to the airport.  We talked with our friends the McColes and decide that despite the weather we were going to give the forbidden city a shot.  So at noon we were checked out and waiting for our guide to come and get us.  So off we went, with our guide Reagan explaining how rare this snow is and that she was actually very excited to go because it is very rare to see the forbidden city with snow like this.  She said in her near 25 yrs she has never seen it like this.  I needed no prodding and was super geeked to check it out.  We were all a little nervous about how queen Lilly would do, but to her credit she did amazing.  The forbidden city has a magic about it as soon as you walk thru the entrance, but when you see it covered in new white snow it was even more amazing.  Clearly though, the emperor who commissioned it was not thinking "snow" when he built the walkways and stairs out of polished marble.  This was evident by how many found themselves on their rear ends as we strolled thru the grounds.  We were all very careful and made it safely about 1/3 the way thru before we decide that we should get to the airport.  I could write forever about the forbidden city and how it was built before our country was even discovered, but I shall spare you all.  Suffice to say, it is magnificent, majestic, and overwhelming.  If it is not on your bucket list, add it and add it near the top.  I will have to say the same about the great wall too.  So onward to the airport we went with the McColes.  It took us a long time to get there as traffic was very slow and our driver even had to stop at one point to get the ice off the wipers.  Clearly he did not know the trick of rolling down your window and reaching out and timing the wiper stroke so you can grab it and lift it and let it snap back down thus freeing itself from the ice.  It is important to note that while this was only about 6 inches of snow, Beijing has no significant plowing capability, so it just builds up on the road into a big pile of slushy mess.  It does not however stop people from riding mopeds and bicycles.  So we get to the airport and our guide Reagan goes to check on our flights.  Of course we are all now thawed out from the forbidden city and queen Lilly has fallen asleep in her parents arms.  It took a while but our guide came back with the news that flights were no longer running and that the guide company was looking at alternate transport for us.  It wasn't long after that we learned we would be taking a train.  For us it is only 3 hours by high speed rail.  For the McColes it was 10 hours and probably overnight.  Unhappy!  However, in true McCole fashion they brushed it off as no biggie.  We also are just fine with this as the train is an opportunity to see more of China.  It is at this point that our lives have crossed with the other couple that was at breakfast.  They are from Norway and are also adopting out of Shanxi province and will pick their child up in Taiyuan too.  So we will part company with McColes tomorrow and then meet again in Guangzhou.  So, there you have it.  We are going to have an early dinner and then an early bedtime and be up and rolling tomorrow early.  This is very crazy, but strangely not stressful, probably because our guide has handled this soooooooo well.   Enjoy a few pics from the forbidden city under a rare blanket of snow, it was truly stunning.  Next time we post, we hope to either have our daughter or be on our way out the door to meet her.

The Great Wall and Summer Palace - Jan 2 2010

Hello to you all from Beijing, China.  Today we went with our guide Reagan, who is fantastic by the way, to the Great Wall at JuYongGuan Pass.  It was an awesome experience.  It was not crowded at all which made it seem like a more personal experience.  We also toured the Summer Palace but a shortened version as it was getting a bit chilly, even for us Vermonters.  I am attaching some photos from today so hopefully this all comes thru ok as I can't see the blog site from in China.  Tomorrow we tour the Forbidden City and then fly out to Shanxi province at 4:30.  We will try and update again either tonight or sometime tomorrow.  I think the jet lag is getting to Jo since she has fallen asleep as I've been writing this.  Bye for now, Jim & Jo.

We are here!!!

After a small delay in New York's JFK and a warm flight over, we have landed and are in our hotel.  We landed at night so we don't know what Beijing looks like during the day yet but the night skyline is pretty cool.  Well, it's 9:40 pm here on the 1st and we have been up for over 24hrs straight. So we are going to bed!  I'm posting via email and hoping it comes out ok.

Catch you tomorrow after we tour the Great Wall and Summer Palace.

J&J