Long, but Fun Day

We had signed up for a tour which visited several of the more visited areas of the city. Besides the constant flow of rain, the biggest problem was we could have easily spent an entire day at each site. But there's only so much time here so we have to cram in as much as we can.

Our first stop - the Beijing Zoo to see the panda exhibit. They have 16 pandas and their enclosures weren't too shabby.

Then we went to the Summer Palace. It rained pretty hard here, but hey, who cares. We could have spent all day here exploring the grounds.

Then it was off to the Temple of Heaven. Pictures don't really do this site justice. Again, we could have spent all day here.
A close-up of the color and detail of the temple.



This is the group of families from our agency who went on this tour (about a third of the total number).

Three other families then joined us for a trip to an acrobatics show. I swear, these performers are NOT human. There were about a dozen different acts defying the laws of physics in some manner. I'm telling you, aliens have landed! They're in China and performing in acrobatics shows.

12 Girls riding one bike

This one walked across the heads of the others while spinning the plates

There's no way any human body can bend like this

Tomorrow, we go to the most visited section of the great wall, Badaling. From there, we go to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. We are so going to need a vacation after this.

The clock is ticking! We become three on Monday. Is it too late to turn back now??

Matt and Jenny

Three days down and fifteen more to go

Hi everybody! It's the end of day three in China and we have had more exciting adventures. First, thanks to everyone for leaving comments. We miss you all and can't wait to see you.

We started our day by going to the CCTV building. It's still under construction so we posted the graphic picture of what it will look like. It will be used as the communications hub for the 2008 Olympics. Our trip here was exciting because, of course, it started raining right when we got out of the taxi.



Welcome to the squaty-potty! These toilets are everywhere including places like the airport. Of course there are western/modern toilets at some places, but otherwise you have to squat and that goes for men too if necessary. Unfortunately, most of them have a foul odor to go along with them. Plus, you can't throw your toilet paper in them so you have to throw it in the basket.
Many don't even have toilet paper so you need to keep some napkins handy for when nature calls.

Our trip to Mutianyu

We decided to take a tour to Mutianyu which is a less visited and restored section of the Great Wall. There were very few people here and the Great Wall is as beautiful and stunning as you dreamed of. Part of the fun getting to this section was driving through rural China. It was very different from the big city.

Mom and dad getting off the lift to the Great Wall.
The Great Wall is very steep and some steps are small and while others are quite large making it difficult to climb.
This is a picture of the unrestored section of the Great Wall which is the majority of the wall. As you can see there was lots of vegetation growing on the ruins plus part of it has disintegrated.

Of course we had the option of going right or left at the lift, we choose to the right which required lots of stairs climbing. If we had only chosen to go to the left there were not steps. Why do we always pick the hard way?

On our way back to Beijing from Mutianyu we drove by the Olympic Stadium, aka Bird's Nest, and the Aquatic Center, aka The Cube. We were able to get much better pictures than yesterday.

Our tour also stopped at the a "Silk Museum" or should I say tourist trap to buy silk. Although it was interesting to see how the silk was harvested from the cocoons and transformed into fabric.

Tomorrow, 9/14, we will be going on another tour to the Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven and an acrobatics show. Hopefully it will not rain again tomorrow.

Matt and Jenny

Miscelaneous Pics

we'll post again in a little bit. Until then, here's a few more pictures from the past coulpe days



The caligrapher writing josh's name

More of Beihai and Jingshan Parks

This group of people were singing as a choir. It must not have been too formal because others would join in as they walked by. We sat and listened for a while and clapped as we left. They were quite entertained by our applause.
Guangzhou airport

Up and At 'em

We went to the breakfast buffet this morning. It was very good. We're just going to have to get pictures tomorrow. It's divided into two parts: western style on one end, and Asian on the other. There was also an omelet bar. The Asian side had some interesting breakfast items - like octopus salad!


After breakfast we formulated a plan for tackling the day. We signed up for a tour tomorrow that the hotel offers. It goes to a less popular and less restored section of the Great Wall called the Mu Tian Yu section. Get this: transportation 70 Km away with a guide for two hours - about $29 us dollars.


Getting around town is quite easy. The front desk will write down where you want to go on one of their business cards. We just show that to a taxi driver and away we go, and taxis are everywhere.


Our first stop was the Olympic Stadium, aka the "Birds Nest". It's still under construction so it's gated off but we got close enough to get some pictures.


We then went to a place called Bai Hei Park just on the west side of the Forbidden City. A good comparison would be central park in New York. It's a very large, well landscaped park and lake right in the middle of downtown. The White Pagoda in the background is a Buddhist temple.
Of course, the people watching was primo. There was an area where about 30 people were waltzing and another where an older couple writing calligraphy on the ground with watered brushes.





We then went to another park across the street called Jingshan Park. It had a temple on top of a hill which overlooked the Forbidden City.

Unfortunately, the haze was too bad to get a great picture of the Forbidden City, as you can tell by this picture

It's 4:00 pm here and we don't know what we may do tonight. We're pretty much making it up as we go. We'll check in again tomorrow.

Matt and Jen

Day 1/2

Here's a few pictures of the Guangzhou airport, our room, and the view from our room.

During the ride from the airport to the hotel we found out exactly what people meant when they talk about the insane traffic. There really is no way to describe or understand how it works. Basically, the road is shared by cars, bikes, mopeds, and pedestrians all at once. Who has the right of way, who yields, and who speeds up must be one of life's biggest mysteries.

We didn't get 50 feet, literally, before the police waved our shuttle to the side. We waited for about 15 minutes while our driver was showing his papers while other officers were waving more drivers over. We never did figure out what it was all about.

After checking into the hotel, a shower was priority #1. Afterword, we decided to go to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. The hotel staff wrote where we wanted to go on the back of their business card so we could show a taxi driver where we wanted to go. Oh, and a 10-15 minute taxi ride was $2 us.

The Hard Rock is in a hotel. We went to some doors inside the hotel but they were locked. As we started to walk away, a gentleman working in an art shop came out to tell us that the entrance was outside. He then became quite chatty (as a good salesman does) and the story of why we were in China soon came out. After his initial (and usual) reaction of shock at us receiving a boy and appreciation of what we were doing, he offered to write Josh's name in calligraphy as a gift. What an amazing gift it was. He didn't want anything in return, so we bought some art in displayed his store.

We then caused a scene at the Hard Rock. Jen's mom brought numerous pins to trade with the staff. In the end, we had probably 20 employees come to the table to see what she had. Every pin she brought was traded. One guy came up towards the end and said "I'll take all you have left, take what ever you want" as he threw down a pile of his pins. The whole thing was really entertaining.

We think we're going to go to the Olympic stadium in the morning and who knows what else.

til next time,

Matt and Jen

Let's Talk Travel!!

First off, we're here and in one piece. 

 

From the time we arrived at the airport in Indy to the time we got to our hotel in Beijing, 33 hours had elapsed.  I wish I could say it wasn't as bad as it sounds, but I'd be a liar.  We were SO ready to get to the hotel and clean up.

 

Our route was Indy - Denver - LA - Guangzhou - Beijing.  The only hitch was an hour delay in Denver but it didn't interfere with our next flight so no harm done.  There were more connections than we really wanted and it extended our total travel time but the upgrade in seats was well worth the trade.  The flight from LA to Guangzhou was 14 hours so the larger seats made it much more comfortable.

 

One funny thing about China Southern Airlines is they never seem to pull up to the gates.  Each flight we had started at a ground level gate where we boarded a standing room only bus and drove what felt like miles out to the edges of the airport property to board the plane.  Upon landing, the process was just reversed.

 

The Guangzhou and Beijing airports are GINORMOUS!!  So it was probably a good thing they bused us around the airport because it would have taken half the day to walk across the terminals. 

 

Customs wasn't too bad and all our luggage made it to our destination so those were more things to be thankful for.

 

Matt and Jen

Ready And Watching The Clock

We're pretty much ready to go! Tickets for our international flights came yesterday. Today, we received all the information on our hotels, transfers, flights, appointments, and sightseeing while we're in China. Everything is pretty much packed, the mail and paper have been put on hold, and arrangements have been made to have our fish fed and grass mowed while we're gone. All we need now is to get on the plane!!

This will probably be the last post until we get to Beijing on the 11th. We will then post as often as we can and include plenty of pictures.

See you on on the other side of the world,

Matt and Jenny

11 Days and Counting!!

OK, we feel like we just pushed a snowball off the top of a giant hill and it just keeps getting bigger! The past 5 hours have been *CRAZY*!

At 9:00 this morning we got an email with the date of our consulate appointment - 9/27. It also had a rough draft of an itinerary. We then started some other errands like putting the mail and newspaper on hold and setting up an appointment with the pediatrician upon our return.

Around noon-thirty, we had an email from the travel agency with all of our flight information. We had till 4pm to confirm and pay.

So without further ado:

We leave on Sunday, 7/9 at 3:45pm and finally arrive in Beijing on 9/11 at 12:45pm. 21 hours total. It looks like a two day flight but they are 12 hour ahead of us due to the international date line.

Josh will be with us either on 9/16 or 9/17

We arrive home on Sunday 9/30 at 9:08am (very tired)

Now we're just going to sit here and digest this for a while!

Matt and Jenny

A Big Thank You

August 26, 2006 - Jenny's Work Shower

Matt and I can't express enough gratitude for all the gifts for Josh. We were totally blown away by everything and, most of all. we are greatful for having such wonderful friends. We had a great time at the Spagetti Factory and it seemed like the gifts just kept coming.

Don't we all look good in "normal clothes?"

Can you believe all those clothes? He's gonna be the best dressed kid on the block. Plus he's going to learn to read in no time with all those books and what kid can live without his Pampers underwear? I also can't wait to go shopping with the gift cards, who knows what I'll buy.

Again, we can't find words to say Thank You enough to all my co-workers for their thoughtfulness. I'm sure that Josh will be thankful too when he gets here.

Travel Approvals are here!

Today we received confirmation that Travel Approvals arrived

at Great Wall this morning. Yah !!!

What does that mean? Well, Great Wall will contact the American Consulate in Guangzhou to request our consulate appointment for the week of September 24th. It will take anywhere from two to five days to receive those appointment times. The only problem here is that all the other adoption agencies are also trying to get everyone there before October.

Once we receive notice that we do indeed have a consulate appointment we will then make our travel arrangements. We still believe that we will be traveling in two weeks from yesterday. (Crossing our fingers).

Matt and Jenny

Still Waiting

Matt and I hoped that Travel Approvals (TA's) would arrive today, but they have not. Great Wall sent an e-mail that they were notified by their China office that TA's were sent on 8/23/2007 and should reach their Austin office on Monday. Great Wall has said that as longs as TA's arrived before 8/31/2007 we should still be able to travel in September, lets hope that this holds true. If the TA's do arrive on Monday that will almost be two weeks to the day before we leave for China. Wow this has all happened so fast.

One more milestone happened this week. Our Melonhead turned 9 months old on Tuesday. We sure hope that he is enjoying the elephant we sent and chewing on our pictures.

Please keep praying that the Travel Approvals arrive Monday,
Matt and Jenny

A wild two weeks!

Well, it's been two weeks to the day that our referral came. Wow has it been busy! At this point we are collecting all the documents that we need to take to China with us and trying to cut more weight from our luggage. Also, we are going to stop by the bank and order all the money we need to take with us. The Chinese government likes new, crisp bills and it will take the bank a week or so to get that in.

The care package we sent was delivered to China on Tuesday. I hope that the nannies give Melonhead the stuff we sent and take lots of pictures since we can not visit the orphanage. Matt and I can't wait to get the camera back and develop it.

Lastly, Great Wall hopes that our Travel Approval's arrive by the end of next week. If they don't arrive by then we may have to wait until November to travel. Say it isn't so! Come on Chinese Government, hurry up with those Travel Approval's.

Matt and Jenny

Care Package

Well, after our mishap of forgetting to check the box that accepts our referral, our case worker e-mailed us back and said "not a problem, you'd be surprised how often that happens." We've just laughed and said "it's so us to do something like that."

We sent a care package to Josh today. We sent him a little elephant (who we named "Ollie") that rattles and a chewable photo album with pictures of us, his room, and the grandparents. We also sent a disposable camera. The nannies at the orphanages will often take pictures with these cameras and return them to the parents. We put some other things in the box for the orphanage in general like some burping cloths, colored markers, and a couple bags of Hershey's Kisses. It should be delivered on 8/20 so we told Ollie to look after him till we get there.

The people at the UPS store were quite chatty about the whole thing again. He said he's handled paperwork for about 50 adoptions from China and this was the first boy he's seen. We're still entertained by everyone's reaction when they find out were getting a boy.

Things may slow down for a couple weeks again. Our referral acceptance documents were sent to China today and it will be about 3 weeks until we get all of our travel arrangements sent back to us.

talk to you again soon,
Matt and Jenny

Hopefully the final, final touches to his room

Today, Matt and I sent our referral acceptance back to Great Wall via UPS Next Day. It should be there by 10:30 am tomorrow. Of course, we forgot to check the box that we accept the referral on one of the papers! OOOPS!! Everything was signed and filled out except that one minor detail despite triple checking everything. We sent an e-mail to Great Wall pointing that out and to just go ahead and, uh, check that!

When we shipped the paperwork, the UPS guy packaging it congratulated us and ask when we go get HER. We said it was actually a "him" and he said "What?? That's gotta be the first one we've ever had."

Also, we finished the final, final touches to Melonhead's room today. Notice the name change. We still are not recovered from the "It's a Boy" statement. Maybe we will, someday. :)

Matt and Jenny

We got the FedEx Package!

It was torturous to wait until I met Matt for lunch to open the FedEx package. Inside were several documents we need to sign and return to Great Wall by Wednesday. There were also a bunch of papers that have Chinese characters we can't read. Here's a picture of the most important of the documents, the paper that states we accept our little boy.

He is some more information on our Melonhead: (from 5/24/2007)

weight 14.5 lbs length 26 inches
Motor Development: Hold head up while lying on stomach; grasps toys near head; pinches thumb and index finger together
Adaptability: Locates the direction of sound; visually follows moving toys; looks for dropped toys; reaches and grasps for toys
Language: Follows you while moving head from one side to the other; laughs aloud; distinguishes between acquaintance and strangers; sounds directed at someone or something; knows name and turns when called; responds to facial expressions of adults
Personality: Active; restless; fond of listening to music; fond of playing with toys; having a ready smile; fond of playing games; obstinate sometimes and impatient sometimes (These are the two qualities Matt and I are most worried about.)

The next step is tomorrow morning when Matt gets home we'll finish signing all the papers and send them next day delivery to Great Wall. Then we'll have to wait for our Travel Approval which will come sometime in the next 2-3 weeks. That will give us the exact date we will leave for China.

Matt and Jenny

Deciding a name....AGAIN

OK, we decided on a name. After HOURS of research we came up with three names so we had a vote by secret ballot with the grandparents and Jenny's sister. The winner was Joshua Li. So, there you go. We're still going to call him Spartacus, though! The name "Maya" painted on the nursery wall has now been painted over and "Josh" will be put on sometime this week. We're fortunate the whole room wasn't pink or girly. Some garage sales were hit this weekend so now we have some boy clothes and he won't have to be naked. What a crazy turn of events! We know God is having a good chuckle right now!!

We will get his paperwork tomorrow which has medical information and some papers we need to sign and send back to the agency. Then we'll wait a few weeks for our agency, the Chinese government, and the American consulate to make all of our appointments and travel arrangements. When all is said and done, we will probably leave mid-September. Keep in mind, we're taking our laptop with us to send back pictures and stories while we are there.

till next time,
Matt and Jenny

It's Finally Here!!!

On August 2, 2007 after 21 months of waiting our referral finally came. Did you notice that the name of our blog has changed?

That's because It's a Boy !!! We're shocked too. Somehow we knew that God's irony would do this, but we're still thankful. Well, here is Yang, Fu Guan and was born on 11-21-2006. He is in the Chongqing Province at the Yunyang Chengxiang Social Institute.

Now what happens? Well, we have to wait to receive our paperwork from Great Wall on Monday and we'll travel sometime in September. Of course, between now and then we have to pick a name, repaint the name on the wall in the nursery, buy boy clothes, pack, and do anything else that comes along.

Now that our referral is here we will be posting on the blog with updates regularly,

Matt and Jenny

Referral Updates

UPDATED: 7/1/07

What do you think of the latest addition to Melonhead's decor?

We haven't updated in a while, but hey, there's nothing really to tell. Let's see: we're still waiting and there's just no end in sight. That pretty much sums it up.

We get our neice this week while Jen's sister is out of town. Build-a-bear, here we come! I think we'll go to the Childrens Museum, also, to see the dino exhibit. She's really into dinosaurs now. The bad part: we'll have to take down the fire scene tape while she's here since that's where she sleeps *sigh*. We haven't opened that door since the first week of April.

Still hangin' in there,

Matt & Jen

Done at last!

Due to procrastination, Melonhead's room was the last room of the house to updated/remodeled. It was very difficult to choose a theme for her room because we didn't want something too baby. I really liked the jungle theme but most were to "boyish." Matt and I found this jungle themed comforter at Target and thought it would work for a girl because of it's light colors.

The wall color is Honeydew. My mom drew all the animals on the walls and we started to paint the giraffe. Later, Matt and I finished painting the rest of the animals. I made the curtains, dust ruffle and the organizer on the side of the crib. Matt painted the dresser. My sister has given/loaned us the things that our niece, Marianna, has out grown. Also, my sister's mother-in-law has given us toys. There are very few things we'll need and we appreciate all the stuff.

Disclosing the Name...

Jen is Evil! She wanted to make the grandparents wait till the last minute to tell them what their new grandchild's name was going to be. I think it was just because she wanted to stall in choosing a name in the first place. I, on the other hand, being the good son, thought it would be a good idea to tell them the name on Christmas. A devious plan was conceived.

We had the name embroidered onto two identical Christmas stockings and gave them to the Grandpas as presents. We told them they didn't have to share their presents with anyone if they didn't want to. The plan was for them to hold the name for ransom and torture the grandmas with the info, but it didn't quite work. The grandmas realized what they were before the grandpas did and Jenny's mom got out of her seat and practically grabbed it out of her dad's hands.

We had always referred to her as Melonhead, which Jen's mom absolutely hated, but now she has a real name... Maya. We still call her Melonhead, just as a pet name and because it irritates Jen's mom so much.

Dad with his stocking!

The very, very long wait begins

Our paper work was sent to China in November just before my 30th birthday. It was logged in on November 17, 2005 at the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs office. That date will be referred to as our LID (Log in Date).

What happens now? Well, the long wait begins for our referral, which is when they match a child with us and send the paperwork with her information and pictures. At first, we were assuming our referal would come in June. Now, referals are coming in a little slower so we're guessing it will be sometime in October or November. Hopefully, we'll be traveling to China sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

AND EVERYONE GETS TO WAIT WITH US!

Choosing an Agency

After Matt and I had decided to adopt from China we then had to choose an agency. It was a very difficult process and it took several months to make the decision. Some of the things we had to consider were cost, travel arrangements, location of the agency, the focus of the agency and our overall comfort level with the agency. Several we looked at were disqualified because they charged several thousand dollars more than other agencies. Most of the agencies were disqualified because their focus was on the plight of infertility and not finding parents for children.

Finally, we had narrowed it down to three agencies. We drove up to Fort Wayne for an informative meeting about one agency and were immediately turned off because their focus was adoption as a means to cope with infertility. The second agency we considered was located in Indianapolis, but their fees were 3 to 5 thousand dollars more than the others. The last agency, Great Wall China Adoption, seemed to be a good fit for us. The travel arrangements included several days of sight seeing, the fees were reasonable, and their focus was on finding families for Chinese children, but we still weren't sure. We discovered that they were having an adoption conference in New Jersey, so off we went.

The conference was the deciding factor. We met the staff as well as the founder of Great Wall, Snow Wu, and we were impressed! They were kind and very extremely knowledgeable about the adoption process. After spending the day cramming our heads with information about adopting from China, we went to Fuddrucker's for lunch and decided that Great Wall was going to be the agency we used.

Unfortunately, that was the beginging of a long wait. It is required by Chinese adoption laws that adoptive parents be 30 years of age or older. I was 29. We had to wait until May 2005 to being the "paper chase."

Breaking the News

The next big hurdle was how to tell our parents. Matt had just finished the deck and we wanted to have everyone over for a cook-out. We thought that a cook-out would as good as any other time. We had a high chair that Matt's parents had given us years ago and we dug it out of the garage. I made a sign that said "Reserved" and we just left it in the corner of the deck while we ate. No one said one word about the high chair, assuming it was for my neice, Marianna. It wasn't until we told them it wasn't for her that all the excitement started. We then told them of our plans and everything we had learned up to that point. All the parents were, and still are, extremely excited about having a new grandchild.