The Longest Day Ever, But We're Home!

Now that we (and by we I really mean just me) are getting up when it is light outside and sleeping when it is dark, I decided to chronicle our journey home to North Carolina.

It began WAY TOO EARLY on Friday morning in Guangzhou. We had to be in the hotel lobby at 5:45 and were strongly warned not to be late. As Ian and I had to finish packing up the carry-ons, we decided to get up at 4:15 that morning. I will also add that I didn't sleep well that night, my mind was racing with things like, "What if the alarm doesn't go off?" and "What if they don't accept Kylie's paperwork in Chicago and don't allow us to bring her into the country, will we be stuck like Tom Hanks in that movie?"

But of course the alarm did go off and at the last minute I scooped our sleeping angel out of her crib (yes, in her pajamas ~ who needs to dress up for their first ever flight?) and strapped her into the carrier. The bus ride to the airport was very emotional as Amy, our guide, said her goodbyes. Luckily we were tipped off by Kristin's parents ~ this is their second adoption ~ that Amy would probably say a few words and we got it on video. I'll have to wait a while to watch it, I could cry just thinking about it now. Amy said that she has about 10 groups a year and she has been doing this for 10 years now, and still she becomes so overjoyed for the babies, yet sad that they are leaving. I had to just look out the window of the bus at the rapidly passing scenery as I cried silent tears. It was really hard!

Then we got to the airport and the chaos ensued. I think that 31 of the 42 families that had been at the China Hotel with AWAA were leaving at the same time. You can see that we took over a section of China Southern's counters...

Kylie did amazingly well on her first flight! I held her for takeoff and just watched Guangzhou disappear under the clouds as we were reaching elevation. Again, very emotional for me. But the laughter of our daughter brought me away from my sadness. We had three seats as the flight was relatively empty and for a while she sat between us and played. I will also add here that she is a smart little thing. Her ears seemed to be bothering her during take off and instead of crying, she began sucking her thumb. Any time the pressure changed on any of the flights, that kid got the thumb to the mouth in about 2 seconds and didn't have to wail about her ears hurting.

Then we got to Hong Kong where we had about 8 1/2 hours to wait for our next flight. Sadly at this point the goodbyes started. Out of our 11 Guangdong families, one had stayed behind in Guangzhou, so we were down to 10. In Hong Kong the Nellie's family and Grace's family peeled off to catch their flight to Newark. We also had to say goodbye to Caroline's family (they were staying for two days in Hong Kong) which brought about a few tears. And then there were 7 Guangdong babies left. Luckily though we had each other to hang with during the wait. We decided here that Kylie should get as much exercise as possible because there was going to be a lot of sitting starting around 6:30. First she practiced her walking for a while. Then we decided it was time to eat, so we joined Olivia's family and went to a sports cafe where we got hamburgers, french fries and iced tea. Ian and I even followed it up with some Ben and Jerry's. WOW did that taste good! Then we found a play area (the airport has about 5 of them) and played with Olivia and Anneliese (with AWAA but from Jangxi province) for a few hours. All the play time wore Kylie out and finally she had a short siesta on her daddy's chest.

And then it was time to board our 13 1/2 hour flying vessel... All in all it went well. Ian, Kylie and I were in a section of 3 seats and had heard that the flight had about 60 empty seats. We were hoping for one of those to be with us (we only paid for a lap pass for Kylie), but we ended up having a very kind gentleman at the window seat. He was so gracious and didn't complain about being trapped in when Kylie finally sacked out around 9:30pm and slept until about 7:15am (China time ~ the fun thing about flying back from China is that you cross the International Date Line and then suddenly it was Friday morning all over again...)

Anyway, our little one did great and finally we landed in Chicago. Cool thing about Chicago is that Kylie officially became a US Citizen there as it was her port of entry to the US (I really wanted her to be a Charlotte girl like her mommy, but Chicago will do). Luckily Lottie's parents had thought to bring a flag, so we took a photo opportunity with Kyile's former roommate Kristin. After going through immigration (strange to go through the foreigners line for the first time) and customs ("Do you have anything to declare?" "Umm, just this adorable baby!") we had to say those last goodbyes as everyone that had been on our flight to Chicago was now heading different directions. There were lots of hugs and promises to email with Hallie, Kristin, Olivia, Marisa, Darby, and our other little Carolina girl Lottie and her mommy.

Then our family of 3 headed to the gate for our last leg of the journey, our flight to Charlotte. We decided to treat ourselves to a Starbucks knowing that we needed the caffeine to get through the last little bit. Looks like Kylie fits right in with mommy and daddy, she was just dying to get that cup! Despite the caffeine, all three of us sacked out for most of the flight and before we knew it, the stewardess was tapping me on the shoulder asking me to bring my seat back to the upright position in preparation for landing.

Daddy caught this shot as Kylie stepped of the airplane (okay, well mommy did the walking) in her new home city for the first time. Now keep in mind that it was right at midnight on Friday night, but for us it was 1pm on Saturday (China time). We knew that our moms, Aunt Traci and Uncle Adam planned to meet us at the airport, but nothing prepared us for the joyful surprise of having so many friends there. I would give those that showed up a call out, but my mind was so tired that I'm afraid I'd leave someone out. I will just say that the welcoming committee spanned several of our circles of friends and we love each of you so much!!! Thanks for being there to welcome Kylie home!

Finally the guard told us we had to move on from the edge of the secure zone, so we headed downstairs to get our luggage and wait for Uncle Adam and Lee to go get our car for us. Slowly most everyone headed home, but little Katie was totally enthralled with Kylie and made her parents stay until we left. It did my heart good to see Katie walking with Kylie, Katie has been one of my sweeties from church since she was a baby, in fact, she was mentioned in my very first post (Fireworks & Fireflies?) where I explained the name of the blog.

Our little trooper was excellent for so much of the trip, but as you can see the car seat didn't go so well. And who can blame her, they don't have carseats in China. If you want to go in a taxi, you just hold your child in your lap. Even private cars that we saw from our birds-eye-view on the bus just had infants in the arms of an adult. Who knows what they'd do if only one adult was in the car. She screamed (not cried) and kept reaching her arms out to me ~ it was breaking my heart not to get her out of that seat ~ from the time we started strapping her in until we got out to I-85 (for those of you that live in Charlotte, you know how long that is) when she pretty much passed out from the effort of crying.

We were hungry by that time (lunch time in China) so we decided to go through a drive thru to get some food. Only place open at 1:30am, of course, Taco Bell. Cindy Martens, this one is for you!

We played at home for a bit when we got back so that Kylie could start to adjust to her new house. We got out her toys that she played with in China so that there would be something familiar and finally all crashed hard at 4:15 am. Saturday would bring many phone calls from friends and family checking up on us, and also our friend Sam bringing home our first baby, Maya. I'll go over the Kylie/Maya meeting later. Right now it is time to wake up my baby (this post is dated from last night because I started it then and fell asleep...) and get ready for a gourmet lunch at Chick-fil-a!!!

Kylie's first cake experience

As mentioned in the previous post, we had a birthday party to celebrate all the birthdays of the Lianjiang girls. It was Kylie's first experience with cake. I think the series of pictures can pretty much speak for themselves...

Hmm, wonder what this is...

I think I will touch it!

Feels sorta squishy!

Okay, I'll lick my fingers...
This doesn't taste familiar!

So our girl doesn't like Strawberry mousse, yet...

Killing time in Hong Kong...

So we landed in Hong Kong at 9:45 local time. Our flight tonight to Chicago leaves at 6:25. Ahh, gotta love airports! After laying on the floor in the kids play area for about a 20 minute siesta, I decided it was a good chance to catch up from yesterday. Before I do that I will write for the record that by the time we land in Charlotte that we will have been in motion for 32 hours. WOW!!!

Okay, back to yesterday. We got to sleep in a bit which was nice. First order of the day was to get a group photo taken in the lobby at 10:30. Here is the best of the group shots of our 11 Guangdong families.

After that we had our birthday party for the girls because all the girls except Lottie (Feb 25) and Kylie (March 10) celebrated their first birthdays before or during our trip. If the picture looks like pandemonium, it was. Funny thing is that the girls seemed to respond to being in a group of 10 (Darby was sick and had to miss the party) better than just small play groups. It must have been something like playtime at the orphanage. Lottie's parents supplied the balloons, Kristin's parents brought the banner, and a few of the rest of us supplied the cakes.

Kylie was especially fond of the balloons, it was probably her first time seeing them.

Following the party, Ian, Kylie and I took a taxi with Nellie and her parents to a local Buddhist temple. It was a very peaceful complex and we really enjoyed seeing yet another piece of "authentic China." In the center of the complex was a huge tower.

It almost felt like we were back in Europe as Ian and I decided, "hmm, steps... let's go!" It took a while to make it to the top. Each level had shorter and shorter openings. Here we are at the top. I was really glad Kylie was strapped in tight in her carrier because the walkways were very narrow!

We found it interesting that even a Buddhist temple would be decorated for New Year.

Later it was time to go to the US Consulate to take our oath for Kylie's citizenship. Now all she has to do is land on US soil and she is a citizen! Sadly no cameras were allowed, so we couldn't photo document the occasion.

Then packing suitcases. Despite the fact that we loaded down our family when they left last week, Ian and I bought a suitcase for $11 to bring home our souvenirs. Most of it is stuff for Kylie, shoes, silk dresses, and some small gifts for her adoption day for the next several years. Once we had completed that task, we went out to an Italian resteraunt with the Orrisons and the Martens. It was surreal to be sitting in a back room of an Italian restaurant in China, watching a Chinese telethon, sitting beside a table of Germans, and listening to Mariah Carey on the radio.

Wow, how quickly two weeks have passed. Today, not so fast...

Bittersweet

Tomorrow we come home.

Funny that as I write that sentence I am filled with such mixed emotions. What a journey this has been. For two years Kylie had been a paperwork dream. Just when it seemed like we'd never get word, we finally got a picture of the baby that would soon become ours. Then we waited out the torturous time for permission to come meet her. Despite snow at home, we then traveled half way around the world. In addition to the wonderous joy of meeting Kylie, while here we've done some sightseeing,(we've filled 7 mini-dv tapes on the camcorder and taken over 1000 pictures to share with her about her homeland as she begins to understand) but we've also crossed our t's and dotted our i's on pages of paperwork to make the adoption legal in the eyes of two governments. Today we went to the US Consulate here in Guangzhou and took her oath of citizenship for her. Tomorrow we pull her from this land.

I'm not sure I can really explain the sadness I feel about leaving China. Maybe it is because of my extreme humble gratitude to the woman that gave birth to Kylie. Maybe it is because I'm thankful that the Chinese government will work with the American government to make adoptions happen. Maybe it is because of the overall warmth of the people here. Maybe it is because to this point this is all my child has ever known, at least here she can still hear Cantonese being spoken as we walk around in public. While we are still here it is so easy for her to spend time with the other girls from Lianjiang, when we return to the states we are in NC, VA, KS, IN, & MN.

I know in time that America will be all she remembers, and maybe that is a little bit of what makes me sad too. After all, you need to know where you came from to have an understanding of where you are going...

A good bit actually happened today, but it is so late and we have to be in the lobby at 5:45 in the morning to catch our flight to Hong Kong. We have a 9 hour layover in Hong Kong, so maybe I'll find Internet connection there. If not, I'll type again after we reach home...

I leave you with three parting shots. One last image of the peaceful side of China...
Kylie with Amy, our guide. But it really doesn't seem to do justice to Amy to just call her our guide. She has been so helpful during our time here!!! I think that Amy has connections everywhere in Guangzhou, she was amazing and so instrumental in this entire legal process! I wouldn't want to try and navigate the in China portion part of our trip without her! And she wasn't just business, she was also very encouraging to all of us with our girls, especially us first time parents.

Apparently Kylie was concerned that we might try and leave without her. She was crawling right into the suitcase. Don't worry baby,Daddy and I wouldn't go anywhere without you!!!

Waiting in the room, a birthday cake, and a dinner cruise (Valentine's Day)

Happy Valentine's Day!!! And that means a big Happy 9th Birthday to Kylie's Uncle Alexander. We love you bubba!

This morning Kylie woke up around 7:15 (after sleeping for some 10 hours) rather hungry. Her loving daddy got up to make a bottle for her and after filling her belly, she and I sacked back out for about an hour. Thanks for letting us catnap daddy!


From there the morning went to playtime. Didn't Daddy do a good job getting baby dressed? He even picked out the right shirt (somewhat of a miracle because he asked me later if it really was Valentine's Day). Kylie was quite animated this morning and couldn't seem to decide if she wanted to play with the wadded up breakfast coupon or the alphabet links that spell her name. Much to my chagrin, the paper won out. Oh well... After playing with the toys got boring, she decided to cruise around the coffee table and couch. She is so funny when she gets excited, she will slam her open hand down onto the nearest surface and giggle out loud.

We had to wait around in our room this morning to see if Amy called. Actually we were hoping not to hear from her because she was at the consulate applying for Kylie's (and 42 other babies') Visa. A problem would mean a delay in getting a Visa for the girls to enter the United States which would mean delay in going home to the states. Normally that would mean only one or two days late, but with Chinese New Year starting this week, it could easily be a two week delay. And Sunday Ian discovered that we had a slight glitch in our paperwork... So we paced the halls of our apartment until we got a call from Amy saying there was a problem or we were released.
When the phone rang a bit too early for release time we both looked at each other with a worried glance, but thankfully it was Cindy asking if I wanted to accompany her and a few of the other moms to buy some individual cakes for the Guangdong babies birthday party. I met Shannon, Cindy, Cindy's daughters Mindy and Abby, and Wendy at the delicatessen. I know that Kylie won't eat a bite of cake, but I got a mini-chocolate mousse and a mini strawberry mousse to sit in front of her and for Ian and I to eat!

Finally we got the all clear! We met up with Hallie, Nellie, Marisa, Lottie and Caroline (and of course their parents) and headed back to Shamian Island. Ian and I had to pick up our granite etching and we heard about an open air market that we wanted to wander. LaoLao also said to buy Kylie a pair or two of shoes, so we decided to oblige her and get our baby some squeaky shoes. She is showing shopkeeper Dong (who is from Lianjiang) that she can mimic his squat. You can hardly see her shoes, but they are black with little daisy flowers on them. Talk about cute!

With both of them dressed for Valentine's Day, it was impossible to resist another picture of the Carolina girls. Speaking of Carolina, we heard about the Heels/Hokies basketball game...

After grabbing a bite to eat at the new Starbucks (and an iced coffee ~ man was it hot today!) Ian and I split off from the others and headed to the Qingping market. Let's just say that we weren't in tourist land anymore. This was real China and despite the unfamiliar sights, sounds and smells, I loved it! Here are a few pictures to help you get a feel for what we experienced there. (By the way, we wandered for about an hour and saw no other westerners in the market.) These were the biggest bamboo steamers I have ever seen. Oh how I wished that we could trust street food for our delicate western stomachs! I would have loved to tried the dim sum!

We felt brave enough to venture into this shop selling New Year decorations. To give an accurate idea, take what we do to decorate for Christmas in the states, multiply it by 10, and then you have an idea of the decoration level for Chinese New Year here. We bought a few packages of red envelopes to put small token gifts into and hang on a tree (or plant) to help celebrate Chinese New Year in the future at home.

Then we found ourselves walking down "pet alley." We had been in an area for a while selling foods, so at first I feared the worst for all these puppies (on down the alley were kittens, rabbits, hamsters, fish, and other house pets). Then we noticed that the shops lining the streets were selling leashes, pet food and even the silly pet sweaters we have at home. Man did I breathe a sigh of relief then! Otherwise I was going to buy freedom for some of the golden puppies.





There was vendor after vendor after vendor selling dried goods out of huge bags. We never did see anything written in English ~ we were in a market that doesn't cater to tourists, go figure ~ but we were pretty sure we could make out ginger, ginseng, mushrooms, and then after that it is any one's guess. I have no idea how you would pick a vendor, they all looked pretty much the same to me!


There weren't too many live animals, but the buckets of scorpions were interesting! I think that I've read you can roast scorpions and the venom is destroyed in the cooking process. I've seen pictures of them on sticks. My only question is how do you get the sucker on the skewer without getting stung? Pretty crazy stuff if you ask me!



When we wandered back over to Shamian Island (realized that we hadn't bought Kylie a Beijing Olympics 2008 tshirt) we ran into the Martens family. As you can see, Mickey (8 years) was done shopping. Lucky for baby Caroline that her daddy was in the mood to carry her. Mickey is a real sweetheart and he and I led the pack on the way back in the metro system.


We got back to the hotel in just enough time to feed Kylie, change her diaper, and then scramble down to the lobby to get on the bus (what am I going to do when I don't have a Trailways type bus to take me everywhere I need to go at home?) to head to our dinner cruise. I'm guessing about 25 of the 42 families here with AWAA went this evening. The picture in front of the cherry blossom tree was taken in our hotel lobby. That tree was not here the day we checked in. I'm telling you, the decorations for New Year would blow your mind!

Dinner was okay, but the cruise itself was quite beautiful. The entire riverfront has been fitted with lights to create a dazzling effect from the water. Some of the stuff was computerized and the animated light show was entertaining (we have on camcorder), others was just elegantly lit up and provided many "oohs and aahhs" from all of us on the boat, Chinese and Americans alike. I also found humor in the fact that when we went under a low bridge that the Chinese folks hollered like we did to hear echos and also reached up as if they could touch the bottom of the bridge. I guess we are alike in more ways than we at first realize...


One more family photo ~ Kylie was clearly impressed by the light show, or not. She slept through almost the entire thing. Something else cute, one of the 10 year old daughters of one of the families on the trip was passing out Valentine's Day cards. It was such a sweet gesture.

The area we disembarked from the cruise ship reminded me of Times Square in New York. There was tons of neon. And once again, proof that New Year is big ~ this is the year of the golden pig which is considered very good luck!
When we got back we had one exhausted baby on our hands. I declare that I fall a bit more in love with Ian each day as I watch him with her. He took putting to bed shift tonight which wasn't all that pleasant, she was too tired to give up the fight easily. But he managed!

I can't believe that tomorrow is our last day here! There is still so much that I want to see...

Tea house, purse shopping and a buddy bath system... (Tuesday, Feb 13)

**I need to clarify something to relieve Kylie's LaoLao (maternal grandmother) and Aunt. Sorry if I made you worry that you had missed Kylie's first steps. She is walking with assistance, but not on her own just yet!

Today we got a taste of Chinese culture by going to a tea house. We learned several things. First of all, tea is the "national drink" of China, only the younger generation drinks coffee. Guess that is a nod to the western influence here. Second, the Chinese are "tea snobs." They told us that only the "junk" tea goes into tea bags. Tea purists refuse to drink tea that comes in bags. We also learned that good Chinese tea needs to be "washed" with boiling water and then you drink the tea from the second water. And they only steep their tea for about 30 seconds. It is a beautiful process to watch the pouring which matches the beauty of the teacups and pots they make.


The tea house itself was beautiful and provided a few photo opportunities. Kylie is now making eye contact with us when we hold her and doesn't fight being held close as much as she did a week ago. She seems to be curious to really figure us out and will explore our faces with her hands while gazing into our eyes as we give her bottles. I'm loving this snugly time so much that I don't mind the aversion she is having to solid foods.


After we got back from the tea house, we had a little floor play time. Then I had the opportunity to go purse shopping with Cindy, Shannon, and Maria. We took a taxi to the leather store that is something like a three story mall filled with tiny purse shops. They are divided into different levels of "knockoffs", levels A - D. After a harrowing taxi ride (I will walk or take the metro anywhere else I need to go here...) we got out to discover that the purse mall is closed for Chinese New Year. Yep, the new year starts on Sunday, but they are already closed down until the 26th. Wow, we should learn a bit about national holidays ~ most folks in America are lucky to have two days off for the 4th of July! So anyway, with the mall closed we figured we were already in the area anyway and decided to check out the side streets. Once again I got a look at "the other side" of China. The stalls were tiny and cramped and the streets were crammed with people. They were selling their wares ~ in this area mostly purses, luggage, belts, and backpacks ~ eating noodles out of metal hotpots, playing cards, and talking loudly. It was a curious mayhem. I wished that I had taken the camcorder to record what I saw and heard, but if I had, I'm sure I wouldn't have had the guts to use it...

While I was gone, Ian took Kylie on a walk. You can read all about it in the previous post. I did just have to add one photo he took of her in our hotel courtyard. I love that we have learned what makes her laugh now!

After a bit more floor playtime, we ordered dinner from Danny's Bagel (reliable Western style food) and took it down to the Martens' room. Cindy's daughters Abby and Mindy were babysitting baby Kristin while her parents were out for their anniversary. Kylie enjoyed getting to play for a little while with her former roommate. (Okay, so she enjoyed taking toys away from her former roommate, but it was fun to take pictures anyway).Now as I had mentioned before, Kylie really HATES bath time. Ian and I feel almost guilty giving her one, but with as hot as it is here and with as much pollution as is in the air, she gets pretty dirty each day. We are afraid that if we don't keep her little neck clean that the heat rash she had when we first received her will come back. Baby Caroline loves the bath, so Cindy suggested that we try putting them both in the little inflatable tub at the same time in hopes that Kylie will see how much fun she has and learn from it.
At first it looked like it was going to work. Kylie didn't start screaming when she saw the tub. And then we started to lower her into the water. There was a bit of fussing, but with Caroline there to comfort her, she began to enjoy it ~ for about 2 minutes. Then the wailing started again and we couldn't get her calmed down so we hurried to rinse her off and pulled her out. Thanks for a bit of bath therapy Martens family!

All better now ~ time for jamies and bed!