Welcome Home & Memorial Day

It has been days since we updated our site. There are a lot of reasons for this probably the most relevant being readjusting to home and all. Our trip home was a trying one to say the least. Due to complications with another one of our families in Hong Kong, we were over an hour late leaving and consequently missed our connecting flight out of Chicago to Dallas. Hey, that is travel and especially when one flies overseas. We do not know how the other family made out or when they finally made it home but have been praying they are safe and with family. What a blessing it was however when we did arrive around midnight Wednesday night (original time 7:35 pm) to see family (both biological and church) waiting on us. Everyone was crying and laughing and hugging and kissing! God is so good. Gracie has been and continues to be such a trooper. She was awesome on the flight home and is adjusting to life in TEXAS! By the way did I mention TEXAS!!! We all have a bit of jet lag still and she is beginning to show signs of teething. She also is having some issues with sleep so we are doing our best to accommodate her as we are still getting to know our girl. She is still such a happy baby! Yesterday we went to Church for the first time (for service only, no Sunday School yet) and she was right at home. As long as Mom & Dad are in sight she is fine with others holding her. We have had many visitors too so she is quite the celeb right now. We have made some discoveries too and they are not all good. She does not like being in her car seat, in a grocery cart or in her running stroller. This morning we took her for our first adventure in the stroller and she was not happy. We only made it around the block before Dad made the decision to return to port. It was sprinkling too so maybe she just did not want to mess her hair up with a big day planned at Grandma & Grandpa's. We are to be there at 2:00 for her first Memorial Day Celebration. We will take pictures and do another update tonight. More later as the little princess has just awoken from her morning nap.

Rick & Deena

Update - Guangzhou

I will try and put thoughts and ideas down that Deena and I have discussed over the last two weeks. This is my attempt to not forget as well. We pray for the biological mothers of these adopted children. It breaks our hearts to look into the eyes of our now forever daughter and think that she was given up. This is a very hard working and proud culture that with just a few changes, and we pray those are coming, huge differences could be made. These children are absolutely beautiful and to think this is just a very small portion that come from state housing. China is a massive mixture of energy, ingenuity, intellect and tradition that goes on and on and on. It is hard to change the direction of a river but, we know of One who parted a sea so we continue to pray for this country. It is almost 10:00 p..m. here in Guangzhou and very early tomorrow morning we leave to come home. We are so ready to begin the long flight but on the same note it is a little bitter sweet as we know there are other "daughters" waiting. We bid two of our adoptive group farewell tonight as our flight plans take us in different directions. We have a very special bond however in that God placed us in this country at the same time to support and love on each other as we make this journey together. Again last night the comment was made to Deena and I that Gracie was a lucky girl. We stated that we were the ones who had been blessed by this. The gentleman went on to say that he understood our thoughts but she would have become one of the forgotten ones and thanked us. Our stay in China has been a wonderful mix of business, adventure and pleasure. Trying to always be mindful that we are guests in the country we could not have been treated any kinder or looked after more thoughtfully. Our Helping Hand representative Susan is an extraordinary individual with a strong faith base, quick wit and iron will to keep us unruly families in check. We will miss her but pray that she remains strong in her calling to shepherd waiting families. After spending almost two weeks with us she is still smiling so it really is a God thing for her. Well got to go to bed as we really do need to get up early and get started. It will be good to hear the words welcome home!!

Rick & Deena

Day Three - Guangzhou

Well believe it or not the
"cast iron" stomach finally gave
up. Yesterday was not a good
day for Dad. We survived
however and made a cruise
down the Pearl River tonight.
This is the body of water that is just outside our bedroom window. It is responsible for a tremendous amount of commerce in this portion of China. Today Susan, our Helping Hand representative, went to the US Consulate and we received our document stating that Gracie is officially ours. God continues to bless us as we near the final leg of our destination. Tomorrow we go to the US Consulate as the final "official" act in our adoption. The next step is for us to get on our return flight to home. Praise God! As comfortable as they have tried to make this, we are all ready to come home. The photos here are of the hotel where there is an inside waterfall and a huge koi pond. The 3rd picture is Deena in front of a sculpture of "Uncle Dave". It's amazing how having never met him they have his likeness exact. Picture 4 & 5 are of the cruise. Still a bit tired so will attempt to blog more indepth tomorrow. Two days from home!!

Rick & Deena

Day 1 - Guangzhou

Today was big day as went for our physical check-up here in Guangzhou. She passed with flying colors to no ones surprise as she is a beautiful and healthy baby girl. This is the final health document that will be submitted to the US Consulate on Monday. Due to travel we were unable to update the blog last night. We arrived about 1 1/2 hours late due to weather. All the babies were pretty great even with the late hour and all. Our three families travelled as did 11 other families from Changsha to Guangzhou. It was pretty much a baby flight. We flew on China Southern and it was a very roomy and comfortable hour in the air. We can hardly believe that we are down to the last three full days here in China with us flying out on Wednesday. As has been the case with all of our Hotels this is super. In fact, this is the finest hotel that we have ever been in. It is much busier here however as this is the final stage for all the adoptive parents in China. Needless to say the Hotel is full of Gringo's from all nationalities with adoptive children of all ages. Interestingly, we sat next to a business man from here in Guangzhou and I made the comment to him how blessed we were to have this little person and he looked me in the eyes and said "No, she is the one who is blessed". The Hotel sits on the Pearl River and we can look out our window and see the boats moving up and down the river all day. The White Swan is quite a famous hotel and many celebrities have stayed here. Those include two US President's, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. Queen Elizabeth has also been a guest. Right now the hotel is quite full of local royalty, our "Asian Princesses". Now to the photos. The top two on the left are from Changsha and are of the Ancient Academy. One was an entrance and the other was the "rock" concert we enjoyed. Picture 3 is Deena and Barbara Elkins of Alexandria, La. She and her husband Brian have adopted a special needs daughter who is absolutely beautiful. This is walking the streets of Guangzhou. Pictures 4 & 5 are of you know who. Believe it or not she is like this about 85% of the time. She is the happiest baby! Tonight we ate American Food at a place called Lucy's Bar & Cafe. A pretty varied menu that served burgers, fries, chicken fingers, enchalades and chips and hot sauce. Tomorrow we venture to another International Church service and I believe we are going for Thai Food. Other than that we have no scheduled activity for the day. I think that Honey has shopping on her mind. Outside our bedroom window on the river tonight there is a Lazer Light Show to Chinese Music. It is a spectacular sight of lights over the water. Well that is enough catching up for now. The local timeis about 9:15 p.m. and when "The Princess" sleeps it's a good idea for everyone to try and rest.

Rick & Deena

Day Four - Changsha

Okay everyone, this is my
second attempt tonight to update the site. I lost my first message trying to incorporate additional pictures into the mix. Silly, silly me! So, from the top, here we go again. The first two photos are from the HunanEmbroidery Institute from yesterday. As you can hopefully see this is some pretty amazing and wonderful work. I will again try and describe what you are seeing. It is two pieces of cloth, so thin you can not distinguish one from the other, sewn together in mirror images. On one side is the tiger and on the other is the panda. The base fabric is so thin you can see through it! It is impossible to see where one stitch from one end and where the other begins. Picture 3 is Deena, Gracie and I sitting outside the Institute where it is much cooler enjoying the Koi Pond. Picture 4 depicts one of the highlights of our day yesterday and today as we passed school kids getting out for their 2 hour break at 12:00. They were all so happy and friendly each laughing and saying hi! We saw a smaller number of them today as we made it a point to be on the street when they were out. In the last frame is the Little Princess doing her best impression of shooing away the paparazzi! Can't you just hear her saying "Not today, really, I mean it!" You will notice she is flanked by her bodyguards (the rabbit that Matt made for her and the panda mom & dad sent her in her care package to the orphanage). Today was a pretty relaxed day for us in the we had only scheduled event. This afternoon we visited the Yue Lu Ancient Academy Center. This was an institute of higher learning originally attended only by men. This facility dates back to the time of the building of the Great Wall. One thing I have learned is that stuff here is really old! (Looking around, I think that some of these people have underwear as old as the US.) I would encourage anyone to look the facility up on the web as it is most interesting. Upon conclusion of our visit our Helping Hand friend, Susan arranged for us to hear two musical pieces in a small theater on the Ancient Campus. The instruments were a flute and horn, a horizontal harp (much like a dobro) steel bells and slate plates. The tunes were remarkably beautiful. We were told that most Chinese music is for meditation. Obviously they have never listened to Chinese Rap. Yomorrow evening we leave for the final stage of our trip, Guangzhou. Here we will be staying at the famed White Swan and it must really be something if it is going to top the Dolton here in Changsha. More tomorrow. It's late.

Rick

Day Three - Changsha

Our day began today at 5:30 again with the little princess waking us hungry and wanting attention. Needless to say she got both and we just kept going from there. The Dolton where we are staying is a beautiful place with some 35-40 floors (maybe more). Numerous restaurants, pools and meeting places along with what I may have mentioned earlier business offices and a massive waterfall over glass. These are the kindest and most helpful people you could imagine. The staff at every place we have been, be it restaurant or hotel have done nothing but try to meet whatever need we might have. We met at 9:30 to tour an Embroidery Factory and it was simply amazing. This region of China, Hunan, is known for many things. The spicy food for one but it also is a center for historic art work. Part of this is embroidery. The factory portion we got to see was a multi level facility part museum, gift shop and workroom. The art work, and I do mean art work displayed some pieces were over 2000 years old. An excavation that began in 1972 unearthed some of these pieces and it was determined that embroidery began in the Hunan Province. I am sure that this point could be debated by more knowledgeable on the topic that I but they are not doing this blog site!! We viewed a piece of art work that was a tiger on one side and a panda on the other and you could not tell where one began or ended. We saw a tiger who's eyes followed you as you walked past the work. These were in the museum section. In the workshop we saw how the whole process was done. Very tedious with the finest thread I have ever seen sewing through silks. In the gift shop there were bargans and than some of the most expensive items I have ever seen and quite honestly after seeing how it was done, well worth it. Countless hours of work. From there we were dropped off relatively close to the hotel so we could buy diapers. We walked the back streets of Changsha in a market area that revealed many new worlds to these Western eyes. The freshest of fruit and vegetables to live frogs, eels, chickens , fish, turtles. You name it. I was very proud of Deena in that took it all in stride as the only time I thought she was going to get upset was when she saw a man hitting a dog. Once back at the hotel we rested up a bit and made plans to go out again at 3:00. Gracie was a bit fussier this afternoon but got on a nap needing to be held most of it. Thats okay because she needs to know we are not going anywhere. At 3:00 we met in the lobby again the vbisit what is know as the Hunan Provencial Museum. Here we got to see the beginnings of the Hunan Culture. On display was a 2100 year mummy who's body was autopsied in the 70's and the organs were on display as she was literally fermented in alcohol and other chemicals. Her skin upon autopsy was still firm and plyable. The museum housed artifacts from the eras that included bronze, stone, earthen wares and weapons. Arrows from cross bows that could shoot over 200 meters. The wooden tomb that the mummy and other items were found in was a large box structure inside of which was another box and another box and another, until you finally got to the main coffin. The outer most structure sides were probably 20 feet in length, ten foot tall and a good two feet wide. Each of the side pieces (imagine a wooden shoe box) were cut from one piece of wood with no butted up or spliced pieces. This would make the tree from which they were cut at least 10 -15 foot in diameter. Now thats a big tree!!! After our visit to the museum we ate at a very nice local restaurant that our guide and mother hen Susan set up. Many interesting foods and all very good. I can tell you one thing these people know how to cook and rice is served at the end of the meal to not spoil the other dishes. The Chinese also do not serve soy sauce with their meals as they believe it not a healthy condiment and has no nutritional value. To date there has been only one dish that I was not found of at all and it was called something like "stinky bean loaf". It was a tofu type of loaf that needed to be soaked in a sauce to make it appealing. Even with this it was not to my liking. Well it is 9:00 p.m. here and I need to shower and turn in as I think we will be up early in the morning. God has truly blessed us with this baby girl as more and more everyday the bound between us grows stronger. She is healthy, beautiful and loving. He has watched over us this whole trip, answered many prayers for not only us but the entire AHH group. These people that do this for a living are truly called. They are part babysitter, part tourguide, part diplomat and always Gods servant. Putting expectant parents together with God's children is hard work. We Praise Him for calling them to this service and we applaud them for answering the call. There is no chance circumstance with God, and on Sunday at the church service we visited we sang "He Knows My Name". Deena and I looked at one another with tears in our eyes and we knew that Gracies name was one he knew quite well. Praising God from whom all Blessings Flow!! Later.

Rick & Deena <><

Day Two - Changsha

Well it is 1:35 pm here in Changsha and Mom and Daughter are down for a nap. Our schedule today was breakfast, meet at the bus at 9:30 to go to WalMart. She is ruined already! I must say that overall these are very friendly and helpful people. They range from courious to where they come right up and start talking to Gracie to an appearance of almost anger. I want to say "What are you looking at" to some at times but I know that my reaction, not knowing the circumstances could very easily be the same. They have never been aggressive or rude however. Most just give a blank look as we walk by. Changsah is a busy city. From appearance it resembles most large cities in that there is a tremendous amount of traffic and people. I am sure in one of my previous blogs I noted there are about 3 million people here. It is amazingly clean. The people dress very Western with a tinge of local idenity. Our drivers in both Beijing and here in Changsha are marvels. These folks drive so close to one another you literally could touch the other vehicles. It is organized chaos and they do it quite well. In Beijing there was every type of food one could imagine. Here in Changsah it is pretty localized. You still have KFC and McDonalds, even Pizza but not much other international cuisine. Tonight we go to a "Famous" restaurant that's name translates to Red Eyes because it is very spicy. I was told that Susan our guide, who also happens to be our Helping Hand Representative, ordered "spicy fish head" as one of the dishes. Honestly, I can't wait to try it. Deena has done quite well in trying new foods and using chopsticks. Nothing Green yet however. The food is typically served on single item platters and at every table is a very large lazy susan to rotate the dishes directly in front of each of us. There is usually only one serving of any particular dish but there are no fewer than 5 or 6 dishes. This is all complemented by lots of rice. A point of interest is that you do not eat rice with chopsticks, they are used to shovel or push rice into your mouth by raising your bowl or small plate. Drinks are served only slightly chilled and there are no diet drinks with the meals as part of the service. Always a coke and sprite type of product, water, hot tea (which has not disappointed me yet) and beer. I find myself at night drinking a cup or small pot of the local tea in the room. In every room there is a water pot to boil water. This is used for tea and purifys what we need to make Gracies formula and wash/rinse our dishes. They are pretty cool. It's amazing how one makes do and becomes creative on ways to get things done as we have to rinse our tooth brushes in this water too. Needless to say we boil a lot of water. They supply you with drinking water in the rooms but it is only two bottles a day. We find our selves refilling them with the cooled purified water we have boiled. Well I need to sign off as "if the Girls wake up" we are going on an adventure to a drug store across the street from the Hotel to find "100 Year Old Chinese Formula". Later!

Rick <>< (copied that from pastor Chris)

It's Official

Here she is guys. Pictures 2 and 3 are from inside of the Department of Civil Affairs in Changsha (the city we are in). Picture number 1 is on the bus going back to the hotel. We will be here for 5 days total than on to Guangzhou. Gracie is beautiful. Her temperment is very playful and she talks alot. She eats well so we know she is a Coon. For a group of babies that left the only thing they know as home at 4:00 this morning, they are all doing very well. It is difficult to think that less than 9 hours ago her life was so different. Now our lives are so different. Tonight at 6:30 we have a dinner for the adoptive families. Here in Changsha there are only three from our original group here. We will catch up to another family in Guangzhou and the 5th family of our party left yesterday for Guangzhou to travel home after that. The hotel here is pretty amazing. It is a first class establishment that appears to cater to families adopting. There are statues of mothers with Babies, play rooms, toys, etc. Ironically it also attracts a large number of business men and the facility has businesses w/in. The people are awesome. Changzhou has about 3 million people and appears to be a much more liberal city. It is know for it's night life and restaurants. We have eaten quite well. In the morning it is a Western Breakfast with hints of Asia, rice, gongi, vegetables and dumplings. Along with this of course are waffles, eggs, bacon, etc. Most of our big meals to date have been very traditional. Well we need to get Gracie ready for dinner hoping she does not fall asleep before we go donwstairs. More later, enjoy the pictures and oh yea, by the way YEE HA! Praise God!!

She's Perfect

GOD IS SO GOOD! If you think that I was screaming this statement you are correct! After waiting almost two years for this process to complete, we arrived at the Office of Civil Affairs this morning at approximately 10:00 local time. We were leaving the office at 10:30 with our babies. What a whirlwind event. We have to return to the same office for paperwork at 2:30 which takes about two hours but officially she is now Gracie Marie Ming Coon. She is a healthy "Hunan Girl"!! For those of you who are unaware of what that means, she is "firey and opinionated". Already sounds just like her mother, imagine that! She has what appears to the "Gringo" eye a bruise referred to as Mongolian Spot on her back. This looks like a faint brusing that will fade as she gets older. It is said this is where she was pinched by God in the womb. After seeing her, holding her and feeling her breath on my neck I believe it. She has a strong grip and right now a pretty funky hair-do. We are not sure if this was from heat rash or something else. To describe it, if you shaved your head up the sides to just above you ears, and then let it grow in a couple of days along with a cowlick in the front of varing lengths, thats it. I am going to get my hair done like this!! In turn I will be speaking to others in our group to get the same style so be prepared. Later this evening we will add photos to the site. I must tell you that in the excitement of the moment, and again I say it happened pretty quick, I forgot to take the lens cap off the movie camera and was "just filming away" saying "It's not working!" Eventually I figured out what I had done and got some good stuff.

Mother's Day

Well this will be somewhat short, as it is 10:30 pm Sunday, and we get our beautiful little Gracie in about 12 hrs. It was quite a busy day again, all on about 6 hours of sleep since we left DFW on Thursday AM. We went to Tiennamen Square today and the Forbiddin City, an incredible amount of history and a ton of people. The most exciting thing we did today was go to an International Church Service in Beijing. It was very much like our service at home and the title of the sermon was "All God's Children are Adopted", it was very emotional as they also celebrated Mother's Day also. We are now in Changsha (Hunan), our babies will be brought to the Civil Affairs Building tomorrow around 10, then we have several steps of paperwork to do and then they are ours. It still hardly seems real! Hope all you MOM'S AND MOM'S TO BE HAVE A WONDERFUL MOTHER'S DAY!

Deena

Day One In China

Here we are at The Great Wall. What an awesome experience. There is no reasoning as to the steps however, they range from flats to 4 to 12-14 inches in height in some places. The wall is a facinating structure that twists and turns itself around the mountain. The towers you see in the distance are/were Guard Towers to look out over the valley to watch for raiding Mongols. Some are quite small others fairly large as they were used for garrisons. It was a beautiful day to be there as well. We climbed to the tower just over our inside shoulders, roughly a million miles away and 40,000 feet. Seriously, there are some 25,000 towers that line the wall and they are two arrow shots from each other in spacing. This way the soldiers could defend the whole wall at any given time. At this point in our day we were coming down and looking for a "Coke Lite". We tried to post additional photos but did not have the patience this evening. The Great Wall was our second stop of the day with a Jade Factory being the first. It is quite interesting to see how jade is carved and polished, not to mention how it was graded on a ABC type of scale. On the way back to the city we stopped at a Vase manufacturing facility. Famous for vases and lacquer paintings, this was something to see. Lastly we visited The Summer Palace in Beijing to more amazing buildings and an opportunity for everyone to get a look at "the Gringos". Our day begins early tomorrow as we go to The Forbidden Palace, an International Church and ultimately fly out to Hunan. Well it's 10:30 so gotta go for now. It's less than 48 hours before we get to see our "girl".

Rick

We're Here!!!

Well everyone we arrived today in the massive and I mean massive city of Beijing. It is actually quite facinating and beautiful. It is a mixture of Old World Culture and the most modern. It is very early morning your time 4:45 a.m., we on the other hand show the local time as 5:45 p.m. Tomorrow we go to a Jade Market, the Summer Palace and The Great Wall. We are running out of gas so more later!!

Rick & Deena

One Week From Today

We can hardly believe it but in 1 week we will be in China to begin a journey that will last "the rest of our lives". The journey of bringing one we waited so long for home. There is so much to do in these last couple of days it seems like the lists never end. At 7:40 a.m. on the 10th however when that plane takes off, we will go into a 3 day labor with delivery scheduled for Monday. It will still be Mothers Day here in the states, so "Happy Mothers Day" all. This is so beautiful because on Thursday the the 10th when we depart, it's Mothers Day in Mexico. (What that has to do with anything, I don't know it just seems to be monumental.) We are going to make a valid attempt to update the blog site while in China. I can not wait to send pictures back for all to see. If I am not crying too hard the first time Mommy holds her Gracie, we will put it on the web. God is so good and we have been so blessed.