We Are Home

We made it home and are doing pretty good. We are adjusting to the time change so Alia is having trouble sleeping through the night. We all have colds, which is making things a little more interesting. The kids are adjusting well to Alia and Alia is adjusting to the Morris zoo. Please pray that we can catch up on sleep and get over this cold so we can press on. Thank you all for your prayers through this adventure.

Two More Days

Today was another day of shopping. It rained whiled we strolled the streets of the island which made it feel more tropical. We have been blessed with nice, cool weather so far in Guangzhou. I don’t think it has been out of the 80’s the whole time. We are very much looking forward to getting home to see our family. We leave for the airport at 5pm on Friday, stay the night in LA, and fly home on Saturday.

Alia is well and she is ready to get to her new home and meet her Jie Jie (big sister) and Ge Ge (big brother).

Alia On Safari

Today we went to the Chimelong Xiangjiang Safari Park in Guangzhou. It was half touring by safari bus and half walking. The zoo was interesting in that some of the exhibits were to look at the animals and others were performing animals. We saw the elephant show and it was pretty amazing to see them walk on a balance beam, stand on platforms and do other tricks. I don’t know what training methods they use, hopefully good ones. There were also performances by white tigers, dolphins, and birds. The koala exhibit was good, but the panda bear habitat was disappointing. Some parts of the zoo were very well maintained with animals that looked happy and others were not.

The picture of Alia is when we were on the safari train. We got to see sun bears on the safari which was a treat since we’ve never seen a live one before. We were supposed to bring a sack lunch to the park today, but hotel living doesn’t exactly give you a lot of choices so we ended up taking some peanuts, craisins, and a coke! Needless to say we were hungry when we got home so we had an early dinner at Lucy’s (a restaurant here on the island) that caters to Westerners. We had a cheeseburger and fries. After dinner we walked around the island and then bought a couple of Haagen-Dazs bars and called it a night. Tomorrow is more paperwork for Morgan (our adoption liaison) which means a free day for us. We miss you Nat and Mac!!

Health Check

Today we woke up and had breakfast at The White Swan’s buffet. It comes with the price of the room and is nice to have our choice of Western or Chinese breakfast and to relax by the river view. The picture of the waterfall is the inside lobby/buffet area in our hotel. It’s really beautiful and refreshing, especially after being in noisy and dirty Changsha.

After breakfast we went to get Alia’s visa photo taken and then had her physical exam done. This is required to complete the adoption. She did really well during the exam and didn’t fuss at all. There is a video link of her exam that you can check out if you want. She is 19.8 pounds and 28 inches tall. She’s a real chubster!

After we had official business taken care of we left the island (our hotel is surrounded by the Pearl River) and walked to McDonald’s J. I don’t particularly crave McDonald’s, but if I have one more Chinese meal, I’m going to cry. McKenna wanted to celebrate us coming home by going to Panda Express, but I’m hoping she’ll relent and let us get some Mexican food or a nice salad. Dustin is going to do more adoption paperwork this afternoon. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to go out and do a little shopping. There are all kinds of shops on the island that cater to adoption families. Hopefully we’ll be able to find some matching outfits for McKenna and Alia and something special for Nathaniel, as well. We hope everyone is doing well. We’re getting antsy to get home to the kids and to brush our teeth with tap water. We’re dreaming of home and a soft bed!




http://home.comcast.net/~morrismedia/Healthcheck.wmv

Shop 'Til You Drop

Well, today was not a good day to leave the camera in the hotel! We went to Chen’s Clan Academy which is a museum of local folk art and history of the people in Guangzhou. It was filled with all sorts of interesting artifacts, pottery, sculptures, carvings, and embroidery. After the museum we went to Six-Banyan-Tree Temple which is a 1500 old Buddhist Temple. The temple was pretty neat and since it was Sunday we got to see some of the people burning incense. I was standing next to the incense thingy and was yelled at to move so an older lady with about 10 sticks of incense could get in and do her thing.

The next stop on the trip was the Jade and Pearl Wholesale store. We found a few items the fit our fancy, but not the checkbook. We were quite entertained by Crazy Herb the Miracle Tea Pot Salesman. He showed us the value of his wares and one particularly impressive hole in the lid that, when pressed, stopped the flow of tea. He was also so impressed with his pot that he did not accept our 50% of asking price offer, so we didn’t buy one.

This week seems to be more touring and shopping and only a little bit of adoption stuff. I think the last couple of things we need to do are to get Alia’s visa and say our vows. We are enjoying our time in Guangzhou and especially the White Swan.

We Made It!

We are now in Guangzhou. Alia did great on the plane and our room is now a mess, which is the way we've been living for the past 11 days. The White Swan is a very beautiful hotel. It is not much to look at from the outside, but the inside is just grand. The Pearl River at night looks like Las Vegas on the water (pictures to follow). The surrounding area is kind of like a slimed-down version of Main Street at Disneyland. We walked across the street to the 7-11 to get bottled water for Alia’s bottles. I think we will enjoy our stay here.

Tomorrow we plan to take a tour of a pearl and jade factory and visit a spectacular temple at the base of some amazing mountains. We hope to provide some cool pictures of this outing – we shall see.

Last Day in Changsha

Tomorrow we say goodbye to Changsha and begin the last leg of our trip in Guangzhou. We will leave with mixed emotions. We enjoyed our stay here, but look forward to the next phase of the trip and then getting home to our family.

Christy was sick and stayed in bed most of the day. This gave Dustin some daddy daughter time, which he really enjoyed. He went to the walking mall with Dave and Lori, but Lori had to return early due to sickness. Dave and Dustin stayed at the walking mall in hopes of finding a sports bar to watch the Miami v. Pittsburgh NFL game, but to no avail. They saw a very promising “Sports All” sign, which turned out to be 20-30 shops of sport shoe stores and a McDonalds.

Alia is doing great! She is really coming around and showing us her personality. We find that she is a sweet little charmer with a temper when she doesn’t get fed quick enough. We think she will fit in quite nicely with the Morris family.

Please continue to pray for our health, safety, and that all the paperwork goes through properly.

UPDATE: We had a very nice surprise after we made this post. Alia is now crawling and we got her very first crawl on video.

http://home.comcast.net/~morrismedia/Alia_Crawls_Now.wmv
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