Alia The Noble

We Are Home

2006-09-18T12:25:00.000-06:00

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

2006-09-13T01:11:00.000-06:00

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

2006-09-12T05:30:00.000-06:00

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

2006-09-11T00:13:00.000-06:00

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

2006-09-10T07:36:00.000-06:00

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!

2006-09-09T04:43:00.000-06:00

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

2006-09-08T00:48:00.000-06:00

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
This file is 2.5M in size

Touring Changsha

2006-09-07T01:37:00.000-06:00

Today we toured Hunan University & Du Fu Temple in Changsha. The university was an interesting mix of old and new. We saw the oldest buildings left after the World War II Japanese bombings. The university was the first place bombed in Changsha since it was the center of thought and the heart of the city. As you can see by the picture, it is also a very beautiful place.

The Du Fu Temple is a neat place. It is positioned right on the river, which makes for a great backdrop. The temple surroundings were peaceful with trees, benches, and pottery.

We are well. We can’t believe it has been 8 days with only a little over a week left. We plan to take a taxi to the Pizza Hut for a little American nourishment. We will see if they have the typical American toppings or snake, bullfrogs, and fish. Here is a link to a cute video of Alia showing her happy side.

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

She's A Morris

2006-09-06T00:17:00.000-06:00

The past couple of days have been running around Changsha shopping, eating, and visiting a silk embroidery factory. Hunan is famous for its silk embroidery, which we found to be amazing. We taught Alia the 2 main things it takes to be in the Morris household – eating and shopping. We took Alia to McDonalds and she likes french fries.

We went to the grocery store to buy formula. The lady we worked with did not speak English and we do not speak Chinese. We were trying to figure out how much it was and the lady kept pointing to a sign in Chinese and putting up a 3 and then a 1 with her fingers. We thought she was saying it was 31 Yuan, but the sign below the formula said 19.80 Yuan. She also wanted us to fill out a piece of paper before we could buy the formula. We though maybe they rationed their formula. She then took me to the front counter, had another lady ring up the formula to show me the price, which was 19.80 Yuan. I told her I wanted 6 packages and she made us fill out the form.

We then went back to the formula isle and she put 8 bags of formula in the bag. I told her that I only bought 6 bags. She started the 3 and 1 thing again. I FINALLY realized that she was telling me that if I signed up for their discount card that there was a special on the formula of buy 3 get 1 free. So, it took us 20 minutes to buy formula.

We are starting to know some of Alia’s cues for tired, hungry, and get me out of this hotel room, which is making life a little easier. We are very much enjoying our time here but miss McKenna and Nathaniel something awful. We have a couple more days in Changsha and then off to Guangzhou to finish up paperwork.

Please continue to pray for our heath and that the time would go by fast for the kids. Thank you all for your support in this adventure.

Orphanage Visit

2006-09-04T19:42:00.000-06:00

The last two days we have had the privilege of visiting several of the girls’ orphanages and staying in their birth city of Yongzhou. We visited two city orphanages in Yongzhou and then traveled to an orphanage about 1 ½ hours away to a small country side orphanage called Shaungpai. Alia’s orphanage was the second one we went to and she spent her entire time there. It is in the Leng Shui Tan District Children Welfare Institute of Yongzhou City. It was only the second time the orphanage has opened their doors to adoptive parents. It is because of our adoption agency and the good relationship that Morgan has with all of the CCAA that we were able to get permits to view the orphanage.

Anyhow, it was a whirl wind trip filled with a lot of emotions. Her abandonment site was the front gate of the orphanage so we took lots of pictures of the front gate as well as inside the orphanage. The orphanage itself was a cement and cinder block type building with a courtyard on the inside. It was a two story building with most of the babies on the top floor. There were four rooms, one for cribs, one for walkers and a TV, an empty room that looked like it had trash in it, and another room for making formula and sterilizing bottles. All the floors were cement and some of the windows were broken. We only saw about 6 other orphan babies there, although the director said there were about 30 kids. There were also about 15 special needs older children there that the director said would live their entire lives at the orphanage. When we walked into the orphanage we were rushed by the nannies and a lot of the local people who lived in the apartments that surrounded the orphanage.

Surprisingly they ALL knew her name! People just kept coming up to us and shouting “Ou Li, Ou Li”!!! She drew quite a crowd. By the end of the visit one of the nannies was crying when we left, and of course I was crying too. I have such mixed feelings of sadness over where she spent the first part of her life and the conditions that she lived in, and such joy to know that she was definitely well taken care of and loved by all of the workers. There are other details (all good) that we found out that I don’t want to post that we’ll share when we get home, but the fact that we even have Alia is very amazing and we feel blessed to have this gift from China. More later!

Quick Update

2006-09-04T07:29:00.000-06:00

The past couple of days we visited orphanages. We will update tomorrow morning after a good nights sleep. Check back, we have some good info to share.

The Heat

2006-09-02T00:10:00.000-06:00

Today we ventured down the busy streets of Changsha. The heat and humidity were unbearable and by the time we got back to the hotel we were all drenched with sweat. The locals are still very interested in the Caucasian couple with an Asian baby – some smile, some scowl. It makes me wonder what they’ve been told about Americans coming to take their babies away.

The streets are amazing! You can walk over a man-hole and think you just entered a sewage plant and the next 10 steps bring you to a plush garden. The picture with Christy and Alia reveals the humidity and smog (100 degrees today). We can barely see the buildings outside our hotel widow due to this thick haze. Changsha is a very interesting place, but it’s not Colorado, that’s for sure.

Alia is a little sick today. Please pray that she feels better before we travel on our 4 hour bus ride to YongZhou in the morning. She seems to be bonding with us a little better today and we are getting more smiles and giggles. We have been showing her pictures of McKenna and Nathaniel so she will be ready to play when she gets home.

It's Official!

2006-09-01T02:44:00.000-06:00

Hi, Everyone,
This morning we woke up and drove to the civil affairs office to finalize our adoption. According to the Chinese government, Alia is officially ours. After 2 hours in the unairconditioned building and signing papers, we went back to the hotel and ordered room service for lunch while Alia napped. After nap we got a taxi to Walmart! It's a 3 story building with escalator for the carts. If you think the Walmart in Greeley is nuts, it doesn't even compare to the one in China! The food section consisted of live animals including frogs and turtles.

Alia seems to be getting more familiar with us. She's finally given us a couple of smiles today. I don't know what her personality will be like after she's adjusted to daily life in the Morris house, but for now she seems very quiet and curious. I guess I don't really know what to do with a quiet baby. Maybe she'll perk up after a few days. She has only cooed and babbled a couple of times and the only time she has cried is when we put her down :) Last night she took a bottle and slept from 8:30 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. She cried out a couple of times in the night and I put my hand on her and she fell back to sleep. I'm encouraged that she wants to be held and that our presence is comforting to her. It's a good beginning to bonding. She is cutting her first tooth and has a bit of a runny nose, otherwise seems to be in good health. She seems much smaller than her picture makes her look.

Tomorrow is a free day, so maybe we'll go do a little shopping and brave crossing the street again. It truly is a life threatening experience (as well as riding in a taxi). Of course breathing the air here is probably not that good for you either. China is an amazing place. It feels surreal to be here. I'm enjoying the experience but I'm aching for home. We miss you Mac and Nat!!

Love,
Dustin and Christy

Your New Sister

2006-08-31T06:37:00.000-06:00

McKenna & Nathaniel, we would like you to meet your new sister Alia. Right now she is very quiet, but I bet you guys will change that soon. I think she is going to love playing dolls with you McKenna and wrestling with you Nathaniel. We love and miss you VERY much and can't wait to get back home so Alia can meet you. Here is a video of the day we got Alia.

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

GOTCHA!!!

2006-08-31T03:25:00.000-06:00

Well, we now have Alia with us in the room. We picked her up at the (very hot & humid) Civil Affairs Office. Alia seems very alert and curious. She was hungry and fell asleep with a bottle once we got back to the hotel room. Her face has thinned a little so she is not as chubby as we thought she would be. We will post again later tonight!

We Made It!

2006-08-30T22:10:00.000-06:00

We made it to Changsha after 32 hours of tavel time. We slept well on the 15 hour flight from LAX to China and so we feel pretty good. I am posting this at 12pm Changsha time so we are 2 hours away from GOTCHA!!!! We are blessed to be feeling so well and we anticipate a good meeting with Alia. The kids sound like they are fine, which is good news. I will post again later this evening when we have some pictures to share.

On Our Way!

2006-08-26T21:30:00.000-06:00

Here we go. We are leaving for China on Tuesday August 29th and will return Saturday September 16th. This length of time is longer than originally anticipated, but we are still ready for the trip. Could you please pray for us as we travel and for the kids and grand parents as they hold down the fort. We will attempt to update this blog while we are in China, but we understand that some people have had issues with updating their blog from China. If that happens, we will update the following web page http://home.comcast.net/~morrismedia/. We thank you all for your love and support in this endeavor and hope to see you when we get back.

Things We Know About Alia

2006-08-09T22:57:00.000-06:00

Her birthday is November 22, 2005
She weighs 18 lbs as of August 5th
She has no teeth, but eats well
She is a deep sleeper (we'll see about that)
Her favorite toy is a doll
She can roll over and sit alone
She is living in an orphanage in YongZhou, Hunan Province, China
She is adorable

Introducing Alia

2006-08-04T18:52:00.000-06:00

WE HAVE REFERRAL!!!!

Yong Ou Li from the Hunan Province will become Alia Fei Yong Morris sometime this September when we travel to China to finalize the adoption. We are very excited for this trip and especially the new addition to our family. Here are some items to be praying about:

Alia's protection in the orphanage and that God would be her comforter and peace
That God will prepare her heart to connect with our family and to prepare our family to receive her
safety for the travel to China
A relaxing trip
Peace at our house for McKenna, Nathaniel, and the grandparents while we are gone

We will update with more information when the papers have been translated