Good Morning

Good morning from China. It is 7:40 a.m. and we have been up since 5:15. Another night of not much sleep as the beds are so uncomfortable, but of course Brian slept just fine. I am having trouble posting photos and have to upload one or two at a time. We had a fun day yesterday and we have a great group of families. Shana and Jeff, who will be traveling to the same province are a lot of fun. Jeff is a teacher and coaches wrestling and track so Brian has someone to talk sports with. Shana and I are a lot alike.

Joy, our tour guide in Beijing, is great. Beijing has a population of 16 million people and is only the 3rd largest city in China. Beijing has grown by 2 million people in the last 3 years. The cost of an apartment has doubled and even tripled in the past few years due to the Olympics. Young couples are having to postpone their marriage because they cannot afford a small one bedroom apartment. Also during the Olympics the government limited the days people could drive. It depended on whether your license number ended in odd or even number. We had a great traditional chinese lunch yesterday with normal pork and chicken dishes similar to what we have in the states. Nothing too exotic yet.

We are off to the Forbidden city and it is going to be cold again today. Tomorrow Shiyan, our adoption coordiantor will arrive and hopefully we will get more information on when we will receive Ciarra. Hopefully we will get some more great pictures today and have an easier time getting them posted.

More photos

The Bird's Nest and Water Cube

Day 1 - Great Wall

Cloisonne factory worker

At the Hotel

Today we visited the Cloisonne factory and the Great Wall. It was very cold at the Great Wall. It is approximately 2000 miles longs. We elected to take the tram up. It was very interesting to watch the workers at the cloisonne factory. It takes approximately 7-12 days to complete a piece depending on the size. They have to train for about 1 1/2 years before being able to work at the factory. We drove by the water cube and the Bird's nest. The drivers definitely like to use their horns here. Tomorrow we visit Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It has been great to finally meet the other family that will be traveling to the same province as us. We have been emailing often since we both received our referrals. We are hoping for a better night of sleep tonight.

We made it to Beijing!

Hello from China. After 27 hours we finally made it to our hotel at 10:30 p.m. (China time) which was 8:30 a.m. in the states. We were very tired but our flights were good and they gave us a lot of food. I saw my first squatty potty at the airport but chose to find a normal one. The beds are very hard but were so tired didn't notice too much. It is almost 6:30 a.m here and we are heading to the Great Wall at 8:00 a.m. I hope to have pictures tonight to post from there. Great job to Mid Prairie Golden Hawks on their first victory of hopefully many more. Good luck to Reid tonight at North Dodge and Hannah we will be calling home soon. Love Mom and Dad.

Happy Thanksgiving/5 more days!

Happy Thanksgiving! Only 5 more days until we leave. There were so many times I thought this adoption would not happen and now I am typing 5 more days.....How exciting! We have so much to be thankful for this holiday season, family, friends, our health and a little girl waiting for us in China. God has truly blessed us. We are so thankful for all the support and prayers through this process.

I am so excited and happy but also a little nervous and so many other emotions. I can't wait to hold Ciarra after only having a picture to look at for several months but also a little worried about leaving the kids at home. A HUGE thank you to my parents, Grandma Shers and Pop for taking care of them while we are gone with not much of a break. I know taking care of 3 kids with very busy schedules is a lot when you are not use to it. We will have a cell phone in China and will be calling home often and of course will have to get updates on basketball games.

We are traveling with 4 other families and have been in contact with them. One of the families will be on our flight from Minneapolis to Tokyo to Beijing. There are 3 boys and 2 girls that will be united with their forever families. Please pray that all have a smooth transition.

Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving and our next post will be from China!

Itinerary

Today we received our itinerary. It looks like a busy couple of weeks but we do have a couple free days that will be good for just spending time at the hotel with Ciarra and bonding. We are so excited and ready to travel. I have attached a photo of the care package so that I can make sure it works. We were hoping to have an updated photo of Ciarra to add but it looks like we will have to wait until we get to China.

Dec. 2nd - Depart Cedar Rapids at 9:00 a.m to Minneapolis to Tokyo to Beijing.

Dec. 3rd - Arrive Beijing at 9:40 p.m.

Dec. 4th - Visit the Great Wall and Cloisonne Factory.

Dec. 5th - Visit Tiannanmen Square, the Forbidden City and Hutong Tour.

Dec. 6th - Meeting in the afternoon and Acrobatic show in the evening.

Dec. 7th - Fly to Jinan and meet Ciarra in the afternoon - Gotcha Day!

Dec. 8th - Adoption registration and notarization.

Dec. 9th - Travel to Qingdao (Ciarra's birth city) for her passport and back to Jinan in the evening.

Dec. 10th - Free

Dec. 11th - Visit Daming Lake Park.

Dec. 12th - Receive all documents and fly to Guangzhou and stay at the White Swan.

Dec. 13th - Medical exam in the morning and meeting in the afternoon to review consulate documents.

Dec. 14th - Free.

Dec. 15th - Visa appointment.

Dec. 16th - Go to consulate at 3:00p.m. to take the oath and pick up visa.

Dec. 17th - Fly home.