Let's practice some fine motor skills

Kari is doing well. She is curious and likes to try out everything. Since we have a lot of "everything", there is a lot that we can give her to keep busy. Today we worked on scissor skills. She started out rough, but after a few minutes, she was doing great! She even cut out some watch pictures from an old magazine. It was interesting to watch her, because she kept switching the scissors from her right hand to her left.






We really need to trim her bangs, I guess! Thankfully, I'm going in this Thursday. Maybe Kelly can do her bangs while we are there.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

We had a good day

But not such a good night. Kari was really grieving last night. She allowed me to hold her, but her cries were heartbreaking to hear. She finally stopped crying after I gave her a wind up flashlight to explore. Surprisingly, Betsy didn't wake up during the almost three hours that Kari cried. But then Betsy slept most of the day today.

We went out to visit with some friends for dinner tonight. I wondered how Kari would do, but it doesn't seem to have fazed her. She stayed close to me most of the time, but did venture away a few times to play with some toys. Then tonight I gave the little girls a bath together. Too sweet!



Kari and Betsy have been doing well together with remarkably few quarrels. I've been proud of Betsy for sharing all her toys without complaining. It would be great if they could be friends as well as sisters, wouldn't it?

I'd ordered MeiMei some fake bangs a couple of months ago and they finally came. And guess where they came from? China, of course. And the return label said that they came from Guangzhou. And where in Guangzhou, you ask? Right by our hotel...... If I'd known, I would have walked down the street and saved myself the shipping, LOL. Here she is sporting her new bangs! And fake glasses.... In this getup, she looks just like one of our guides in Guangzhou.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

We are home!

And, apparently really suffering from jet lag!









I took these photos at 5:30 this afternoon....

We had a very uneventful trip home. Love American Airlines. Now it's on to the heaps of laundry that need to get done, unpack all the kin knacks, and figure out where to put everything!

I'll post more after I get some sleep.





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Our last meal in Guangzhou

We decided to splurge and head over to 7/11 and get some ramen noodles. The problem is that they are all in Chinese, so we took a risk and bought what we thought would be the mildest ones. Some were obvious, having bright red chile peppers on the label, but some were a mystery!

We gambled and won! Only one was spicy and Ray and MeiMei loved it.






I think that we are a noodle family! Kari loves noodles and it's a good thing that I've learned to make them. I see a lot of noodles in our future.







- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

They seem to be getting along!

Trying to get them to slow down while spinning Baba's desk chair to take a picture!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I don't know what's funnier.....

Listening to them laughing to a Pleasant Goat DVD, or knowing that only Kari can understand it!





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Shamian Island

After our Consulate Appointment, we all crowded into a cab and headed off to Shamian Island. It's an oasis in the midst of all the craziness that is Guangzhou. You can see lots of European architecture, there are several lovely churches, and lots of open park areas. It's also very quiet compared to the rest of the city. Back when we adopted MeiMei, we stayed at the White Swan hotel, which is traditionally where all the adoptive families stayed. But the White Swan has been closed for three years now renovating all the rooms. They originally had around 800 rooms but will now have 500. Still, we like to visit the island to purchase different things like tea sets, name chops, and flowering teas.

There are also lots of photo ops!











Quite different from this photo from the other day, isn't it? The pix up above - peaceful, quiet, serene.... The photo below - chaos, loudness, sea of humanity...




We also had lunch at Lucy's, a pseudo famous place with "American" cuisine....

We did some shopping at "A Gift From China". This is the one place on Shamian Island where you don't barter. All the proceeds from this shop go back to orphanages, so we like to patronize them.

After lunch, we headed back to find a taxi, and unfortunately, Kari took a bad tumble on the cobblestone street. She is all right now, but it just reminds me that we need to have her evaluated soon after we get home. She is somewhat unstable on her feet. Whether that is from not walking much all her life or from something else, we need to figure it out.






- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Consulate Appointment

This morning, we had our Consulate Appointment. We were part of the first group to go. (There are 18 families here with our agency - huge group...). We had to be on the bus at 7:30 this morning - Blech! But, we are all done and tomorrow our agency guide will pick up our sealed brown envelope and give it to us. We are not allowed to tamper with the envelope and are to hand it over to immigration officials once we land back home. The minute Kari steps foot on US ground, she is a US citizen. WooHoo! That will be in roughly 58 hours, but who's counting???

I just had to put in this cute selfie of Emmie and Kari.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Safari Park

Ray and the girls had a great time at the Safari Park. Kari had her first ice cream cone. She had a hard time at first, but soon figured it out!




This time around, MeiMei got to ride the elephant all by herself.



Ray loved feeding the giraffes - up close and personal!


Emmie, not so much... This giraffe spit out a huge goober on her....


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Two years ago....

In this very same room and very same chair, I took some of the first photos of Betsy and me.



Here we are today, a little more than two years later, same tank top, same watch, and same adorable Betsy, only two years older!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Dragonflies??

We seem to have had an explosion of dragonflies outside of our room today.



Darn, you can't see them.... There is a swarm of them flying outside the window. But, you can actually see the terrain today because it's NOT raining! Everyone in our group headed off to the Safari Park for the day. I stayed back with Betsy since she is still quite sick.

We took a walk around the hotel, got a Starbucks, and just people watched. This trip, there are a lot more countries represented at the hotel. It's fun to see all the different people walking through the lobby and they have several comfy couches from which to observe everyone!

We also had some excitement when I blew a fuse by plugging in the hot pot.... First a young woman came and inspected the problem. She couldn't fix it so she called her manager. The manager couldn't fix it so he called the engineer. Then all three of them came back and between the three of them and me pantomiming, they figured out that it was a fuse. So they called the ladder guy and finally between the five of us, they got the power back on! It was an interesting way to spend an hour stuck in the room.

I'll post more when everyone else gets back from the Safari Park.





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Pee-oh-bubba

Betsy just loves pee-oh-bubba (aka peanut butter) on a spoon and it looks like Kari does, too! Two peas in a pod... They seem to be getting along pretty well, thank goodness!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Shopping with Ann

Today, Ray had the little girls all afternoon while Emmie and I went shopping with Ann Yang, from Red Thread. She is this teeny little thing and she can out walk just about anyone I know! She will take you to the hole in the wall little shops that have all the best bargains for everything from jade to pearls to clothing. Anything you want, Ann can find it for you for less.

Here is Emmie and Ann after our very hot excursion. I'm glad that I was the one taking the picture, because I sure didn't look so cute and perky....


We ended up on a huge pedestrian street that was SO jam-packed with people, it was a bit overwhelming. These pictures do not do it justice:






There were throngs of people as far as you could see. I felt so glad to be with Ann, who knew exactly where we were going!

On top of the fun time shopping, we also rode the subway! Once again, I was so thankful to be with Ann who guided us through the crowds of people to the right train. Emmie and I had a blast. Emmie was able to buy an awful lot of beads for her jewelry making class next semester, so she is very happy!




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Playing

This was our free day, so we explored the hotel and found the little playground area. It was extremely hot and humid, but we had a fun time there.












So, what's with the cute little tongues sticking out? Both Betsy and Kari stick out their tongues....







There was a lovely waterfall near the play area.


All in all we had fun in spite of the heat! Kari has been talking up a storm. Unfortunately, I can only understand a handful of what she's saying. I'm wondering if her voice is really so soft, or if she just isn't projecting herself.






- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Does the Tooth Fairy come to China??

Guess who has a loose tooth!?! Kari came to me this morning looking very perplexed. She pointed to her mouth and lo and behold, there was a very teeny crooked tooth on the bottom!






Kari was really excited. Then Betsy had to get in on the act:






Betsy and Kari have been getting along very well! There are some jealousy issues from Betsy, but they have been few and far between. Kari will always give in to Betsy, so that is something that we will have to work on in the future.






- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

There was a party on the plane

Yesterday we flew from Taiyuan, Shanxi to Guangzhou to complete Kari's adoption. Our plane was supposed to leave at 11:30 a.m. But was delayed for one hour. We finally boarded at 12:30 and taxied out to the runway. Then we stopped. When the attendants started to serve us lunch, we knew we were in trouble....






We waited on the tarmac for THREE HOURS!!! It was crazy! Luckily, only one person had a huge meltdown, and it wasn't even anyone from our family! We finally took off and then ended up circling Guangzhou for 30 minutes. Then, we had to park the plane a long way from the airport and bus back to the terminal. We finally arrived at our hotel and broke our vow once again and ate McDonalds for dinner.

But, we are here, ready to complete the US portion of this adoption. Kari had her medical check today and didn't even cry when she had her blood draw for the TB test.






Since we were the first family to complete all the medical stations, we were able to head to a Western style doctor to find out what is going with Emmie and Betsy. What a very interesting experience! He prescribed an antibiotic for Betsy since she had a 101.4 fever and codeine cough meds for Emmie. I hope that they work since both girls are pretty sick. As an aside, he gave us albuterol patches for Betsy. He said that they are from Japan and work so much better than the inhalers. We'll see!






- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Goodbye, Taiyuan

We leave this morning for Guangzhou to finish up the last leg of Kari's adoption.





For only having around four million people, Taiyuan sure seems like a HUGE city. Whichever way you look, it's just skyscraper after skyscraper. We went out to eat last night at a teeny noodle place. We ate like kings for only $6 total! Betsy really liked the noodles with egg and tomato, and so did I.

Emmie and I have caught whatever Kari and the kids at Harmony House have. Please pray that we can get better soon. This reminds me of the swine flu/H1N1 that we had back in January. Emmie is really coughing badly.

On a more positive note, Kari seems to be doing a little bit better. We had our guide tell her yesterday that it was OK to cry because we know that she is sad. So last night she let me sit next to her at bedtime and rub her back as she cried. It makes me cry when she cries.




Here are all the girls, plugged in.......

More from Guangzhou. Hopefully better internet connections there!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Daily fruit plate, day three

Here's our fruit plate for today:



Yes, that's a zucchini on the bottom.... Do you eat them raw? I usually cook them and everyone loves them, but raw? I'm not so sure, LOL.

We broke our vow to only eat authentic Chinese food on this trip. After our long day at Pingyao, we decided that Kari wouldn't make it walking to a restaurant, so we ordered pizza from Pizza Hut to be delivered. Interesting!







We ordered two large pizzas.... That's Betsy's hand there for reference! No matter the size, they were good! We especially liked the corn on the veggie lovers pizza on the right!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Ancient City of Pingyao

We spent the day getting to and visiting the ancient city of Pingyao, north of Taiyuan. I'd heard good things about the city, so we decided to visit. It was really impressive! For those of you who have been to Beijing, it looks like a huge hutong village, and I mean HUGE! It is completely walled and we walked over half of the wall. You can see the wall in the distance.



It was super hot up on the wall, but we forged on!



The girls we real troopers and didn't complain. Much.....



It was so interesting to hear our Holt guided, Maggie tell us so much about Pingyao. Then we found out that she actually LIVED there from birth to ten years old. She and her parents walked the wall every morning for exercise! They moved to the city of Taiyuan when she was ten because her parents wanted to live in a more convenient location.









But the best part was that the restrooms had western style toilets!!

We stopped at a nice restaurant for lunch. I think that many people here think that Americans must eat huge amounts of food, because this is the third time that someone else has ordered for us and ordered WAY too much food.




Kari is having a hard time keeping up. I think that in the past two days, she has walked more than in her whole life.... But she doesn't complain. She probably wonders what kind of wacky family she's in that drags her all over the place!

I want to download some pix from Emmie's camera because she has some great shots of Kari.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad