Hanging Out

We are still hanging out in and around our hotel. It was gorgeous weather today, about 80 degrees. Many of the locals were in the park enjoying their day off. Kaia still has shown no signs of separation issues. We asked a English speaking local to ask Kaia if she knew what was going on and she told her she was adopted and going to America to live with her new Mama and Baba. Kaia told her they don't eat rice in America but only Big Mac's! That was pretty funny. She loves fruit and some veggies. We eat at Lucy's at least once a day as their food is pretty good. They make a great Long Island Ice Tea too!

We are really looking forward to some siteseeing in the next few days.

Doing Great

Kaia continues to do quite well. She really is well behaved and it appears the nannies did a good job with her. We question her age as she is a full 3" shorter than Hannah although supposedly a year older. Hannah is also Zhuang Chinese and a little taller than Han Chinese so maybe that is part of it.

Kaia had her first piece of pizza tonight and it was comical because she didn't know how to attack it. Stayed away from the "Danger Zone" of across the river today :)~

We have the weekend off as our guide says weekends are too busy to go to the zoo? Oh well.

We are enjoying just getting to know our new addition. Oh, she can write 1 to 20 in English so they must be teaching some of that at the orphanage.

That's it for now!

Good Day Bad Day

The Good News is that we finalized the Chinese portion of the adoption making her legally ours from the Chinese standpoint.

After leaving the Civil Affairs office, our guide took us to a shopping area which was very busy. Nothing like you have ever seen in the States. Anyway, I kept telling Darlene "lets get out of here", as I just felt uncomfortable being so crowded, especially since I had a large amount of US Dollars on me for official fees. I carried it in my front right pocket which is deep rather than in my wallet or backback as suggested by the guide. In an instant, someone stuck a lit cigarette on my left arm, which made me not only distracted but made me take my right hand out of my pocket to rub the burn. I was then bumped from behind not knowing immediately I was just robbed of about $2100.00 US cash. All but one dollar we had left for remaining fees and food for the trip. So to say the least, it was a bittersweet day.

The most important thing is that the girls are safe. We will figure out the money thing somehow. I feel like quite the idiot that this could happen to me.

Most important is the fact that Kaia is doing better than we ever could have hoped for. We will update soon.

Tim

We Got Her!

We went to the Civil Affairs office yesterday about 3:30pm as we got stuck in traffic like I've never seen before. Cars, People, Bikes and Mopeds all vying for the same space. Then low and behold, a car will drive right up on the sidewalk!

Kaia is fantastik. So appreciative and well behaved. She has a pretty good chest & head cold. She is coloring right now with Hannah. She eats anything which is good. The little Mandarin I learned turns out to be of no use to her as she speaks Cantonese! Jokes onme :)

We go to the Civil Affairs office this morning to finalize the Chinese portion of the adoption.

We are going to head down for breakfast so we will update soon.

The Metz's

In China Now

Well, the flight is as long as we remembered! But all in all everything went well. Even Hannah did well dispite having Bronchitis right now. She only asked "are we there yet" 2 hours into the trip.

We hung out around our hotel (the Victory) today and then walked over to the White Swan Hotel where we stayed last time. We get Kaia tomorrow at 3:00pm (Tuesday) We have seen two families that adopted older children and their reactions are total opposites. One child is very distraught (and who could blame her) and the other child was doing pretty good.

Hannah wants to say hello to all her friends and says she misses you.

Talk to everyone soon.

Travel Dates Are In!

After several hectic days where the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou misplaced our I-171H which they HAD TO HAVE in order to make our appointment, we finally have all our travel dates. It all worked out.
We are leaving on Saturday November 11th at 10:10AM from Chicago, go to Detroit on Northwest Airlines. We fly from Detroit to Tokyo nonstop. From Tokyo, we fly into Guangzhou, China. On the 22nd we just reverse the process.

We have an appoinment to meet Kaia on November 11th at 11:00am China Time. Since they are 13 hours ahead at that time, ( Non DST for us) that will actually be the 10th at 10:00PM here at home (EST)

Now all the things that need to be done before we leave is crazy. Oh Well!

TA CALL

We received a call from Jouneys of the heart on Friday, Oct 24th that the Travel Approval had been mailed from China. It just so happens the 24th was our anniversary so that was a great present!
Our SW, Gabriel said to be ready to travel in 7-10 days. We have waited for 14 months and now we have a short time to get everything together to travel, including running to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago to get VISA's for our passports.
Now the real fun begins :)