The Fog Has Lifted and We Are Home

Hi all,

If there is anyone out there still tuning in...all the excitement has passed and we are back in the US. back to real life plus a baby! What a long strange trip it's been, but a joyful exciting trip! Ruth is doing great more on her later with pictures of course... The picture to the left is an updated picture we received of Ruth the day before we met her.

I wanted to back track a little and go back to China and share some things I didn't while we were there. This is probably mostly for me as one morning I wrote down some of the things I didn't want to forget about our trip.

I wanted to document our official adoption day, January 4th, 2006. WE returned to the Civil affairs office where we had been the day before to meet our babies and had two interviews with tow different officials. They were very short interviews in a room with 4 desks, one with a young near sighted women and the other an older gentleman. I'm not sure now what exactly each interview was for. We handed them each a box of chocolate for the customary gift. The women held them close to her eyes to try to read what it was. The gentleman asked us why we wanted another child and what plans we had for her. We answered that we wanted to give a home to a child who othewise wouldn't have one and that she would have every opportunity for a good education and a bright future. We then had our pictures taken, Wayne, Ruth and I together to put on the offical adoption decree. All this took place in the morning, we wer fortunate that our guides arranged for our gourp to be the first of the day. And our babies the first adoptions of 2006 in the Guangdng Province and maybe in all of China.

January10th was our official consulate appointment but we didn't have to do anything, our guides took all the paperwork to the consulate and did it for us...pretty cool. THe next day however we all went to the consulate to pick up our daughters Visa's so we could bring them home. That was an emotional time, as we knew this was it we were on our way home to resume our lives with our new children. It was the final step to bring our girls home So much had happened to bring us to this point months of paperwork and waiting and paper work and more waiting...(and now that we are home there is still more paper work...) God used that time to prepare our hearts and homes for Ruth. and we now know(if we didn't already) with out a shadow of a doubt that HIS timing is perfect, HIS plans never fail.

We were not allowed to take pictures inside the consulate, I wish I had taken some pictures outhside though. I thought the cosulate was on Sha Mian island but I was mistaken. We all filed in went through security and sat in a DMV style room. Our guides once again took care of all the details. We then were led as a group through an oath on behalf of our daughters to be good citizens of the US...I think...Unfortunately I can't remember a word of the oath.

Sitting in the waiting area at the consulate Wayne said" I could do this again" I want to be sure I have that in writing, my mouth dropped open and said "great"...so stay tuned...;-)

Wayne, by the way, is great. He is totally in love with our Ruth and the whole 2 weeks in China was such a wonderful servant to me and the rest of the family. He got up in the middle of the night, made bottles changed diapers...he is a wonderful dad. He let me sneak away lots of times to get coffee or get online at Starbucks...

Our pastor once described our trip to China as a resuce mission. Wayne and I see his perspective of saving a baby from a bleak future without a family and without perhaps ever hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that is true but it is also a misson, as Wayne said, " to save us from ourselves and our selfishness" We are truly learning what it means to "die to self"

The day at the consulate was our last day, after that it was back to the hotel for packing and more packing. Did I mention all the shopping I did? WE bought 2 new suitcases to paxk the extra stuff and to give us alittle breathing room. I had packed everything so tight on the way over and had too many carryons. We wante d to check as much baggage as possible. We were a little worried about the full size replica sword of Aragorn packed in the golf bag...we weren't sure it would make it through security, we kept hearing stories of stuff like that being confiscated but somehow we made it home with all of our weaponry. There were other swords, num chucks, brass knuckes and more packed in our suitcases.

We had to get up early early on the 12th to get to the airport by 6:30 to catch the 8:30 flight to Tokyo.

Back at Dulles 24 hours later...it was 7pm on the 12th. Come on guys we are almost there don't stop now!!

We had an incredible welcoming home committee, My mom, sister andbrothers with their families and The Higgins, Fauls, Mercados, Tata and Arianna, The Dudziaks, and our dear friends The Koleszars all came to greet us at the airport, what a wonderful gift. I'm waiting to recieve more pictures of that scene, but here are Kaylin Mercado and Jocelyn Faul having fun at the Airport.

And here we are at home Ruth is happy with her bottle. She is now on whole milk and real food. No more cereal mixed with formula. I have no doubt she will jump from the 5th percentile in weight to at least match her 10th percentile height. She loves to eat :-) We are still working on getting her to pick up food and feed herself though. She has never had to do that before so it may take a while.

I have more pictures but haven't downloaded them from the camera yet. It's getting late so I'll get to that tommorrow. God Bless

Anna's Scrapbook

coming home

We are almost done, one more appointment today to pick up Ruthie's visa then we leave bright and early tomorrow morning for the long flight home.
We leave the hotel at 5:45 am and arrive at Dulles on NW 1404 at 6:55 pm on Jan. 12. you can meet us in the baggage claim. That will be a domestic flight as our first port of entry is Detroit.

Pray for us it was hard coming over and coming home we'll have a baby!
If I have a chance I'll post more pictures and a more thorough update but this might be it. Thank you all for following our trek half way around the world to pick up the cutest baby in the world.
Can't wait to see you all
Love,
Martha (and family :-))

Babies, Babies Everywhere

Just lot's of pictures for now, I tried to organize a photo op but we weren't all there and then I found out there is actually one scheduled for tomorrow morning. but I won't be updating again till we get home so these are the gorup shots for now and some views from out 13th floor room.

Shopping on Shamian Island

In honor of shopping on Shamian I give you two posts in one day ;-)

most of the people in these pictures are in our travel group.









The older girl with her new mom is 12 year old Jaime. She is legally blind(cataracts it seems), she is a beautiful girl who has a wonderful new family who loves her very much.



















Wayne was kind enough to agree to go through the medical exams with Ruth while I shopped. I think I'm done! This bargaining stuff is exhausting, I always walk away wondering if they ripped me off or if I really got a good deal.

Here is my new friend Hebe, I bought a beautiful black velvet jacket from her along with a jade bracelet and a few other trinkets. The other day she gave Anna a hacky sack and gum. She's very nice but like all the others drives a hard bargain.


These are the Anhui Babies, Ruthie is not there. We need to get it together to get our group shots done.

3 Days Left

Hello, sorry we have not updated for a couple of days, there really hasn't been much going on though. But I remember following others journey's and wishing they hadn't skipped any days, so again, sorry :-0

Let's see, last night we had a paper work party, we are now preparing to get Ruth's visa from the US consulate. We have a medical exam this afternoon then more shopping on Shamian Island. It's fun over there everyone speaks chinglish and I'm getting the hang of this bargaining stuff, though I've made a few blunders especially when it comes to squeaky shoes. I'm gonna get it right today though, no more than 3 USD.

We have all of our groups together now, there are about 14 other families adopting babies from other provinces. We all have to get our babies visas from the US Consulate here in Guangzhou. It's been a wonderful experience being able to do this with so many other families. There are many new friendships being made that will last a lifetime, I hope we can all keep in touch even though we are from all over the country. We have families from California, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio, Minnesota, Colorado, Illinois, North Carolina, Florida, New York and more.

This morning after breakfast we went to another park, Guang Zhou Yue Xiu Park it's huge, and there are people everywhere. We walked about 45 minutes and only covered about 1/5th of the park. There were people playing badmitton, doing Tai Chi, singing, and playing ping pong. It's amazing that on a weekday morning there were so many people there. This park was just across the street so it was nice to beable to walk over and "mingle". I've felt like we are in a plastic bubble very insulated from the culture going to all the tourist spots, being guided from place to place in a big bus. I'm not really complaining just making an observation. Our guides have been wonderful they are very professional yet friendly and take care of our every need. Here are a bunch of pictures from the park, our home away from home and from Shamian Island.












Do you see Wayne? He's one of the tallest LOL!

Just waiting to come home

I am taking advantage of having a full time dad around and snuck back down to starbucks to post more here. We have a few appointments left; a medical exam and visa appt. for Ruth so we can bring her home. And then we just need to pick up her passport next week. I might skip a day posting but don't worry I'll be back;-)

The temperature dropped about 20 degrees overnight, good thing we have some winter clothes with us!

Today we visited Banyun Park( I think that is the right name, if you have been here please correct me if I am wrong) the "most beautiful park in Guangzhou" it is quite beautiful and sits at the bottom Banyun Mountain(again not sure if I got the name right). It is beautifully manicured landscaping with stone and brick walkways and waterfalls. Through out the park there are a number of gifts from other cities to thank Guangzhou for the trade relationship they have.

There was also a spot where you could dress up in traditional chinese clothes and have your picture taken, as you can see we have some fun guys in our group. And Anna was very adventurous with a new friend. She still couldn't pass for chinese though could she?

We ate at Pizza Hut after the park, they had a one visit salad bar. I wish I had a picture of some of the ladies making the most of their "one visit". they made works of art piling as much stuff as they could in one little bowl. they would layer squares of watermelon with slices of cucumber on top of a bed of lettuce. I am not exaggerating when I say they piled it 8"high. It was amazing!

Tomorrow we have a free day and think we will visit Shamian Island, the shopping district that caters to the Chinese adoption community. Hopefully it will be a little warmer!