Chongqing "Big Sister"

Confirmed

It was confirmed today that our silly guy has severe/profound sensorineural hearing loss in both ears. This is not a surprise to us and we are actually very relieved. We know now that without a shadow of a doubt that he will be accepted to our State School for the Deaf! :) He had to have an 80dB hearing loss in at least one ear and he exceeded that. He will not dorm at the school but will be transported by our local school district everyday. We are only 20 minutes from the school which makes things very convenient.

For seven year he has had NO language other than gestures. He will finally have a language to learn and will understand! He is ready and willing to learn. We will learn right along side him but something tells me he is going to fly past us in no time.

Thank you Lord for our sweet, sweet son!

Please continue to follow our family blog as we are now finish blogging here. :) Thanks for following our journey to China!

All About Evan

Things here have been going very well. Evan has adjusted better than we could have ever asked for. The Lord has blessed us with one special little boy from China! He has welcomed us into his life with smiles on his face. 

Evan loves to make silly faces. You may have nocticed in some of our pictures he crosses his eyes. He loves to do this when we take his pictures and will sometimes stick his tongue out to the side of his mouth. He cracks up if you do it back to him. You might notice that Evans little lips automatically turn down so if he is the least bit upset it is sometimes hard to tell. When he does not want to do something he does this little full body dance/fit. He has silent tears which makes even harder to tell when he is upset. He has only cried a handful of times.

We have no bathroom problems. Well we have to tell him to go at times but other than that no problems. He did spit a couple of times but when he saw that we disapproved of that he has since stopped. He was a bit rough physically the first week with us but he is MUCH better now. He is learning to chew his food with his mouth closed. The only thing we really have had to get on him about is blaming others.

In the above picture I have an antenna of a remote control car stuck in my hair and he is blaming Taylor for it. As you can see by the look on Taylor's face she is shocked that he is blaming her. Bob just happened to snap this picture as it all unfolded.

I may have mentioned this before but he does not feel the need to eat everything on his plate. If he does not like the food he will tell us. He does try all new foods though. He is not a picky eater. This past week we did bring him to Chinese twice though. He was in heaven! After we were all done and I was putting my jacket on he wrapped his arms around my waste and gave me a big hug. I think he liked his lunch.

I will post about his hearing test on both sites tomorrow but after that we will posting over on our family blog. Thanks for following along! :)

Life At Home

First let us apologize for not posting sooner since we have been home.  As those who have traveled know it is an adjustment to make once you return.  We are finally catching up with our sleep and getting back into our normal routine. It has been a bit easier this time as we don't have to get up with a crying baby in the middle of the night.

First let's go back to our time in Hong Kong right before we came home.  I wish I could say that the area was as gorgeous as we expected it to be but we got in around 8:30PM and our flight was for 11AM the next morning. We did not get to see much at all.  We had hoped to take a taxi and explore a little the night before but we were so tired we just stayed in the hotel and ate some snacks at the hotel restaurant.  We knew that Hong Kong had a different currency conversion rate but were unsure what it was.  We were surprised to find out afterwards that our burgers and drinks ended up costing $145 USD.  Our flight was very bumpy for the first 7 hours or so and then very smooth the next 8 hours.  Sitting on the plane before it took off we had a big child behind us who had a lap pass that keep putting their foot over our seats and hitting us in the head.  We thought for sure this was going to be an even longer flight than we had hoped for but it did get better.  We literally had to sprint in Chicago and have a lot of things happen just right in order to catch our connecting flight but we made it just in time to board the plane.  We joked that we doubted those working at the airport were going to sprint to make sure our luggage also made the flight so it was not a huge surprise when they turned off the luggage belt when we got home and our luggage was not there.   It did arrive the next morning with no problems.

Our fist week home has been totally awesome and a huge answer to prayer.  Evan seems happy to be apart of our family and the kids just love him to pieces.  He had his first Dr. visit with our family doctor and everything looks really good.  He weighs 60lbs and is 48in tall. He is wearing size 7 pants and 6/7 shirts.

We showed the video of the tick that Evan seems to have when he is resting to the doctor and he did not seem overly concerned about since he seems to be doing so well with everything else.  We will ask the cleft team about it as well just to see if they have anything additional to say but we don’t foresee this as being anything we need to worry about at this time.  Evan’s appt with the hearing doctor is next week.  We do believe that he has some hearing in his left ear but doubt he has any in the right.  

We've been busy filling out paperwork for two different schools (local school and the deaf school), doctors, post adoption stuff, soccer and Half the Sky. Oh, we've not blogged so you wouldn't know that we signed Evan up to play soccer! I've actually signed up to be assistance coach! LOL That should be interesting. You didn't think I'd just leave him there though did you!?!?

There are a couple more post that I want to make here but I am going to start blogging on our main blog as well.

We're Home

We are home, we're alive, and we are waiting for our luggage lost somewhere between here and Chicago! I'll post a few more times here, then head over to our main blog. :)

Botanical Garden and Packing

Today we went to a beautiful botanical garden. I wish I could tell you the name of it but I was not paying attention. I will try to find out though. We have some beautiful pictures but the sun decided to come. Usually that is good but there was not much shade for taking pictures of people. Our consulate appointment went well and we are official done with all of our paperwork. Evan will become a US citizen the moment he hits US soil. For him that will be in Chicago, just like it was for Lia. There were quite a few families at the consulate but not nearly as many as there was in 2007. We are 90% packed and will finish tomorrow morning after breakfast. We don't leave Guangzhou until about 3:30 pm. We will take a bus over to Hong Kong and spend the night. Our flight leaves at 11:30 am on Friday and we will be flying for a long time! Our flight arrives in the states at 4:45pm. We are looking forward to seeing everyone especially our children. Can't wait to wrap our arms around them and just give them a ton of love. I'm not sure if we'll blog again before we arrive home or not but we wanted to thank you all again for leaving comments and for emailing us! I can't wait to go home and go back and read over everything again. Enjoy the pictures! Cheri~

Chen Family Museum and Dinner Cruise

Today we went to the Chen Family Museum other wise known as the Guongdong Folk Art Museum. We went there back in 2007 with Lia. It is a nice place and we spent about an hour there. While we were there our paperwork was being reviewed by the US Consulate for Evan's Visa. All must have went well because we heard nothing. :) We took a cab back to the island to pick up few items that we needed. We went into a place called Judy's and I can tell you it must have been the Lord who lead us in there. I will tell you more of this story once home. My feelings are still raw but I can tell you this is a beautiful woman! Please be sure to visit her shop when you visit the island. The dinner cruise was awesome and I highly recommend it! It was warm but there was a cool breeze. We were glad we brought sweatshirts with us on the boat. Some of the items on the buffet was iffy but some was really good. The views were beautiful! Although we did see a dead cat (we think) in the water which grossed the young girls in our travel group out. I could go into tons of details but everyone is in bed and I am falling asleep as I type. Enjoy the pictures as I'm sure we will not have much to blog about in the next couple of days. Tomorrow we are going to a botanical garden for our group picture and then to our Consulate Appointment. We'll be home before we know it! :) Cheri~

Full Days

Our day started with another adventure. We tried to go to an antique shop but ended up going to a antique museum.  Seems no one really knew what we were trying to get across, well maybe a tad. They did get the  antique part. We decided we would just head back to the hotel. Taylor ended up going shopping with another family and she hit the jackpot! At 2:30 we headed to the island to have all the TB tests read for all the kids who had to have the test. PTL Evan did not need to have an x-ray! Thank you for your prayers. Two little boys from one family did need to have chest x-rays but they came back normal. So all is well with all of the children in our group. We ended up staying on the island longer so we could relax, shop and eat. We headed to Jordon's but had such a hard time finding him due to all the construction. The whole island is under construction and is a mess. Let me tell you though, what is finished is beautiful! It should all be finished in October. We did not see all of the little statues that they had here two ago. There are a few. We finished up our night with dinner at Lucy's. We ate outside on the patio and just relaxed. It was so nice to just sit and enjoy the weather. If your coming in the spring or summer I'd bring some bug spray. We received a couple of mosquito bites. We head to grab a taxi when I realized we did not have a photo of Evan on the red couch. I snapped a couple and hope Carla can do some magic. ;) Tomorrow our paperwork will be review by the consulate and we will visit a museum. Later in the evening we will be doing a dinner cruise which we are really looking forward to. Hopefully I'll have some nice pictures to share. Hope all is well with all of you! Bob, Cheri and Lia

*couldn't really do anything to the red couch photo from the jpg, I'm going to wait and see if Cheri has the raw format of it. It's not bad at all IMO, but when I talk with her I will know what she wants done.*

Shopping with Ann

Today we heading to Shamian Island to do some shopping. We had made plans with Ann from Red Threads to take us shopping so met up with her. She took us off the island to some street shops and hit some bargains! Boy does she know where to go and really looks over your purchases to make sure they are perfect. If your coming to China I would highly recommend using her. Do not buy your items in Beijing as tempting as it is she can really help you make some great deals on some nice items. Also make a list ahead of time, it helps save time. When we were on the island we head some beautiful music and before I could think of the song Ann told us it was coming from the church. It was a hymn that we sign in church. Sure enough there was a beautiful church just ahead of us signing in Chinese and in English. It was simple beautiful! I was a bit confused as to why Chinese people could enter at will in this church and could not at the one in Beijing. Ann had no answer for me and seemed very surprised when I told her we had to show our passports to get in. On our way back to the hotel she was able to get us a van to bring us back. All the kids piled in the very back and the adults in the front. Seemed very strange to pile our kids in the back of a van with no seats or seat belts. They thought it was the best thing though. We can now say we've taken the subway, the local bus, the taxi and plane in China. I think that covers all the public transportation in China except the train! LOL Our guide said we were the first group ever to use the public bus and that scares her. Tomorrow we go back to the island to have Evan's TB test read. We are thinking he will need a chest x-ray along with two other children in our group. Please keep these children in your prayers. Thanks for your emails and comments. It is so nice to hear from everyone back home. Cheri~

Medical Exam

Today was Evan's medial exam appointment. All the children had to have their Visa pictures taken before the medical portion. This went pretty fast. We then moved over to the medical center and waited for the vaccinations. Evan received four shots today and a TB skin test. We were able to explain to him that he would be receiving shots. When we entered the room he let us know he didn't want them. He was very brave and did not cry. He did make faces and some noise but no tears. We moved through the next stations rather quickly. We decided to kick out the ENT station first. This exam is kind of a joke. Most who have adopted understand what we are talking about. Those of you who don't let me tell you what we mean. To test the hearing they have an electric piano on one side of the child and a squeaky toy on the other side. If they look in the direction of either than they can hear! Evan did not but we did not expect him to. If he had I probably would have laughed to myself. The second station was the main medical doctor. He was a very nice man and pleased with how well Evan was doing. He asked if we felt Evan was on track developmentally. Of course we said yes! Sometimes China will not only make the diagnosis of Deaf but they will also say dumb as well. Our child is far from being dumb!! He is actually pretty darn smart if I so day so. The last station was height, weight and eye test. We didn't even bother checking to see his height and weight. He has an appointment less than a week after returning home. The eye test was interesting but he was able to do it. :) Praise God for our sweet little guy. He is amazing and we can not wait to get home to meet the kids in person. We are missing them something firce. Tomorrow will be a day of shopping. We are looking forward to that very much. So until tomorrow....... Bob, Cheri, and  Taylor

Heading to Guangzhou!

We are all packed and ready to go. Our flight does not leave until 4 or 4:30 pm but we will check out and head to the airport at 2 pm. This will be Evan's first ride on an airplane. Please keep us in your prayers. He seems to understand that we are all going somewhere together. We are leaving you with some more photos of the city. Here you can see the cities skyscrapers. They are everywhere and they are huge. Here in the center of the square is the Clock Tower. It chimes on the hour up until 11 pm at night. It is really tall and very beautiful. This is very neat. This is the year of the tiger and in this picture someone made a tiger out of used Coke cans! This is only a block away from the the above pictures. They are tearing down these buildings to update this part of the city. It is amazing to see the start difference only blocks away from each other. This woman was working on the same street as the above picture. There were little markets up and down this street. So if you don't see the pictures just give Carla some time, she'll have them up soon. Bob, Cheri and Taylor