Day On The Town

Today was a fascinating day of touring Chongqing. There are 39 million people in Chongqing. It is the largest city in all of China as well as the most industrial. Imagine what the skies here look like. We were told Chongqing is the size of Austria. There are no bikes in this province due to the mountains. There are MANY cars, motorcycles, and stick boys. There are a 1,000 cars added to the streets of Chongqing a day! We have seen quite a few accidents here. We were able to go to the Three Gorges Museum. We saw a wall mural that showed how many people and towns were affected by the dam. To actually see it the way we did really put it into perspective. Some towns/cities are completely under water. The reasons the dam was built  is for flood protection, increase power by 50%, and reduce polution due to burning coal. Burning coal is the number one reason why the city always appears to be be hazy. We drove to Chongqing Eling Park. On the drive we saw caves within the mountain side that were built back during WWII. Some of them have little shops, many are locked. The park was beautiful. There were items from WWII there as well as a pagoda. On a clear day we could have seen the Yangtze river and Chongqing city sky line. The People's Great Hall is the landmark of Chongqing. The whole building has an elegant design and the colors of the building is spectacular. Especially the dome above the front gate, a typical architectural creation in Chinese sociaty. We head out to Guangzhou tomorrow afternoon. We are looking forward to meeting back up with our group and their new children. We have noticed Evan doing a full body "twitch" when he is completely relaxed. Please pray that this is nothing more than a twitch. Tomorrow's post may just be photo's. :) Cheri~ http://lovinglia.blogspot.com/

Orphanage Visit

Evan and Taylor - Heading to the orphanage.

Today was very interesting and a day we will never forget. We headed to the orphanage around 10am and it took about 45-55 minutes to arrive there. The scenerary along the way was interesting. We went from one extreme to the other extreme. I love to drive the country side and view the daily life of people. Evan was fine in the car for awhile and then became very quite. It was pretty clear he knew where we were going. When we arrived he was afraid. Bob, Michael and I got out at the front gate and took some pictures. We explained to him to stay in the car with Taylor. After I got out and turned to explain to him to stay with Tay he waved good-bye to me. :( I shook my head no and tired my very best to let him know that we would be leaving with him. Front of the Orphanage. Houses the babies and toddlers. We all drove up to the orphanage and walked around the grounds. Michael asked Evan if he wanted to go inside. He nodded yes. He asked if we wanted to, of course we jumped at the offer. The building is separated by the childrens ages. We went into the school aged section. This consisted of the children 7-18 years of age. We reached the doors of the building and a man came out and started talking to Evan. He had my hand and Taylors, I can tell you his grip became a bit tighter. I don't need to speak Chinese to know the man asked or told Evan he was coming back. Evan started shaking his head no. This man grabbed his arm teasing him and Evan had the look of fear on his face. He just started pulling away, he was not going back. Children's Hospital on the grounds of Orphanage We went upstairs to where the childrens bedrooms are and that is where Evan froze. He did not want to move. There was no way to explain we just wanted him to show us his old room. In fact he was backing up like he was afraid we were bringing him to the room and going to leave. That is when Michael received a phone call from the assistant director telling him to finish up quickly and get out of the building. The CCAA is still retricting visitors due to the fear of H1N1. I quickly went and took a picture of what I thought was Evans bedrrom but later found out from him that it was the next room over. I would have loved to look in the room a bit more but a group of older children had heard Evan was there and was now surronding him. They all seemed nice except for one. She seemed to be tounting him or telling him something me. I saw the head teacher get upset with her and tell her to stop. I believe she was telling him we were going to cut his tongue out. I can't be certain but if you were to see the motion I think you would come to the same conclusion. Houses school aged and children up to 18 yr. old. Evan was able to see his head teacher and big sister. He didn't want anything to do with his big sister. I'm pretty sure it hurt her feeling. She looks pretty sad to say the least. He would barely look at her. The head teacher gave us another picture of Evan and three other sweet children swimming. As we were leaving the building they we looking out one of the building windows and waving. It was truely sad. He was happy to wave good-bye to everyone and his feet barely hit the steps as we went down. He seems so much more relaxed and is very happy. We have yet to see him cry. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Dining Room Bedroom - sleeps eight children. 3 Towers Evan is starting to test his boundries a bit more. We were in a store today and he was touching everything. I kept signing no. He was not listening. He kept letting go of my hand as well and that we will not stand for right now. He was not happy. I thought he was going to hit the floor and start to melt down. I help escort him out of the store before that happened. He loves to hang out with Taylor. The two of them together is so cute. When they get off the elevator they race down the hall to our room. I thought for sure he was going to end up sleeping in her bed but he is in ours. He is picking up so many signs it is amazing. He has about 15 signs that he has learned and then a few that he uses from the orphanage that we understand. He compunnicates his needs very well. I don't think we will have a problem doing his hearing test in a couple of weeks. Oh did I tell you how clean and organized he like his things? He goes around the room making sure everything is picked up and put a way properly. Tomorrow we are going sightseeing around Chongqing. We really have not seen much of the city except for walking around the streets outside our hotel. Thank you all for your prayers. If you have wondered why I have not sent messages to the other children at home that is because we talk to them once or twice a day via Skype. They know we love and miss them. They are doing really well and have a great friend taking care of them. We leave Chongqing on Friday! Wecan hardly believe it. If you've read this far thanks, if not I don't blame you! LOL I'm off to bed. Everyone else is sleeping already as usual. Bob, Cheri and Taylor

He's Ours!

It is official, Evan is our son. We finished up all of the Chinese adoption paperwork today. We had to go back to the civil affairs building and to the police station to finish it all but it is finished. Chongqing does a special ceremony when everything is all done and they hand you your child's "red book". It really was very special and I'm glad we had an option to buy pictures from them. They had someone taking pictures while the ceremony was taking place. We did have to go to the police station and wait for about an hour so they could issue Evans Chinese passport at the end of the week. Seemed like forever. Evan became pretty quite when we all loaded the car for the civil affairs office. Then it became apparent he was nervous. He had a hold of Taylor's hand and was not letting go for anything. The assistant director came into the room and approached Evan. He let go of Taylor's hand and waved to her. He thought he was going back. He looked so sad. We did our ceremony, paperwork and left to go to dinner. When we all went back to the car you could see him relax again. We took him to McDonald's for dinner. He loved it except I'm thinking he is going to only like ketchup only on his burgers. I wasn't about to try and explain that one. ;) You should have seen him open up while we were there. It was amazing. It was like he could relax. He was giggling and pointing things out. Was a bit too shy to go play on the playground even though he really wanted to. When we returned to the hotel both he and Taylor had to go to the bathroom. I told Taylor to run to the room and go. My thinking was by the time we arrived at the room she would be done and Evan could go. Well Evan and Taylor raced towards our room with one boy giggling all the way. It was way too sweet for words. So now the both race to see who is going to make it there first. Last time Evan was hiding around the corner in front of our door and tried to pop out and scare Bob. I'm telling you this boy is sweet! He loves Taylor and I truly believe it is because of the young lady that helped him in his class. Evan watch a bit of Signing Time DVD today and picked up the signs fast! Awhile later he was watching a cartoon and there was an airplane in it and he started signing plane to Bob. He is learning really fast. Leslie, the toy he is playing with in yesterdays pictures is a little flashlight that casts a picture on the wall or a seat. He loves that toy. Mickey Mouse is a big hit with him. The measurements the orphanage sent is dead on. The clothes we brought fit him great. We're off to bed. I hope we can all sleep past 4am. Evan was up at 5am and I think it was because of us. Tomorrow will be another day where Evan may be a bit unsure. We will tour the outside grounds of his orphanage with the possibility of the inside. Please keep us in your prayers. Thank you for all who have been emailing and leaving comments! They mean the world to us.

Meeting Evan!

Today we met our second son and it was one of the most amazing days ever. Our flight ended up an hour late due to a passenger being removed from the plane by security. Luckily we were not meeting Evan until 2pm. Our guide Michele is great so far. He told us a ton of information about Chongqing. He dropped us off at the hotel so we could drop off our luggage and get our items ready to head over to the Civil Affairs Building. At 1:30pm we headed to the Civil Affairs Building and entered right at 2pm. As we walked in the door there was our sweet boy. You could see he knew who we were and that he was excited. He came to me, grabbed my hand and did not let go. What an answer to prayer. The orphanage staff really prepared him well for our arrival. Thank you Lord. Evan was able to say Mama and Baba with verbal cues. He either has some hearing and or really great lip reading. We were able to meet a young lady that acts as a big sister to him. You will see her with him in a couple of the pictures. They seemed really close. We learned that she was teaching him a bit of sign language. Please pray that we will be granted access to the orphanage on Wednesday. This will be iffy and we pray that it can be made possible. He is a sweet, sweet boy! We can not wait to see his full personality come to life in the next few days. There have been no tears as of tonight but we will see what tomorrow brings. Thank you all for your prayers. They have worked. Please do not stop now.

Carla: I tried to fix some of the shadows on the photos rather quickly. Anyone meeting your child here, know it has some "wonderful" lighting conditions in the afternoon with backlighting going on. Fill flash or "spot metering" mode might be better. I know these are a tad too red, going to work on it now. :)

More Beijing Sight Seeing

Today was yet again another day of busy sight seeing. We started our day at the Beijing International Christian Fellowship Church. The message was awesome and so fitting. It spoke about fear and anxitey. What adoptive parent does not have either of these the day before you meet your child? After church everyone commented on how they were in awe of the timing of the message. When church was over we headed to the Olympic Park. This was under construction when we came at the end of 2007. It was great to see it up close and see its beauty. Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City was very busy. It is a huge area and I think it took us three hours to cover both places. The air quality was amazing today. You could see for quite a ways in to the distance. It was also warmer than the other two days. The pearl factory was very nice. Taylor loved it. She used some of her spending money to buy some items. She probably could have used all of it there but we needed to remind her that she still has two weeks to go. I feel like all we do right now is eat. We eat as a group as it is included in our tour package for Beijing. We have like pretty much everything so far. Wonder what our province will be like. We will find out tomorrow! We have to wake up at 3:30 to start our day. We need to be in the lobby to go to the airport at 5:30 am. We will meet Evan tomorrow afternoon, we are not sure of the time. So we are of to pack and try to sleep. Please keep all of us in your prayers. Noah, Kera and Lia, we love and miss you very much. Tomorrow you will meet your new brother! :) Be good for Michele! Bob, Cheri and Taylor

Summer Palace & Great Wall

I'm falling asleep waiting for pictures to upload so I can send them on to Carla. It was a very busy day with a ton of walking. We went to the Summer Palace first and it was as beautiful as the first time we were there. We would have so loved to have seen it at different time of the year but it seems that just was not meant to be. All the same it was beautiful. The first time we stopped and posed for a picture we were swarmed with by a couple of young women who wanted to have their pictures taken with us. This happened a couple of times but a ton for the younger girls in our group. Taylor and Katie were stopped a ton. Not so much by adults but by girls their age. It was rather cute as they were shy at first and some were afraid to ask for a picture with the two girls. The little five year old that is in our group wanted nothing to do with any of it. Who can blame her?!?! We headed to the jade factory after the Summer Palace. Last time we were here we bought a jade bangle from them and it broke after a certain little girl dropped it on our tile floor. We did not buy another. They have however added on to the building making it look much more fancy. From there we went to lunch, it was very tasty. We were able to see how they made Colonaise items. There was a huge shopping area attached to the restaurant for one to spend more money. Straight from lunch we went to the Great Wall. It's always a beautiful sight as your driving up the mountain side. We were able to see some of the wall that has deteriorated. We decided to climb the harder side this time as well so Taylor could get a sense of how step and uneven the steps really are. Not to mention there are far more vendors on the easy side. We have some beautiful picture of some of the families within our group on The Wall. We had the famous duck dinner tonight. The last time we were here we did not like it. This time though it was rather delicious. I'm glad we gave it a try again. Our guides have been great. Maggie sang The Star Spangle Banner in Chinese to us and it was beautiful. She has such a lovely voice. Rosa remembers us from when we traveled two years ago as well as our travel mates! :) We feel so blessed to have them as our guides again. Tomorrow is another busy day. We will go Church, Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City. We are tired but so excited to be here. Only one more day! Thanks for following along and praying for us. Please keep them coming as we are so close to meeting Evan. Bob, Cheri & Taylor

Crazy Day of Adventure

First if you do not see any pictures check back they will be added later. We decided today after breakfast that we would all go to the silk market. Mode of transportation was up in the air. Some wanted to take cabs, some walk, and some take the bus. The bus won out so off we went. It started out fairly easy. We were able to find the bus stop and bus with no problems. You boarded the bus from the back and we soon learned from watching everyone that there was one way off - the front. We along with one other family was near the front exit while the rest of our group was in the back. The group in the back had the directions so we were watching them to know when to get off. At one point we were told one more exit and that is when it got interesting. We moved to the exit and Taylor was the first out the door, suddenly before anyone else could exit, the bus doors closed. Our 14 yr old. daughter turned around on some street in Beijing to see us on a bus with the doors closed! It was at that point I started to panic. I let out a scream and the word that came out of my mouth was "WAIT"!!!!!!!  I think I was banging on the doors as well, it is all a blur. All I know is the bus doors opened and Bob and I were able to get off as well as one other family. We proceeded to walk with a map that our hotel had given us but we ended up making a wrong turn at some point. Our family along with one of the other families children made it to the silk market via a cab. The rest of the other family was going to catch a cab but they ended up walking the rest of the way as they had five other family members and the cab only holds four. It was maybe 15 minutes later when they arrived. We did not see our other travel mates anywhere at the silk market. It was rather crazy in the market. Everyone wanted you to buy something from them. If you paused or looked at something they were all over you. Needless to say we did not buy anything. Oh and we did take a quick and cheap cab ride back to the hotel just in case any of you are wondering. ;) We ventured out on foot tonight for dinner with our friends we spent the day with. They are great. Todd and Kim brought their four kids with them and their children are adorable. We walked to a local restaurant and ordered some interesting food. All tasted very good but some was very spicy even though they said they would only make it a little spicy. We ordered beef and peppers thinking it would be green bell peppers but it was green chili peppers. Very spicy but good. We fed nine of us for $35 US dollars and had a ton of food. Very friendly service as well. Tomorrow we will be with our guides so we will have a busy schedule. We see the Summer Palace, Jade Factory and Great Wall. It will be a fun day of our favorite places! Off to bed but only 3 more days until we meet Evan!  Hopefully we can sleep.  There seems to be a party next door and they are very loud singing songs etc.  Bob, Cheri & Taylor

Carla adding here: This LINK is to another family who recently traveled over Chinese New Year and took a video of the fireworks. This is the kind of fireworks they are hearing all night long! I can imagine how it is with the kind of debris shown here in the photo above.