HCHH

HCHH

LWB HCHH

LWB Babies

I am tired and my brain feels like foggy mush but we had a very good day despite not having the hotel situation figured out yet.  We got to visit the Love Without Boundaries Henan Cleft Healing Home (HCHH) and it was amazing!  Such sweet babies and such a clean, peaceful home for them to get strong in before they have their surgery.  The babies are wonderfully cared for and we got to hold and love on all of them.  My kids loved visiting too and the babies enjoyed the attention and watching the antics of Isaiah and Susu. I got some wonderful pictures.  I will share a few on here, although I have no idea how they will show up on my blog since I am posting via email and can't see it.

The director of the HCHH, Stephanie, took us out for soup filled dumplings or steamed buns.  We had a delicious meal and our guide, the driver, and Stephanie worked really hard with the restaurant staff to find some delicious gluten free food for Isaiah and I.  Today made up a good deal for our room issues and the hotel does have a good breakfast buffet so all is not terrible.  My brother and I were figuring out how to jury rig a curtain/sheet to go around the shower and toilet area.  I brought a lot of duct tape, 20 feet of lobster twine (for a clothesline), and about a half dozen safety pins.  I am sure we can create something if we don't get out of here tomorrow.

We are suppose to meet the boys tomorrow around 10:30 a.m. at the civil affairs office and then in the afternoon we will be traveling to visit the orphanage and foster family.  An exciting and crazy day.  Please keep us in your prayers.  I should have pictures of us with our boys on my next post. 

We Have Made it to Zhengzhou!

We don't have any pictures yet but I just wanted to let everyone know we made it safely to Zhengzhou via Chicago and Hong Kong.  We were easily able to navigate the Hong Kong airport alone.  Today we head for a visit to the Henan Cleft Healing home in Kaifeng which we are very excited about.  Tomorrow we meet our boys in the morning and then go to visit their orphanage and foster family in the afternoon.  I can't wait for that!!!

Unfortunately, we are having some moderate issues with the hotel here in Zhengzhou not really being workable.  Some of it would be funny if we weren't somewhat stressed and staying with two older boys.  The shower and bathrooms are separated from the rest of the room by frosted glass walls which basically leave nothing to the imagination.  This is not the kind of family bonding that I wanted on this trip or with my new children.  Please say a prayer that we can find a hotel that works better for us and is clean.

Last night we explored quite a bit around our hotel in Zhengzhou.  People were very curious about our family and in a few days we will be even more of an odd sight in China.  We found a restaurant that had a lovely picture menu and we had a good dinner with only slight communication issues.  Aaron realizes he needs to work more on his Mandarin but he did successfully ask where the bathroom was.

Well I have to run and get us ready for our day.  I won't be able to read comments on blogger until we get to Guangzhou, so if anyone wants me to know something now it would be better to send an email.

Specific Prayer Requests

Tomorrow we fly out in the early morning for China. We are all excited and ready to go! Since this is my last post from the U.S., I wanted to ask for prayers about some specific things. I will list our prayer requests below.
Please pray for:

1. Safe travels our entire trip.
2. That God would mentally prepare all of us for the transition.
3. That Levi and Jacob would not be too afraid and would sense how loved they are by our family.
4. That we would all stay healthy the entire trip and after we get home as well. Last time we went to China, Aaron and I got terribly sick on the flight home. It was awful.
5. That Susu would feel safe and secure with us since this trip may bring up some memories for her.
6. That my back would feel better. It has been bothering me for the last two weeks.

We greatly appreciate all the people who have been praying for us during this adoption!

Emotional Blenders

Three days and counting until we get to wake up before the crack of dawn and head to China. This has been a slightly challenging week. Emotionally, I have done pretty well with the last minute week long delay. Aaron has coped decently and Susu has also taken it mostly in stride but poor Isaiah has had a tough time. He is so excited to meet his brothers and we have had a lot of emotions pouring out about things completely unrelated which is not typical behavior for Isaiah. I explained to Isaiah that right now each of us is like an emotional blender. We have so many feelings swirling around inside us including excitement, happiness, worry, fear, stress, etc. All of our feelings have been lumped into this emotional blender spinning on high speed and the problem is that when ever a slight issue comes up our lids pop off and an emotion or two flies out. Normally our emotions are not so churned up and these things would not come flying out. Isaiah seemed to really get this analogy and he even told me the last time he got upset that the top came off his emotional blender. I know our emotional blenders are going to be spinning for the next few months until we all get adjusted to the new normal. I can only imagine the emotions flying around inside of Levi and Jacob right now.

Could Be Worse

Well it has been a stressful day and we got some bad news although it could be much worse. Our trip has been delayed by a week because our visa appointment was scheduled on the only day they do medical appointments for older children. The medical appointment has to be done before the boys' visas can be issued so we needed a new visa appointment. Our agency has been working hard the last 24 hours to get things rescheduled and find us plane tickets that aren't exorbitantly expensive. Right after lunch, it looked like the only plane tickets available were going to be over $1600 per person and that just about did me in. Then with some hunting, tickets were found that are basically the same price as the tickets would have been this week. We are coming into the tourist season for China which is why the prices are going up. On this trip we will be flying into Hong Kong and staying one night, then flying up to Zhengzhou, Henan, then down to Guangzhou, and then back up to Beijing and home.

I didn't realize how disappointed Isaiah was about the trip postponement until this evening. I told him we were going to be able to visit the Shaolin Temples which is considered to be the birthplace of martial arts and kung fu. We also get to see a gong fu show and I thought Isaiah would be really excited since he loves doing martial arts at Chinese school. Isaiah acted like he didn't really care and I got upset at his attitude and sent him to his room. He came down later and was really upset and told me the reason he wasn't excited about the Shaolin Temples was because he really just wanted to go get his brothers and he didn't want to postpone that by visiting places first. He was really sad that he has to wait another week before he will meet his brothers. Isaiah cheered up quite a bit when I told him that our whole family will be going to the Shaolin Temples after we have Levi and Jacob. The kids were practicing their martial arts moves after we watched some YouTube videos about the temple.

There are always bumps and delays when you adopt and we are thankful this bump is a relatively minor one. I have three suitcases packed and almost everything ready to go so I will use this extra week to work on my garden. We could use some fresh vegetables this summer especially since we will be feeding four children.

We Got Our TA!!!!!!!

We are thrilled to announce that our Travel Approval arrived today. We will find out very soon whether we travel next week or the week after. The kids are so excited and are ready to leave today. Yesterday was our last official day of homeschooling for the year, Day 175. Perfect timing!

Why Two More Boys?