Abigail Comes Home

Tales from the Front Pew, Chapter 10

2009-04-06T21:33:00.001-04:00

It's been many years since Chapter 9 of this series was written. I think as children age they become better behaved in church and so provide less fodder for interesting stories. Either that or they just save their behavior for some other time. It's probably too embarassing for a teenager to act out when sitting in the front row of a crowded church. A 9-year-old has no such inhibitions.

We have had several comments from members of our choir on how Abigail seems to enjoy singing so much. People have remarked that she is so good in church, that she loves her daddy, and that she is radiantly trying to sing with the congregation, even though she may not know the words. Since we sit in the front row, we are readily visible from the choir risers.

The choir usually sits down after the first set of songs, however, so any observations beyond that get missed. Perhaps they would have a far different picture if they kept their positions during the entire service.

This past Sunday morning was fairly typical for us. Abigail sat well for the first 15 minutes of the sermon and then wanted to sit on my lap for the last half. She usually loses interest in following along in her Bible, turning to the children's bulletin. She can't read well enough to decode what's going on in the chilren's bulletin, so she pesters me for a while, asking how to do the puzzles and word games, until she finally figures out that I would really like to listen to the pastor. She will spend some time copying some text onto her writing pad. Sometimes it's from her Bible, other times it's the advertising text on her pen. Then she will start to fidget and yawn, sometimes going into a full body stretch that raises her hands high in the air.

When all this is happening on your lap, it can be a little distracting. Taking notes has been out of the question for the past few months.

Yesterday, just before the end of the sermon, she did her squirming and stretching and then blurted out in a loud whisper, "He talks TOO MUCH!"

This is the kind of stuff the choir never sees.

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For the other chapters in this series, head on over to the Friend Family Blog

A New Look

2009-04-03T19:50:00.003-04:00

For a long time, Abigail wanted to grow her hair out, including in the front. So we have been in the transitional phase where her previously-short bangs were now too long to let hang over the eyes, but too short to do anything else with. I finally convinced her that having shorter bangs was not such a bad idea, and she could still let the rest of her hair grow out. So she consented to my cutting her hair in the front. She may have a lot of firsts in her short time with our family, but this is a first for me. I have never played the role of beautician before. The result looked so much better and now we're not having to pin everything back all the time.

In addition to this, Abigail got glasses this past Saturday. It has taken her a few days to stop playing with them all the time and to quit asking if she can take them off, but she said right away that she could see so much better and she could actually read the store signs across the street.

So here is the new Abigail...

Tonight, she got out the big box of dress-up clothes she has and put on a fluffy pink dress. Deb also had some toy costume jewelry that she has squirreled away for just such an event. So here is a picture of Princess Abigail...

Turkey Run

2009-03-15T22:13:00.003-04:00

We're currently sitting by the fire in the Turkey Run State Park Inn in central Indiana. Abigail is finally in bed and we're letting her have some lights-out time so she can get to sleep. We hiked one of the more difficult trails today, one which involved a lot of rock scrambling, water crossing, and even three ladders. Abigail loved it.

After dinner, we spent over an hour in the pool, playing a splashing game of keep-away with a beach ball. Abigail is not all that comfortable in the water yet, so I held her the entire time, and she loved all the splashing about, especially when David and Dad were trying to wrestle each other down. She probably felt like a beach ball herself since I was throwing her around so much.

When we were having our devotions just before bed, Abigail brought up the beggars she had seen in Xi'an, China. She remembered how they would sit on the streets in busy places and wave their bowls up and down. She then described the beggars she had seen here in the states. Half talking, half miming, she made the motions of someone ringing a bell and holding a red bucket. It took us just a split second to recognize that she was describing the Salvation Army bell ringers she had seen at Christmas time. We had to explain to her that these people weren't actually beggars, but they were there to help the poor. Now that the language is coming along it makes it a little easier to get this through to her.

Three Months and Three Inches

2009-03-08T23:16:00.006-04:00

OK, maybe a little over three months and a little under three inches, but nonetheless remarkable. We put Abigail to the measuring stick this morning and discovered that she has grown a little under three inches since we've had her. This explains a lot. It explains why the dress she's worn to church for the last couple months is now seeming a little short. It explains why she eats more than my teenage boys. She's getting taller, at an alarming rate. I told her that she is going to be as tall as Josh in a short amount of time. But she knows better.

Another remarkable thing has been her progress learning the English language. She is starting to speak in complete sentences; simple, but complete. We're working on personal pronouns right now. I can see where that would be very difficult for someone coming in from a completely different language to learn the difference between "my" and "I" and "me" and "our" and so on. And I'm sure it will take a while.

Deb has started teaching her math, penmanship, letter and word recognition, and she's learning to play the recorder, so "school" has started in earnest. Someone asked her recently how she liked school and she corrected him. "It's homeschool," she said.

Turnabout is fair play in Abigail's book. During penmanship, she has Deb write Chinese characters. "TWO times!" she tells Deb. Never mind that some of them are so complicated it takes a magnifying glass to see all the detail.

We're still experiencing a lot of firsts. She went roller skating for the first time this past week. Deb and I supported her quite a bit for the first hour, but she insisted on going it alone after that, and managed to do well. By shuffling along on the skates, she was quite a bit steadier than earlier in the evening. She enjoyed herself immensely. After that we sat in a local McDonald's and quaffed chocolate milkshakes for a while. Abigail loves to get out and do stuff with people. She is a very social creature.

Now that the weather is lurching towards Spring in fits and starts, we're starting her on a bicycle. Josh outfitted her with a bike and training wheels and we try to go out with her so she can practice riding. On the balance thing, we're starting out at ground zero, so the training wheels are a Good Thing. Perhaps she will get more practice when things warm up for good.

The rest of us are still working on adjusting as well. This little creature is such a novel thing in this house. The boys never talked about where babies came from; Abigail and Deb have had several discussions. I made her an egg this morning and we had a little discussion about the egg and baby chickens and why this egg did not have a baby chicken in it. We have an Amaryllis just blooming in the family room. It has three blossoms, opening at just slightly different times. Abigail called the large blossom the Daddy, the smaller blossom the Mommy, and the smaller bud the baby that was not born yet. She's just waiting for that blossom to be born. She may be starting complete sentences, but the large language gap that still exists makes this sort of subject a little bit more difficult.

Several people have asked us how things are going, since it's been quite a while since I've written any updates. There's a reason that the updates are fewer. Trying to absorb a 9-year-old into our family at the same time we're trying to prepare another member for college tends to soak up all available time. And the remaining child, who called himself "a low maintenance, well-adjusted child", has my entire barn filled with various parts, and is in the process of building a car--from scratch. Not just a model car, but a real-life, street-legal sports car. Right now there is an engine suspended above a frame made from steel tubing welded together, and I have been helping him try to fit this impossibly large engine into this distressingly small frame.

It continues to be quite an adventure.

The Maytag Repairgirl

2009-02-01T21:13:00.002-05:00

Household appliances have no respect for the current tough economic times. You'd think they would put out a little extra effort to get us through the hard times, but nooooo... Our dishwasher croaked the other day. It made plenty of noise like it always has but didn't wash the dishes. After twinking around with it for a while, I finally determined that 17 years of washing dishes had been enough and it was time for the old Maytag to retire.

Abigail was right there when I began taking the panels off to remove it. She is intensely curious and has to be in the know about everything. So she dove right in along with me, taking things apart and eventually pulling the dishwasher out of its place under the counter. She made a lot of comments and asked a lot of questions but I could tell right away that she approaches things quite a bit differently than the boys. While the boys would be interested in the mechanical aspects, Abigail thought the red and green and pink wires were "pretty".

Trust

2009-01-29T22:31:00.001-05:00

I played the part of dentist for Abigail for the second time this evening. The first time was shortly after we got home from China. One of her lower teeth was quite loose and she made motions that she wanted it out. So, I sat her down, grabbed the tooth, and yanked it out. She didn't flinch a bit. It must have hurt because it did bleed for a while. But she didn't show it. When she first came home she was very stoic. She never cried.

The matching tooth on the other side of her mouth has been coming loose lately. I have asked her a few times over the last few days if she wanted me to pull it out. Up until tonight, she has refused. I think she has been poked and prodded one too many times by doctors and dentists in the short time she has been with us and was getting wary of anything involving pain. Her tetanus shot a couple weeks ago was probably the clincher.

This evening she finally got sick of it and told me she wanted it out. I could tell she was very hesitant, but she did want it out. She has been showing a little bit of a sensitive side lately. The stoicism that she showed for the first tooth was gone and I could tell she was a bit fearful, but she REALLY wanted it out.

So with Abigail on my lap, I cradled her head in one arm and played dentist with the other. She laid there looking up at me with those deep brown eyes, trusting me completely. It was both humbling and gratifying at the same time. Several weeks ago, she was a stranger, now I have her on my lap, performing what amounts to oral surgery without anaesthesia, and she trusts me to do it right.

It was rather difficult to grab such a small tooth with these big Dutch paws of mine, but I did start working on the tooth, trying to work it out. This time, I could tell when it hurt. When she reacted, I tried to change tactics to minimize what she was feeling. At one point, there was even a tear in the corner of one eye.

I carried her up to the kitchen so she could rinse her mouth out and we finished the job there. The satisfying "clink" of the tooth falling into the sink signalled that the task was complete. We all congratulated her on what a brave girl she was. And I was happy that she could show so much trust, even after such a short time in our family.

First Time Ice Skating

2009-01-25T08:09:00.003-05:00

Abigail may not have a sense of balance yet, but she loved ice skating, as long as someone or something was holding her up. When I was pushing her, she always wanted to go faster, and doing so usually resulted in her legs going in two different directions and herself sitting on the ice.

We were with a large group of people and we all descended on a local Pizza Hut afterwards. If this was just the table for little girls, you can imagine what the rest of the crowd looked like.

The Transition

2009-01-24T08:13:00.000-05:00

Further evidence that Abigail's language preference is changing ... she has shifted from calling me "Baba" to calling me "Daddy".

Friends

2009-01-20T21:58:00.002-05:00

Abigail is starting to understand how our naming system works. She knows that she has a Chinese middle name and an English family name, which she shares with the rest of her family. We are all Friends. It took a little bit of explaining at dinnertime to get her to understand that everyone else outside our family is not also named "Friend".

Back in the orphanage, all the kids will typically have the same family name, usually taken from the city where the orphanage is. So Abigail, whose orphanage was in Tongchuan, had the family name of "Tong".

It took a little bit to catch on why she was starting to refer to the girls she knows at church as Elizabeth Friend and Kari Friend and Rachel Friend. We first thought she was talking about her cousins. Yes, she does have a cousin Elizabeth Friend, but there is no Rachel in either of our families, and I suppose Kari could be confused with her cousin Kirsten.

When we figured out she was talking about her church friends, we got out the church picture directory and pointed out the family names of each of her friends. I think when she could see them in the context of their own families, she began to understand.

It probably didn't help that we sometimes refer to her friends as "your friend, Rachel" for example. In China, the family name is listed first, so their Friend Rachel would be Rachel Friend here in the US. Having "Friend" as a family name is certainly cool but I can see where it could really mess someone up. Particularly an adoptee from China.

"Slippery"

2009-01-18T21:12:00.004-05:00

We took Abigail to the beach today. This may sound a little silly, since it was 15 degrees and the wind made any exposed skin hurt instantly. But we wanted to show her the ice on Lake Michigan.

First of all, she's never seen a big lake yet. I think she had a little trouble envisioning such a large body of water. We did show her on the globe where it was.

She still hasn't seen such a big lake yet. The ice is so far out that any open water cannot be seen. We told her that there is water under all that ice and that we'd take her there in July when she could actually see the water.

We walked over the ice to the end of the pier. Abigail's new word is now "slippery". She said it the whole way there and the whole way back to the car. And slippery it was. Most of the time we weren't sure we were actually on the pier until we reached the light beacon at the end. And then we were standing at what was normally head height on the ice.

She picks up more and more of the language every day. We're to the point where we don't see it as much any more because she is able to communicate rather well, but others who are not so close will notice right away. She puts words together and speaks in phrases a lot.

One of her favorite phrases right now is "Will you please?" She uses this for nearly everything that she wants. We're working on getting her to specify what she is requesting and now she will usually add a word to this along with her hand gestures. "Will you please...up" means she wants me to pick her up. If I don't act right away, she will still occasionally add, "Green Eggs and Ham" in a sing-song voice, something the boys taught her in China.

As her English is increasing, her Chinese is decreasing. It is more and more difficult to coax her to say anything in Chinese, and she will usually just interject some babble when she is trying to piece her English into complete sentences. We can usually understand what she is trying to communicate, but someone who doesn't know her as well will have a harder time. She was on the phone with Grandma several days ago and rattled on for a good ten minutes in part English, part babble.

We have periodically had Chinese-speaking people over to our house, averaging about once a week. When the first person was here she talked his ear off for an hour and a half. By the fourth time, she talked far less and even talked to the Chinese people using what English she knew. She was still able to talk in Chinese, but her preference is shifting as she gains more English.

She is adjusting well, though. We had a person over last week who is a specialist on post-adoption attachment. He sat and talked to us for a couple hours, asking lots of questions and observing. He was actually glad to hear that we had such a horrible time on Gotcha Day, as he said this meant that she was able to form attachments with her caregivers and should be able to form attachments with us.

We have another social worker coming over this week for our required three month check-up, hopefully she will come to the same conclusion.

Two Months Ago

2009-01-09T08:05:00.001-05:00

Two months ago today, we met our daughter for the first time on a street corner in central China. The evening before, on November 8, we were hurrying toward the train station to catch the overnight train from Beijing to Xi'an. That was one of the more memorable handoffs of our trip.

We were hurrying, as much as one can hurry, in a Beijing traffic jam. We had just finished an incredible meal of Peking roast duck in a restaurant that appeared to be in a dark back alley (perhaps they are all that way), and Angela, our guide, sent us off with her driver to the Bejing West Train Station. The traffic was stop and go, but mostly stop. There were usually two or three more lines of cars on the road than the pavement markings would suggest, and somehow these cars would merge from lane to lane in a bewildering pattern, all without damage.

My idea of a train station is a little building about the size of our house next to one or two tracks like we have here in West Michigan. The Beijing West train station is about the size of several regional shopping malls piled on top of each other. The "departures" area was two stories up from the main road and we must have spent at least 20 minutes just making it from the bottom of the ramp at street level to the drop off area. Our driver, Mr. Gao, never appeared to get agitated, never reacted to getting cut off; he just wove in and out of the sea of cars and waited patiently when the traffic stood still.

I was a little unsure how we were going to handle things at the train station. We had tickets, so we could always show them to someone and have them point us in the right direction. I figured there would at least be some indication of our train number somewhere within view. Perhaps we would meet our Xi'an guide on the train, I just didn't know. She was supposed to take the same train, but, with the size of this place, I wasn't sure how we were ever going to find her.

As we approached the drop off area, I could finally get some sense of the size of the place. It was dark by the time we arrived, but the front of the building was dimly lit and appeared to soar several stories above where we were. It also faded off into the darkness ahead of us. I started to feel really small.

And the place was mobbed. It reminded me of the departures area of a major US airport with cars parked several deep, all unloading, all trying to get in or out at the same time, but without the security people yelling at you to get going. At least in the States, the outer lane remains clear enough to make some progress. Here, all lanes were clogged and nothing moved. We were just barely off the ramp when Mr. Gao jumped out of the van and started unloading our luggage onto the curb. Here goes, I thought, our journey into the unknown. We hopped out as well and soon all our luggage was gathered on the curb. The throng of people moving by just flowed around us.

Suddenly, a young woman and a young man appeared out of the crowd. The woman identified herself as Jane, our Xi'an guide. After a short introduction they both busied themselves about helping us with our luggage. I was so taken aback by how all this happened and how Jane managed to find us that I temporarily forgot about Mr. Gao. As I turned around, he was already starting to work his way back into the traffic. I hurried back to the van and thanked him in the only way I knew how. I handed him a 100 Yaun note and told him "Xie Xie" in my best pronunciation. Then he was gone.

The inside of the station was absolutely cavernous. Not only could you catch one of many trains here, you could also spend considerable time shopping through all the stores lining the perimeter of each hall. I didn't have time to take any pictures because we wanted to get to our train in time. We were swept along by the crowd through the enormous halls with no time to take it all in. I had to concentrate on keep us all together. We were all tall and easy to see in this crowd, but Jane was somewhat smaller than average and her black hair looked just like ten thousand other heads of black hair that were swirling about.

The size of this place made me wonder if it had its own weather patterns.

After several security checks and getting our tickets punched four times, we were finally in our berth on the train. What a relief. We could again leave the driving and navigating to someone else. As I look back on this it was all a blur. Things happened so fast, we were simply unable to process it all so many of the finer details are now gone.

And this all happened in reverse when we got to Xi'an on the morning of November 9, on a slightly smaller scale. A large train station. Dragging our luggage through interminable passageways, up and down many stairways, and finally ending up in an underground parking ramp, putting our luggage in a large van. (OK, I had arranged earlier for the hotel van to pick us up, but getting here was like navigating a maze.)

And suddenly, we were unpacking in a hotel room in central China. It was a rather large shock to the system, having been enjoying probably the best meal of our entire trip just the night before, and now unpacking in a strange city hundreds of miles away, with an unbelievable amount of events squeezed in between.

Perhaps this was preparation for even bigger events that would happen later on that same day: meeting our daughter for the first time on a street corner.

When I look back on it, it still takes my breath away.

Uh Oh

2009-01-09T07:56:00.002-05:00

... And what's going to happen when she can actually speak the language?

Singing in Chinese

2009-01-03T22:40:00.004-05:00

We had a Chinese family over today who wrote down the Chinese words to the song Jesus Loves Me. Abigail knows the English version of this pretty well, now she is learning the Chinese as well.

And so am I...

Activity

2009-01-03T22:26:00.003-05:00

Our house has been a beehive of activity lately, and while Abigail certainly contributes to it, she is not the sum total of it. I think it has to do with growing up. When our boys were little, a large pile of Legos in the middle of the basement floor kept them occupied for hours. This was accomplished in a rather small space. It also left little foot-mines all over the place that would unexectedly show up underneath your stockinged foot at exactly the same time that you placed all your body weight on it.

Now the Legos have grown up. They are teenagers now. What used to be little pieces of plastic the size of a quarter are now life-sized bikes and cars. And those foot mines? No longer made of plastic, they are now made of steel and rubber and copper. They are now shaped like bolts and nuts and extension cords and miscellaneous car parts and ... tools. They are ready to connect with the unsuspecting foot in the garage, the barn, and even in the house. Fortunately, the garage and barn are places for footwear sturdier than cotton socks.

Legos were also nice quiet things that would only make noise if you dropped them. And then they would split into zillions of pieces and contribute to the foot-mine problem.

Last night we were treated to the sounds of David's latest project. He bought a car. Not just any car. A Thunderbird Super Coupe. With a supercharged 3.8 v6 engine. Non-functional, of course. Functioning would have been beyond his budget. This car now occupies the space in the garage formerly allocated to the van. The driver of the van is not pleased about this new turn of events, because now her car sits outside. But Deb reluctantly but graciously allowed this to happen (temporarily), knowing that it is much easier to work on a car when there isn't two feet of snow on the hood.

David and his friend, Patrick Roersma, a mechanic and auto-body "wizard" of Carlisle Auto Body, worked on the car last night. I was downstairs with Abigail. I could hear various noises filtering in from the garage, but it wasn't until after David came down and gave me a status update that the symphony really began. He told me they disconnected the mufflers in case they were plugged.

The next noises I heard were considerably louder. A sudden roar erupted from the garage, rising and falling in crescendo, accompanied by all sorts of banging and popping sounds. This went on for perhaps thirty seconds and then the night was silent again. This happened a couple more times, then David burst in, asking for the camera. "The smoke is so thick in the garage, you can't see from one side to the other!" he exclaimed.

He missed his picture. The smoke had already begun to clear by the time he returned to the garage.

Meanwhile, for the last several days, Josh has been refinishing the kitchen door that leads into the garage. This door has been looking very tough as it is the main portal in and out of our home for ourselves and nearly every piece of furniture that has entered or exited our home. After over 17 years of this, it was time for a facelift. Josh stripped it to bare wood, re-stained and re-varnished it. It really looks nice now.

So for the past several days, the main path into our house has been the garage walkway littered with car parts, fighting our way through the plastic sheeting hanging over the open doorway, over the dust and old varnish which came off the door, and finally into the kitchen. Several of our visitors have had the privelege of running this gauntlet along with us.

Abigail thinks this is all normal.

Perhaps she is right.

Construction Projects

2008-12-28T22:01:00.003-05:00

I've done a few construction projects with my boys over the years. We've built a barn, built an addition to the barn, done numerous things to our house, renovated a large 100-year-old house, and restored a car, to name a few. Now that I have a daughter, it will be interesting to see what we can get involved in together.

Deb found one of those things a few days before Christmas, on sale at a local grocery store. It was a gingerbread house kit, complete with everything needed to make a gingerbread house. It became one of the gifts that Abigail opened on Christmas day. She was thrilled.

We set up a table by the woodstove and spent a few hours on it on Christmas day. I had to remind her many times that the ingredients were not to be eaten yet as they were needed to build the house. She managed to snoop more than a couple gumdrops, mini-jawbreakers, and colored sprinkles before the project was done. She also wanted to begin eating the house as soon as it was done and I had to convince her that Grandma needed to see it before we began eating it.

I did most of the icing as the bags were rather large and difficult to squeeze, but Abigail dictated where all the candies were placed. The two gingerbread people almost didn't make it as they were coveted by a girl with a newfound taste for candy.

We did have enough ingredients to complete the house. The leftovers strangely disappeared over the next day or so. There are other candy lovers in our household.

The Gift

2008-12-28T21:09:00.002-05:00

Among her other gifts, Abigail received eleven dollars for Christmas. For her, it's been one sensory overload ever since we came home from China and now having her very own money was just one more new thing that had to be experienced to the fullest. She counted it multiple times, usually at the top of her voice. "ONE DOLLAH ... TWO DOLLAH ..."

She keeps it in a purse that she found in her dress-up box, a shiny black affair that might be seen in the movies. All her worldly cash is in that purse, ten one-dollar bills, a one-dollar coin, and a bunch of small change.

The other day, she was trying to communicate something to Deb. "Mama, money, car," she told Deb. After a little bit of exchange, Deb figured out that she wanted to buy a car. She thought first that Abigail wanted to buy a big car like David just bought.

"No, little car," Abigail corrected. "Scott, Chad."

She wanted to buy matchbox cars for her cousins. Wow. This is probably the first real money she has ever had and she wants to spend it buying gifts for others.

She went along with Deb to Target so she could buy cars for her cousins. She also wanted to buy cars for her brothers. At the checkout she had to have a quick lesson in sales tax because the cars were a dollar each and the total was more than four dollars. A little extra small change and she had her gifts.

Deb ran into her sister outside the store, and they decided to send Abigail in after her cousins, who were still in the store. David was with them. Abigail ran back into the store shouting the names. For a little girl, she has a rather big voice and it could be heard all over the store.

The boys were in the video game section, playing one of the video games. When Abigail came up to them with her "secret" gift, they scarcely acknowledged that she was even there. Abigail does not cry easily, but Deb could tell she was near to tears. As she hustled David out of the store, she gave him a quick lesson in receiving a gift from a sister. "When we get outside, I want you to give her a hug and let her know that you like the gift," she told him.

David, who still is learning how to have a sister, shot back, "I don't want to create a scene!" Giving his little sister a hug in a public place is like suicide for a teenager.

They did manage to get that situation patched up and when Abigail came home she was quite excited about giving her last "secret" to Josh. Deb managed to coach Josh briefly ahead of time so he made the proper noises and Abigail was happy. She had a chance to spend some of her Christmas money which she was dying to do ever since she got it and she was able to give gifts to others in her family.

Good News for All the People

2008-12-24T12:01:00.001-05:00

Along with our CD of Chinese Christmas Music, our missionary friend left us the DVD of the children's version of the Jesus film. This DVD has been dubbed in 17 different languages, including Punjabi Indian, Tagalog, and Mandarin. We have been watching the Mandarin version with Abigail as a family. She has been absolutely riveted by the story. Sometimes she scarcely moves or blinks her eyes. And even though we've only been able to understand three Chinese words the entire time (Hello, Father, and God), we, too, are riveted by this true story.

"The Word became flesh and dwelt among us."

"Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift."

This is indeed good news for people of every tribe, tongue, and nation.

Merry Christmas from the Friend Family.

The Great Wall of China, David Style

2008-12-23T21:33:00.005-05:00

[Deb Speaking] Today was a hectic, busy day. Since it's right before Christmas, I really didn't have time to read to Abigail like I like to do every day. I am a firm believer in reading aloud to my children as I think it exposes them to good writers and it's a wonderful way to spend time together. I still read to my 17- and 15-year-olds several times a week.

Today I decided I needed a little help, so I asked David, our 15-year-old to please read to Abigail. I had selected the book The Great Wall of China by Leonard Everett Fisher. I thought Abigail might enjoy seeing the Chinese characters on the side of each page, and David could learn a little bit more about the Great Wall, which we had seen in China.

It's sounds like a foolproof win-win, doesn't it?

As I bustled about the kitchen, I stopped to tune in to what David was reading in the living room. I was hearing that King Bob and his general Kluken were involved in this great building project. I had never heard of a Chinese emperor named "Bob", and "Kluken" is David's favorite made-up word.

I did not have the time to interrupt, but later David said to me, "Mom, I hope you weren't intending that book as a history lesson for Abigail. I didn't know how to pronounce the names, so I made up my own."

I then took the book and read the first paragraph. It reads as follows:

About twenty-two hundred years ago, King Cheng of Ch'in conquered the kingdoms of Han, Sun, Yen, Yueh, Ch'i, Chou, Chao, Ch'u, Wei, Wey, Wu, and Lu. Tiny Ch'in became a huge empire: China. And King Cheng became Ch'in Shih Huang Ti, the First Supreme Emperor of China.

Hmmm. Sometimes a little improvisation IS necessary.

A Multicultural Christmas

2008-12-21T22:11:00.003-05:00

Abigail loves to dance. We discovered this after she went to the ballet last week. She was enthralled by the ballet and has dipped into her big box of dress up clothing for some strap-on wings and a baton with streamers at each end. She will use these props when she dances around the kitchen.

A friend of ours came over last night. This person is a missionary to China and has lived in China for several years and so knows the language. He talked with Abigail for quite a while last night. Or, rather, she talked to him. She has a way of dominating the conversation.

One of the things he gave us was a CD of some Christmas music, all sung in Chinese. Deb put it in the player today while she and Abigail were washing the dinner dishes. Abigail perked right up when the music started and immediately asked Deb to make it "bigger" (louder). So they did the dishes to a choir singing well known Christmas music in Chinese, loudly. I could hear it quite well from downstairs where I was building the fire.

When the dishes were done, Abigail began to dance. Soon the Clifford-the-big-red-dog slippers came off and the baton and wings came out and she was choreographing all kinds of moves to such favorites as O Come All Ye Faithful and It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.

She took a short break to call me upstairs and ordered me to participate in the dancing. So I danced, and Deb grabbed the video camera. Not a good combination. But it's all on video anyway, this big Dutch guy and a little Chinese girl dancing the Virginia Reel to Christmas Choir music sung in Chinese. Deb was laughing so hard that she couldn't hold the camera still.

She finally stopped at track 13, sweating and complaining that she was hot.

So if you want to experience a different way of celebrating Christmas, come on over, and Abigail will show you how. And this time, I will be holding the video camera.

Cooking with Abigail

2008-12-18T21:54:00.002-05:00

[Deb Speaking] The headline in my cooking magazine said "Awesome Asian Dinner: Try something new tonight! This delicious menu with Asian flair is guaranteed to shake the winter doldrums out of any weeknight."

Perfect, I thought. Abigail will be happy because she likes most anything. I'll get to try out some of my new Asian oils and sauces, and the guys will love it.

I soon had Abigail happily stir-frying the vegetables. I was doing it in my regular frying pan and she was showing me with exaggerated motions how it was supposed to be stir-fried. My pan did not allow for such Chinese cooking ballets.

Next, we made the sauce for the cod using the sesame seed oil. Definitely a different smell than my olive oil or canola oil. Well, that oil certainly spread its aroma all through the house. Josh claims it nearly knocked him off his feet when he walked in the door.

The stir-fry vegetables were tasting pretty good until I added the cornstarch broth mixture. There's something about stir-fry vegetables in a gelatinous mass that just doesn't seem right.

As I'm writing this, I'm looking over the recipe, and I now know why it was a gelatinous mass. I was so busy teaching Abigail what was a tablespoon, teaspoon, etc., that I used four tablespoons of cornstarch instead of the four teaspoons that were called for.

Abigail had been busily sampling the stir fry vegetables three our four times before I created the gelatinous mass. After that, she quit sampling it, but dutifully ate it all at dinnertime.

I had not yet made rice for dinner since Abigail has been home, so I got out my new rice cooker, my Jasmine rice, and decided to add part of the package of fried rice that I bought from Meijer. I thought, "Hey, I'm so good at making minute rice, this can't be so hard."

I threw the two together and didn't bother worrying about the correct amount of water. It will all just boil away anyway. When Abigail tasted that mushy disaster, there was such a look of stricken horror in her eyes. She tells me my Chinese is bad, but to add insult to injury, I can't even cook rice. I quickly decided to redeem myself.

I threw the mush in the trash and measured the rice carefully along with the water. It's amazing what happens when you follow directions. The rice was good. I cannot say the same for the rest of the dinner. It did shake us up as promised, however, and the smells of that dinner now captured in my stairway will continue to remind all of us of it.

The next meal I'm making: beef roast with potatoes (with NO Asian flair).

Language Issues

2008-12-17T22:34:00.001-05:00

One of the big fears that people (including ourselves) have about attempting to speak a different language is that a mispronunciation of a word will be funny or perhaps even offensive to the listener. This is especially true in languages like Chinese, where a difference in tones can change the meaning of a word entirely.

I never stopped to think it could also be true in the other direction, until now.

Abigail has been picking up English words rapidly, and has begun putting two or three words together occasionally. She knows the words for her favorite treats. Chocolate was easy. The Chinese pronunciation is actually quite similar, sounding more like "chocaLEET" (at least according to Abigail, who asks for chocaleet often).

Abigail has also discovered chocolate ice cream. She was asking for this yesterday and we were so focused on the language that we missed the pronunciation. It took one of our teenagers to point it out to us. Josh asked us, "You know what she's saying, don't you? She's asking for chocaleet ass cream."

We will be working to correct the pronunciation.

Cook's Privilege

2008-12-16T12:48:00.002-05:00

Over the last decade or so, ever since the kids have become aware that the choice of food they eat is made by someone within our own household, they have sought to influence the type of foods that are put on our table. They have used such methods as bargaining, complaining, mini hunger strikes (sitting with a still-full plate long after the meal is over), and even horse-trading with a sibling ("I'll trade some of your hot-dish for that bowl of fruit").

This all reached a head on Monday, when we had a mixture of stir-fried foods (chicken and vegetables) served in pita pockets. David, after requesting that his food be served out-of-pocket, commented rather wryly, "You know, the height of civilization is when the meat is put here and the potatoes are put there." With this, he pointed to opposite sides of his plate.

Our self-proclaimed kitchen-diva, Deb, is aware of these techniques, mostly because she pioneered most of them on her own when she was a kid. So we've developed the concept of Cook's Privilege, which basically says, (s)he who cooks the meal gets to decide what the meal looks like. Since she handles the majority of the meals, she sets the agenda and the menu. Deb also has the final trump card. She does all the grocery shopping.

An extension to Cook's Privilege is this: The cook gets to lick out the bowl, or distribute the frosting-coated spatulas to whomever the cook chooses. I invoke Cook's Privilege whenever I make our malts; I get what's left in the blender. Depending on how the ingredients go together (and sometimes how thirsty I am), this can range from nothing to several ounces.

The cook also can experiment. We have been introduced to new dishes over the years, some really good, and some not so good, because Deb occasionally finds a recipe in a magazine or from a friend that she wants to try out. Sometimes she will change the ingredients to suit her taste.

I've done my own experimenting over the years and have discovered that just a little bit too much of certain ingredients can make the difference between a good malt and a great malt.

With all the chaos in our normally well-run household, the cook was changed for Saturday's dinner. Deb was running behind in many of the things she was wanting to do, so she assigned David the task of preparing dinner. David's assistant was Abigail "I'll-eat-anything-except-peas" Friend. The menu was already set: we always have pizza on Saturday evenings. David just had to make the pizza and get it in the oven.

This time, it was David who had Cook's Privilege. Another aspect of Cook's Privilege is the ability to snoop on the ingredients as the meal is being made. Abigail caught on to this really quick. Pepperoni slices, eaten one by one, are really good when it's getting close to dinner time. So are small wads of cheese.

We had, by far, the cheesiest pizza on record. I think there was extra sauce under all that cheese also. David made the pizza how he likes it and he likes extra cheese.

Now I think we need to introduce the concept of Cook's Curse. With all the extra cheese, the sides of the pan were very crusty from the cheese that had become fused to the pan, and that made the pan very difficult to clean. It took three days to get the pan clean. I think David got out of cleaning the pan this time, but Cook's Privilege may result in Cook's Curse next time.

Abigail really likes to help out in the kitchen. It will be interesting to see what happens there when she has Cook's Privilege.

Information Gathering

2008-12-14T22:24:00.001-05:00

It's amazing what you can find out about a person when you can actually communicate with them. We had the chance to do this on Friday with Abigail, sort of.

We had an exchange student over from Hong Kong on Friday afternoon. Deb had a whole list of questions that we wanted to ask our daughter. Up till now our communication has been using a very limited vocabulary, usually one word at a time, accompanied by hand gestures. Abigail understands quite a bit, but asking her something about her past or how she feels something (for example) just isn't in the range of possibilities for us right now.

They started out by looking through a couple picture books that we had from the orphanage in China. Abigail started out fairly quietly but it didn't take long before she warmed up to the situation and began to talk non-stop. It became very difficult for Deb to inject anything into the conversation and Abigail dominated the conversation for the most part. Once in a while, Deb would be able to interrupt to ask a question, and often times the conversation just continued on through the question, with Deb having to interrupt again to ask for an answer.

This went on for an hour and a half. I had set up the video camera ahead of time, so I got the whole conversation recorded. The next day we were back on our own and Abigail was telling us she wanted to listen to some Chinese tape. It took us a while, but we finally figured out she wanted to watch the video that we had taken the day before. So she watched herself for a while. I think she would have watched the whole thing again if we would have let her.

We did manage to get a fair amount of information, despite the difficulty in asking questions. We found out that she was not allowed to go to school for at least two years, and when she did go, it was usually for three hours per day or less. She didn't really know why she did not go to school, but it did answer the question why she seems to be a couple years behind in her math skills.

She did say she likes it here. That was good to hear. She said it was a bit boring at times. I think the 'boredom' may be mostly the difference in environments. She helped care for the younger children quite a bit at the orphanage. Here, there are no younger children, only two older teenagers who are still grappling with the concept of a little sister.

The boredom can't be from the lack of activity. Our household, to a large extent, is still operating in chaos mode, where things are happening faster than we can process them. David bought a car on Tuesday and the boys and a friend of ours trailered it home on Thursday night. So in addition to a new child in the household, we now have a non-functional car sitting in the driveway: David's new project. We had a visitor when Deb and Abigail left for a church function on Saturday, and Abigail was amazed to see four cars in the driveway. She counts rather loudly and announces the result at the top of her voice. "FOUR!" she shouted, as she and Deb got in one of the cars. With our little scorekeeper away with Deb for a while, David and I spent a couple hours trying to get his car started. We were unsuccessful.

In the chaos of the day on Friday, Deb lost her list of questions and so wasn't sure if she had covered them all. Perhaps she will get another chance. Deb and Abigail are meeting the student again on Monday to take a trip to the Siagon Market, a local oriental food store, to shop for food that Abigail might like.

We'll have to see what kind of dinners are served at the Friend household in the next several days...

Noise

2008-12-14T16:58:00.001-05:00

Abigail has discovered the intercom. Now she is not only noisy, she can be noisy through the entire house at once.

Some Observations on Adoption and Adoption Travel

2008-12-11T18:49:00.002-05:00

Here are a few random observations from when we were in China

A year spent doing paperwork is an incredibly long time.
It seems like only yesterday that we first received Abigail's referral over a year ago.
Mixed race families are something to be stared at. We've been stared at from a distance of two feet, we've had numerous cell phone cameras stuck in our faces and I think Abigail got sick of all the questions that were directed at her.
Personal space isn't.
Chinese people talk too fast. Everything sounds jumbled together.
Pavement lines and traffic lights are only a suggestion.
There's always room for one more on the city bus.
Life in China is a continual game of Chicken. The first person who flinches loses the right-of-way. And one person in our travel group who has adopted five times said it is now much better than when he first was here six years ago.
Gotcha Day is hell. There really is no other way to describe it. The days following are much, much better.
Little girls look much better with longer hair than they do with a buzz cut.
You haven't experienced the REAL China, up close and personal, until you have had to throw up into a squatty potty.
Hong Kong currency is prettier than US Currency.
Chinese currency is a pain in the neck. I ended up with a whole pile of paper bills, many of them worth less than 1 Yuan. The money exchanges wouldn't take anything less than 10 Yuan, so I have lots of souvenirs. In addition, the Chinese appear to use their paper currency until it is completely worn out. Some of those souvenirs I have look like torn rags.
It's a lot easier for a young person to learn English than it is for an older person to learn Chinese.
Pizza Hut pepperoni pizza tastes exactly the same in Xi'an as it does in Grand Rapids.
Chinese pepper is white, looks exactly like flour, and makes you sneeze violently, even in small amounts.

Cash and Travel

2008-12-11T04:51:00.002-05:00

I saw this announcement a few days ago:

The CCAA has sent a notice to all agencies that they are increasing the $3000 orphanage donation. This is referred to as a "donation" but it is actually a required fee paid by all adoptive families. It is now being set at 35,000 RMB which at the current exchange rate (6.8812 to 1) is approximately $5086. This increase is required of all families traveling after January 1, 2009 and must be paid in RMB not dollars.

This is a fee that all adoptive families must hand carry, in crisp, new $100 bills, to China. Since many of the other fees are also paid in cash, the amount of cash carried to China adds up to many thousands of dollars. While the major hotels will accept credit cards, it appears that many transactions are still done in cold hard cash.

So I flew to China with a stack of $100 bills hidden under my clothing, feeling like a walking ATM machine. Traveling after January 1 will make that stack 20 bills larger.

China is actually quite safe for foreigners, and we never really felt threatened while we were there. We could walk around the streets by ourselves and even though we were very obviously foreigners, we really didn't have to worry about crime. The one problem that does exist pretty widely is pick pocketing. I read several accounts of people getting pick pocketed right outside the Bell Tower Hotel in Xi'an, where we stayed. When we were in Detroit on the way home, we ran into another family coming back from China. They lost $2100 in Guangzhou to a pick pocket who used a cigarette burn as a distraction.

So we were pretty vigilant about how we handled the cash, and kept most of it in the hotel safe when we were able.

I also really didn't understand why they required NEW $100 bills. It seemed to me that used bills were just as legal tender. And some of the Chinese money we received when we exchanged these new $100 bills looked like tattered rags.

I know now. Counterfeiting is also a problem in China. So when exchanging money at a bank, all the bills are run through a universally finicky scanner, which seems to reject about half of the bills. It was not uncommon for me to carry some money into a bank and then sit there for a half hour or more while the teller ran several of the bills through the scanner again and again and again. Then they would hold them up to the light and examine them. Then they would get the manager who would run them through the scanner 10 more times, bending the bill, snapping it between their fingers, or waving it in the air between each pass. On a couple occasions, the manager finally signed off everything just to get things moving again.

So money was always a concern. Especially since the financial "burn rate" was so high. Looking at the dwindling pile of bills in the hotel safe, I felt like a personal economic stimulus package. I bailed out the airlines, the railroad, several taxis, the orphanage, way too many government agencies, several hotels, numerous restaurants, a bunch of street vendors, and even a rickshaw driver. I figured the economy would collapse immediately after I left. Several times Deb asked me if the money was going to last longer than the trip or if the trip was going to last longer than the money. I assured her of the former.

We did make it with some to spare. We did not get pick pocketed. Everything worked out. God is good.

Siblings

2008-12-08T19:48:00.003-05:00

Today, for the first time, all three children were quietly playing together. It took a toy that has been neglected for several years. We still had the big tub of KNex and we brought it out, thinking that Abigail might like putting things together. She and I made a large flower just before supper. Now all three of them are in the family room with KNex scattered all over the place. It's time for Abigail to go to bed, but we don't want to disturb this moment. Deb and I have actually been able to chat downstairs by the fire for a half hour.

A New Normal

2008-12-08T12:19:00.001-05:00

It has now been four weeks since we met our scared little daughter on a street corner in central China. Since then, a lot has transpired, and the events seem to be accelerating.

If you wonder just when life will be returning to normal for us, we would be the first to say that we have no idea anymore what 'normal' is. When 'normal' does happen, it will most likely be a 'normal' far different than the 'normal' that we have been used to. And that may not happen for a while yet.

On one hand, Abigail is making tremendous strides towards becoming part of our family. Her understanding of the language has been expanding more rapidly each day and we can now communicate with her to some extent about simple things. She is picking up new words each day.

It is a lot of fun to see her discover or experience new things. I had her out in the snow yesterday, on a tiny hill behind our house. Just slogging through ten inches of snow brought squeals of delight, and she laughed all the way down the little hill when riding in the sled. We tried to ask her if she ever had this much snow in Tongchuan, but I don't know if she understood what we were asking. She really is a delightful little girl. High maintenance right now, but delightful. I've even been seeing some signs that the boys are warming up to her. For a while, she was just an annoyance. She still is, but now just less so. So far we have not had any major meltdowns and grieving spells which are typical, perhaps they will come later. Part of that ever-shifting 'normal'.

On the other hand, other things have been happening that will keep life at the chaotic stage for a while.

We've had a lot of snow lately. We've also had a lot of visitors lately. We do like both, however the snow tends to wear out its welcome after Christmas. Visitors never wear out their welcome. Unfortunately, the presence of both at the same time made for a rather icy driveway and Grandma took a fall in our driveway on Saturday and broke her arm in two places. She has helped us a lot since we've been home. Actually, she has helped us a lot since our first child was born nearly 18 years ago. Now she is out of commission for a while. The boys will be disappointed. Grandma often bailed them out of doing their chores. Abigail seems to enjoy helping out; now she may get a chance to help Grandma as well.

This economic downturn has hit close to home. The layoffs at work made headlines in the regional news channels. Several people that I worked with quite closely are no longer there. I feel blessed to have survived with only a small pay cut.

Abigail is blissfully unaware of most of this, other than Grandma's arm being in a cast and sling. "Grandma, ouch!" is her description of the situation. Her ignorance is probably a good thing, as her 'normal' has changed much more than ours.

We'll let you know when 'normal' happens. Just don't hold your breath.

Photogenics

2008-12-06T09:29:00.001-05:00

Abigail loves to have her picture taken and will strike up a pose whenever the camera is in the vicinity. She has found a kindred spirit in her cousin, Jada, who also loves to pose for the camera.

The Mandarin Fix

2008-12-06T07:36:00.002-05:00

Learning a new language is hard work and I think that's one of the reasons Abigail clocks in 12 hours a sleep per night. She gets pretty tired by the end of the day.

We're using various methods to introduce her to the English language. Besides the rather obvious one of just being immersed in an English speaking household, Deb reads to her during the day, she plays Bingo with Abigail to teach letter and number recognition and pronunciation, she works with Abigail in telling time using a hand clock, and several other formal and informal ways.

So after all this hard work, Abigail has really enjoyed her break, her "Mandarin Fix", a CD with the story of the Shepherd of Qinghai, a Chinese story published by the Back to God Hour. A half hour of this, snuggled under a blanket, listening while it plays on the computer, gets her full attention.

And for a half hour, the house is quiet.

Friends

2008-12-04T06:27:00.003-05:00

There really isn't a whole lot I could add to this picture, so I'll just let it stand alone and speak it's own message.

Adjustments

2008-12-02T13:05:00.000-05:00

Abigail is adjusting well. Her English vocabulary is expanding every day and probably is up to a couple dozen words. She understands a lot more than that, though. We can tell her to go make her bed or put something in her bedroom and she will do it, although she would not be able to describe what she just did back to us. I'm sure the pantomimes that accompany nearly all communications help in this.

She is becoming very American in her eating as well. While she initially did not really like the breads that we eat a lot of (the Chinese typically do not eat baked bread; any bread or buns tend to be steamed rather than baked), she now eats just as much of it as we do. She loves meat and vegetables and nearly anything that gets put on her plate, except peas and perhaps broccoli. We're working on the broccoli. We understand the peas; none of us eat peas either. This is one battle we don't fight, and she's quite adept at moving the peas to one side with her chopsticks.

She rejected the use of chopsticks while in China, but has now picked them back up. I think she was trying to be American for a while and then figured out that it was much easier for her to use what she was accustomed to.

She also sleeps well. We will put her to bed at 8:00 and won't hear a peep out of her until 7 or 8 the next morning. She is not a morning person, and would rather laze around in bed for as long as possible. On Sunday, I got her up after some cajoling and then told her to make her bed. Deb found her several minutes later, sound asleep, back in bed. The way she stumbles around after just getting up is almost comical. Each step is laboriously taken with a shuffling thump that makes her tousled hair swing from side to side, and her dour expression warns us all to leave her alone in her sleepiness.

She has a delightful personality and loves to have fun. She's always laughing about something, and will laugh when others laugh, even though she has no idea what they are laughing about. She is mischievous and loves to tease, much to the chagrin of her brothers, who aren't used to this at all. She is also noisy. It's hard to communicate to her what an "indoor voice" is like, and she will announce her presence loudly, at any time, interrupting whatever is currently in progress.

She has a pair of dress shoes that she wore to church. She liked the clacking noises they made on the hard floors. She insisted on wearing those shoes on Monday and drove everyone nuts with the constant clacking and clumping as she stomped around the house. We have very little carpet in our house, so there was a lot of clacking.

We are having a harder time adjusting. The kids have recovered from jet lag just fine, we are still working on it. The tiredness at the end of the day is accentuated by the constant attention that Abigail demands. She does not play or work independently and demands constant attention. Yesterday was my first full day back at work, so Deb had Abigail for the full day. When I got home, Deb was visibly worn out, the boys were nowhere to be found, and Abigail was bouncing off the walls.

We were blessed with a dinner brought in by another church family, so it was nice to just sit down and eat. After dinner, Deb kept Abigail occupied decorating the Christmas tree while I finished up math and physics with the boys. When we got her to bed at 8:00, the silence was palpable. Deb and I fell into bed, quite exhausted, before 10:00, and both of us were awake at 2:30am.

During our family devotions, I am trying to emphasize a few of the fruits of the Spirit, especially patience, gentleness, and self-control. These are what we need a special measure of right now. Perhaps the joy and peace will follow. This is a huge disruption to the family, one that was not entirely unexpected, but difficult to live through nonetheless. It's one of those situations where we are forced to draw daily on God's grace and providence. It makes me think of how the priests carried the Ark into the Jordan River when the Israelites crossed towards Jericho. It wasn't stepping into a small shallow stream, it was a large river at flood stage. One step and they are over their heads. They took the first step, and THEN God parted the waters.

We are now in this over our heads. We are taking it one day at a time, and eagerly (OK, sometimes wearily) look forward to what God is going to do each day. We know that he will part the waters for us as well.

Pictures From the First Week Home

2008-11-28T06:34:00.008-05:00

The day after we got home, it snowed. Enough to roll a large snowball.

Abigail and her Chinese American Girl Doll. Yes, we now have dolls in our house.

She even sleeps with the doll at her side.

Abigail loves riding in the car. She was amazed that David could drive.

Just after completing her first jigsaw puzzle.

Imagine This!

2008-11-27T18:01:00.001-05:00

I regret not taking a picture; maybe I will be able to sometime, so you will just have to imagine. It was rather humorous watching Abigail try to eat a chunk of finger jello with chopsticks.

First Time at Church

2008-11-27T10:00:00.000-05:00

Abigail was at church for the first time on Wednesday night. This is our Thanskgiving Eve service where several in our congregation share what they are thankful for. It is always a blessing to hear what God is doing in other's lives. We serve an amazing God and hearing how he has blessed others just makes Him more amazing.

This year, I was asked to share about our adoption trip. I wrote up a short essay and surprised myself by speaking calmly and clearly in front of all those people. I'll share that essay here as well:

Ni Hao... Hello.

Now you know a large part of my Chinese vocabulary.

We just returned from a trip to China this past Saturday. All four of us went to China, all five of us came back. Our newest family member, Abigail, is nine years old. It is really nice to have her back before Thanksgiving, because now we have so much more to be thankful for.

We thank God first of all for an amazing trip. We spent three days in Beijing, six days in Xi'an, six days in Guangzhou, and a day in Hong Kong. We traveled by plane, train, boat, bus, taxi, van, golf cart, gondola, rickshaw, toboggan, and on foot. I could show you our pictures, but there are nine hundred fifty of them and I might run over my allotted time. Through this all, God kept us safe and on schedule. He placed people in our path who took care of us through the entire trip. Our guide in Beijing was a believer. We met up with other believing families in Guangzhou whom we became friends with, one of whom lives right around here in Zeeland. We thank God for Mr. Gao and the other drivers that ferried us around. They were extremely skilled and navigated the city streets without a single mishap. Those of you that have been to China know that is no small feat.

He carried us through two of our family members becoming violently ill. These illnesses did not affect our schedule in any way.

He carried us through an extremely difficult and stressful day when we met our daughter for the first time. It was probably one of the most difficult days of our lives. Here was a scared little girl who would not even look at us when we first met her. Even though she knew we were the ones she had seen in the pictures we sent her, she refused to come near us, and when I finally got her on my lap, she was stiff as a board and wanted to get off right away. She sobbed miserably when it came time to leave her former caregivers and go with us to our hotel room. It was a heartbreaking scene.

We are also very thankful for the next day. Some of her sunny personality began to shine through and we saw her beautiful smile for the first time. Since that time, she has been adjusting well. She laughs easily, smiles easily, sleeps well, eats well and even likes to sit on my lap. She loves to be on the go and seems to have a strong desire to learn.

We also recognize both the privilege and the responsibility to share Christ with our new daughter. Since we were bringing her home shortly before Christmas, Deb asked her through our interpreter what she thought Christmas was all about. Abigail described a big man with a bag on his back and gifts. Deb described back to her the true meaning of Christmas; how the sacrifices done by the emperors and other sacrifices by other people all over the world were not enough to erase the bad things we had done, how God sent his own Son to be the final sacrifice. We celebrate his coming at Christmas and give gifts to represent his gift to us. When she was done translating all this to Chinese for Abigail, our interpreter told us, "Wow, I learned some new things today."

Abigail may not understand all the things that were said at that time, but we are thankful that she is now part of our family and will be able to hear it again and again. We are confident that he who began a good work in this little nine-year-old will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

We are very thankful for our friends at GCC who upheld us in prayer during our trip. This is a giant step for us. We are way outside our comfort zones and we are thankful for all the thoughtful gestures that many of you have done during this process that have provided support for us.

When we made the decision to adopt over a year ago, we really had no idea what the outcome would be. All we had were a small picture and a medical report. Nothing else. We've seen both the best and worst of outcomes in other adoptions. Adopting an older child adds more uncertainty to the mix, so it was truly a step into the unknown.

Now that we are home again we still have no idea what the future holds. Only God knows and we are thankful that the future is firmly in His hands. Each day for us brings new discoveries of what she is like. Some of those are pleasant surprises, some are areas that need to be worked on.

As an example, the morning after she came home, she was investigating this new home of hers when she came dashing out of the family room to where I was. "Baba, ka", she said, (Daddy, look!) and pulled me by the hand into the family room. With wonder in her eyes she pointed to what had excited her. She was just so amazed and enthralled that we actually had a piano in our home. She sat down later and plinked out a couple tunes, songs she had been taught by her foster sister in China, complete with singing the lyrics in Chinese. It looks like piano lessons may be in her future.

We appreciate your prayers as we continue this journey and we give thanks to God for Abigail, for our family, for our good friends at GCC, and most of all, for our adoption into the family of God.

Xie Xie ... Thank you.

When this was done, I motioned to Abigail, and she readily came up to the podium. I picked her up and was able to introduce her to the congregation. She beamed to a large room full of complete strangers.

Afterward, Abigail was a bit overwhelmed by the small crowd of little girls introducing themselves to her. Many of them are also Chinese adoptees so she should eventually feel right at home. She warmed up to them quickly and soon they were chasing each other around.

A little while later, she was on the floor, screaming in pain. She must have tripped and fell. She usually tolerates pain and we rarely hear her cry, so this must have been bad. We took her home, looked at the foot, and decided to put her in bed and check it in the morning.

We spent most of Thanksgiving morning in the St. Mary's Urgent Care Center. It wasn't all that busy, so we got in right away. This just means we wait in the examination room rather than the waiting room. Abigail seems very used to all the activity and sat very still for the x-rays. She seemed to enjoy mimicking all the beeps and noises that the machine made.

After another interminable wait, the doctor came back in and told us it wasn't broken. Another thing to be thankful for. It was only a bad sprain. She is now putting weight on it although she favors it somewhat.

It doesn't seem to slow her down. When she does't want to put weight on it, she just hops around the house on one foot.

She was excited to go to grandma's house for Thanksgiving dinner. I think part of the excitement is riding in the car. She was amazed that we could actually drive a car. She was doubly amazed when we drove to Grandma's house, and David drove the car. Imagine that, this crazy family I find myself in, and everyone drives!

Aftereffects

2008-11-24T19:53:00.002-05:00

Jet lag has hit us. Hard.

Abigail crashed right after supper. She was up before 5am and went like the Energizer Bunny until after supper, when she suddenly fell asleep. It was all we could do to rouse her enough to brush her teeth and use the bathroom before tucking her in bed.

I came home from work at 10:30 this morning with my head buzzing. Deb had a three hour nap this afternoon so she is doing better than all of us right now. We will probably all end up in bed before 8:00pm.

The meal that was brought to us by a church member was a Godsend. By suppertime, we could barely navigate, so it was nice to sit down to a meal that we didn't have to spend time preparing.

Now that we're home, it would seem that the story is over. But this was just the first chapter. The bulk of the story is still to come.

Please stop by to meet the newest Friend. We love having people over. Especially unannounced. Then we don't have to feel bad if the house isn't picked up. And stay tuned here for further developments. Although there may not be the barrage of posts like the last couple weeks, we'll try to keep you all updated on Abigail's progress.

Details

2008-11-23T05:04:00.001-05:00

I have re-arranged the last five posts to put them in the correct time sequence. So there may be one you have not seen posted before one you have already seen.

We're Home, Reprise

2008-11-23T04:40:00.004-05:00

Now that most of the brain cells are functioning again, I can offer a few more details on our homecoming.

It's good to be back. We came into the Kent County International Airport just after 4:00pm yesterday. Our flights were all on time and uneventful as far as flying goes. Abigail didn't want to sleep on the long flight from Tokyo to Detroit. She found everything else that was happening too interesting. She was glued to the movie even though she did not have the earphones on. We told her to sleep multiple times and she would get down in her seat. But when she thought we weren't looking, she slowly raised herself up to peer over the seat in front of her. We put her in bed at 6:00 pm and she slept until 4:00 am Sunday morning. 10 hours. Not bad. I made it until 2:30 am.

She is definitely exploring the limits. Whenever we had a soft drink at a restaurant, she has used her straw to blow bubbles in the drink, often splashing it all over the place. We finally took her drink away at the last Pizza Hut because of it.

On the plane, the flight attendant gave her a coffee straw with her glass of orange juice. She leaned over the glass really close and blew one bubble in the juice. Then I saw her slowly look over in my direction out of the corner of her eye. She saw I was watching her and quickly looked away again. She does know what "no" means but likes to see just how far she can push things.

After leaving 80 degree weather, we arrived home to a blistering 29 degrees. Summer is definitely over.

We arrived home to a warm house (we had left the thermostat set at 45) and several gifts from our dear friends at Grace Community Church. There were signs on the wall, flowers on the table, and food in the fridge. Thanks, GCC, for everything!

We're Home

2008-11-22T17:29:00.000-05:00

We made it. Abigail is now running around the house, looking and marveling at all the new things. I'll post more to take care of remaining details after we get some sleep.

Radio Silence

2008-11-21T18:15:00.001-05:00

It's been a little while since the last post, but we are still alive and kicking. We are currently waiting to board the plane at Hong Kong International Airport. The radio silence has been due to lack of internet access, or more correctly, lack of AFFORDABLE Internet access. We are all doing well and can't wait to get these long hours of travel over with.

Abigail is definitely NOT a morning person. However, she knew we were flying today and so made it out of bed at 5:00 am with only moderate protest.

Additional posts will follow as time/internet access allows.

A Day in Hong Kong

2008-11-20T18:44:00.000-05:00

We spent all day Friday walking the streets of Hong Kong. We were actually in Kowloon, which sits on one side of Victoria Harbor, with a commanding view of Hong Kong island across the harbor. The view during the day and at night was impressive, if you had the right viewpoint. From the streets, you can see nothing. The streets are the most amazing urban canyons I have ever seen, with narrow streets, even narrower sidewalks, and 20 or 30 story buildings rising up beside the sidewalks. When we tried to walk three abreast (Deb and I holding Abigail's hands), we took up the entire sidewalk from the side of the building to the road.

Our hotel room on the 19th floor offered a great view of the city, with the picture below taken from the hotel window.

Our hotel was right on the waterfront, and a large promenade along the water allowed for a nice walk along the city, and a great view of Hong Kong Island at night.

The next few pictures were taken on the waterfront promenade

The Friend Siblings in Hong Kong

Abigail, assuming her desired role as director

We arrived here in Hong Kong late last night (Thursday). The hotel is right across from the train station so we just had to drag our luggage across the street. When I made the hotel reservations, I was told this was one of the more reasonable hotels in the area (without running all over Kowloon). We are finding out that it is one of these posh business hotels where the room is expensive and all the other essentials (like Internet access) is an extra charge. The woman at the front desk tried to sell us an upgraded package which included breakfast, Internet access, and a bunch of other stuff for "only $150 per person" [Hong Kong dollars, or about US$20]. I was told this was a great deal because just to get breakfast was HK$180.

As she was listing off the great benefits of this special package, she looked at Abigail and asked if our children were noisy. We serve a business clientele, she told me, and so the children need to be kept quiet in the restaurant. So I just got told that I'm not welcome unless I can keep a lid on the kid.

And, by the way, this special package is only available if we pay for two day's worth. "I only need one day," I told her. "We need to leave the hotel before breakfast is even served on the second day." She was already writing the figures down on the hotel tab and I was seeing some big numbers add up in a hurry, so I told her we would pass on the special. If we're not welcome, we'll spend our money somewhere else. We'll see if we can forage on our own for meals.

And forage we did. We had a not-so-special breakfast at a train station restaurant, and then Deb and Josh and David went out scouting the city. Abigail and I stayed back because she was complaining that she wasn't feeling well. This is one of those things what we have to learn about her, especially since we cannot communicate yet: is she not feeling well just because she doesn't feel well, or because she doesn't feel like walking?

Deb and the boys returned later to say they had found a bakery which made some excellent cheese bread, and they found some sort of chicken/ham thing at a grocery store deli which was underground. Leave it to Deb to scout out a good deal. The chicken/ham things were fantastic, and we bought more of them later on for the next morning's breakfast.

Abigail is not a bread fan, but she did eat the chicken/ham thing and an orange. That's one english word she knows, "gorange". Oranges have been a staple for us during this trip.

Abigail does like pizza. On our way back to the hotel, Josh, our 17-year-old Hong Kong navigator, was leading us through the city streets, and found a Pizza Hut on the second floor of one of the bazillion buildings there. I know this sounds like we're wimping out, going all the way to Hong Kong and eating at a Pizza Hut, but our diets have been so crazy the last few weeks and we have had two of us get violently ill, so something familiar was a welcome sight. And it's something we all like.

Goodbye Guangzhou

2008-11-20T07:22:00.000-05:00

We're on the move again. I'm writing this aboard the train from Guangzhou to Hong Kong. Abigail was excited to ride the train and now she has been talking non-stop. I think the Chinese woman across from us thought that Abigail was trying to make conversation with her because she was responding back for a while, but it was obvious that she just wanted to read. She had her book in her hand and earphones in her ears. I think she finally figured out that this conversation had no end and lapsed into silence. Abigail's side of the conversation continued on unabated for a while before I got out my keyboard and began to type. Now she points out whenever I type her name.

Our swearing in ceremony was a little anti-climactic. We and 52 other families piled into a fifth floor room at the US Consulate, turned in some paperwork, raised our right hand, said yes, received a brown envelope, and were done. A bunch of people cheered. I had a little trouble hearing what was going on because the room was so noisy. If we were to eliminate the waiting around, the actual process took perhaps five minutes. Of all the states represented there, Michigan had the most families, with four families.

We now have her passport back with an immigrant visa and all the paperwork to hand off to the US Immigration people when we land in Detroit on Saturday.

Abigail has enjoyed the other kids from our travel group. She and two-year-old Simon, who calls her his big sister, were chasing each other around the lobby of the US Consulate building while we were waiting for the rest of our group to arrive. They are always happy to see each other. The cool thing is, they live only about ten miles from us so they will be able to see each other again in the States.

Waiting at the Guangzhou Train Station

Wednesday

2008-11-19T17:53:00.004-05:00

Today was a rather lazy day. The only planned activity was the dinner cruise on the Pearl River in the evening. Our consulate appointment was also today, but our coordinator was the one who went to the consulate. All we had to do was assign one of us to wait by the phone from 11 until noon in case there were paperwork problems. There weren't. We did some shopping at the local souvenir vendors. Josh found a copy of the movie National Treasure 2 which he got for 15 yuan (a little over two bucks) and we watched it at night. There's a reason the cheap copies are cheap. Several times during the movie, the dvd froze up but then started going again a few seconds later. We enjoyed the movie, however.

We took the hotel bus to the dinner cruise. On the way, Abigail and Michael were peppering Leila (our coordinator) with questions about what was going to happen next. I'm sure there's many questions in their heads and will be for some time to come.

When we were in Xi'an, Abigail thought our hotel room was "home" and after Jane told her we would be leaving for a different place, Abigail wondered how we were going to take all our stuff along (the furniture) and if someone else was going to buy the room when we were gone.

The communication gap is still pretty big. Abigail understands "eat", and when we told her that we would eat on a boat in the evening, we thought we had communicated it to her successfully until Abigail asked Leila if "eat" and "boat" meant the same thing.

Abigail loved the cruise. She stood on the top deck next to Deb and squealed in delight many times, perhaps not so much with the lights along the river, but with the motion of the boat and the wind in her hair.

Eating ice cream along the Pearl River. We got a tip from another family that the Magnum bars purchased at the 7-Eleven were really good. We would agree.

Dinner on the boat. Abigail now understands that "boat" and "eat" are two different things because she has now experienced them both. She has experienced more modes of travel in these two weeks (plane, taxi, bus, car, boat and [soon] train) than in her entire life.

The "we were there" picture

Abigail found the whole experience highly delightful.

Lights along the Pearl River

Leaving Tomorrow

2008-11-19T10:35:00.004-05:00

It's hard to believe, but tonight is our last night in Guangzhou. Tomorrow afternoon we have a swearing in ceremony at the US Consulate, then we take the train to Hong Kong where we'll stay for a day. It's late, so I'll post more later. Josh bought a copy of the movie National Treasure 2 and we watched that after we put Abigail to bed, so now it's bedtime for us as well.

Consulate Appointment

2008-11-18T22:54:00.002-05:00

Today, our consulate appointment was at 11:00. I spent the time in the hotel room, waiting by the phone. Our coordinator attended the appointment and handled all the paperwork and said she would call before noon if there was a problem with the paperwork. It is now noon, and I have not received any phone calls, so our paperwork must have been deemed acceptable. Yippee!

That paperwork consisted of a bunch of forms that we spent over two hours filling in on Monday, a bunch of notarized documents that we got in Xi'an, Abigail's passport, the adoption certificate, and some paperwork we brought from home.

Other than some post-adoption reporting requirements, this is the end of the paperchase.

The Red Couch

2008-11-18T18:44:00.002-05:00

It wouldn't be a complete adoption trip without the picture on the red couch at the White Swan Hotel (sometimes jokingly called the White Stork). So, here's ours:

The newly adopted kids in our travel group

Another First

2008-11-18T17:57:00.002-05:00

Abigail said her own name for the first time yesterday. Up until now she would readily identify Mama and Baba and her two ge ges, Josh and David, in pictures, but when asked who the little girl was, she would just point at herself and not say anything. Yesterday she pointed at all of us and said in turn: "Mama, Baba, Josh, David" and when she pointed at herself, she said with near perfect pronunciation, "Abigail." Now she seems to use her name readily.

Pictures from Tuesday

2008-11-18T09:37:00.010-05:00

On our outing to Baiyun Mountain, we had another opportunity for a family picture. We are finding out that Abigail loves to have her picture taken as much as she loves to take pictures.

The Friend siblings

The route down from the mountain. If it hadn't been such a hazy day, the view over Guangzhou would have been marvelous.

Lunch. Give Abigail some instant noodles and she's happy.

We had dinner at a Cantonese restaurant. Abigail loved the seaweed looking stuff and ate it with great relish (and perhaps a little bit of theatrics).

Simon Sprick has taken a liking to David and wanted to be held several times by him. David had to be taught how to pick up and hold a two-year-old. He asked us, "How do you pick up this thing?"

Our travel group. The Spricks, Friends, Lowes, and Cravens.

Father's Joy

2008-11-18T09:06:00.004-05:00

Today we took a trip to Baiyun Mountain. Josh and David made it all the way to the summit. Tim, Abigail and I made it quite a ways. We took a golf cart up most of the way and walked a fair ways towards the top. We stopped at the tablet forest area and had a scroll made of the meaning of Abigail's name in Chinese calligraphy. There was quite a discussion between our translator and the artist, and even some of the people watching about how this should be done.

Since our guide and translator here is not a Christian, she wasn't quite sure how to explain "Father's joy", which is what the name, Abigail, means to the calligraphy artist. So all of you out there who can read Chinese calligraphy tell us if it turned out right.

A Chinese Dutch Girl

2008-11-18T08:33:00.003-05:00

Well, it happened today. Abigail and I had just a girls' shopping trip. The guys wanted to get off the island and head into the crowded, chaotic city and check out an electronics store. I decided to stay back with Abigail and try the quiet little shops around here. I felt we had enough vocabulary and she was understanding more and more every day that I could take her shopping and that if I didn't want to buy something, she would not throw a temper tantrum. We have had a few discussions about whining and that when I say no, I mean no.

I knew that Abigail was very interested in one of the feathered hackey sacks that people here are always playing with. The way you shop in China is you ask several vendors what the price of an item is to get a baseline (and believe me, it varies widely) and then you begin to bargain. With an item as cheap as the feathered hackey sack, it didn't take us long to figure out that the typical price for one was five yuan. This is a little over seventy five cents. I know it's not much, but a Dutchman just has to get it for a better price.

I told Abigail that five was too much, and if she could get it for three, we would buy it. Boy, did she go to town. She would go up to the vendors, ask them how much in Chinese, make her offer, and if they told her no, she would walk away.

After trying this for a while, I realized that three was probably just a little bit too cheap. So I told her if she could get it for four (not five), she could have it.

Now she started in on her new price offer. In one shop, the female shop clerk told her, no it was five. Abigail would shake her head and tell her no, I want it for four. Finally, the woman sent Abigail to the owner of the shop and Abigail and he sealed the deal at four. I must say it was great cheap entertainment for me to see her haggling the way the Chinese love to do.

The shopkeeper spoke excellent English and he told me that he is trying to teach his son to be brave and do this as well. He then told me laughingly that when he agreed to Abigail's price, she told him that he was a good man. We also bought a little butterfly baret from him that Abigail was very excited about. He also did Abigail's name for her in calligraphy. When I told him Abigail's name, his face lit up and he said, "Oh, from the Bible! I'm a Christian, too." And he shook my hand.

After this, Abigail was through shopping. She wanted to play hackey sack. I was never athletic when I was young, and I have not improved with age. Abigail took me to the park in the heart of the island and made my try to play hackey sack. We were quite a spectacle for all the Chinese that were all around. I think they marvelled that somebody could have as little coordination as I. I could tell that Abigail had never played before either. Finally, a Chinese woman had pity on us, and gave Abigail some tips on how to play. Her tips did nothing for me, of course. Later on, Abigail dragged us all down to the center of the island to make us all play hackey sack.

A group of Chinese playing hackey sack

Monday Pictures

2008-11-17T18:41:00.010-05:00

Today's big event was going to the Safari Park. We went with two other families

Kamryn, Findlay, and Abigail

Feeding the giraffe.

We were treated to an elephant show, where the elephants did all sorts of amazing things.

The park had a small amusement park, and Abigail had her first ride on a couple of the different rides there.

Snack time.

Posing by the giant Panda bear.

Dinner at Lucy's when we got home.

Playing with Simon Sprick in the hotel playroom across from our room. We met up with the Spricks in Beijing and then again when we came to Guangzhou and found they live about 10 miles from us.

Walking Down the Street

2008-11-17T07:34:00.002-05:00

Walking down the street with Abigail is testing the patience of Josh and David. First of all, they always try to walk down the street in the most physically challenging way possible. If they are on their bikes, they are hopping curbs, popping wheelies, etc., and if they are walking, they look at cars.

But not Abigail. We've had to try to break her of the habit of walking with pen and paper and copying all the Chinese characters she sees on signs. Josh and David certainly never asked to practice their penmanship while out on a walk.

Abigail doesn't look at cars, either. The island hosts multiple weddings per day and there are several bridal shops around here. She looks at the windows and poses like the bridal mannequins.

But what really put them over the edge the other day is when they wanted to get to our destination, and she stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, grabbed the corners of her dress, and twirled around and giggled. Twirling has never before been seen when the Friends are out walking.

Green Eggs and Ham

2008-11-17T06:26:00.002-05:00

Training this child in the English language is going to be more difficult with two teenage boys around.

This morning they had her little blue stuffed elephant and she wanted it back. "Green eggs and ham," said David, and Josh handed him the elephant. "Green eggs and ham," said Josh, and the elephant was passed back. This interchange happened a few more times then they told Abigail, "you need to say 'Green eggs and ham'."

Abigail finally said "Green eggs and ham" in her Chinese accent and the boys immediately handed her the elephant and praised her for it.

Tonight at dinner, Abigail wanted one of Joshua's french fries. David immediately piped up. "Green eggs and ham," he said, and Josh immediately handed him one of his fries. "Green eggs and ham," said David again, and received another french fry.

"Say 'green eggs and ham'," said Josh, and Abigail did her best imitation of the phrase. She was rewarded with a couple of french fries.

She thinks this is all a big game and giggles gleefully. At this rate, they will have her totally messed up by the time we return home.

Introducing the Friend Family, Version 1.3

2008-11-17T05:11:00.003-05:00

It's a little hard to believe, but today was the first chance we had to hand the camera off and have a family picture taken. We'll try to get some more before this trip is over.

Life in a Bubble

2008-11-16T18:35:00.001-05:00

Life for the last couple weeks has been in a real bubble. That bubble is going to pop when we get on the airplane to go home.

One of the bubbles we have going is that of communication. When we were in Xi'an, our coordinator/guide, Jane, was dedicated to our family. She was extremely helpful and patient. She fielded a thousand questions from us and patiently explained things to Abigail that we wished to communicate to her. She was able to tell us what Abigail was saying to us, and also spent time just chatting with Abigail. Every time we met Jane in the lobby, Abigail would dash over to her and greet her joyfully.

The communication bubble got a little smaller when we came to Guangzhou. Our guide here is responsible for four families, so we rarely see her. She is not available for those questions that come up.

We were in a play area yesterday where there were lots of kids playing and lots of parents watching or chatting. Abigail went off to play, and a couple minutes later, when Deb went to check up on her, she was very subdued. She was not her normal, bubbly self. Someone must have said something to her that affected her deeply. And we had no way to ask her about it. It took her quite a while to recover. We have it quite a bit where someone will speak with her in Chinese for a while and we have no idea what they are saying. By the time we were able to ask our coordinator to ask Abigail about it, the crisis had passed and Abigail didn't have much to say about it.

Three of the children in our group are old enough to have acquired the language, so Abigail has a couple kids to talk to when we get together. I'm sure this will be an adjustment for her when we get back and there is no one close by and immediately available to talk to.

Pop, goes the bubble.

I just wonder when the adjustment bubble is going to pop. Other than a rough first day, we have had no grieving spells to speak of. Abigail wakes up REALLY grumpy in the morning, but breakfast usually cures that, and then she's a bubbly, giggly, silly nine-year-old who drives her brothers nuts. She willingly holds our hands when we are out and about and even enjoys being carried occasionally (although at nearly 50 pounds of live, squirmy weight, Baba can only take so much). She hugs us goodnight (rather anemically, although our comparison up till now has been two boys who can hug the life right out of you, kind of like comparing Snow White with Sampson), and I think a kiss on the cheek is a new concept for her.

She is generally well behaved, even with her strong personality. We have had a few battles of the will, particularly at bedtime, but we have managed to prevail in these so far. She may have a strong personality, but Mama has a stronger personality, and Mama says that Mama is the queen of this household, and there is only one queen. The sooner Abigail recognizes her rank as princess, the better.

That being said, it is now time to get the princess out of bed. This morning it is my turn. It's not a pleasant task.

Some Pictures from Sunday

2008-11-16T07:38:00.012-05:00

Waking the Dead: Abigail is not a morning person.

After we attended the service at Shamien Christ Church, we had lunch in our room. Abigail has instant noodles, we have bread and jam and peanut butter.

After lunch, we went to the open air market across the Pearl River. This is a network of streets and narrow alleys where you can buy pretty much everything.

A closer view of a few of the shops.

The nearest I can guess what these are is dried flying squirrel.

Abigail liked all the puppies that were for sale.

A large mall near the market. There must have been 20,000 people in the square outside this mall.

Shamien Island, where our hotel (the Victory Hotel) is located, is in kind of a bubble. It is an oasis inside a crowded and busy city. There are several weddings a day which take place here amongst the palm trees and courtyards. This is an island by virtue of a section of the river which surrounds it, actually, more like a moat. Life on the island is sort of slow and dreamy, while the real China bustles all around. Cross the moat, and it's an entirely different world.

Another part of the bubble we are living in right now is the weather. It was in the low 80's yesterday, around 85 degrees today, with more of the same for the rest of our time here, maybe cooling into the upper 70's. I hear it's cold and even snowy at home. So I will say this while I can, before I, too, join the ranks of the snowbound:

Nya, nya!

We met up with three other families from our agency in Guangzhou. This evening, we went out to dinner with two of them. Abigail, Kamryn, and Michael [not pictured] spent the evening chatting with each other in Chinese. I think it was nice for them to be able to talk with someone they can understand. It was sort of a fancier Italian restaurant, and the kids were all very good until just before we left, when they began to get louder and louder, having a debate about numbers and hand signs for the numbers.

After we left the restaurant, we stood by the side of the Pearl River for a while and watched the lights. Guangzhou lights up at night and the view along the Pearl River is amazing. We will be taking a cruise along the river on Wednesday, so we will get a front row view of the lights on the shoreline at that time.

Some Pictures from Saturday

2008-11-15T09:47:00.003-05:00

We were in time for our 9:00 appointment at the medical clinic. Unfortunately, about 30 other families were also right on time.

Outside the physical examination location.

Abigail taking an eye exam.

We took a walk in the afternoon and happened upon the open-air seafood market. There were lots of delectable items for purchase there, including squid, things that looked like worms, and many other things that were still alive.

Josh ordered this pizza at Lucy's restaurant. To his surprise, it contained corn and peas. Not what he expected on his pizza.

A Trip to the Grocery Store, Part 2

2008-11-15T09:31:00.002-05:00

There are no grocery stores on this little island. There are a couple of tiny convenience stores, but, by day 1, food was becoming a critical issue. Every time we leave our motel room, Abigail wants to know if we are eating. All of us have thoroughly eaten through all the snacks and fruits I had bought in Xi'an for the plane ride. Another adoptive parent in our group convinced Leila, our coordinator, to take us by taxi to the grocery store on the mainland. After the usual harrowing taxi ride where you wish you had taken time to triple your insurance policy before you left home, we arrived at the grocery store. I don't quite understand how this all works, but the grocery store is a couple levels underneath the ground. We grabbed a cart and soon we were going on a sloping moving sidewalk in a downward direction. It's a real trip, let me tell you! The store was jam-packed. You played kamikaze grocery cart as you navigated the aisles.

Here, when you buy your fruit, it has to be weighed and marked by the clerk near the fruit. Since there are lots of other people wanting to get their fruit marked, you can't be shy, because the Chinese don't queue up. Fortunately, I knew it was my turn next, and my long arms could reach over and get my fruit on the scale before the next person snuck in.

Then it was time to find some munchies. Wheat digestible crackers. Seafood crackers. I ended up with cucumber flavored Lay's potato chips. I just didn't think I could handle the blueberry flavored ones.

A Walk in the Park

2008-11-15T09:15:00.002-05:00

On the island here there is a exercise park/playground. Abigail soon found Chinese companions to play with after I turned out to be too big and not agile enough. She soon took over as teeter totter cop. She tells the younger children where to put their legs and tries to arrange people so the teeter totter would be balanced.

Later we took a walk in the park by the river. People were practicing their martial arts moves and a couple were also singing Chinese opera, karaoke style. They also were accompanied by some people playing authentic Chinese instruments. It's not an exaggeration to say that, to my western ears, this sounds exactly like fingernails on a blackboard amplified a hundred times, with cacophonous musical accompaniment. Abigail sat there, enthralled. She swayed and moved her hands as if she were directing the music. It was all I could do to not jump up and run screaming with my ears plugged in the other direction. Josh was with us and begged to go back to the hotel room, he was so tortured.

The Things We Take for Granted

2008-11-15T09:04:00.004-05:00

Abigail is delighted by so many things. We think it's because she's never experienced them before. She's absolutely enthralled with elevators, escalators, and key cards. Tonight, Tim ordered Papa John's delivery (yes, we cheated, but we have two stomachs on the mend) and she ran into the bathroom where there is a second phone where she laughed and giggled as she picked up the phone and listened to Tim order.

I've noticed that every other time he talks on the phone, she has to be right there, listening. I've also seen her save a napkin from the restaurant and put it in her pocket. I think it's for use as toilet paper later. In China, you don't take toilet paper for granted.

There's a small play room that's really meant for toddlers right across the hall from our hotel room. Abigail and I played in there for well over an hour this afternoon with some small balls while we waited for Tim to be done with paperwork. She thinks the playroom is the greatest.

Her favorite thing today, however, had to be her shower/bath. She found out tonight that the shower water could be stopped up in the bathtub. She loved having the shower going and the bathtub full. She giggled and laughed and played in there for a long time. I'm quite sure she's not had the opportunity to enjoy that much water for bathing before.

Done with her shower/bath

A Lot of Firsts

2008-11-15T06:39:00.002-05:00

First time flying with Abigail was a real trip. I sat in the middle seat between David, who was so ill he could barely move, and Abigail, who was trying to absorb so many new things in such a short time that she could barely contain herself (and often didn't).

Jane had told her that she was going to be flying on an airplane to Guangzhou. So, with her arms, she was continually making swooping moves like a bird and asking when we were going to go flying. The long wait in the airport did nothing to stem the excitement.

When we got on the plane her excitement mounted and she was continually motioning to me, asking me when we were going to be flying. Meanwhile, it was shade down, shade up; reading light on, reading light off, tray table down, tray table up... Anything that could be moved or manipulated was, and multiple times. It was a relief to tell her that we were finally flying. The moving and manipulating continued, but at least the flying motions stopped.

She was beginning to be a little frustrated that I could not understand some of what she was saying, so she motioned for a pen. I gave her a pen and a piece of newspaper. She then spelled out what she was saying in Chinese characters, and looked expectantly at me, probably thinking I would understand if I saw it written on paper.

She could tell I wasn't getting it. She then re-wrote what she was trying to say in pinyin (the Roman representation of Chinese) and pronounced it slowly to me. I could now pronounce what she was trying to convey fairly well, seeing it written sort-of phonetically and hearing her say it slowly to me, but I still had no idea what she was talking about. I think she finally gave up and moved on to something else. She has since attempted this with us on several occasions including one time when we thumbed through a Chinese translation book for a half hour, trying to figure out what she was trying to say. I think that will probably be one of the hardest things when we get home, trying to communicate.

She had been motioning that she wanted food for some time and when the meal was served (try getting a meal on a 2-hour flight in the States!) she lit up and signed the question: eat? She was thrilled. She was able to order her own menu choice (in Chinese) and ate the entire meal.

The whole flight was non-stop chatter and trying things out. She must have tried the headphones for the in-flight movie seven or eight times. She couldn't make any sense out of the movie (but neither could I).

The whole experience was a sensory overload of new experiences. I probably didn't help matters by piling her on top of all the luggage on the luggage cart and pushing her around the airport (I regret not getting a picture, it was quite a sight). When we got to the hotel room around midnight it took a little while to get her settled in. But it was finally quiet and she was asleep.

Of all the times to schedule a medical appointment, hers was set for 9:00 the next morning. Getting her out of bed is another whole story.

A Few Pictures from Friday

2008-11-15T05:43:00.002-05:00

A food booth in the Muslim Quarter

Shopping for a sword

Playing Chinese Checkers while waiting at the Xi'an airport

Illness Strikes Again

2008-11-15T05:11:00.002-05:00

Two down, two to go. I hope not.

Yesterday (Friday) was our last day in Xi'an. The only thing we were waiting for was Abigail's passport. We heard that this particular Civil Affairs office could be quite late in issuing her passport, but we booked a Friday evening flight towards Guangzhou anyway. We were ready to move on and the rapidly deteriorating weather only added to our urgency.

In the morning, we set out to find a way to package the sword that David bought in the Muslim Quarter. It was way too big to fit into any of our luggage, and carrying it on the plane was a little out of the question. Jane had the idea of trying the local post office, which was right across the street from our hotel. They neatly packaged it in a long box and charged David seven yuan for it (just over a dollar). Not bad, and we now had a package that could be checked as baggage.

When we checked out of the hotel at 2:00, Jane had some good news for us. She held up Abigail's passport and told us they actually got it to her earlier than expected. We headed for the airport. arriving there at about 3:00, plenty of time for our 7:30 flight.

Meanwhile, David had not been feeling well most of the day and by the time we got to the airport, he was feeling really rotten. He spent most of the time there being sick. Maybe it was a good thing we had such a long wait at the airport.

When it was time to go through the security check, he had to be supported, he was so weak. It was a pretty miserable two-hour flight for him.

When we finally got to our hotel in Guangzhou at midnight he was very grateful to be horizontal. By morning, he was feeling much better and he took it easy most of today. Other than tiring easily, he is coming back towards normal again.

Hopefully, there won't be any more adventures of this sort.

Adoption Essentials

2008-11-14T22:06:00.003-05:00

A couple things I have discovered to be vital for an adoption journey like this:

A digital camera
Rechargeable batteries

I think Abigail has taken over 500 pictures so far and has run down the batteries several times. It has kept her busy on many occasions, however.

We met up with other families from our agency here in Guangzhou and have found others have discovered the same thing.

Guangzhou

2008-11-14T11:06:00.000-05:00

After an exhausting flight, we are now in Guangzhou. It's midnight, David is sick, and we are going to bed. More later...

We Love Your Emails and Appreciate Your Prayers

2008-11-13T18:01:00.001-05:00

Thank you to everyone for all your emails, blog comments and prayers. They help us to feel connected and cared for when everything is so very different. I read these words in my Bible this morning and thought, how very true they are:

2 Corinthians 1:10b-11:

On Him we have set our hope, that He will continue to deliver us as you will help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.

We miss you all.

Illness Update

2008-11-13T08:55:00.002-05:00

To those of you who are wondering, Deb was feeling much better today and was able to go with us to the Terra Cotta Warriors. I wish I could say the same about David, who was feeling pretty rotten this morning and stayed back in the hotel for the day. He was feeling better in the afternoon. Not great, just better.

Some Random Images From Thursday

2008-11-13T08:27:00.007-05:00

Xi'an gridlock as viewed from our hotel room. Pavement markings and traffic lights are only a suggestion.
The same view at night. It reminded us of Times Square with all the lights and giant video screens. I now know why our hotel room has such huge heavy drapes. To block out all the light. Now if only they could do something about the noise. The endless commercials go on until very late at night.

What's wrong with this picture? Josh and David have had fun trying to identify all the different vehicles on the road.
Chinglish. The boys have had fun spotting the less-than-grammatically-correct signs. Some of the translations can be rather humorous.
This was the closest we got to being able to visit Abigail's orphanage in Tongchuan. The exit sign on the freeway. The orphanage flatly refused our request for a visit, and has been stonewalling other requests for information.

While having dinner, we asked Abigail if she wanted ice cream. She quizzically looked at us and then shook her head no. Deb then made motions like licking a cone. Abigail's eyes shot up and her face lit up and she practially dragged us out of the restaurant. This is probably her first "blizzard" from the local Dairy Queen.

I Feel Like a Fraud

2008-11-13T08:18:00.001-05:00

Those of you who know me well know that I can't sew, and, when it comes to hand crafts, I'm utterly hopeless. In the fourth grade, my teacher had me stay after school to help me with my stitchery. She finally said, "I don't seem to be able to help you."

On our honeymoon, I had a bathing suit strap break in the hotel pool, and Tim is the one who sewed it back together.

Imagine my dismay when Abigail hauled out her little butterfly stitchery, and commandeered my help because I think she assumed that all mothers know about these things. In desperation, I grabbed the instructions and tried to figure it out.

I found a method that worked. When she ran stuck, she would often look to me for help and sometimes I could give it. At other times, I would quickly call Tim over for a consultation. I still think Abigail thinks that I am the superior stitcherer, but that sometimes I just let Tim in on the fun. She thought it was great fun to sit in bed and let me hold her stitchery while she sewed.

A Giant Jig Saw Puzzle

2008-11-13T08:08:00.003-05:00

We wanted to take Abigail to see the Terra Cotta Warriors, billed as an 8th wonder of the world, since they are in the provice she is from. The warriors were made over 2000 years ago, predating the birth of Christ. They were discovered when some locals dug a well and found the pottery fragments. It sounds a bit like the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls, doesn't it?

All the heads are removable and it is obvious that no two faces are alike. It's interesting to see all the warriors that have been pieced together, and the ones in shambles that the Chinese continue to work painstakingly on.

We were too cheap to hire a guide, figuring we would just read the signs. Abigail, however would move in close whenever a Chinese guide was talking, put a finger to her lips and a hand to her ear indicating we should be quiet so she could listen. She would just listen in for free as she didn't need to hire an English speaking guide.

We really don't know if she understood what the whole thing was about, but we did let her pick out an archer warrior to take home.

Place where replica warriors are made.

This is the real example of the kind of archer that Abigail picked to take home as a souvenir.

I was standing behind Abigail when all of a sudden she put her two hands together in front of her face and bowed low before this plaque. I have no idea why.

Brotherly Love

2008-11-12T19:41:00.002-05:00

David is a tease, and having Abigail around has just added a whole new arena of possibilities. When she talks to him in Chinese, he loves to answer her back in gibberish Chinese, or what Chinese sounds like to him. At other times she will say something very serious to him in Chinese, and he will say things like, "Oh, yes, I love green eggs and ham. Do you too?" He taught her to spell his name on her little magnadoodle as "Cool". Now she writes that on her mangnadoodle, points at David, and he praises her for it.

She writes Joshua's name, but with a backwards "J".

They both have even colored with her, which is amazing. They both hated coloring when they were younger, but Abigail knows how to give orders, and pretty soon my six-foot-four son was kneeling on the floor, coloring a Hello Kitty picture.

I found out that she does know her ABC's and can count to ten in English.

The Language Barrier

2008-11-12T17:50:00.002-05:00

If you want a really good example of how the language barrier works, try buying a decongestant at a Chinese pharmacy!

Santa and the Incarnation

2008-11-12T17:42:00.003-05:00

I asked Jane, our interpreter, to come up to our room to help me explain some things to Abigail. One of the things I wanted to talk to Abigail about was Christmas, since we will be celebrating it soon when we get home. Abigail told Jane she knew all about Christmas. A man carries a big bag on his back, and you get presents.

Hmmm. How do you explain the incarnation to a nine-year-old through an interpreter who is not a believer? I don't think I did a great job, but I tried. In our hotel lobby, there are replicas of sacrificial tables the emperors used for their sacrifices. I explained that people all over the world used sacrifices like the emperors but that they did not take away the bad things that we did in God's sight. I explained that God sent his own son to be the perfect final sacrifice. We celebrate his coming at Christmas.

Our interpreter told me, "Oh, I learned some new things."

Later on, I showed her Joshua's name in the Bible, David's name in the Bible, and her name. I could tell she thought that was pretty neat. Her name was in this book that she sees us read.

She now knows what to do when we pray, and she looks like a perfect saint when she's praying. But we know she isn't!

Illness Strikes

2008-11-12T07:28:00.003-05:00

Deb got sick today.

Something went against her. She was feeling a bit woozy this morning but thought she was strong enough to venture out to the Dayan Tower (also known as the Big Goose Pagoda).

Jane gave me a sheet of paper with the Dayan Tower written on it in Chinese, and the Bell Tower Hotel written in Chinese underneath that. With that, I could hail a taxi and just show the driver the paper. It worked very well. All five of us piled into what amounts to a subcompact four-door car (Abigail was on one of our laps in the back) and we took the trip across town to the tower. The taxi ride over was 12 yuan (just under two bucks).

The view of the city from the top of the tower is supposed to be magnificent, however, with the gloomy, dank, misty weather we've been having here, the visibility was down to several hundred yards, and the top of the tower would have afforded no advantage at all. So we walked around the grounds, not wanting to pay the extra 20 yuan a head for the privilege of viewing a fog bank.

When we got home in mid-afternoon, Deb was feeling really ill and laid down for a while before getting sick a while later.

David and Abigail and I ventured out around suppertime to get Deb some crackers to eat and a more substantial meal for the rest of us. We stopped at the KFC near our hotel to get some chicken for dinner.

Ordering fast food in China is always a trip, and this time was no exception. The staff could see we were lost right away and brought out the usual menu card with English words on it. When they laid it on the counter, Abigail immediately began chattering in Chinese and pointing to several of the items on the menu. She had a dinner entree, fries and a specialty drink ordered before I could convince the person behind the counter that I was the one doing the ordering and not her.

When I finally had convinced the clerk that I wanted the chicken bucket and four large fries, the total for the order came out to somewhat less than I was expecting. When they finally completed the order, we had the bucket, and one order of fries, with four ketchup packets. When I held up four fingers and pointed to the fries, they gave us more ketchup. I finally convinced them to add three orders of fries to the order.

After another few minutes trying to convey the idea that I wanted a bag so I could carry the stuff out the door, we were finally on the street headed back to the hotel.

Deb was feeling somewhat better when we got back, having purged herself pretty completely. She ate a few crackers and is now in bed, as she is feeling quite weak. She thinks the big difference in diet has really messed her up and right now has no desire for any more Chinese food.

At least the breakfasts have a more Western feel to them. We all tank up at breakfast, including Abigail. Her breakfast this morning included mixed fruit, part of an omelette, hard boiled egg (which I ended up eating), tomatoes, sausages, bacon, steamed bun, noodles, and orange juice. She has almost completely given up using chopsticks, even though she uses them so well.

Josh has been fighting a cold for the last few days, and now David seems to be coming down with it also. We purchased tickets to Guangzhou today, and Friday evening can't come fast enough. This gloomy weather puts a damper on everything. Plus, the only thing we're officially doing is waiting for Abigail's passport to be issued on Friday.

Tomorrow (Thursday), if everyone is feeling well enough, we'll try to make it to the Terra Cotta Warriors.

The Odd Family

2008-11-11T18:21:00.002-05:00

We get lots of strange looks here in Xi'an. Maybe part of it is that we look quite out of place. I think most of it is the new makeup of our family. People will glance at Abigail, then at us, then back at Abigail again, sizing up this rather unconventional family. They are probably wondering why she is not in school and why she is being accompanied by these very obviously un-Chinese parents and un-Chinese siblings.

In the Muslim Quarter yesterday, someone's curiosity got the better of them. We learned what went on in this conversation later when Jane asked Abigail about it. A woman in the tea shop where Deb was buying tea started an animated conversation with Abigail. I caught the words "mama" and "baba", so I knew she was talking about us. The conversation went something like this:

Woman: "Are you Chinese?"

Abigail: "Yes." [I still think that fact is pretty obvious]

Woman, looking at us: "Is this your mom and dad?"

Abigail: "Yes, they are."

I don't think Abigail thinks it's strange at all.

Words from Back Home

2008-11-11T16:36:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to say thanks for the comments, emails, and prayers. We do look forward to hearing from you each day, for the encouragements of good friends, and for something in English!

Personality

2008-11-11T13:44:00.001-05:00

Each day we're starting to see a little more personality come out in our daughter. She loves jie jie Jane and excitedly runs over to greet her when we meet her in the hotel lobby. It may be a bit of a transition for her when Jane leaves us. Although Abigail asked Jane about going to the United States. When she asked if Jane was coming to the States also, and Jane said she wasn't, Abigail seemed to take this in stride. I don't think she realizes yet just how far away the "States" are. She thinks our hotel room is "home" right now.

When we are alone, she doesn't say a whole lot. She just mostly points and pantomimes. We're trying to get her to say "Please" when she wants something instead of just pointing and gesturing (and sometimes just grabbing). Yesterday she actually said it on her own without being reminded. Progress.

When Jane is along, Abigail talks nearly non-stop. This will be and adjustment for our boys as they are not used to a very verbal sibling.

We're also starting to see signs of attachment to us. Abigail does hold our hands readily when we are out and about and will periodcally check to see that we are around if she is not holding our hands. I picked her up yesterday and she tolerated being held for a minute or two before wanting to be on her own feet. I think that just might be her personality, though. She likes to be independent, in charge, and in control of the situation.

She has started to banter with the boys a little bit. I have seen a race to push the elevator button, and she will giggle when David pushes it just a split second before she does.

She does like to eat. Mrs. Wang said she is not a picky eater, and for the most part, that's true. She will eat almost everything. Almost. There are some things that she will not tolerate. At lunch yesterday in a Chinese restaurant, there must have been some things in the chicken dish that she didn't like because she screwed her face up, grabbed the ash tray from the table, and spit it out into the ash tray. At least it didn't go on the floor as I have heard other parents describe.

We had a hankering for pizza on Tuesday evening so we walked towards the pizza place I had seen earlier. It was the only word I recognized on the restaurant sign, other than the pictures of the pizzas. On our way, David spotted the word "pizza" on a restaurant awning. We paused to look at the building and then I saw more familiar words farther up the side of the building.

Pizza Hut.

The boys were ecstatic. We have come to know a couple Chinese dishes that we order a lot and enjoy, but the prospect of good ol' American pizza was music to their ears. Abigail did her usual "no" pantomime when we said we were going to eat pizza. But we had decided we were going to eat pizza anyway. No time like the present to introduce her to American food.

We ordered two pizzas. One "American Special" (peperoni) and one half peperoni and half Hawaiian. We did not get the concept of "half" across to the waiter because we got one peperoni and one Hawaiian. The "half" got lost in the translation.

When the pizza came out, Abigail was the first to clamor for a piece. She ate it in silence, but then asked for another piece. We thought that was pretty good for her first pizza.

David was a bit worried that our traditional Saturday night pizza would be replaced with something... well... Chinese. I think those fears have been allayed after seeing Abigail put away two pretty significant pieces.

Abigail has a mind of her own and will not easily take "no" for an anwer. Last night we could tell she was fading even before we went out for pizza. Back in the hotel room, she colored for a while and then we told her it was time for bed. "No" she waved, and pulled out another sheet of paper. It took some convincing from both of us, but she finally put her things away and went to the bathroom to get ready for bed. It wasn't too much longer and she was sound asleep. Nearly 11 hours later, she is still asleep. She has been putting in nearly 12 hours per night.

We found out from Mrs. Wang that Abigail has been in two different foster care situations for over two years, coming back to the orphanage on weekends. The last people that she has been staying with for two years work at the orphanage. We got a small album of pictures from Mrs. Wang containing pictures of Abigail with some of her friends, some of the workers, and one picture with her foster parents. Written on the back of the picture were a phone number and an email address. They must want to maintain some form of contact.

Today (Wednesday) is a free day, as is tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll probably try to go see the Terra Cotta Warriors, a must-see if you are in Xi'an. Friday we pick up Abigail's passport and fly to Guangzhou.

My Cup of Tea

2008-11-11T07:25:00.000-05:00

3 blocks from our hotel is a section of the city known as the Muslim Quarter. The guidebook says the area is home over 60,000 Muslims, which in a city of six million, is not a large percentage, but they mostly live in one spot. There is a mosque there which apparently looks like a lot of the more ancient Chinese architecture. The streets have lots of vendors selling trinkets, swords, silks, cashmere, nuts galore, and lots of dried fruit. The smells are amazing. It's really impossible to describe. I think our noses are underutilized back in the States. Everything is shrink-wrapped, boxed, and then encased wax paper. You couldn't smell anything if you tried.

A good example of a aroma sensation is the tea shop. We walked into the shop and there are large glass canisters of all different kinds of teas.
The seller encourages you to open the jars, take out a scoop, and smell it. There are all kids of flower teas, black teas, green teas. Josh and David even liked the smell of the teas. Best of all, when I bought tea, I got to take it home in a really cool cylindrical red and gold container. It has not been safety-sealed for my protection, but I get to open it whenever I want and enjoy the smell.

I bought Abigail and I each a little teapot to steep our tea in.

Jumping to Conclusions

2008-11-11T06:29:00.000-05:00

Here at the Bell Tower Hotel, we have found a couple of things to be a bit odd. An exercise in contrasts. The bath towels are absolutely enormous. The light bulbs are less than puny. We are clean and dry here but nearly as blind as bats at night. It's a good thing our room has large windows. Or we wouldn't be able to see anything at all, even with all the lights on.

We can only conclude that this area values cleanliness and being dry over being able to read and navigate around a hotel room. I think I'll start looking closely at people to see if they carry the scars from tripping over furniture. Perhaps that's why they bundle up in so much clothing. To hide the scars.

The Straw Man

2008-11-10T20:01:00.000-05:00

It seems like each day brings new surprises. Breakfast this morning was no exception. The restaurant in the hotel serves a western style buffet and we walked around the buffet with Abigail pointing out what she wanted. One of the things she selected was a container of yogurt.

Halfway through the meal she picked up the yogurt container and gestured at me. I made moves to peel the top away which brought a shriek and protest from her. She picked up one of her chopsticks and pantomimed drinking from a straw.

We debated a little bit on how to convince her that this was not a juice container but was yogurt, but could not come up with anything. Anytime I made moves to do anything with the yogurt container, she protested and made the straw motions. I wanted to quick peel the top away and show her that it was not something to drink, but she would not let that happen.

When it was time to leave, I told her to take it with her but she was still convinced she wanted a straw. She asked one of the wait staff something in Chinese, and the waitress responded with a hand motion. I think Abigail expected me to understand, but I didn't. I finally cast about looking for a straw and I found a bunch. On the shelf above the yogurt. Apparently, yogurt is eaten with a straw here.

She took one sip of the yogurt and then demanded that I eat the rest of it. She wouldn't back down when I indicated I was full by patting my stomach. We compromised by carrying it back to the hotel room.

Schooling

2008-11-10T18:20:00.000-05:00

Homeschooling this child ought to be pretty interesting. English as a second language will be one of the challenges, but teaching a child who thinks she's perfect oughtta be a real trip. Anything she's written or drawn so far has been self-graded with a check mark and a "100". She gives herself high marks.

Some Pictures from Monday

2008-11-10T16:49:00.001-05:00

Shopping at the nearby Walmart. We would be utterly lost without our Chinese coordinator. She could at least read the labels and tell us what was in the package. We walked past a bakery once where they were displaying bread that looked very much like the cinnamon raisin bread that Deb makes. However Jane told us the brown stuff in the swirls in the middle was not cinnamon and sugar, but some sort of bean paste. That would have been a surprise.

The view from our room on the sixth floor of the Bell Tower Hotel. Downtown Xian is a busy, noisy place.

The government building where the Civil Affairs office is located.

Mrs. Wang and the orphanage director. Abigail took this picture and many, many, many others.

Waiting at the Civil Affairs office.

We got this from a street vendor on the way back from the Civil Affairs office. I have no idea what it is, but Abigail loved it. She ate half of it and the other half found its way onto one of the end tables in our hotel room where it fused itself to the table. It was quite a time getting it cleaned up.

Playing a game of memory just before bedtime. Abigail is much better at it than I am.

What a Difference a Day Makes

2008-11-10T06:25:00.000-05:00

Abigail slept for nearly twelve hours last night. We had to wake her up to get some breakfast. She was much more pleasant for breakfast and even held my hand on the way down in the elevator. In the breakfast buffet, she selected nearly all fruits and waved off everything else.

When we got back to the hotel room, I took a picture of her in the rather hideous garb she was dressed in when we got her. From the high top boots which made it difficult for her to walk, to the shiny leather-type pants, to the impossibly warm hooded sweater, our little fashionista was dressed like ... well ... I'm not sure there's anything to compare this to.

It was then that she discovered the digital camera. Since I took a picture of her, she wanted to take a picture of me. And so began a flurry of picture-taking.
She even discovered self-portraits:

At 10:00 we headed back to the Civil Affairs office for the adoption interview, payment of fees, and the notary stuff. We were a bit worried about this because the orphanage workers would be there again.

We met Jane in the lobby, who Abigail now calls jie jie (big sister). She skipped along with us, prattling in Chinese the entire way.

Road crossings in China can be a death-defying act. But Abigail got right into the swing of things, leaning out over the curb, searching for openings in the heavy traffic. A few times she even pulled the more reluctant Deb along as if leading her across the street.

When we reached the office, the officials were late as usual. As we waited, Abigail chatted with Mrs. Wang and the other orphanage workers. She is very interested in everything and puts her nose right into what you are doing. On several occasions, she also came up to me and said "Baba!" and motioned with her hands like a square box with one finger wiggling (her pantomime for camera). When I handed her the camera, she proceeded to take pictures of first the orphanage workers, then us, then everyone in the room, then the plants in the room, then the floor and ceiling. I think she took over 150 pictures. I am appreciating a digital camera more and more.

When we left, the parting was amazingly easy. She happily waved goodbye to the orphanage workers, even giving one of them a hug, and skipped along with us back to the hotel.

We had lunch at a Chinese restaurant across the street from the hotel. To get there, we have to take an escalator down under the street and back up the other side. Abigail loves escalators. She will not let us take the stairs, but pulls us on to the escalator whenever there's one available. We're finding out she is probably a very strong-willed and precocious child.

At the restaurant, she probably ate more than all of us combined. Must be fuel for all that boundless energy she has been displaying.

One of the first orders of business during one of our free moments is to get her some more practical shoes. The boots she has been wearing may fit in a fashion magazine, but not for a nine-year-old who needs to do a little walking around town. The local WalMart didn't sell clothing, however, and we ran out of time for shoe shopping before having to return to the Civil Affairs office to pick up the adoption certificate.

We received the adoption certificate from the Civil Affairs office, which means that Abigail is now officially ours. For some reason, we had to go to the police station across town to get her picture taken and get a receipt. Abigail picked up the art of hailing a taxi right away and had her arm in the street along with Jane when trying to get a ride. She wanted very badly to sit in the front, but had to settle for sitting between us in the back seat. By this time we could tell she was starting to fade and we would catch her yawning occasionally.

She waited patiently with us at the police station, and we ended up having to take the city bus home because we couldn't get a taxi. Sardines would be an understatement for a description of that bus. It was standing room only, shoulder to shoulder, all the way across town. And at every stop, more people got on than got off.

We decided to eat in the hotel room rather than going out, since all of us were very tired by this point. We had bought some bread and jam and some fruit at the WalMart and we brought these out.

The first thing we discovered is that we had nothing to cut the bread with, and nothing to spread the jam on the bread with. After casting about for something with enough of an edge to cut bread, I thought a piece of dental floss might do it. Deb held the loaf while I sawed away with a piece of dental floss. It didn't work. We ended up breaking bread together in our hotel room.

The next problem was spreading the jam on the bread. An index card, folded over several times, offered enough stiffness to scoop jam from the jar and made a respectable spreading knife.

We found out that Abigail doesn't care for bread. We are probably also instilling in her the false assumption that all Americans cut their bread with dental floss and spread their jam with index cards. She's in for an adjustment when she actually reaches the US and sees a real knife in use.

Abigail is now asleep in bed. Actually everyone is asleep in bed except me and I'm headed there soon. But it has been a better day, and for that we give thanks.

Gotcha Day

2008-11-09T07:56:00.000-05:00

We have our daughter.

It's a little difficult to describe the situation, but I'll give it my best.

We met her on a street corner. Not in some nice fancy hotel lobby or an appropriate room in a government building, but on the street outside the locked up Civil Affairs office. The Civil Affairs official was ten minutes late, so four families met their kiddos on the street. It's a good thing it wasn't too cold.

We walked to the office from the Bell Tower Hotel, where we are staying, a walk of about 6 or 7 blocks. As Jane (our coordinator) searched for the proper gate or door to use in the absolutely enormous government building, Mrs. Wang, one of the orphanage workers, recognized us coming. Abigail stood there quietly, clinging to Mrs. Wang as Jane and Mrs. Wang conversed in Chinese. She refused to come to us or even look at us. Mrs. Wang said that she was all excited about it yesterday. Today it's anything but excitement.

A few other families also stood around, waiting for the official. When he arrived and unlocked the door, that's when the screaming began in earnest. Orphanage workers handed the scared kids over to the families so they could do the paperwork, nearly everyone was milling around taking pictures, and the room was way too small to hold everyone. Abigail had tears welling up in her eyes also as both Mrs. Wang and the orphanage director encouraged her to come to us. I managed to place her on my lap long enough to snap a picture but I could tell she was not a bit comfortable with it.

After all the paperwork was signed (we'll actually do most of it tomorrow) and it was time to leave, Abigail began to wail loudly. She stopped when Jane came out and clung to Jane as we walked back to the hotel. Jane spent a good deal of time coaxing her to hold my hand and she finally did so.

We reached the hotel with sort of a hand holding truce in place. I'll hold Baba's (Dad's) hand as long as I know Jane is still right there.

We chatted in the hotel room for a while, trying to distract Abigail long enough for Jane to leave. She waved off anything that was offered her, and was generally silent and sullen.

When Jane finally left the wailing began anew. She calmed down after several minutes and just stared straight ahead. I got out a package of index cards, and wrote her English name on one, saying it to her and pointing to her. I then wrote out the rest of our names, one by one, saying them and pointing to the appropriate person. I went back through the cards saying the names but not pointing. She stood still but her dark eyes moved, glancing at the named person. I then held cards at random, not saying anything and not pointing. Her eyes moved to the appropriate person.

Thinking that she may want do draw something, I handed the pack of cards and the pen to her. To my surprise, she accepted them and hastily scrawled three Chinese characters. She looked at me and pointed at her self. Her name.

Progress, I think.

Since we had not eaten any supper, David and I went to the McDonald's across the street to get some take out food. (Actually ORDERING the food is another story.) Deb stayed behind to get Abigail ready for bed. She refused to change out of the outfit she was in and it was a test of wills to get her to brush her teeth.

When she laid down on the couch, she was instantaneously asleep. I'm sure it was a tiring day for her as it has been for us.

It's been a very long wait, and we finally have our daughter. For that, we are thankful. It's something we have hoped for, prayed for, waited for, planned for, and traveled halfway around the world for. Things are finally coming together.

In all other respects, Gotcha Day is one of those days you would rather be done with.

Up and Down the Great Wall

2008-11-08T21:48:00.001-05:00

Our first stop on Saturday was the Great Wall. Instead of taking us to the section nearest to downtown Beijing, Angela took us to a section a bit more remote. She said the nearer section was nearly always mobbed with people, and by driving a little longer, we could avoid the large crowds. There was also an added bonus. The section we went to had an aerial tram to get us from the parking lot to the Wall, and the way down was via toboggans on a metal chute that resembled a water slide. It was about a two hour drive to get there, so it felt good to get out and stretch the legs.

And stretch we did. This particular section was very steep, descending into a small valley and then ascending sharply to a high ridge. Because of all the things we had packed in for today, we only had about 45 minutes to walk the wall, but we made it to the end of the maintained section, turning our legs to Jell-O in the process.

The way down was a treat. I think the boys enjoyed this more than walking the wall. Each person descending had their own toboggan, which was a small plastic shed with a single lever in the middle. Pull up on the lever to slow down, push down to speed up. The track was a metal chute that switched back and forth all the way down the mountain. There were people stationed periodically along the track who would yell at you if you went too fast, but the hills and the cornering were a real kick. If we had more time, it would have been worth it to pay the entry fee again just to go back up and do it all over again.

Some Pictures from Saturday

2008-11-08T21:25:00.001-05:00

The Great Wall

Perhaps the most fun was coming down. We came up by aerial tram, walked our legs off, and then came down on toboggans.

A Hutong

We rode into the hutong (traditional Chinese living arrangement) on rickshaws, through narrow streets and alleyways. More in an upcoming post.

The Acrobat Show

We missed the first half of this show because of Beijing traffic. But when we got there we found out we had front row seats, and the remainder of the show was fantastic.

Peking Roast Duck

This and 10 other courses rounded out our meal before heading to the train station.

Our berth in the Xi'an sleeper train

Arrival in Xian

2008-11-08T20:33:00.001-05:00

We just arrived in Xi'an after an 11 hour overnight train ride. It is now about 10:00 am local time (9:00 pm Saturday, Eastern time). We will meet Abigail at 6:00 pm today. More later when I get some pictures organized...

East Meets West

2008-11-07T18:14:00.000-05:00

The Chinese, like the Israelites in the Bible, are an eastern people and think symbolically. Westerners don't think that way. Think of all the symbolism in the Old Testament sacrifices, how the temple was built, and the number 7 being the number of perfection.

In China, for example, the color red means happiness. I chose to wear a color because it looks good because I [Deb] am a winter, and that color looks good on me. When I buy David matchbox cars, I don't worry about getting him the right number of cars. In China, for example, you don't give someone four of something, because the word "four" sounds like death. You also don't wrap it in white, which symbolizes death.

The number 9 on the other hand, symbolizes longevity, along with turtles and cranes. We haven't found out what parakeets symbolize yet. So, in this picture of us by a door in the Forbidden City, we are sending you a message. There are nine golden knobs in a row in every row on the door. Do you know what we're saying? If you guessed long and happy life, you're right.

I asked Angela about the Moon Festival because the government offices shut down for a week while we were waiting for our Travel Authorization during the Moon Festival. One of the things they do during the Moon Festival is visit family and eat mooncakes which they only get once a year. They bring a box filled with several small cakes of all different flavors (not like chocolate and vanilla, but fruity). I asked Angela if you could make these yourself, thinking I would maybe go to the grocery store and try to find a Betty Crocker Mooncake mix. Oh, no, she told me. Nobody makes them themselves. If they're so good, I couldn't understand why they wouldn't try to make them more often.

Angela finally got to the heart of the matter. Nobody has ovens. I was incredulous. How can you survive without an oven? Angela calmly explained they don't need ovens for the way they eat. They steam their food, including their steamed rolls (which I tried at the buffet and did not like at all), or they sautee their food. Then she smiled sweetly and added, "We don't bake cookies."

That finalized it for me. They may have a wonderful long history which is fascinating, but I'm not moving anywhere where I can't have chocolate chip cookies a couple times a day.

Clueless Americans

2008-11-07T16:54:00.000-05:00

Lunch on Friday was an entirely different experience than the day before. Upon entering the restaurant, we were ushered into a private room containing a single table with space for eight. The wait staff swarmed about us, unfolding the large napkins and placing one corner under the plate so the remainder dangled in our laps, taking the set of chopsticks out of the bag and placing them on the plate, serving tea, etc. They even brought out forks, much to Deb's relief. She has not mastered chopsticks yet.Angela ordered several dishes which were all placed on the rotating glass in the center of the table: chicken wings, dumplings, chicken soup (broth with nearly an entire chicken in it, bones and all), and various beef and pork dishes along with a bowl of steamed rice for each of us.

If you avoided the little black peppers in the bean dish, the food was great.

David, being more of the creative type soon discovered that the chopsticks could be stuck straight up in the rice, and would remain there, looking much like a flagpole on a small hill.We read in our China survival guide later on that chopsticks should be left on the table when the meal is done. It is considered bad taste to leave them lying on the plate, and one should NEVER leave them sticking straight up in the rice, as it is a reminder of incense sticks for the dead.

Oops.

He will not be doing that again.

Some Pictures from Friday

2008-11-07T16:02:00.000-05:00

A Chinese Bike Repair Shop

Josh, being a bike mechanic at our local bike shop, thought this was really cool. We happened upon this during an early morning walk near our hotel.

And who said stone doesn't float?

A boat made of stone at the Summer Palace.

The Summer Palace

Actually, only a small part of it. This place occupies nearly 3 square kilometers, including a large man-made lake. The temple pictured above sits on a hill created when the lake was dug. We didn't have time to cover the entire compound, since it is so vast, but we did see a lot of the architecture in our walk halfway around the lake (which took nearly two hours).

Lunch

On contrast to yesterday's cacophony in a large noisy room, lunch today was in a private room with at least two attendants swarming the table at nearly all times. Take a sip of tea, someone would fill up the cup again. Take another sip, the cup would get filled. They even changed our plates halfway through the meal. The man on the right is Mr. Gao, our driver, an extremely patient and unflappable man who made driving in downtown Beijing look easy. I only ever heard him honk his horn once.

Tienanmen Square

This place can fit a million people, so there was no possible way I could fit the entire place in one small camera. The building in the background is the entrance to the Forbidden City.

Forbidden City

A walled compound serving as the palace for the emperor during the Ming and Qing Dynasties (built about 600 years ago)

Our nerve and information center. What would we do without the Internet?

Some Pictures from Thursday

2008-11-06T17:26:00.000-05:00

Our Hotel room at the Asia Pacific Garden

Entrance to the Temple of Heaven

Lessons in Chinese culture from Angela

Tourists

Watching quilts being made at the silk factory

Standing in front of the Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium

Deb Goes to the Grocery Store

2008-11-06T16:47:00.000-05:00

Part of our itinerary yesterday was to do a little shopping for things that are much more expensive or more difficult to get in the United States. We sent to a silk factory and the store where Barbara Bush and other dignitaries buy their pearls. But where I really wanted to shop was the grocery store. I don't shop for silk and pearls back home every week. The closest I get is denim and rhinestones.

After we got back to the hotel for the night, the last thing Angela did for me was to take me to the grocery store across the street. Now, if this were America, I might say to a guest, "there's the grocery store just across the street," and point to it and be on my merry way. But, remember, with the Chinese, it's all about service, and Angela personally escorted me across the street and to the grocery store.

I'm so glad she did!

Crossing the street in Beijing is kind of like the extreme sport of bungee diving in the United States. You need nerves of steel. Just before we got to the street, Angela said to me, "In China, you will often see women walking arm in arm or hand in hand down the street. This does not mean anything funny or immoral. This was her preface to gently grabbing me by the arm and propelling me into the street.

Earlier in the day, I had seen young school-age girls standing in the middle of a multi-lane street with busses, scooters, cars, vans swirling all around them, waiting for the next opening. The traffic does not stop for pedestrians.

All of a sudden, I found myself in the middle of the street, trying to make myself as skinny as possible in the face of an oncoming van. I turned and looked at the driver with absolute horror in my face. I saw something I had not seen all day. He actually stopped in the middle of the street and let us cross.

The lesson here is: do not look inscrutable, or placid when crossing the street. Show what you feel. Look scared to death.

We got to the store, and it was the quaint little corner grocery store type that I remember my grandmother taking me to years ago just on Hall street by Niagara in Grand Rapids. These kinds of stores don't exist anywhere that I know of anymore back home.

We entered in by the fruit section. Of course, it did not have near the selection of Meijers back home, but some tiny oranges caught my eye. Angela told me they were very sweet, so I bought a bag. They are wonderful. Easy to peel, juicy, and sweet. Several will fit into your hand at one time.

Next we went on to the tea section. I noticed the Chinese carrying around clear jugs with leaves all in the bottom. This is their tea. They don't use leaf dust in a bag. There was a large selection but I couldn't find anything decaffeinated.

Next I grabbed a half gallon of bottled water, and made my way to the checkout.

At the checkout, Angela explained it is now against the law to give you a plastic bag for your groceries unless you pay for it. Those who want more government regulation need think about how much is too much. Do you want the government regulating even how you carry your groceries home? Or do you prefer paying for bags at Aldi's if you want, getting them included in the price of groceries at Meijers, or using a recyclable bag? Personally, I enjoy the personal responsibility that comes with liberty.

Mrs. Meat-And-Potatoes Meets Chinese Food

2008-11-06T15:49:00.000-05:00

Those of you who know me know that I am not adventuresome when it comes to food. I think that I'm eating on the edge when I put garlic and parsley in the mashed potatoes. Well, yesterday was a day for going over the edge. It started with the breakfast buffet in the morning. The buffet at the hotel was extremely busy at the time we came. I managed to grab a plate and start circulating the buffet. They had things at the buffet that I didn't even know it was possible to eat, much less for breakfast. I decided since it was my first time, I would stick with safe. I grabbed pineapple and breads.

When the four of us had gotten our food, we looked around and could find no place to sit. When a place would open up, the Chinese are simply much faster than we are and would quickly move in to the empty table. We decided to take our plates up to our room to eat.

The servers at the buffet, however, quickly realized our plight. Out of nowhere, a portable table was immediately set up, a tablecloth whisked over it, and chairs procured from other tables. I sat down, but could not pull up anywhere near the table because the metal bar underneath the table wouldn't allow me to get my legs underneath. I started to eat the pineapple. So far, so good. I then grabbed a roll and tried to butter it. How do the Chinese butter things with chopsticks? They had small serving spoons at the buffet which I had grabbed. I started to butter my roll with the back of a spoon. They must have been watching the Americans eat for entertainment, because suddenly, out of nowhere, they began to put knives, forks and spoons at our places.

Next a server came and told us that we could have an omelet. I think they know most Americans don't do rice for breakfast. Soon we each had an omelet on our plate. I am a hard-boiled egg fanatic. I can't eat a fried egg. Any amount of runny egg and I'm done for. Our omelets were runny in the middle. Josh managed to eat his. Tim, who likes fried eggs, ate his. I managed the outer edges of mine and David couldn't eat any. They had been so kind to make these omelets for us as a special treat; what were we going to do? Tim ended up having to eat my omelet and David's.

Several of the rolls I had were very good. One, however, that I had taken, was a spiral roll of very white bread and what I though must be cinnamon and sugar in the spiral. WRONG! I'm not sure what it was, but I took one bite and that was it. I had cereal without milk because the milk didn't look like ours. Josh had the milk and he said it was sweeter. Our guide tells us they get milk from the cows of Inner Mongolia. When I went to the buffet to get another roll, a server personally escorted me. They really bend over backwards to serve you. Our guide told us that the reason they do that and follow you around, even in the upscale shops, is it is considered very bad service if someone is not right there to help you and answer your questions.

After touring the Temple of Heaven and navigating Chinese toilets, it was time for lunch. We ate in a place that tries to serve you in more authentic Chinese style: on hard benches. We entered the restaurant and immediately the wait staff begins shouting. I'm not kidding. Yelling. This is very disconcerting to walk into a place and have someone start yelling in Chinese and you don't know what they are talking about, but you know it started when you walked in. We found out that the Chinese consider no restaurant to be very good unless it's noisy. If it's quiet, they won't eat there. Well, this place must have been fabulous. David couldn't hear a thing. Apparently what they had yelled was the number in our party and then another server will yell when he has a table available for that many. We told Angela to order for us. There were six of us in the party: our guide, driver, and the four of us. She asked us what vegetables we liked. Did we like broccoli? eggplant? I knew we were in for a different experience when she didn't mention corn and grean beans. We finally just told her, "just do what you think best."

Then the food began to come. And it kept coming. The Chinese put all food in the middle of the table and you all help yourself from it. I don't know how the Chinese stay so thin. We had individual bowls of rice and then the following dishes: Celery with Lotus blossom, pork in a sauce (it looks like worms) that you wrap in a square of tofu, kung pow chicken, a noodle dish that's made by taking noodles and eight small dishes of who-knows-what, and throwing it all together. A server comes to your table to make the noodle dish. He quickly throws the eight little saucers full of things into the noodles with as much noise as possible. Remember noisy, yelling, and clattering dishes mean good food. There was another dish of green peppers, eggplant and something else. Another dish had green peppers in a very spice sauce. You put this enormous amount of food on a plate half the size of one of our saucer plates.

Now it was time to eat. I was extremely thirsty, having run out of my bottled water, and the air here seems to make me thirstier. So my hands were very shaky as I tried to eat with chopsticks for the first time. It was not a success. Everyone tried to help me but I have never been good at small motor tasks. Sewing on a button challenges me at the best of times. Angela held out plastic forks from her amazing purse (she has everything in there to serve her clients) and she said, "I have this just in case."

Meanwhile the servers in the restaurant had already seen my plight and brought me a fork. My men at the entire meal with chopsticks.

I really liked the pork, celery and lotus blossoms, and the chicken. I ended up just putting everything on my rice. This is my Chinese version of a peanut butter sandwhich. When you're not sure what to do, just put the protein on starch.

We all enjoyed the meal very much.

We wimped out and had Pizza Hut for dinner. The beauty of pizza is it makes the Chinese and Americans all alike. You eat it with your fingers.

A Late Night Visitor

2008-11-06T15:13:00.001-05:00

Yesterday (Thursday) was a relatively light day. Angela took us to the sights that were smaller or didn't require a lot of walking. She also had us back to the hotel at about 5pm so that we could get some extra rest.

And rest we needed. Both boys fell asleep in the minibus on the way back to the hotel, and after polishing off two pizzas in our room (we did the authentic Chinese thing for lunch), we all were not much good for anything. So we all went to bed. It must have been about 7:00 in the evening.

I was awakened out of a deep sleep later on by Deb, who hissed, "There's someone at the door!" I looked toward the door. In the dim light I could see nothing amiss. The room was in the same chaotic state we had left it in when we went to sleep. Then I heard it. Knock, knock, knock. Then it dawned on me what Deb was saying. There's someone at the OUTSIDE of the door. I stared at the door for a short while, hoping it would go away, but there it came again. Knock, knock, knock. Why would someone be knocking at our door in the middle of the night?

I got up, threw on a pair of pants, and stumbled to the door. In the dazzling brilliance of the hallway, I could see nothing. Then I shifted my gaze downward a few degrees. There, standing patiently, was a young man dressed in a bellhop uniform. He held something out toward me, gently cradling it in both hands. It had a piece of paper attached to it.

I had no idea what it was. The brilliance of the hallway and my lack of corrective lenses made it impossible to see clearly. My first guess was a shower cap. But I dismissed that idea right away as being way too ridiculous.

The bellhop said something and gestured with his item. The paper appeared to have some sort of writing on it. But it was all in Chinese and I couldn't read it anyway, even if I could read Chinese.

He held it out toward me and turned it over. By now my eyes were getting more used to the light so I could at least identify simple shapes and lines. I finally recognized his cargo.

It was underwear, wrapped in a light mesh bag.

He turned it over again and I was able to identify the items on the bottom side of the bag.

Socks.

Now that positive ID had been established I began to struggle with the question of why a bellhop would want to wake me up out of a deep sleep to sell me underwear and socks at 11:00 at night.

He continued to gesture toward the paper. It was still impossible for me to read the small Chinese text and even the larger handwritten text. My glasses were located somewhere in the darkness behind me and it would have been a major search without turning the lights on and waking up the kids.

It finally dawned on me what was happening.

These items ALREADY belonged to us. He was returning them, freshly laundered, with a new laundry bag. His gesturing toward the paper was asking me to sign permission to add the charges to the room tab.

When I pantomimed the question about his having a pen, he strode into the room and extracted one out the information folio sitting on the desk. He then laid the paper on the desk and pointed at it. I'm not sure what I wrote, or even if I wrote it in the right place. The desk was dark, and I could barely see the paper, much less any signature location.

Xie Xie (thank you), I think.

Now satisfied, he left the package with me and disappeared. I returned to bed.

Deb had been watching this interchange from the other side of the room and pieced things together. Earlier in the day, David found this nice laundry bag sitting next to the TV and put his clothing in it when he changed. He didn't realize that the hotel would launder the items in the bag. None of us would have guessed that the items would be returned so late at night.

Now fully awake, Deb and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. It was one of those maddening yet comical things that requires a healthy sense of humor.

Big

2008-11-06T14:14:00.000-05:00

I feel huge.

In some ways, it's an advantage. We were at the Bird's Nest Olympic stadium yesterday (Thursday). Whenever I paused to take a picture, it was easy to catch up with the rest of the family again, even in the large crowds surrounding the stadium, because I could just look over all the sea of heads and see the other members of my family sticking above the crowd a hundred feet away.

When we were waiting to board our flight to Beijing at the Tokyo airport, Josh reported more than once incident of a relatively small person glancing at him, doing a double take, and then following him upward with their gaze and finally reaching the top.

Sometimes this is a disadvantage. David found this out in a big way on the airplane. He doesn't fit in the seats. I think this is a new experience for him. He may still be an inch or two shorter than I am, but his legs are longer, and that got him into trouble twice on two different flights. Whenever he moved, he bumped the seat in front of him. On the first flight the woman in front of him turned around and asked him to stop bumping the seat. On the second flight, there must have been several Japanese people traveling together because the woman across the aisle was staring daggers at David for a while before finally saying something. Because of the noise on the airplane, David can't hear a thing, and he was not able to read her lips. Deb finally said something about his long legs and she backed down, realizing that he couldn't really help it. This same group was involved in an altercation with another passenger earlier in the flight, where two flight attendants and the purser had to get involved.

The beds in our hotel room are adequately sized, however there is space for three of us. Josh volunteered to be the odd one out and slept on the love seat. When you're young, you can sleep in these sorts of positions. When you are older, you sit awake in bed and write journal entries at three o'clock in the morning.

Arrival In China

2008-11-05T17:32:00.002-05:00

Dear All,

All of our plane connections and travel went very well. I have already eaten more rice in the last 36 hours than I have in the last two months. We are staying in a very nice hotel in Beijing. The lobby was all granite and marble and crystal chandeliers and, at the desk, we were the only people around, and yet they had 10 clerks working (at 10:30 at night). Last night Tim had to go downstairs to the business center so he could send a quick email and a bellhop escorted him back to the room to show him how to plug the computer into the wall. We were up early this morning because it's really late afternoon for us. The boys are still sleeping soundly though, as only those who have watched four airplane movies in a row and didn't try to sleep on the plane can do. Our six foot four son is sleeping on a love seat with no blankets. They had no extras at the hotel. It doesn't seem to bother him a bit. I remember being that young and able to sleep like that. Now it's hard to get any sleep at all.

Right now we are trying to figure out how everything works in this room. One thing I know, the bathroom has no outlets. It's handy to be married to an electrical engineer as he has informed me he brought an extension cord. Last night, since we got here so late and were so tired, we didn't get everything figured out. You have to slide your room key in a slot and keep it there to get the lights to work. In the middle of the night, when it was pitch dark in our room, and the slot is on the far side over a minefield of luggage I needed the light on to use the bathroom. I could see that wasn't going to work. Tim handed me his Palm Pilot, turned the display on, and told me I had three minutes.

Last night we met our guide, Angela, who will be taking us around Beijing for the next few days. She is a Chinese Christian who has translated our letters that we have sent to Abigail. She met us at the airport with four bottles of cold bottled water. It was exactly what we needed. We were all very thirsty and it was such a thoughtful gesture. May that encourage us all to continually offer a cup of cold water in Jesus' name.

Thanks for all your prayers!

~Deb

Beijing Arrival

2008-11-05T10:34:00.001-05:00

It's about 11:00 on Wednesday night, We just arrived in Beijing, and are now in our hotel. The flights were all on time, with good connections, however, we seem to have lost a night somewhere. It went directly from the 4th of November in the morning to the 5th of November in the evening. So we'll go to bed and try to make up for the lost time.

Good Night.

Last Post from USA

2008-11-03T21:43:00.001-05:00

It's a mad dash right now to make final preparations before we leave tomorrow morning. Documents, carry-ons, hope-we-don't-forget-anything, extra camera batteries, snacks for the plane, worry-about-the-carry-on-size-and-weight-limit, and on and on. The next post will be from halfway around the world, hopefully safely holed up in the Asia Pacific Garden Hotel in Beijing.

The bags are now all packed, things are ready to go. We're all nervous as cats, as we've never done anything of this magnitude before. We've had many adventures, but this far eclipses them all. We are going to do what we've done before other big happenings in the past--go for a late night walk. Perhaps we can walk off some of that nervous energy and get some sleep.

See you in Beijing!

Down to the Wire

2008-10-31T08:27:00.000-04:00

We leave in four days.

Four days.

After a process that has stretched over a year, it's hard to believe that the time is finally upon us.

Things are coming together, however. We have an itinerary for the three days we'll be spending in Beijing. From seeing the Great Wall, Tienanmen Square, the silk factory and other sights to trying out real Chinese food (perhaps even the famous Peking roast duck), we have a full schedule for the touring portion of the journey. My hope is that jet lag does not interfere with this too much.

Then it's on the overnight sleeper train to Xi'an, a 12 hour trip into central China, arriving on Sunday morning, November 9. We will meet our daughter for the first time on Sunday afternoon, after which she will be with us for the rest of the journey. Our contact in Beijing put in a call to the orphanage yesterday and emailed the following:

Hi Tim,
I have just talked with the orphanage again. The director told me Tong Cheng Ying is doing well. I asked her if she is prepared well. She laughed and said I think she is all READY. She said it's very good that you sent care packages to her and that helped so much. She was very happy to received little gifts and letter from you.
Have a safe trip!

The rest of the schedule is pretty much as I've posted before, although now we have hotel reservations in Xi'an and Guangzhou and in-country flight reservations in place. We have names of who will be our coordinator/guide in each of the two cities. We also have a last minute list of paperwork that needs to be taken along, documents needing notarization, and suitcases to pack. Once this is all done, we're outta here!

In four days.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

2008-10-23T21:52:00.001-04:00

Now that all the proper documentation and paperwork is in place, I have the green light to actually buy plane tickets.

Obstacle 1: During my first attempt at making reservations, I discovered that it costs three times as much for a ticket for a little girl one-third the size of the rest of us to travel only half the distance as the rest of us. A one-way ticket was hideously expensive. And we don't really have the option of leaving her there to save the plane ticket since bringing her home is what this trip is all about. My second attempt was through a travel agent whose name was suggested to me after I posted a frantic plea on an internet group. This travel agent specializes in international adoptions and I could tell right away that she knew the business. After I indicated some flexibility on flight times and connections, she put forth an itinerary that actually had Abigail's ticket costing somewhat LESS than the rest of us. Which leads us to obstacle #2.

Obstacle #2: This itinerary has us leaving for home from Hong Kong. Not Guangzhou, where we are staying. This is not a huge obstacle since Hong Kong is only about 170 km from Guangzhou. We'll just take the train. I hear that Hong Kong is a pretty interesting place. And Chinese rail travel also can be interesting.

I'm sure there will be more obstacles as this whole process plays out... hopefully none of them will be show stoppers.

This could be quite a trip. Here's how it's starting to shape up:

Day 1 - Leave the US
Day 2 - Arrive in Beijing
Day 3, 4 - Take in the sights and sounds of Beijing
Day 5 - Finish up in Beijing. Take the evening sleeper train towards Xi'An
Day 6 - [Gotcha Day] Arrive in Xi'An in the morning, receive Abigail in the afternoon.
Day 7 - Paperwork and hang out. Begin to get used to the freaky idea of being a family of five (with TWO females).
Day 8, 9 - Free days. Check out the sights of Xi'An. Orphanage visit, if possible.
Day 10 - Pick up paperwork. Hang out.
Day 11 - Fly to Guangzhou.
Day 12 - Physical examination (Abigail, not us). Hang out
Day 13, 14, 15 - Free days. I hear that the zoo in Guangzhou is pretty cool.
Day 16 - US Embassy appointment.
Day 17 - Oath Ceremony. Pick up immigrant visa. Flee by train to Hong Kong.
Day 18 - Free day in Hong Kong. I've been told that Hong Kong makes Los Angeles look like farmland. I grew up on a farm, and I've been to Los Angeles many times. This oughtta be interesting.
Day 19 - Leave Hong Kong for home. Crash, big time.