Thursday, August 31, 2006: Pearl Market and Consulate Oath

Again, I didn't snap many pictures today-- not because I forgot the camera, but because there just wasn't that much to see in places where we were allowed to bring a camera.

I know I said I wouldn't write about poop any more (and I'm not going to here), but I didn't place any bans on vomit. Those of you who know me know I am a self-proclaimed chain-puker. I just don't like the smell. So you may be amused to know that yesterday on my way to breakfast, I had to chide my mom and Jason when I looked in the elevator mirror only to discover there was still curdled milk (also called spit-up) in my hair. Yuck. Well, that was nothing. . . in the middle of the night Marcie woke up. This surprised us because she has been sleeping through the night. But because we removed the rice from her diet and have been holding back on solids, I think she is getting hungry more frequently. So at midnight we gave her a bottle. Which she inhaled. I am not exaggerating. She finished the 8 ounces in maybe a minute. And because she has been spitting up, I thought I should burp her before putting her back down. So I patted her back, and she burped. And then she started coughing. Hacking, really. And the next thing I knew, there was vomit all down the front my shirt and my pajama bottoms. And I got up, completely freaked out, to walk over to the bathroom, where Jason had scampered to find me a towel, when she upchucked again-- right into my hair. We changed Marcie, wiped down my hair, removed my stinky clothes, and put Marcie back to bed. I wish I'd done what Jill (whose daughter also threw up last night-- only from being sick and not because she drank her bottle too fast) did-- Jill just got in the shower with all her clothes on. And no, I didn't think to get any photos of this incident, so you'll just have to use your imagination.

We had plenty of time for breakfast this morning before we took taxis over to the pearl market. The pearl market is just like a big mall. The prices on pearls was really good. So good, in fact, that I had to question their reality. But Lauren, the doctor from Michigan, says he knows pearls, and these were really high quality fresh-water pearls, so I'm glad I got myself a pair of earrings. The picture is of me and Marcie at the pearl market.

After the shopping excursion, we returned to Lucy's for lunch, where I had a cheeseburger and Jason had a ham and cheese sandwich (and they removed the crusts of his sandwich!). I gave Marcie some pieces of my fries, which she gobbled up. She also gobbled up cheerios. So far, she's liked everything (which means prunes and Benedryl, french fries and cheerios) except for watermelon. She spit that back out. Then we returned to our room to get ready for our trip to the consulate.

On the bus ride to the consulate, Kathy (the guide) explained that Dana (read yesterday's blog for the details here) was already there with Raymond. I'd been thinking about her earlier in the day, and when I bumped into her aunt in the hallway, I asked how it was going-- she said they were only 75% in the clear. Once we got to the consulate, I asked Dana how things went, and she explained that there was a form that the Illinois DCFS sent to the consulate after their referral, but it apparently got lost. The consulate was supposed to notify the Illinoise home study agency to confirm its receipt of the form when they received it, and her home study agency didn't catch that the consulate never contacted them. And our adoption agency didn't catch it either. So this was a case of no one doing things as they were supposed to-- and all the safety measures failing, too. Then, once at the consulate, they said she needed an additional form-- one she had never heard of and Raymond had never seen (in 10 years of doing this!). Talk about frustrating! Dana asked to speak to the consul general (she told me she wasn't going to leave until she did), and he waived the form requirement, allowing Juliana (Dana's daughter) to get the necessary visa. When Raymond handed out Juliana's visa and immigration packet to Dana after the oath, our whole group clapped and cheered and whistled. It was another one of those emotional moments-- I was just so relieved for Dana, and for everyone really-- who knew it would be such bureacracy once we got here?

Anyway, the consulate was exactly how I remembered it (how could it not be? I was just there yesterday!). We all filed into this big room next to the room I was in yesterday. I think there were like 80 families. Then our guides gave us photocopies of our passports and Marcie's passport, and we got in line. The woman at the window compared our passports to the photocopies to our faces. Then she stamped the passport photocopies with the word "Guangzhou" in red (it looked totally unofficial, so that was weird). Then we returned those papers to Raymond and Kathy. Then one of the consulate employees (named Jason) took the microphone to speak. He explained that Marcie will become a U.S. citizen when the customs person at our port of entry stamps her visa. Once we walk through, she will officially be a U.S. citizen and we can apply for her U.S. passport immediately (and should). We also have to enter through the "foreigners" line because Marcie isn't a citizen yet. He also explained that the U.S. does not honor dual citizenships, but because Marcie has a Chinese passport, China will allow her to travel there with that instead of getting a visa on her U.S. passport. Of course, then if she runs into trouble in China, the Chinese government doesn't have to let the U.S. government help her because she'll be in China as a Chinese citizen. I think we'll just hang onto the China passport as a keepsake and part of her history. . . we are also going to readopt her in California so we can get a U.S. birth certificate issued.

Anyway, after Jason told us these two things, he had us all stand up and raise our right hand. We had to swear and affirm that all the information we provided during our adoption application and registration process was truthful and honest to the best of our knowledge-- and that was it! So it's over (well, almost over-- we do still have to cross through customs in Los Angeles). We took a bus back to the hotel, and we had a photo taken of us after the oath:

A bunch of the families went to the Thai restaurant for dinner, and said our good-byes at the restaurant. Then I found some cookies n cream ice cream and headed back to our room. A bunch of people are leaving very early in the morning tomorrow (bags outside their rooms at 5:00am). We are not leaving until 5:00 pm, so we have the day to pack and relax and do last-minute shopping, if we want. We said good-bye to a lot of people at dinner, and Jason decided to connect with some of the other fathers downstairs in the cigar room, which is where he is right now.

It's a little crazy to think this group of 13 families came together as strangers, a mere 15 days ago-- at first it seemed like a tour group. But as the days creeped on, we came to know each other as friends, as fellow journeypeople, and most importantly as parents. I have really come to respect many of the people on this trip, and I can't really imagine having had this experience with anyone else. I feel like we really came together for a common purpose, worked together to make sure we all achieved our goal. We really worked as a team. . . There was: Paul and Jackie who are so amazing with their son Nathan and now their daughter Abigail (the kind of parents I hope we will be to our children); easy-going Larry and Kyndra with their animated Cassidy; always-smiling Jill and David who lost the same piece of luggage twice on this trip, filled with Alexandra's clothes; and performers Brad and Joia who miss their children Jack and Cademon at home while they are here with Ava as much as we miss Casey; quiet Lauren and Elizabeth who know their way around pearls and are bringing home beautiful Catherine-- a mere two pounds lighter than Casey; Dana with her friendly band of extended family to help her through the journey to bring her daughter Juliana home to her husband and two boys; and Lisa and Nathan who knew they wanted to adopt from China since forever ago and finally achieved their dream as they celebrated their tenth anniversary-- their daughter Noel sure is one lucky little girl. There was also Annette, who knew she wanted to adopt a girl from China and caught CCAI at the right time, lucky for her daughter Emma! There was: Jeff and Sarae with five-year-old Marissa, welcoming Josceline into their warm Nebraska home; Vicki and Robert who have rearranged the next six months of their lives so they can both be home to spoil little Katelyn; Joe and Margrit whose three grown sons are about to begin spoiling Jane, the newest member of their family; Laura and Brian whose six-year-old Stephanie just became a big sister to Hannah; and ever-calm Natalie whose daughter Naomi gave her a rough start but has come around for her Mama in the days since her placement. There were also many travel companions who helped out in large in small ways-- like Gene, the ever-present second-set of hands who accompanied Jason on his weird food-testing excursions; Howard, who protected us from beggars outside of markets and helped us feel safe around town; Lois, a friendly face and warm smile; Kairen who knew how to shop; and all the other extended family members our group brought along to help wrangle siblings, run out to buy diapers, and to share in the adventures of Beijing, Chongqing, and Guangzhou.

Now that this trip is almost over, I can hardly believe it's all been real. I keep thinking I need to pinch myself to make sure Marcie is really ours, we really did climb the Great Wall, that really was a Starbucks in Chongqing, and I really did visit the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou-- twice. But I know it's all real-- I've got the blog to prove it! So thank you to all of you who e-mailed me, posted comments, and sent your good wishes and prayers from halfway around the world. There is comfort in knowing we're not alone over here in China, that their are people tracking our whereabouts, and awaiting our arrival to great Marcie with oodles of love. Just as I can't imagine the experience with another group of travelers, I can't imagine it without all of your thoughtful comments and support along the way. When we set out to adopt Marcie in November of 2004, I never dreamed it would take so long, that we would run into as many glitches as we have, or that we we would feel so amazingly rewarded by our beautiful baby girl . . .

I don't know that I will be online tomorrow-- and if I'm not, it will probably be in the middle of the night Friday to Saturday that I will post (I imagine I won't be sleeping if only because on Marcie's body clock, it will be the middle of the day). We have quite a klan of people greeting us at the airport (well, not just us-- Mom, too). So, just to make sure you recognize us, here are a few more snapshots of Marcie:

Wednesday, August 30, 2006: Consulate, Six Banyan Temple, and Chen House

Today should have been uneventful. But I forgot the immunization affidavit in the United States, so Raymond and Kathy took me to the U.S. Consulate to get the form notarized. I met them at 8:20am and left Marcie behind with Jason and my mom. I expected the consulate to be a safe haven for an American. I expected people to be warm and friendly and helpful-- and to speak exceptional English. I don't know why I expected these things-- upon reflection, that hasn't necessarily been my experience with government employees inside the U.S., so I don't know why it would be in China. (I should mention that when we got our new 171-H after we redid our fingerprints, the woman who helped me in the federal building was actually warm and friendly and helpful.)

The U.S. Consulate is about a 30 minute drive from the White Swan, and it is on a floor of a giant building, where there is also an AIG Insurance office. The people at the security check-points do speak English, but their Chinese (I don't know which dialect) is clearly superior to their English. When I got to the room where Kathy and Raymond were dropping everyone's paperwork, I took a number and waited. I was amazed at the number of people who just didn't wait for their number. They seriously walked right up behind people who had waited their turn and started talking to the employees. Again, I don't know why that surprised me-- it was obviously silly for me to think the consulate would be a bastion of American cultural norms. When I went to the window, I explained what I needed. Then Raymond (our guide) re-explained what I wanted in Chinese to her. She told me to take a seat. As I sat, I watched Kathy submit all the other paperwork. I sat, and waited, and rubbed my forehead, and waited. Raymond came over to me to ask if I had any money with me. I did because I didn't know how much the notarization would cost. He explained that one of the hundred dollar bills was rejected (yes, I'm being serious) because it had a stamp on it. All I had was a hand full of twenty dollar bills and ten dollar bills. They are worn and wrinkled, but Raymond traded the hundrend for them, and I guess those were good enough. Go figure.

It was an agonizing ten minute wait, until this friendly face called my name to her window. And she pronounced my first name and my last names perfectly! She was clearly an American-born employee. She notarized my document, and it turns out she is the vice consul here in Guangzhou. It also turns out a presidential commission never expires. It's pretty cool to have that notary stamp on a document-- but not cool enough that I would ever recommend leaving your affidavit behind to have the experience! When she finished, I asked if she'd make me a copy, and she explained why I wouldn't need one, but said she'd do it anyway if I wanted. I told her that I hoped I wouldn't need one, but I'd prefer not to risk it. She smiled kindly and made the copy-- then congratulated me and asked me how the adoption was going. I couldn't even speak. I was so emotionally overwhelmed. This is the third time I have felt this way on our trip-- so emotionally drained I couldn't speak for fear the lump at the back of my throat would burst out of my mouth and I would become a walking ball of sobs. The first time was when I saw Jill waiting for us in Beijing (after our experience in Guangzhou trying to make our connection, I was so happy to discover a ride to the hotel had been arranged for us!). The second time was in Chongqing, when I wasn't sure if our traveler's checks would be accepted by the bank, and I discovered the entire group had waited with me to make sure my money was accepted because they weren't going to leave me (or Marcie!) behind-- they were ready to pony up the cash on my behalf. And this was the third time. I guess I thought the trip to China would be the easy part-- smoothe-sailing. Boy was I wrong.

Speaking about it not being all easy here, our guides here in Guangzhou have been phenomenal. Kathy came by our room after 11pm last night because our paperwork was missing two signatures. Then she left a note and called at 6:45 am this morning because we were missing a page. Then she took me to the consulate with Raymond. This afternoon, she helped us change our keys at the group reception area because we have such a late check-out on Friday (which CCAI arranged for us). And just a few minutes ago, Raymond and Kathy came by our room to give us a letter to carry to the U.S. in case we run into difficulty in Los Angeles going through customs, and to give us other customs paperwork. They are working very hard for us-- I honestly cannot imagine going through this process without their help, or without CCAI's expertise and experience. Boy does our agency know what they are doing!

Anyway, after I got back to the hotel, we ordered lunch from Danny's (a place run by people from New York), and then we went for an afternoon city tour of the Six Banyan Temple and the Chen House. The Temple was beautiful, and I'd love to post some photos of it, but I left the media card in the hotel room, so we didn't snap any pictures. We did take video of it, though. We were supposed to have a blessing for the girls there, but the monks were busy in a service, and after waiting 30 minutes and learning their service would be at least another 30 minutes long, we moved along to the Chen House. The temple was very interesting architecturally. Jason had predicted there would be an altar, sandlewood incense burning, monks, and chanting. He was right on all four counts. The only real surprise for me was the number of beggars asking for money outside the temple. I wasn't really prepared for that.

Next we went to Chen House, which is a family temple- Raymond explained that Buddhists believe in reincarnation, and that families go to pray to and for their ancestors at family temples (as compared to public temples like the six banyon temple). This had a lot of interesting parts to it-- there were people making rosewood cabinets. There were displays of ivory and bone carvings, and there was a beautiful garden. There was also a high-pressured shop with air conditioning, where the employees kept asking us to "make an offer." We booked out of that place pretty quickly.

Because I don't have any photos of what we saw today, I'll throw in a couple of shots Jason snapped yesterday:

Yes, there really are fish in that murky, muddy water. Cool lighting, huh?

Can you tell what they are doing? They are hacky-sackying a badmitton "ball." Crazy!

For dinner, we ate at the Cantonese restaurant in the hotel. We were going to try the place that boasts it was voted best Cantonese food in Guangzhou for 2003, 2004 and 2005, but after seeing thing slike crocodile claw on the menu, Kyndra decided we should head back to the hotel, and we obliged. Gene had purchased little cakes for everyone to help Nathan and Lisa celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary. Pretty impressive. In fact, at our tables, Jason and I were tied with Brad and Joia for the shortest period of time married at seven years. Kyndra and Larry have been together for nine years, and Nathan and Lisa for ten. This is interesting in part because each of our couples has thirty-somethings. Maybe that's not all that impressive-- it just seems like a lot of marriages end around the four-year mark, so I thought it was cool.

So that's about all for the day.

Poop Watch 2006
This will be my final poop-related entry of this trip-- unless something really funny or really gross happens that I just have to document. Marcie pooped on her own today (yippee!). During dinner. No grunting, no groaning-- not even any squatting. I just smelled it. And it was relatively soft. She did have another six ounces of apple juice today (it just kills me to give this to her-- we didn't even introduce juice to Casey-- not even watered-down juice-- until he was three). So she is apparently trying to or starting to regulate herself. We are keeping her off table food and rice cereal until we can get her back to the U.S. and transitioned to a better formula. But we are just so happy and thrilled for. Thanks for all your prayers and good wishes-- and keep them coming. After all, we do have a couple more days here in China!

Tomorrow morning we are off to the pearl market, then we go to the consulate to take our oath (to finalize the adoption, though we will re-adopt Marcie in California), and to pick up our visa. We are all going to meet at the local Thai Restaurant for a farewell dinner-- most of the families leave at 5:00am to catch their flights to Hong Kong, and then to the United States. Although I have been antsy to return to the U.S. pretty much since we received Marcie, these past few days have really flown by, and I can hardly believe I will en-route to the United States in a mere forty-eight hours (if all goes according to plan). In the mean time, for those of you sending well wishes and crossing fingers and praying, please keep Dana and her family in your thoughts. Dana's husband stayed back in the United States with their two boys (who are both autistic), and she is here right now with her aunt. She is missing a form that is required because her husband isn't here. They told her she wouldn't need it, but she does. On top of that, Illinois requires some documentation about the adoption that her home study agency neglected to fill her in about. The U.S. Consulate won't issue her daughter's visa until it receives these two forms, with Dana's husband's signature on them. And the forms have to be notarized. If the consulate will take faxed copies, Dana can submit them tomorrow. If the consulate refuses faxes, Dana will have to wait here in Guangzhou until the documents can arrive-- which could be as long as four or five days because of the upcoming holiday weekend. I imagine Dana will not sleep well tonight. I imagine the taxi ride to the consulate in the morning will be a dreadful, long thirty minutes. I imagine Dana will feel, tomorrow, much like I felt today. So I am hoping and praying that it all works out so Dana can get home to her boys-- with her daughter-- on Friday. Please keep her in your thoughts as you work today, and as you go to bed tonight.

Here are the photos I did manage to snap today:

Tuesday, August 29, 2006: Visa Application, Physical, and Red Couch Photos

This morning we got off to a late start-- admittedly my fault. I stayed up until 11pm last night so I could call China Southern in the U.S. (which is only open Monday through Friday from 8am to 5pm Pacific time) to confirm our tickets back to Los Angeles. We have to confirm at least 72 hours in advance. But when I tried calling last night, it turned out we only had four minutes left on our calling card, and we were on hold for those four minutes. I was completely frustrated. This morning, I tried calling the local Guangzhou number for China Southern three times. Each time a woman answered and I explained (in English) what I wanted to do (confirm tickets) and she said something in Mandarin and hung up. The fourth time, Jason called and asked if anyone spoke English. He got an earful, in Mandarin, and then hung up with them. We rushed down to breakfast, where there was a long line to eat the buffet. I guess 140 families with their newest members is a lot to feed in a short period of time. I scarfed down a bowl of rice krispies before we headed off to get Marcie's visa photo and physical examination.

The visa photo place was right next to a 7-11 (they are all over the place here in Guangzhou), so I bought a new calling card. After we had Marcie's visa photo, we followed everyone over to the office for physical examinations. My favorite part of the walk over there was watching Cassidy put herself to sleep in her stroller. I thought it was a riot-- she refused to lean back in her stroller, even though her parents tried.

Once we all arrived at the clinic, we moved through three separate stations. In one station, they measured Marcie's head, listened to Marcie's heart and had us remove her diaper to check things out. Another station was the ENT station. This doctor was the roughest with the kids. Kathy, one of the guides, told us the ENT would be checking the girls' eyes, noses, and teeth. We thought this was amusing. . .

In the third station, they took her temperature (with a thermometer under her arm), which was 97.6 and they weighed her. Marcie weighed in at around 21 pounds. I think she's lost a little weight since we took custody of her. Catherine comes in a close second, weighing around 19 pounds. It's hard to believe Cassidy (in the stroller in the photo above) only weights like 4 pounds less than Marcie (she was around 17 pounds)-- because Marcie is such a big girl in comparison. Then again, when you are under 2 feet long and weight only 17 or 21 pounds, 4 pounds is roughly between 20 and 35% of your body weight. That's no small thing.

We did a little shopping along the way back to hotel. When we got back to the hotel, Jason went off to complete nearly two hours' worth of visa and adoption paperwork for Marcie and I went to the concierge to have them help me confirm our flights on China Southern. Thankfully, they were able to help me. Back in our room, I tried calling United to confirm our L.A. to San Diego flight, but without luck. Every time I called, I got this message about the TSA restrictions, then nothing-- and it went dead. I didn't even think to say "agent" or anything-- or to consider the fact that the U.S. phone system might not recognize the tone from overseas. Instead, I called my brother Bryan and asked him to call United for me. I don't think we really need to confirm a domestic flight, but I do think we need to inform them we're traveling with a lap child. This ticket confirmation business was a real pain, so I'm glad we're done with it.

After Jason completed the paperwork, we headed off to Lucy's for lunch. I had the sweet and sour pork, which was very sweet. Jason had Malaysian fried rice. My mom had a noodle dish. The most remarkable thing (to me) about the place was the trees growing up through the restaurant. That's a tree trunk to Larry's right in the photo. . .

Mom, Marcie, and I went back out in search of a little Chinese outfit for the red couch photo and were able to successfully locate one we liked. We also bought these cute little Mary Jane shoes that Jason fell in love with. All the kids shoes here have squeakers in them- so when the kids walk around, they sqeak every step they take. I find this incredibly irritating, and there is no way I'd purchase squeaker shoes for my kids. I don't even really like buying squeaky toys for the dog! Fortunately, the nice woman at the store showed me how to remove the squeakers! This greatly pleased me-- I know there are parents out there who think the shoes are super cute and note that children just get such a kick out of jumping around on them, squeaking as they do. Those parents have very lucky children. My kids are apparently not as lucky. I'll just leave it at that.

Anyway, we all met up with the kids for family photos and a group photo and a photo of the girls on the red sofas a the White Swan. This is a big tradition-- I don't know if every agency does it, but CCAI does. And the photos are just so cute.

Here is our "family" photo. I put "family" in quotation marks because it's not really our family photo since Casey is missing. I wish they'd told us we'd be in a family photo-- I would have put on some make up-- combed my hair-- and perhaps not worn a shirt covered in formula stains, Marcie spit and stretched out of shape. Oh well, I guess this is the real me. . .

Here is the group photo. I haven't checked anyone else's photos to see if I can swipe a better one. This is a nice group photo because the travel companions are in it. We have a professionally taken group photo from Beijing. Well, we had one. Apparently I left ours in Beijing. Oops.

We also took some photos of the girls-- they didn't turn out very good-- I picked this one because it came out the best, but it's missing several of the girls. Like Alexandra, who was put into the photo right after I snapped it. Again, I'm hopeful someone else got a better shot than we did.

These next two photos are probably my favorite photos of today. Marcie, Cassidy, and Ava went clothes-shopping together with me, Kyndra, and Joia today. I think the girls look totally shocked --or perhaps frightened by the faces Gene is making at them?

And I just like this one-- still Marcie, Cassidy, and Ava.

After our photo session, we went to dinner at the Japanese restaurant in the hotel, and then to buy some diapers and water. If I haven't mentioned it, the hotel is absolutely beautiful. Here is a photo of the lobby. And one with my mom in front of the waterfall.

Oh, yeah! And I almost forgot-- though I thought the clothes we had laundered in Chongqing looked cool, all packaged in the plastic bags, they were kind of stiff, and looked like they'd been scrubbed by rocks (which they probably had), and they didn't get any stains out. So Jason has been hand washing his laundry tonight. (Well, mostly his laundry- I did toss in the shirt I was wearing this morning, which Marcie threw up prunes all over. Blech.)

Poop Watch 2006
If you're still following our adventures in poopville, we have some happy news to report! Today Marcie grunted and groaned and squatted-- but no tears. Yup-- she pooped on her own. And it was normal poop, not all hard and abnormal looking. Apparently all the prunes and apple juice helped. Today she had another half a jar of baby food prunes and four ounces of apple juice. We are hopeful this will maintain our momentum. In the meantime, we have decided to withhold the rice cereal from her diet until we get back to the U.S.

Tomorrow there is an optional afternoon tour, which we may or may not go on. In the meantime, here are some more photos of beautiful Marcie. There were a lot of photos on the blog today-- hope they didn't take hours and hours to download. There's just so much to drink in here-- and sometimes a picture just tells a clearer story than words do. . .

Monday, August 28, 2006: Depart Chongqing, Arrive Guangzhou

Our morning began extraordinarily early when Marcie awoke rather abruptly at 3:33am (I looked at the clock, which is how I know the time). By 4:30am, we were exhausted. One nose aspiration, one diaper change, one bottle, and one dose of Benadryl later, Marcie finally fell asleep-- and slept until 8:30am. We opted for the Bendryl because she was so congested, and a study was published in the U.S. a few months ago explaining that antihistimines are better for drying out coughs, etc. than cold medicine.

After our final breakfast at the hotel's buffet (which for me consisted of noodles and a bowl of corn flakes), we headed back to our hotel room to complete some last minute packing. . . Jason took off for more squid on a stick (which he was supposed to photograph and forgot), and Mom and I hung out in the room while Marcie napped. Then we boogied off to McDonald's for our farewell Chicken McNugget experience, and returned to the hotel.

We scooted out the door by 1:45 and went downstairs to pay the bill. Boy, one thing that I will probably never get used to is how (literally) pushy the people here are. I was in line, next to pay, and as Gene stepped away, a Chinese gentleman pushed right in front of me and checked out. Then, when the next spot opened up, and I took it, after I'd given the desk clerk my room keys with the room number, a Chinese woman stepped up next to me and pushed her keys across to the hotel employee to check out-- despite the line of people 4 deep behind me. In the end, we were able to check out just fine and pile onto the bus for our ride to the airport. You can see Marcie on the bus ride in the picture to the left.


One great thing about CCAI is how they take care of us with the in-country travel. When we arrived in Chongqing, we were already checked into our rooms, and Marie had our room keys. When we were ready to depart, Marie had us put all our luggage outside our room, and the belhops collected it. Then Marie arranged for our passports and bags to get to the airport and picked up all our tickets and boarding passes for us. The luggage guys have a great relationship with the airport, and they explained we were here for adoption, so no one had to pay any fees for heavy luggage or extra pieces (I think we would have been okay, but it's nice not to worry). At the airport, Marie distributed our passports, Marcie's passport, and got us all the way through security. She even checked us in by family so that we all had seats together! It was incredibly smooth. Our flight was delayed by about 20 minutes, but we didn't really mind. You can see a photo of us waiting at the airport to the right.

There were some storms in the skies, but our pilot did a great job landing the plane. And Marcie was a real trooper on the plane. The girl will eat anything. This is so strange after raising Casey for a few years. Casey eats basically nothing. Marcie gobbled up the Benadryl on the plane like it was candy (we used it to help make sure her ears were clear). Then, during take-off, she ate three prunes. She had a bottle once we were at cruising altitude, and she sucked down some water in a bottle during the descent. There was a little fussing, but not bad at all. You can see how Marcie did on her first airplane ride to the left.



One nice thing about the in-country travel here in China is that the airlines take pretty good care of you. The flight from Chongqing to Guangzhou was only an hour and a half, but they fed us a snack (you can see it to the left), and they came by twice with beverages. Despite our disappointment at the lack of apple juice for Marcie, we were pleased to have pineapple juice (yum!) and good coffee with cream and sugar.

We arrived to a rainy, steamy Guangzhou. And our guide Raymond was there waiting for us, along with his assistant Kathy. They were able to corral us-- this is no small feat when you consider the amount of luggage we all brought. You can get a sense of the sheer amount of stuff we all had in this photo, which only captures maybe a third of the group.

So a forty-five minute bus ride in Guangzhou landed us at the White Swan hotel. This is certainly a more western hotel than the Golden Resources, where we stayed in Chongqing. And we are the last of the families to arrive through CCAI. Raymond told us there are around 80 babies, and our 14 are the last-- the others have been here a couple days. I guess that's becuase our passports weren't ready until this morning. In reality, though, Guangzhou is more expensive than Chongqing, and we were already there and settled in, so there a couple more days or here a couple more days-- what difference does it make? For cost comparison purposes, though, the cheesburger we ordered through room service in Chongqing was around 58 RMB, or a little more than $7.00. The cheesburger Jason just ordered tonight was 138 RMB, or more than $15.00. And the rooms, though very clean, offer twin sized beds, instead of the king size we had in Chongqing. But the television does have more English-speaking stations, and our room has an amazing view of the river:



Marcie seems to be a relatively good traveler, though- here she is in our hotel room after our arrival:




Poop Watch 2006
For those of you sending prayers and crossing fingers with respect to Marcie's bowel movements, thank you. I wish I could say we are out of the woods, but I'm just not convinced we are. After breakfast this morning, Marcie did finally grunt and groan and push and screech and cry and moan and whine-- until she pushed out some poop. This completely exhausted here, and she immediately sacked out for a two-hour nap (that's Marcie napping to the left). After she woke up, we repeated the ordeal a second time (minus the nap). Poor, poor Marcie I'm so proud of her for going on her own, but I hate to see her in such pain. We are continuing to withhold the rice cereal from her formula. We did three prunes today, and we'll follow up with baby food prunes tomorrow, and also with apple juice (I verified with a doctor here in our group that apples bind but apple juice helps with constipation). We don't expect another movement until Thursday, though we are hopeful she'll regulate herself before that and without the pain. Please continue to keep your fingers crossed and keep Marcie in your prayers. . .

Tomorrow we will begin to learn our new surroundings, visit the doctor, and take photos for Marcie's U.S. visa. It looks like we have a couple opportunities for some half-day exursions while we are here-- and we are the last family to leave Guangzhou, on a red-eye for Los Angeles this Friday (only four more days until we get to see Casey again!).

Sunday, August 27, 2006: Family Photo Day

Today was relatively uneventful again. I really don't know where the time goes, to be honest. We slept in a bit and went down for breakfast at 8am. I was pleased to discover the corn flakes a few days ago, and this morning when I went searching for them, they weren't where they usually are. After a brief moment of panic, I discovered they had just been moved to a new area. Phew! I also ventured into some Chinese breakfast food-- including the "hoof of crab." That was really a crab claw breaded and probably deep fried. Whatever it was, it was yummy.

After breakfast, we all met up in the lobby for our group photos. Boy, was that an ordeal. First we did a photo of all the families. Then we did the moms and the babies, then the dads and the babies. Then just the babies. Here is how some of the photos turned out:

The whole group. We're near the left. Marcie isn't really paying attention. For another group photo, visit Ava Farmer is Coming . (I stole the second one above from Cassidy Tao's Trip Home-- thanks, Kyndra!)


Mothers and daughters. You will notice Marcie is still not paying attention.


Fathers and daughters. Gene stepped in as Emma's "dad" for photo purposes.


You'll have to just imagine this one without the other camera in the way . . .


And chaos ensued. . . not two minutes after this photo was snapped, Marcie reached out and grabbed Ava's face (Ava is to Marcie's left, facing the photo), so I stepped in to "break it up" and pulled Marcie from the photo shoot. . . she didn't seem to mind. And within a couple minutes, she was ready for her nap.


You can see how mellow Marcie is here, ready to go to sleep. Oriole is to our left (facing the photo), and Marie is to our right.

After Marcie's nap (which lasted all of 20 minutes), I shot a few more pictures of her, and then we played some more, and then she ate some more, and then she went down for another nap. During her second nap, Jason and I snuck out for another foot massage. I guess I lambasted the hotel pretty hard yesterday on my post. Perhaps I was a bit harsh. And everyone else had such a great experience, I thought I should give it one more shot. I'm pretty glad I did. Jason and I went together this time, and instead of having a male, I got a female. The photo to the right is what the room looks like when you enter. It looks like two beds.

Once again, they brought in dark water, which we figured out was tea. While our feet soaked, they massaged our arms. No weird pinching of the nerves this time, though. And they spent at least 20-30 minutes on each foot. Then they did our legs and our upper backs and necks. Getting a massage with Jason is pretty funny. Whenever something hurts, he just shouts, "Ah-YAH!" and essentially jumps up from the table. I supposed that is the international way to tell someone the pressure is too strong! He is still a wee bit sore from climbing the great wall, so the massage was nice. Anyway, if I'd had today's experience yesterday, I wouldn't have hesitated to return. All I can say is I wouldn't request employees 801 or 811. But the women who worked on us today were good-natured and very good at what they do. After the massage, we were able to tip them, and even snap a cute photo with them, which you can see here. (Doesn't Jason look happy and relaxed?)

After our massages and Marcie's nap, we wandered out again, this time in search of baby food prunes. Jason and I stopped and bought some regular ones at the grocery store under the hotel, but we figured we look for more elsewhere. (Marcie gobbled up two of the prunes, by the way.) We stopped at McDonald's for a cone, and then we stopped and watched some of the fountain show on our way back to the hotel. Here's a picture of me and Mom and Marcie in front of the fountain. Marcie's only partially visible because her face is in the baby carrier (thanks, by the way, to Grace and Keely for loaning me your baby carriers-- we've actually used them both!). They also run a fountain show at night, with all sorts of neon lights. Here is a picture of it from my mom's hotel room window (the fountain is the round part):

We had a meeting in Marie's room to go over tomorrow's schedule. We will be getting Marcie's passport at the airport when we leave. Marie gave us her immunization record and her finding ad today-- so we are one step closer to coming home. . .

For dinner, we ate at the Cantonese restaurant in the hotel again, with Joia and Brad (and Ava) and Gene, and with Larry and Kyndra (and Cassidy). Joia and Kyndra brought white wine, which we all shared. Our waiter from the previous two times we'd dined in the restaurant, Ivan, was also there-- he told us if we all came back in another year, his English would be much better. I have to admit, though, the service around here is really exceptional. And they are making great efforts with the language.

They served us chicken feet again. This time, Gene and Larry both tried them-- that's Gene to the left. Joia gave a nice toast: "To no teething, a good night sleep, and a nice poop." And we added "And we wish that for the girls, too."

After dinner, we headed back up to the room for bed time. And to start packing-- FINALLY! I've been telling Marcie all evening that tomorrow we are getting on a big airplane and heading closer to home. I imagine she will be a little anxious tomorrow. . . I noticed a bit of "Mommy shopping" going on today. A lot of people want to stop and touch and hold Marcie. After all, she is awfully cute. And Marcie seemed a little more interested today than she should. She definitely recognizes me and Jason and our voices, but it's really important that she attach to us, and not any random person who picks her up and speaks in gentle tones. . . so for those of you back home reading this, please don't be offended if we don't hand Marcie over to you to feed or to play with for a while. It's just really important that she come rely primarily on us-- and that she knows that, no matter what, we will always be here for her. . .

So I'm starting a new section of the blog. . . Introducing:

Poop Watch 2006
For those of you following our adventures in the land of constipation, we have now passed the 48-hour mark, and still no bowel movement. Yesterday evening we gave Marcie about 3 ounces of apple juice, a warm bath, and a tummy massage.

Today, we have given Marcie about 8 ounces of apple juice, two prunes (which I broke into little pieces and she ate), and half the plastic container of prunes our friend (and perhaps godsend) Jill gave us. We have done numerous tummy rubs and we have done the cycling-thing with the legs. We have opted not to do another glycerine suppository today because we read online that it can teach kids that pooping is painful, causing them to hold it in . . . I am contemplating calling our pediatrician on Monday in the U.S. By then it will have been 72 hours without a bowel movement (actually a bit more than that), but I am not sure what else to do. And I'm not sure he'll be able to help us from 5,000 miles away anyway. It's around 9:30pm right now, and I hear Marcie stirring in crib next to me. I am not sure if it's because she is just not tired, if it's because her cough keeps waking her up, or if it's because her stomach is bothering her. None of those are good things, though. The good news is that it that it appears Marcie will eat anything. The bad news is that it apparently stays in her system for a loooong time.

As yucky a topic as this is, please keep your fingers crossed that poor Marcie will poop soon . . . and preferrably not a river of it on the flight between Chongqing and Guangzhou tomorrow.

Ok. Here are some cute photos of Marcie to end this post:

Saturday, August 26, 2006: Night Tour to See Lights

This post will be short partly because we really didn't do anything today and partly because I'm completely exhausted and probably should have gone to bed an hour ago. Jason and I both caught this cold (we think from Marcie), and we are relatively confident it's about to hit my mom, too. It's wiped us out. So yesterday we took Sudafed 12 hour in the mid-afternoon. Totally a dumb idea. The stuff kept us wide awake until I'd guess around 5am this morning (maybe a little before that for Jason because I heard him snoring while I was still laying in bed awake). Plus the stuff gives me crazy, crazy dreams that seem real but make no sense. Anyway, when Marcie woke up around 7:15 for her bottle, I got it ready and fed her, then Marcie and I left (with my mom) around 8:30am to head to Starbucks with some others. We left Jason behind to get some sleep.

I made the mistake of ordering a blended cream frappacino, which is not like a regular one. But at least the banana walnut muffin was good. After Starbucks, we hung out with Marcie in the room-- I napped for about twenty minutes, then we went to play group, hosted by Jill. I didn't think to snap any photos of either of these activities, so I'll have to borrow from others later.

When Marcie went down for her noon nap, Mom and I decided to try out the foot massage in the hotel. We'd heard it was great-- and I was surprised Mom wanted to try it because she hates massages. I, on the other hand, love them. This was not a very good experience though. They started by soaking our feet in a hot water mixture and massaging our arms, which is fine in theory. But I think the guy sought out and hit every nerve in my arm. I still had numbness in my pinkies when the hour and a half experience ended. Then the guy decided to rub off all my callouses. I know it's gross that I have them, and if I'd known what he was doing and could figure out how to tell him to stop, I probably would have. Plus, they charged extra for it (and for cutting my toe nails really short, which was odd because I already keep my toe nails very short by American standards because I run). It took a long time to build up my running callouses, so I'm a little bummed they are gone. After he scrubbed my feet, he massaged my feet and legs. Again, he was very rough. The rubbing was hard enough, but all the slapping and stretching- it nearly brought tears to my eyes. And he didn't use lotion, so it was dry skin (his hands) on dry skin (my legs), so it felt like he was pinching me. . . I'm not sorry I opted to try it out, but it's not something I'll do again.

Later in the afternoon, we headed out to do some grocery shopping. We found our way to Carre-Four and bought some Pringles. Then we headed over to the grocery store in the sleepless town below our hotel and picked up diapers (we thought they were cheaper).

After Marcie had a bottle, we headed back out in the heat to Pizza Hut because I had a hankering for it. It's strange to me that you can't get diet soda in many restaurants, and Pizza Hut is one of them. Jason tried to tip our waitress and she got really embarrassed. She said she wasn't allowed to take the money. Marcie was pretty good during dinner, but her teeth were bothering her. I gave her some cold apple juice, which really goes agains my typical parenting approach (Casey didn't have juice until he was 3), but I'm feeling kind of desperate to help her have a normal bowel movement. Jason got online today to read about what to do, and we think another glycerine suppository might not be good for her. We looked for prunes in the store, but we didn't find any. We might begin searching more diligently for apple sauce tomorrow, though.

After dinner we walked over to the department store we call Summersale. It's not really the name of the department store. The store is something like DCDS (I know those aren't the right initials), but we call it summersale because it has a bunch of signs outside that sa Summersale (as in they are having their summer sale). We picked out a couple hats for Marcie, which you can see below:





Then Mom and I headed out on the night tour to see Chongqing. Marie explained that Chongqing used to be pronounced Chong-king but in the 1950s when the government decided to standardize the langugage (into Mandarin), the pronunciation changed to Chong-chin. This was also the same time that Peking became Beijing. Anyway, the tour started with the People's Square and building-- this is the same building that is on the metal plate the adoption registration center gave us for Marcie. But the lights weren't on, so my photos are terrible. Then we went to where the Yangtze River meets the other tributary (I forget its name and will have to add it back in later when I'm not so tired and I've looked it up). This was very pretty, but my photos of it stink, so you will just have to take my word for it.

While I was off on the night tour, Jason gave Marcie a bath and put her to bed, which is where she is now. Tomorrow we have group photos and we get final instructions for our departure on Monday to Guangzhou. I can't believe Monday is almost here-- that is one step closer to Friday, when I can hug and kiss my sweet angel Casey again. . . I can hardly wait until our family is finally together.

Oh. And here is one more photo of Marcie for good measure. . .

Friday, August 25, 2006: Trip to Chongqing Zoo

Today was quite an eventful day-- though, as you can see from the photo to the left, it ended with Marcie in a very good mood. . . Every morning my mom goes for a long walk to explore the city. This morning she headed over to this moscow-looking building (I call it that because it has towers that look architecturally like the photos we always see of Russian buildings). She entered through the main doorway, only to notice a sign that told her rooms were availale for 20 yuan. That's the equivalent of less than $3. Pretty seedy. She booked out of there as fast as she could. Then, walking back to the hotel, she sloshed through a big puddle of water gushing out of a building/wall. The smell hit her only after her leg was covered in grime . . . it was, apparently, dark, raw sewage. She couldn't get back to the hotel quickly enough to wash her clothes, her skin, and her shoes (which she ended up throwing away, along with her socks). I asked if she got a photo of it for me, but she was so intent on getting the grossness off her as rapidly as possible, I guess she didn't stop to snap a photo. . . That's okay, because I missed out on two other photo opportunities today.

I like to think of the day as the trifecta of . . . body fluids. You see, after my mom's morning sewage experience, we went down to breakfast. (On a separate note, for those of you rooting for Marcie's bowels to move, we had very limited success when she pooped out four tiny rabbit pellet-looking poops. We don't count that as real pooping, but we are hopeful she's on the right track.) I guess after I changed her, I didn't do a very good job putting the new diaper on because while we were sitting at breakfast, Jason got this pained look on his face and said something like, "Uh, Karen-- I feel something very warm and very wet on my shirt." He was very calm about it. And when I pulled Marcie off, we discovered that he was, in fact, covered in urine. Lovely. He ran off to change before our zoo excursion. So fast forward to around 5:30, maybe 6:00pm tonight. Marcie still hadn't had a real bowel movement. I called our guide Marie to ask if we should do another glycerine suppository. I thought I'd brought a bunch from the U.S. but I can't seem to find them. Fortunately, Lauren (who is here with his wife Elizabeth and now their daughter Catherine, from the same orphanage as Marcie) "loaned" us one (I can't really call it a loaner since he won't be getting it back). I had been napping for about 3 or 4 hours, because, as luck would have it, I have a bad head cold which has filled my sinuses and makes my head feel like it's about to explode. I don't know if I caught it from Marcie, but it figures-- I had a bad head cold when Casey first came into my life, too. Perhaps is something of a parenthood tradition for me. Anyway, Marie showed up to give Marcie the suppository and Jason left the room. He didn't want to listen to Marcie's torturous crying-- Marie commented that this is a common behavior for men in China to leave when their children are in pain, so I guess that's something Jason has inherited from his native culture. So the photo you see a little to the right is me with Marcie during our second glycerine suppository experience. Yes, we both look like hell-- but you didn't think adoption in China would be all roses did'ja?

After Marcie pooped-- about 20 minutes after the suppository (special thanks to Marie again for taking care of that!), I was changing her diaper on our bed. I had the changing pad under Marcie and I had set the diaper to the side, where I'd planned to put the wipes. In an effort to help out, Jason (who had returned by now), decided to pick up the diaper and go throw it away-- but he didn't realize the poop was not sticking to the diaper (my apologies to those of you with queasy stomachs-- you may want to skip the remainider of this paragraph), and as he picked it up, the poop rolled out of the diaper and onto the bed. MY side of the bed. I looked up at Jason, and he looked at me. And we both busted out laughing. After we'd removed the poop and wiped down the sheet to the best of our abilities, I told Jason he had to call housekeeping because there was no way I was sleeping on poop. His comment as he removed this poop? "I don't do poop. You do poop. I do vomit!" (This is true, by the way. I hate puke, but poop clean-up doesn't really bother me.) I made him call housekeeping to have the sheet changed, and he did-- but he initially said, "My wife had an accident on the bed, and we need a new sheet put on it." I could have killed him! But all is well now. Marcie had a nice poop and I got clean sheets. . .

As for the rest of the day, it was relatively uneventful. We did take the girls to the Chongqing Zoo, which was much nicer than I thought it would be. It's no San Diego Zoo or San Diego Wild Animal Park, mind you, but it had a lot of shade, and the enclosures were relatively nice. Here are some photos of our excursion:

This is me and Marcie on the bus on the way to the zoo. She napped a little bit. We passed by the Hilton, where our agency used to have people stay. There is a nice Walmart right near it, but nothing else, really. I think it's great they've moved us to the Golden Resources, especially now that I have had a chance to compare-- I can't imagine being somewhere with no place to walk to. . .

This is me and Kyndra with Marcie and Cassidy outside the red panda enclosure. The red panda looks like a cross between a racoon and a fox. The girls are totally not paying attention, but Kyndra and I look cute, don't we? You'll notice I'm wearing my San Diego [redacted] hat. I got it this summer from the law firm where I worked. I put it on this morning for luck because I've been hoping for an offer for post-graduation employment . . . and guess what? I didn't even have it on for 10 minutes when our cell phone rang. It was [redacted] and [redacted] extending me an offer to work at [redacted] after I graduate, in 2007! I accepted on the spot! I loved working there this summer, and I'm so happy and relieved to have received the offer!!!

This is the panda eating bamboo shoots. I was surprised at how active the panda is. At the San Diego Zoo, they make a really big deal about you staying quiet when you go look at the panda, but these pandas don't seem to mind the noise. Maybe the noise thing is because of the baby panda, though.

This is Marcie looking cute as a button. Who couldn't love that face?!? I made it a little bigger than the other photos-- I hope you don't mind. She's just so darn cute!

This is a picture of me with Marcie, Lisa with Noel, and Natalie with Naomi. In front are two little kids who approached us at the zoo and asked if they could get a picture with the Americans. We, of course obliged. You'll notice we are making a V with our fingers. I have no idea why, but the kids were doing it, so I figured, "What the heck?" Lisa, who is next to me, told me that when we were in Beijing at Tienamen Square, people kept jumping next to her, putting their arm around her and snapping photos with her. She said it freaked her out at first, but then she realized she was an anomoly here in China-- with her blonde hair and her big nose. (For the record, she doesn't really have a big nose, but Chinese people think pretty much all Americans have big noses.)

After the zoo, we visited an art gallery, then we headed back the hotel. I napped. Jason went out for squid on a stick with Gene (like I said, he's quite adventurous). Mom went shopping for replacement tennis shoes. (Bryan, you'll be impressed to learn Mom bought Umbros brand shoes for $20. They are very cool looking, but not velcro, like she prefers when going through airports.)

For dinner, we ate probably the most expensive meal we've had at the Cantonese Restaurant in the hotel. We went with Kyndra and Larry. They are quite a photogenic family, don't you think? I think Cassidy is adorable-- and she is very active.




Tomorrow we plan to do a little shopping, get foot massages (only 50 yuan, or $7 U.S. for an hour and a half, and even though it's called a foot massage, apparently it's really a whole body massage, just with clothes on), and to go on a night tour with the girls. We are all anxious to leave Chongqing and head for Guangzhou. It' s not because Chongqing has been a bad experience at all-- we're just read to get home and back to some normalcy. . . I personally am anxious to see Casey again. We did chat with him on the phone briefly today, and he sounds happy as ever at Grandma and Grandpa's. I think we miss him way more than he misses us. . . and I think that's probably a good thing.

I'll leave you with two final photos of Marcie in her pajamas:

Thursday, August 24, 2006: Half Day Tour of Ciqikou Old Town

So I'll begin this post by writing about what I didn't do go do today. The group took a half day tour to Old Town, also called Ciqikou, which was near the river. (That's one of the tributaries of the Yangtze River, for those of you unfamiliar with where Chongqing is located. Also, while I'm being a bit snotty-- after all, I'd never heard of Chongqing, let alone did I know it was off the Yangtze River prior to Marcie's referral-- I thought I should let you know that Chongqing is pronounced Chong-ching, not Chong-King, the way it looks. I've heard it pronounced both ways, but only the first way here in China.) I didn't go on this tour because it was to go shopping and such, and it was going to be hot today. So I stayed back at the hotel and played with Marcie until she napped. While she napped, I surfed the Net looking for a good Law and Religion paper topic, because my topic proposal is due on the 6th of September. If you have any suggestions, feel free to e-mail me. One thing that is really nice about the hotel we are in is that Internet access is free. I think the wireless is also free at Starbucks, though I haven't lugged my computer over there to verify. Just one more reason the China Starbucks is superior to the ones in Poway.

Anyway, Jason and my mom went on this half day tour, and Jason snapped the two photos I've included. If you've been following my travel blog, you might remember that Jason and my mom are way more adventuresome than I am. They went down this alley and snapped a photo. Apparently they were adventurous enough that Marie, our guide, chased after them to make sure they knew where they were going (because they were going places no one else was). And while I'm on the topic of things that didn't happen to me, Jason wanted me to relay his Beijing airport experience. I didn't even realize it was happening at the time, but he apparently got pulled into "secondary" for security screening when we left Beijing for Chonqing. In the U.S. that usually consists of the wand they wave all over your body, followed by a thorough search of your bags. Here in China, apparently it means a pat-down. Or as Jason described it, a groping. His exact words were, "I felt violated!" I guess the woman (yes, they didn't even have a man do it) made sure he wasn't carrying anything he should not have in his underwear, if you catch my drift. . .

So after Jason and my mom returned from their miniature excursion, we headed over to Pizza Hut for some good, old-fashioned pizza. It was a sit-down Pizza Hut, and we ordered Hawaiian pizza. It was the first time since I've been here that the food placed in front of me was exactly what I was expecting it to be. I was so happy, I could have cried.

Next door to Pizza Hut was a department store we walked around. What drew me to it was the entire floor of shoes on sale. Keely and Grace, if you are reading this, you would have been in shoe heaven. If weight weren't an issue, I would have gone crazy. Plus they don't take credit cards. It was quite a sight to behold.

I think this is as good a time as any to mention the split pants children wear in these parts. If you look back in the archives to the post titled Cutie-pie Marcie, you will see Marcie's little bottom sticking out of her outfit. This is because the clothes here are made split open so that kids can just. . . well . . . squat and go. I've been totally awed by this phenomenon. I haven't seen anyone actually squat and go, but my friend Kyndra did see a woman holding her child over a trash can to go at the department store. Totally crazy.

After our shopping outing, we headed back to the hotel to put Marcie down for a nap. I set up a little play area earlier in the day with the tablecloth we brought from the U.S. I'm glad we brought it so that we could let her play on ground without rolling around on the hotel's grubby carpet. Then I went to pick up our laundry. They returned it to us all packaged in little plastic packaging-- like they were new clothes! Our laundry cost us about $25 U.S. Mine was around $9 and Jason's was $16. (He turned in more clothes to be cleaned than I did.) It was pretty neat to get it all back. We also received the notary paperwork for Marcie's adoption. We are still waiting for them to process her passport here in Chongqing, and then we head off to Guangzhou to get her visa.

The doctor stopped by to check Marcie's ear and her cough. Her ear is still really bothering her. He told us to put cortizone cream on it-- which I of course did not bring. Luckily, my mom did. We also have removed rice from Marcie's diet. She had three bottles with no rice today, and a couple ounces of apple juice, and some prunes. If she doesn't poop by tomorrow at dinner, we'll have to do another suppository. I'm pretty desperate to avoid that experience again, so I'm hopeful her bowels will feel moved (so to speak) to relieve us of that possibility. . .

For dinner, a bunch of us went a Japanese place in the "Vegas" area beneath the hotel. The food was actually really good. I snapped a photo of Kyndra and Joia. If you want to check out Kyndra's blog and see photos of her cute peanut Cassidy, or you want to read her account of our Chongqing experience, you can check it out at www.cassidytao.blogspot.com. It's so hard to know what is safe to eat and what is not-- I could really go for a salad right about now, but I'm staying away from anything that might be washed in the water but not peeled. . . Anyway, you can get an idea of how much food there was just by seeing how much we left behind!

For those of you feeling like I didn't give you enough to fulfill your Marcie fix for the day, here are a couple more photos of the cutie . . .



P.S. For those of you who follow Mary-Mia's blog Do They Have Salsa in China?, the answer is yes-- at the Japanese Restaurant in Chongqing, of all places!

Wednesday, August 23, 2006: Walking Tour and Money Exchange

First, some business-- for those of you trying to reach us (e.g., those of you with a three and a half year old who keeps hanging up on his parents-- though after he managed to explain to us in his yammering that Barley and Pugasus had played together and that he had gone swimming), we are in room 1618.

Now onto the day in review. . .
This morning started out pleasant enough. Marcie did wake up at 12:33am, but just for long enough to suck down half a bottle (which for her is about 20 seconds). She slept until 7am, and then we got up and went down to breakfast. There was no rice and no noodles today. I tried eating a pancake and some ham, but the ham was a weird rubbery texture, and the syrup is this strange apricot/marmelade flavor-- and I just couldn't choke it down. I did manage to explain to the nice egg chef that I wanted scrambled eggs, though. And I had some orange juice. Marcie enjoyed some congee with breakfast. It's a warm rice soup-like substance.

One of the families had to go to the hospital this morning with Marie, so Marie wasn't able to take us on a tour of the city. When the doctor did the check up yesterday, he noticed a problem with the baby's heart, so they went to get some preemptive testing done. Fortunately, it turns out, the baby has a heart murmur-- this is something that is not unusual and many children grow out of it. So they were out of the hospital and back at the hotel by mid-day, much to everyone's relief.

Oriole took us on the walking tour, though she didn't really show us anything we didn't already know how to find. But boy were we on display today! People did crowd us and touch the babies and coo over "The Americans" in town with their babies. I don't know if other people get this reaction every time they are out, but we don't. That could be because one small family unit wandering through the crowds isn't a big deal, or it could be because Jason and Marcie look alike-- but whatever the reason, today everyone stopped and stared. The sun was out today, so we put a little hat on Marcie. Her head sure does sweat a lot, though, so I took it off whenever we were inside or in the shade. After we walked around town, we went into the bookstore to see if there were any children's books to purchase. Then we headed off to Starbucks.

This Starbucks was, by far, the most impressive Starbucks I have ever seen. First of all, it was enormous. We were a pretty big group, and we didn't even fill half the place! The shop was actually a comfortable temperature, and the chairs were comfortable too. This is nearly unheard of in Starbucks-- whatever you think of their coffee, it seems like they do everything in their power to make the environment uncomfortable so that you will buy the coffee and leave. They don't like loiterers. I personally think the whole point of the coffee shop experience is the loitering, but then I'm not much of a coffee drinker. In any case, this Starbucks was terrific, and we were able to take the time to feed the girls before we ventured on to the department store to buy items we needed (like clothes or a baby carrier or a stroller).

After Starbucks, we went to the department store, which was really a Macy's even though I have no idea what it was called. We bought a little container to hold the formula mixture for while we are out and about. And we bought a sleeper and a onesie. A size 18-month onsie, which will be a little big, but not too big. I kept picking out pink clothes and the sales clerk kept shaking her head a me and bringing me blue things. I pointed out Marcie to try to explain she was a girl. But I'd dressed Marcie in a blue floral pant set today, so I don't think the clerk understood. Finally I pulled out her green hat with the flower on it and said, "girl." I'm sure she didn't understand the word, but she understood the hat, and she let me buy girly looking clothes after that.

Last, we went into McDonald's for lunch. Fortunately, unlike my KFC experience, I got exactly what I was expecting today-- nuggets. I'm still not entirely clear on how safe the ice is in the stores, though I hear it's fine at Starbucks in the blended drinks, so I imagine McDonald's is okay. I won't risk it though. . . so I dumped out my orange soda back at the hotel. Marcie was a real trooper on our excursion-- she napped on me for about 45 minutes while we were in the Chinese version of Macy's.

After lunch, it was time to go exchange money. You won't see any photos of this excursion on the blog because it all took place in a bank. This was probably the most stressful part of our adoption journey yet. We were supposed to bring $3,000 in brand new US dollars. If you've been following this blog, you know we had a lot of trouble getting new money and basically did the best we could. What I didn't understand, though, was that all the adoption-related fees needed to be in brand-new U.S. hundred dollar bills. I was so nervous about carrying all that cash, and we had so much trouble getting new bills, that we brought traveler's checks. Who doesn't accept them? Well, today we almost found out who! In the time it took me at the window to exchange my $3,900 ($3,000 in one hundred dollar bills and $900 in American Express Traveler's Checks), six other people from our Adoption group completed their $3900 transactions! At first they weren't sure if they could take the traveler's checks. Then they started going through my hundreds. One person looked through them and checked the serial numbers, then looked for the water mark, then sent them through the machine that tells if it's counterfeit. Then another person did the same, only she rejected one! Fortunately for me, Larry was there, with his pre-circulation extra money (which I guess you can order from the bank if it's for an adoption and you give them enough lead-time). He traded my rejected $100 for his brand new $100, and the bank accepted that. Then, they did the traveler's checks. After they figured out what they were and agreed to take them, they really studied my signature on every one. I was very careful not to dot my "i" on my second signature if I hadn't on my first. I was so sweaty and emotionally overwhelmed by the process, that I'm pretty sure I wrote the date wrong on all of them. I wrote 2006/23/08, and I think it should have been 2006/8/23. But whatever. When I turned to go, I thanked all the guys for sticking around-- and they were so kind about it. None of them wanted to leave until they were sure the bank had taken my money. They'd planned to trade me my traveller's checks for their brand new hundreds if necessary-- how nice is that?!? Talk about a team approach! The whole ordeal took about an hour and half, thanks in large part to my traveler's checks fiasco. My advice? Bring ALL cash, and give yourself at least a week so you can order it from your bank! I will also mention, this was one point in time when we were really grateful to have my mom here with us. Jason was feeling really ill (a sinus headache), so while I was at the bank, Marcie got to play with grandma and nap. . . I guess being ill just isn't something you calculate into the plan, but it does happen. Fortunately, Jason was feeling better after a cat nap.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at this sketchy-looking Kodak store to pick up photos we'd dropped off earlier (the disposable cameras we'd sent in care packages). They had them ready and waiting. We got to see photos of the girls with their nannies, in their cribs, in their regular play environment. It was pretty cool. But also a little sad. When we get back to the U.S. and I can scan them, I'll post the photos.

Then it was time for dinner-- in the hotel's Chinese restaurant (where they remembered us from the night before). Marie and Oriole purchased a lotus candle (which you can see in the photo) and we all sang happy birthday to our girls to celebrate their "rebirth" into their new families. Then Brad and Gene, who are part of Apex Ministries, did a little show, in which Gene balanced a chair on his head and Brad and Gene juggled plungers of all things (don't worry, they were brand new, never-been-used). We sat next to Brad and Joia at dinner, and heard all about their adventures with Ava. Ava has a respiratory infection of some kind, and the doctor last night prescribed amoxacillan (which I know I totally misspelled, but I'm tired so cut me some slack). Anyway, Ava had an allergic reaction. So then they gave her Benadryl. And purchased some zithromax. This came up at dinner because one of the other little girls had a bit of a fever, and her parents (Larry and Kyndra) weren't sure if it was because she is teething or because she still hadn't had a bowel movement. Joia commented that if Cassidy needed any medicine, they had a whole pharmacy of options with them!

I don't know what ended up happening with Cassidy, but Marcie hadn't had a bowel movement yet, so we asked for help with a glycerine suppository. I brought some, but I'd heard the one Marie had was really good for babies, and Marie (our guide) said she'd come by and give it to Marcie. I would say not more than 5 minutes after she gave it, Marcie started crying and screeching in pain. It was awful. Her face scrunched up; her head sweated profusely, and she grunted and groaned. I just held her and rubbed her back. The whole event lasted maybe 20 minutes, and when I changed her diaper it seriously smelled like sewage. Poor Marcie-- her system has been totally clogged! She fell asleep on me almost immediately afterward, and she's been asleep since. The last time she ate was at 4:30pm and we didn't give her any rice because she seemed constipated, so we are fully expecting to be waking up in the middle of the night for a feeding tonight. . . tomorrow we are off to an old city, then the zoo is, apparently, the next day. I myself and exhausted (again). The pollution is really getting to my sinuses-- and I haven't run in like two weeks now, so I feel like a total slob. Oh well. That's what parenthood is all about, right?

Tuesday, August 22, 2006: Adoption Registration in Chongqing

Despite the fact that today was relatively uneventful, I am exhausted. Instead of writing a novela, I've decided I will just tell the story of the day's events pictographically. Before I begin, though, I wanted to publicly congratulate one of Marcie's Godmothers, Tiffany. Yesterday she interviewed at Highland Ranch Elementary School in Poway Unified School District. Today she was offered the position of second grade teacher. The teachers start on Monday-- boy are those kids one lucky bunch! Congratulations Tiff!

This is Marcie in her first new American outfit. It fits, but barely. Marcie woke up at 5:30 am, famished. After she ate, we went for a walk in the city. We saw everyone in the square doing Chi Gong, which is an exercise that moves the chi through the body. They do it all in unison to music. Right now it's 9:30pm, and they just finished doing it again for the day. We plan to take some photos and post them. There is also a fountain that has lights and does a show several times each evening. The music is loud, but Marcie doesn't seem to mind. . .

After we took our walk, we came in for breakfast and then went to fill out an hour's worth of paperwork. We had to explain why we wanted to adopt in China, and promise to treat Marcie well and to never harm her in any way. We signed a lot of forms. Marie and Oriole (our guides) translated everything to Chinese and took our paperwork with us to the Adoption Registration Office later in the day.

For lunch, we ventured out to find the Starbucks and look for a KFC. Ordering was more difficult than we thought it'd be. We tried pointing at pictures, but the pictures definitely didn't tell the whole story-- I ended up with some vegetable patty thing. It was gross. And Jason's sandwich was spicy. You really can't tell that from the photos. I think I'll stick to McDonalds or Pizza Hut next time I'm in the mood for something American.

This is me and Marcie all set to go to the Adoption Registration Office. Marcie is hanging out in the Playtex Hip Hugger I borrowed from my friend Keely. She really liked being able to check everything out. Even though Jason didn't want me to bring two baby carriers, I'm glad I did. The trekker is better if she's asleep (though it hurts my lower back) and the hip hugger is better when she's awake and wants to look around (though it hurts my neck after a little while). I guess there is no perfect choice. . .

The nannies all came by the Adoption Registration office to say good bye. I wish they'd told us the nannies were coming. Everyone seemed rather upset by their arrival-- like it might confuse the babies. I thought it was okay; after all, I think it was good for the babies to see that the nannies approve of us as "replacement nannies." I also think the least we can do for these women who have been loving and caring for our children for nine months is let them have a final good-bye. Anyway, this is Marcie with me and one of her nannies.

At the adoption registration office (which interestingly is on the 4th floor-- this is interesting because in China, the number four is unlucky), we had to have our photo taken together as part of our application to adopt. This is us preparing for the photo, which went on our Adoption Registration form, which we will give to the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou. After we had our picture taken, we had to fingerprint our forms.

This is a metal plate we received as a gift from the Civil Affairs office in Chongqing. It is the Civil Affairs office (I think) engraved on the gold plate. We will keep it for Marcie as a memento.

Even though we didn't have a super busy day, after we got back to the hotel, Marcie and I took a nap. She fell asleep like this, but Marcie prefers to sleep in her crib. . .

I admit it, I saved the best for last. Who couldn't love this face? This is Marcie playing on the bed while we wait for the doctor to come do the exam. The doctor told us her development is normal. Her heart is healthy. She has a cough, but it is productive and appears to be a virus. She has very sensitive skin, and she has "dry ear," which means we need to put lotion on the outer part of her ear. She's been tugging at it because the skin is dry-- no infection (that's a relief!). This picture was taken after dinner. We had a very interesting dinner at the Chinese Restaurant here in the hotel. The staff was very nice, and they tried so hard. But they had limited English. First there was confusion over whether or not we needed a third chair (my mom had gone back to her room to grab a sweatshirt). We tried explaining that my mom was coming by pointing to Marcie and saying "Lao Lao" which is the Mandarin for Grandma. They thought we were asking for a high chair. So they took away my mom's chair and brought a high chair. Just as funny was when my mom arrived and they actually gave her an extra chair to place her sweatshirt and bag on. The food was actually pretty good-- I attribute this in large part to me remembering to tell the server, "Yow boo la" (Not want spicy) in time! We took pictures of some of the foods, but they are on my mom's camera, so you'll have to check back later to see what the food looked like.

Monday, August 21, 2006: Meet Marcie YangFuJi

We all met in a conference room, and Marie (our guide) gave us information about how they are put to bed, how often they are bathed (twice a day), and how to prepare their bottles. While she was talking about the laundry service, the phone call came-- the babies had arrived! The nannies brought the babies in, and we spotted Marcie immediately (she burst into tears as soon as they sat her down-- and she was the biggest one there!).

One other note before I post all the photos . . . uh, sorry Jim. Apparently 4:00am is not 7:00am. I can't believe I did that. In our post-placement stupor and joy, we called Jason's parents to share the news (Marcie is really over twenty pounds and she has 8 teeth and she is a chatter box), only to realize they are fifteen hours behind, not twelve.

Anyway, pictures speak louder than words anyway, so rather than write more, I will just post the photos we have from today. We are going to wake up Marcie in 15 minutes to feed her (she fell asleep to me singing her a lullabye about an hour before her bed time-- what a rarity for her; that's probably the first time she's been rocked to sleep for as long as she can remember. And yes, I do know a nine month old's memory doesn't go back that far, but that's really not the point).

Our first photo with Marcie.

Another photo with Marcie-- we were having trouble getting her to look at the camera.

Jason and his new princess.

This is us with the orphanage director of Marcie's orphanage.

Though Marcie seems to be in very good health, she does have a cough, and she has been tugging at her left ear. We will have the doctor take a look at her tomorrow. On one last note, they appear to have been showing her the photos we sent (and they returned BOTH rolls of film-- all finished!), because she LOVED that album today. . .

Monday, August 21, 2006: Chongqing-- T Minus 3.5 Hours and Counting . . .

So this morning we left our hotel at 5:45am. I think it was the first time we were all on the bus on time! There was noticeable energy in the air, and I think I must be odd because I am so subdued. I guess I just like to be in my own space, in my own mind when my life is about to change so dramatically. Perhaps you can think of it like a c-section-- all that planning and preparation, and to know the exact time and location you will be bringing a child into your family-- there is just something surreal about it. . .

Anyway, we didn't have to wait in the airport for long. To the right is a photo of Kyndra and Larry, whose daughter shares a birthday with Jason. She is in the same orphanage as Marcie, and her name will be Cassidy. There was quite a lot of confusion as we boarded China Air because the tickets had families with small children scattered all over the plane. We worked it out eventually. But then when we exited, one of the Spectors' bags was missing! Out of 45 pieces, it was the only missing bag (doesn't that figure?!?). Actually, I'm surprised it happened to them and not to me. That's the kind of thing I can usually count on occurring on a trip! Anyway, David told us to all go ahead without him and he'd catch a taxi to the hotel. Whatever! No one was budging until everyone was ready.

On the bus we met Marie and Oriole, her assistant (yes, you read her name correctly-- like the bird). The hotel is a 20 minute ride from the airport, and it is enormous. The Golden Resources Hotel is seriously a Las Vegas style hotel (and they say as much in their marketing materials). After we went to our room (you can see the photo of our room with Marcie's crib), we headed downstairs for brunch. It was . . . um. . . well, let's just say there were lots and lots of options-- if you like fish heads and other sorts of delicacies. There just wasn't anything (except fruit) in the way of western traditions. And apparently Diet Coke (Coke Light) is very difficult to get around here-- you have to ask and there is an additional charge. Well worth it, if you ask me. So I was kidding when I said that I would be on a rice diet while in China, but apparently that wasn't too far from the truth-- today I had rice and noodles. I can't keep eating carbs like this or I won't be able to fit into my clothes! I think I've already gained four pounds since I arrived four days ago. A pound a day-- now that's a lot.

It is cool today in Chongqing-- 77 degrees. And I'm hopeful it'll stay like that. There is a beautiful walking area outside our hotel, and I'm going to try to go for a walk in the cool morning hours. We'll see how that goes. . .



Right now Jason is off grocery shopping. I am (obviously) blogging to my heart's content. I am going to nap a little and jump in the shower before Marcie's arrival. We did get an update on her, so this is what I know now:

She currently weighs 21.5 pounds (about a pound more than she did a month ago) and is 28.9 inches long. She does not use a cup yet-- just a bottle. Her nannies call her Ji Mei (she has three of them, but one is her favorite). And here is the big news we learned: she is crawling already! Casey started crawling at almost exactly 9 months, so I am so surprised (and delighted) Marcie is already crawling. She can even pull herself up! The rest is mostly stuff we already knew about her. . . now we just have to meet her! I'll try to post again later, to upload some photos-- but we are going to video tape the actually Placement instead of snapping photos so that we have it for Marcie for all time. . .

Sunday, August 20, 2006: 2nd Day Beijing Tour

For those of you out there in the blogosphere wondering how we could be such awful parents as to be away from Casey for three whole days (remember we just completely skipped the 17th) without even mentioning him, don't let the absence of his name lead you to the wrong conclusion. We did call Casey and chat with him as soon as we arrived in Beijing, and we were pretty dogged about getting in touch with him yesterday/today. I tried calling last night. I waited up until 10:15 pm here in China, figuring Casey would be awake at 7:15am. I think I woke up Jason's dad- but Casey was still asleep. I went to bed and then we tried calling again at 7:00 am Beijing time (4:00pm in California). As luck would have it, Casey was still asleep. Well, not still-- we caught him at the end of his nap time. Anyway, they called back after he woke up and chatted. He told us about school and about swimming and that he wanted to go watch Chocolate Percy (a Thomas DVD). He passed his swim lessons and is ready to go on to the next level (he's swimming under water now with his eyes open!). And then he told me, "I love you, Bye Bye," but it sounds like: "I wuv woo-- bye bye," and that cracks me up.

We probably won't talk to Casey again until after we have Marcie because he'll be in school all day tomorrow. So that's the scoop on Casey. . .

After our conversation with Casey, we headed out to the bus, which we boarded to ride to the jade-making factory. Of course, they don't really make the jade there; they carve it. We spent too much money buying gifts for some of you lucky people, and then boarded the bus again to go to the Great Wall of China. You can see Jason here in front of one of the jade pieces we bought and are having shipped to the U.S. Just kidding! But it is a pretty impressive piece, isn't it?

Also, Jason wanted to give a special shout-out to his sisters Jessie and Tiff-- he saw this mushroom-looking thing outside the jade factory, and he insisted I take a photo of him posing as if he were in a Super Mario Brothers video game. He seemed to think you two would know exactly what that meant. So here it is, to the right.

So, after we went to the jade factory, our bus driver drove us to the Great Wall of China. Wow. What an impressive structure. It's pretty incredible. We saw the locks (which we remembered from The Amazing Race, but we couldn't remember their significance. In case you're wondering, couples got married on the Great Wall and had their names engraved on the locks, then locked them and threw away the key to symbolize their eternal love). And we noticed how one side of the wall is much higher than the other side. I joked with some of you about falling off the wall while here, and though I was kidding at the time, I can see how easy that would be!

We climbed quite a distance-- Larry's watch, which is pretty accurate, indicated we climbed 980 feet up in the 30 minutes we climbed. Of course, because the wall is so old, all the steps are different heights (though they are all around the same depth). My legs are pretty jello-y, and I may regret it when we meet Marcie tomorrow, especially after the 2 1/2 hour flight to Chongqing, but I'm still glad I did it. It was certainly less strenuous than running a half marathon, which is what I would have been doing if I'd been back in the U.S. today. To the left you can see a photo with the three of us at the bottom of our climb up the Great Wall. Fortunately for us, the weather was actually pretty cool today. That didn't stop us from sweating, of course, but I'm glad we did this in today's weather and not yesterday's!

After the Great Wall, we went to Ming's Tomb. There was very soothing music, and it was pretty serene. We were amused by the signs in English, like: "Please keep the grounds clean, do not litter up," and "Please keep the sacred place clean and do not scribble." We also took a photo under the elephant's trunk, which is supposed to be for good luck. No idea why. We could tell they were statues of Asian elephants because the ears were small (thanks to the San Diego Wild Animal Park for teaching us that tidbit!). We were surprised not to see any of the 13 emporers' tombs. We also thought our nephew Joey would enjoy this photo. He really likes elephants. And he makes the best elephant sound I have ever heard. It's pretty impressive.

Tomorrow we leave the lobby at (gasp!) 5:45am for the airport. We all board a flight to Chongqing (where it's ten degrees warmer). Tomorrow is also Gotcha Day. I am not a big fan of this title. I don't have a reason for disliking it-- it just seems so odd to me. What am I gotcha-ing? Marcie? Why can't it be Placement Day? Is it because I traveled halfway around the world to "get her"? Regardless, it seems to be the prevailing term, so I couldn't very well ignore its existence, and here it is in my blog even. We don't yet know what time we'll get Marcie, but I promise we will post again tomorrow night (which will be the early morning hours for you Californians following along), as long as we have Internet access at the Golden Resource Hotel, where we are staying. My best guess is that we will be getting her some time around 2 pm here in China, which is 11 pm on the 20th in California. I'm guessing I won't be sleeping particularly well tonight!

Saturday, August 19, 2006: First Day of Beijing Tour

Today started with breakfast (a huge buffet). I had banana bread, shrimp cakes, noodles, fried rice, and french toast. Jason had bacon and a hard-boiled egg. I know he had some other stuff too-- and he grabbed a pineapple yogurt to go.

We boarded the bus to the Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. On the bus, we met up with Kyndra and Larry, Jill and David, and Joia and Brad-- I had met the women on line, so it was cool to meet them in person. Our group has four children in it-- Marissa (5 years old) and Stephanie (6 years old) were both born in China and are back visiting while their parents adopt a second daughter. Nathan is 7 years old, and he is here to help get Abigail. Then there is Chase, who is 3.5 years old. He's from Florida and is even more shy than the others. They were all very good today-- and I was particularly impressed by how much walking Marissa did!

Once we got off the bus, we saw the museum with the count-down to the 2008 Olympics (the ads are all over the place). And then we crossed the street into Tiananmen Square (which can hold a million people!). We took lots of photos (thanks in large part to the help of the Spectors and Larry & Kyndra). We took lots of pictures in front of this one tower-looking thing which had a guard in front of it. There was no explanation in English, and I didn't catch why it was important, but we posed anyway. We also captured some video of the people in the huge, long line waiting to go see General Mao's tomb (which is made of crystal), and we saw the Parliamentary building (I didn't even realize they had a parliament here-- apparently I need to do more reading up on Chinese government-- for instance, I didn't know they don't have free medical care, and I assumed it was free because they are a communist country).

Next we crossed over into the Forbidden City. A lot of it is under construction, but we got to see a lot of it. We actually ran into the Duffys (from our flight) and saw the Curtises while we were there! The rumors are true-- there really is a Starbucks in the Forbidden City, and a bunch of the group stopped for some frosty frappucinos while we were on a break. We also looked in a few of the 9,999.5 rooms of the Forbidden City. Our guide, Jill, told us the story of the Dragon Lady, and how she ruled from "behind the curtain" (literally) because she kept appointing young emporors who she could control. We saw the room with the chair, the curtain, and where she sat "behind the curtain." We heard about how she had 72 plates served at each meal-- some just to look at or smell and all leftovers thrown out. And we learned that she'd poisoned the next-to-last emporor just a day before she died.

We made our way into the garden of the Forbidden City (which isn't really called a garden but I can't remember what it's called). The rocks there were all transported from Shanghai, which is a two-hour flight (so you can imagine how long it took to move them back then!). This is the only place in the Forbidden City with trees-- because the word for trees sounds like the word for lost. We also saw the famous "love tree" which is two intertwined trees. We took our photo in front of it because doing so apparently means your love will last forever-- and you will be in the next life together. I wonder if the other guy in this picture with us will be in our next life with us!?!

After the Forbidden City, Jill took us to lunch at a local restaurant, where we met more of the people from our travel group. I sat next to Lauren and Elizabeth (he is an OB-GYN and she runs a staffing organization of therapists) from Michigan (their daughter will be Katherine Elizabeth). Next to them was Natalie (single mom to Vivian, adopted in China around 3 years ago), who brought her friend Karen (who actually has eaten both cat and dog). Next to them were Robert and Vicki, and then Paul and Jackie (Nathan's parents). Everyone was very friendly. After lunch, I tested the eastern style toilet-- which is really, literally, a porcelain hole in the ground. They call it a "squat toilet" because you have to squat over it.

Then back to the bus to take us to the Hutong Tour. This was a rigshaw tour through the alleys of Beijing. As we rode along, there was actually a "rolex" vendor who followed alongside our rigshaw on his bike, trying to get us to buy watches! We've gotten pretty good at saying "boo yow" (not want) these days! We stopped and heard about the doorways to courtyards and their symbolic meaning, then we went to Mr. Wong's house-- where we saw Mr. Cricket and Mrs. Dumpling. I have decided this will be a wonderful name for a children's book-- don't you think? I call dibs on it. "Mr. Cricket" is actually famous, and he raises crickets to fight (October is the month for cricket fighting). Apparently, people bet up to $600,000 on a cricket for the fight.

After the Hutong Tour, we went to see the acrobat show. We went to see acrobats at the San Diego Wild Animal Park last week, so it was interesting to compare-- these guys were awfully amazing! Then we headed back to the Crowne Plaza for the day.

We had dinner at the Cantonese restaurant in the hotel (beef with broccoli, scallops with macadamia nuts and green bans, and Peking Duck-- can you believe it? Peking duck IN Peking, China!?!). There was a little confusion after dinner because the hotel had our room numbers backwards, and when we went downstairs to straighten out the rooms and exchange money, they told us they were out of money and couldn't exchange until tomorrow after 9am! So it should be interesting to see how our tour guide helps us figure out what to do, since the bus leaves at 8:30am and we need to pay for all our sightseeing. I'm sure it'll all work out! (See how positive I am?!?)

Tomorrow we go to the jade-making factory and the Great Wall of China. Then the following day it's off to meet Marcie. Kyndra and I are going to brainstorm questions to ask the orphanage care-takers while we are on the long bus ride tomorrow. They say we should be sure to ask all our questions while we have the chance, but no suggestions about what those questions should be! I'm sure we'll figure something out!

Friday, August 18, 2006: Arrival in Beijing

Ok, in my last post I included a couple potential titles that really go with this post. Let's see if you can figure out which ones!

When we arrived in Beijing, we followed the crowd down to baggage claim to retrieve our bags. I wasn't sure if our agency had sent someone to pick us up or not, since we were arriving in the domestic terminal and everyone else had direct flights from San Francisco to Beijing and would be arriving in the international terminal. While Jason waited for the bags, I wandered off to find a map of the airport. One thing we'd learned from our Guangzhou experience was to pay attention to the map (which had actually literally mapped out where we should have gone, but we hadn't bothered to pull it out while we were in the Guangzhou airport). I couldn't find one-- but I did spy a woman with what looked like a CCAI banner/flag through the glass wall. OH HAPPY DAY!

Jill greeted us and took us to the driver. She chatted with us all the way to the Crowne Plaza Hotel, where we are staying. She gave us the itinerary for the next couple days and told us that we are part of a very large group (38 of us in all!). She asked Jason if he was from China, and he explained he's Chinese but had only been to Hong Kong-- and that had been 30 years or so before. She told us they call people like him bananas because they are "yellow on the outside but white on the inside." Then she turned to me and said they call people "like me" the big nose. Anyone care to guess what that means? Is that a reference to the difference between caucasian and asian nose sizes?

At the hotel, Jill got us all checked in. She told us who to tip and how much to tip. She told us how to get to the grocery store and the shopping area. She reminded us to lock up our passports because we won't need them tomorrow. She even had a calling card for us to purchase (which we did promptly so we could go right to our room and call Casey). It was excellent. I'm so happy to have Jill helping us!
The hotel seems pretty nice so far. We were able to get 24-hour Internet access for 60 RMB per day-- at an exchange rate of 1:8, that works out to around $7.50-- not bad for an Internet junky like me! You can see what our room looks like to the left. There's a king size bed, a flat screen TV, and even slippers and bathrobes for us!

Ok, well, we are off to explore on our own. I need to at least change my shirt before I wander out in public . . .

Addendum: Our First Evening in Beijing
After we got settled into the room, we wandered down the street to the walking, shopping district. We found a "foreign language book store," but it only had books in Chinese. Or so we thought. We discovered later that the English books were up on the third floor and we didn't even know there was more than one floor! We also went into the Canon store, where we found a backup battery for the digital camera. Best Buy told us we couldn't get them in stores because our "old" model had been discontinued (it's three years old). Lucky us to find it because on Saturday our battery died while we were taking photos in the forbidden city!

We also found a giant "kids" store-- with lots and lots of toys. We were surprised there were no Asian-looking baby dolls. We went to look at the baby stuff and were stunned to discover the McClaren Triumph stroller (which we have at home and I absolutely love) was over $200 American dollars!!! Geesh! They were also selling the Beijing 2008 Olympic mascots as stuffed animals. Cute. We still didn't buy any.

Finally, we wandered into the market place. Out front was a set of statutes of a Chinese girl and a Chinese boy. In the alley/market place, they had seahorses on a stick. As you can see in the photo, they also had live scorpions on a stick. And they sold snake meat. Oh yeah-- delicious, I'm sure (just like the scorpions!). Of course, we didn't really try any. . . Jason and my mom did take us on an intentional back alley tour of Beijing, though. Wow did we see a lot of bicycles!

Then we wandered back to the hotel, where we ate dinner and I fell asleep watching an episode of Rescue Me on the laptop (just like at home!).

Thursday, August 17, 2006: The Day We Lost

Here are some titles I could have given this post instead of the date (in no particular order):

• Bananas and the Big Nose
• SO Glad We Opted for Premium Economy
• Stupid Customs and Scammers in China
• So Happy to See Jill I Could Cry
• Stained My Clothes Within An Hour of Boarding Our International Flight
• Other Friendly Faces on Our Flights
• Wow! There was a 3-year-old in our cabin for 15 hours?!?

Okay . . . so here is the rundown of our adventure so far (I guess you'll have to read closely to figure out how the aforementions potential titles fit). . .

Leaving San Diego
We got through the San Diego Airport security in-- oh-- about 5 minutes. Seriously. Because we flew through the commuter terminal, there was no line at all. Then we had to wait for three hours-- well, we were supposed to wait for three hours, but we didn't because they offered to put us on an earlier flight. Figuring it'd be nicer to wait in LAX than the San Diego Commuter Terminal, we took the opportunity.

Waiting in Los Angeles

Because we had five hours before our flight from Los Angeles to Guangzhou, we decided to walk over to the international terminal. When we arrived at the China Southern counter, we discovered a sign that read, "Counter opens at 7:30pm." That was at around 5:45pm. So we sat outside for a while and waited. That's us waiting on a bench outside the airport for the counter to open.

Once the counter did open, we didn't wait at all-- there was a separate carpeted line for those of us flying in premium economy. Then we troddled off to go through security. Again, a very speedy endeavor. We mused about the woman behind us in line who kept trying to go through with a bunch of metal bangles on her arms. When the TSA officer asked her to remove her bangles, she did-- only to try and carry them through in her hand! Boy did we feel like seasoned travelers watching that.

China Southern's Premium Economy--Totally Worth the Money
Our cabin was only about half full-- there were two other couples (Steven and Brenda Duffy and the Curtises-- I forget his first name, but hers was Wei). They were all from Phoenix, using Children's Hope International. In front of us on the plane was a nice family-- Katherine and her husband (whose name I can't remember), their 3-year-old David (adopted last year), and Katherine's parents. They were from the Boston area, though Katherine's parents live in Solana Beach. They adopted David last year and now they are back to adopt his best friend from the orphanage-- a little girl. David was amazing on the airplane. I couldn't believe how well-behaved he was for the 15 hours on-board! We played "drop the object over the back of the seat into Karen's hands and giggle" for about 20 or 30 minutes, and then he moved on to something else-- other than that, I hardly knew he was on the plane at all!

The food in premium economy was really good. They served us dinner about an hour after we boarded the plane. I had beef with rice, and Jason and my mom had fish and rice. The flight attendants were extremely attentive-- and we were each given a pillow and a blanket, ear phones, a pair of slippers and an overnight kit (which included lip balm, lotion, toothpaste, a toothbrush, under eye cream, a comb, and eye covers). The airline boasts about their individualized video screen, but the videos were all in Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese, I think)-- and only one movie (a French movie that was very strange) was subtitled in English. Needless to say, we didn't use the video screens. Also, even though it was a Boeing-777, there were no American-style plugs, so we couldn't use our laptops (bummer), and when Jason's i-pod died, that was that.

Still, we were pretty comfortable. There was even a headrest with malleable sides so I could lay really far back without my head falling off to my chest while I dozed or anything. We slept for quite a long time, and eventually needed to find something to do other than sleep. I read my Remedies text, I ate some yummy noodles (in the style of cup-of-soup), and I read some of Goodnight Nobody. Then they served us breakfast. I had the cheese omelette. It was yummy. And the fruit was great, too. Jason asked for the eastern breakfast, which included jok and some dim-sum looking dumplings. He was pretty excited about it. You can see us at the end of our flight just to the left a bit-- not bad for fifteen hours on a plane.

Oh-- I should mention-- although I titled this post August 17th, we actually skipped that day entirely when we cross the international date line. We left the U.S. at 11:50pm on the 16th and arrived in Guangzhou around 5:30am (Chinese time, which is fifteen hours ahead of California) on the 18th.

The Guangzhou Airport
We wandered through the first stage of customs without a problem. I was a little worried only because the customs paperwork asked us for a contact address and phone number, and I only had the address in Chinese characters. I wasn't about to try and copy those! Fortunately, no one asked us for any more information than we provided (the name of the hotel and the phone number).

When we went to grab our bags, there was a clear sign that told us to pick up our bags and proceed to the transfer counter. So we did. But when we approached the second customs lady to ask her if she needed to search our stuff before going to the transfer counter, she shuffled me to the left (OUT of the area). I tried to tell her I was just transferring, not leaving at the airport, and she waved her arm, directing me out of the area, with my mom and Jason following. Of course, this was wrong; we were supposed to go through a narrow (and poorly marked) hallway to our RIGHT, not out to the left. Our China Southern pilot tried to explain what happened to the security people, but they would not let us back through, so we wandered upstairs to the ticketing counters to try to find our way back in to the international terminal.

Once upstairs, Jason and Mom jumped in line, and I went to the security office to ask for help. The door was open, but I knocked and said, "Excuse me?" Here is how our conversation went:

"Excuse me?"
(They both look up, then look back down at what they were doing.)
"Do you speak English?"
(They look up again, stare at me blankly, then return to their work.)
One of them heads toward the door, and pretty much pushes me out of the way-- "Do you speak English?" I ask him. He pauses for kind of a while, then shakes his head no.

So, we got in line at what looked like security for us. Below, I could see the Curtises and the Duffys. But they turned us away at security because we only had tickets, no boarding passes. And they told us to turn around and head the other way. At this point, there were four or so of us (another traveler from the U.S. was alos incorrectly routed, and she wandered the airport with us for a while).

As it turns out, many of the Chinese airlines have similar-looking logos. We were wandering past China Southern, when a man approached us and asked, "China Southern?" I'm not sure how it happened, but my mom had handed over her passport and ticket and he was directing us toward the China Southern counter. He pulled out what looked like a China Southern button and pointed to it and to himself, as if to say, "You can trust me! I work for the airline!" (I suppose the first part was true, but the second part was not.) He stood in line for us, handed over our tickets, grabbed our bags and put them on the belt, then turned back to us with our boarding passes and our baggage claim tickets. Then things got fishy . . .

"Overweight bags," he said. "$200."
"What?!?" I replied. "That's not right-- we weighed them in the United States. They are all under 45 pounds! $200? Are you sure that's right?"
"$200 RMB," he said. "$26"
"Oh," Jason replied. (I had handed Jason $5 to tip the guy.) "Okay."
"No U.S. money," our "friend" explained-- you have to exhange. He pointed vaguely off into the distance.
"Ok," said Jason. "I'll go exchange some money," and the man wandered off with Jason-- with our boarding passes in his hand.

Jason returned less than 5 minutes later. . .
I have to backtrack a little here. Jason has a friend from Romania who basically told Jason that we should be sure to bring "bribes" with us for our trip to make sure everything went smoothly. And I laughed at him. Guess I shouldn't have laughed.

Anyway, Jason returned and explained that when they got away from us, the guy told him $20 U.S. would take care of it. Jason gave him the $20 and he gave Jason the boarding passes, and then he directed us to the right security area. I was steaming mad. I was mainly mad at the customs person who pushed us out of the secure area where we wouldn't have been scammed. But I guess it wasn't really a scam since we were kind of lost and he did actually help us. . .

When we got to security, though, they didn't want to let us through-- they asked for our tickets (which the ticketing agent who took our bags had taken!). My mom, who had gone through the line first looked back at me. "That's all we have!" I said. "Do you think if we go back they will actually remember us and give us the tickets?" Fortunately, our return tickets had a page with the complete itinerary and a nice Security lady told the security guy to use that to collect the information he needed. Once we made it through the security area, someone in one of those golf cart things asked if we wanted a ride. "Are you kidding?" we thought. Needless to say, we opted to walk. I'm sure the golf carts were legitimate, but I was still so angry about the $20 that I wasn't going to trust anyone!

This is us to the left, after getting some "help" at the airport. I know it's not very good-- backlit and all, but it's what we've got. Look at the bright side, you can't see the stain that's down the front of my shirt (from the beef and rice I dropped on myself about 45 minutes after our flight took off to Guangzhou). Anyway, we waited at our gate until they announced our flight to Beijing, and we got on the bus with a crazy bus driver who delivered us to the airplane. It was originally set to be a Boeing 757, but it was a Boeing-777 instead. This time we were in the regular economy section, and boy did we see the huge difference it was from premium economy!

Ok. This post has been long enough-- so move on to the 18th to read about our arrival in Beijing!

Hittin' the Road

We leave in about an hour.
Hopefully it'll all go smoothly.
We are packed (three 26" suitcases, each weighing less than 44 pounds).
We have our carry-ons (two backpacks and a duffel, none of which we've bothered to weigh).

Now Moderating Your Comments (sigh!)

So when I received a spam comment today that was nearly pornographic in it's language (nearly is being polite), I decided I can't trust the cyber-world while I'm in China. Rather than require you to register with blogger to post a comment, though, I am leaving anonymous posting on. Instead, I am going to moderate the comments.

This means that when you try to post a comment, it will not appear immediately on screen. I will get an e-mail with your comment, and if I approve it, it will then show up online. I just don't have the time to check for gross spam posts, and this way if I let your comments pile up, they will still be here when I get home. Of course, I am planning to check my e-mail while away, and my plan is to approve the comments (that are not disgusting), but I wanted to give you all a warning so you don't get frustrated when you try to post and nothing happens. (And yes, I do realize that this post will not eliminate your frustration, but I'm hopeful it'll mitigate the emotion.)

Why I love my law school study group

I am going to be starting my fourth year of law school in a week. Well, technically I will not be starting the year on the 21st because that is the day I will be meeting Marcie (!). But I should be starting law school that day. . .

Law school is competitive, to say the least. I've heard stories of people hiding books so their classmates can't find the answers to research problems. I've never seen that happen though. I have, however, had someone approach me and actually tell me their goal was to get a better grade than me in a class (what is this, elementary school?!?). I thought they were kidding, and I laughed. They didn't.

Why is it so competitive? I have actually given this a lot of thought. As a high school teacher, I set expectations and I can award an A to anyone who reaches those expectations, a B to those who achieve most of the expectations, and so on. Not so in law school. In law school, there is a mandatory curve. When I started, that meant only 10-15% of the students in your section could earn an A or A-. And a certain percentage of students were required to receive below a C. The mean grade had to be in the C-range. So if everyone were a stellar student and actually learned 98% of the material the professor presented, it would be a tight curve, but the student who performed 98.0% would earn a C (or worse!), and the student who earned a 98.4% might receive an A! This is not very conducive to cooperative study efforts, but it's the way it works.

I have been very lucky. My second year of law school, I happened to have all my classes with two other people who had similar study habits. We've been studying together ever since-- even when we don't have the same classes. I love my study group. We call ourselves the Slackers (I even had shirts made last year!) because we are so not Slackers. We actually meet weekly to outline and review the previous week's coursework and ask questions about the upcoming week's readings. We all work doing something during the day and go to school at night (actually, Delinda transferred into the full-time program last year and will graduate in December and complete her LLM in Taxation this spring-- talk about an over-achiever!).

Anyway, Delinda and Paul are tried and true friends-- and after two years of studying together, I can hardly remember what law school was like before them! When I don't earn the grade I want, the first thing I do (after I moan incessantly to my husband, of course), is call Paul and Delinda to make sure at least one of us did okay in the class! (As a side note, I'd be remiss in leaving out our good pal Nicole, who actually studied with us our second year of law school. She graduated in May and took the California bar this past July. She also is very cool.)

Jason and I started the adoption process not long after I started studying with Delinda and Paul-- October 2004. So they have really seen me through this whole process. During finals this past year, I actually interrupted a practice test with a phone call form our agency about the referral timeline. They have been very patient with my obsessing. Anyway, because I'll be missing the first two weeks of the school year, I won't be able to take care of a lot of administrative details-- like adding a class (to write a paper), attending the first night of class, and collecting books. My study group is really rallying-- they are submitting paperwork, attending class for me- getting dibs on my favorite seat and everything! How lucky am I?!? With so much to worry about with our trip to China, it's just so nice to know they will keep things in check for me on the home front. . .

Dinu Rocks

The blog is fixed! Thanks so much to those of you who wrote in suggestions to me on how to fix it! Dinu was right-- there was a problem with the comment that Casey typed in teh Shadow Box entry (which has been deleted). . .

My Blog is Broken! :(

I notice the panel to the right side of the screen has gone wonky. Our profile and links doesn't appear on the right until after all the posts on the left! What's up with that? I haven't changed anything in my main template. The HTML all looks the same as it did last week. . . clearly it's been too long since I've looked at HTML source code. . .

Guess I'll have to ask someone who knows something to help me fix it (eh hem. . . that would be Jason!). But it'll take some time, seeing as how we are busy preparing to travel.

But I am aware of the ugliness. . .

Glow Worm

The Back Story of Casey's Open Adoption
We really hit the jackpot when it came to Casey's birth family. We have an open adoption, which means we have ongoing contact with his birth family. We exchange e-mails, photos, care packages and phone calls. Plus, we try to get together in person every year. They are in Ohio, and we live in California-- so it takes some effort, but it is totally worth it. Casey's situation is a little unusual because he has two half-siblings, whom he adores. They are half-siblings because they have a different biological father from Casey, but they all share the same biological mother. Casey's birthmother passed away in a car accident quite tragically in October 2004. This was very sad for allof her children-- the two who live in Ohio and Casey, who won't get to know how amazing she was. Fortunately for us, Casey's birth-grandparents wanted to stay in touch with us! Casey's birth grandparents (Grandma Linda and Grandpa Jim, as we refer to them) share physical custody of Casey's birth siblings with their father, who we don't really know. So we have continued to get photos, e-mails, phone calls-- and invitations to visit-- even though we made the agreement with their daughter (Casey's birth mother), not them. How lucky is that?!? They are great.

Anyway, when they heard we'd received our referral for Marcie, Casey's birth family sent a package which included a couple outfits for Casey (which he is practically wearing a hole in this summer because they were Thomas and Lightning McQueen clothes, which Casey LOVES), a toy for Casey (Wingo, from cars), and some items for Marcie. Marcie received a couple of very cute outfits and a glow worm. You can see a picture of the glow worm just below.

The Disappearing Glow Worm
Now, Casey loved the car and the clothes, and he played with the car for a while. But then his interests turned to the glow worm. We explained that the glow worm was a gift to Marcie-- and that it was Marcie's glow worm, not Casey's. Casey seemed to understand, but he just couldn't help pushing the glow worm's stomach. After all, this wasn't the old school glow worm (like the one I had and gave to Casey when he was younger-- the kind that just lit up), this glow worm plays music. And Casey loves music.

In any case, I put Marcie's glow worm in her nursery (we'll post pictures soon). But the other day when I was in Marcie's room, I noticed the glow worm was missing! Did the dog take it? I wondered. After all, that would be awfully bold of our pug. And Pugasus doesn't have a strong jaw. But no, it wasn't Pugasus. I found the glow worm in Casey's room! Since then, I've found it in Casey's room, or heard Casey playing it probably a half a dozen times. It totally cracks me up. Guess we'll have to get him a musical glow worm of his own!

Shadow Box

My sister Megan gave us this beautiful shadow box she made of Marcie at 8 months old. It even matches her room!

Our Itinerary

In case you're interested in where we'll be and how we'll be spending our time, here is our itinerary:

8/16 Leave the U.S. for Beijing. (We opted for a red eye though we could have left the following morning instead.)

8/18 Arrive in Beijing. Free time.

8/19-20 Beijing city tours: Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Hutong tour, Temple of Heaven, Acrobat Show.

8/21 Leave Beijing for Chongqing. Then, meet in the hotel lobby to receive Marcie. Medical consultant will visit Marcie.

8/22 Complete Adoption Registration.

8/23 Optional half-day city tour for shopping.

8/24 Optional half-day city tours to the Chongqing Zoo.

8/25 Free time. Rest, shop, tour.

8/26 Optional half-day city tour to the old town – CiQiKou, and People’s Hall.

8/27 Receive Marcie's adoption registration certificate and passport. Take group pictures in the hotel lobby in the afternoon.

8/28 Leave Chongqing for Guangzhou.

8/29 Marcie's visa physical and photo.

8/30 U.S. Consulate appointment.

8/31 Oath at the U.S. Consulate. Receive Marcie's visa.

9/1 Leave Guangzhou for the U.S.-- home to see CASEY (I can't believe we'll be away from him for so long!)

Washing Machine Update

Today we had a technician come out to service our washing machine. There was a gross, vinegar-and-gas smell in the laundry room last night, and we haven't run the dryer since the washer crashed, which makes me think there may be a leak. We had the technician check out the gas line, and he said there was no leak, so I can't figure out what the smell might be. . .

Anyway, they replaced the water pump, which they said was broken (I find this suspect, I might add, because the washer is only 3 1/2 years old-- and unless something was jammed in it, it's too early for it to just go bad). So he replaced it, and Jason's mom threw the wet clothes back in to re-wash them. She called to tell me the machine was making a strange sound-- like a motor. She tried calling the technician, but they didn't return her call. Almost two hours later, they still hadn't returned her call. By the time they called me back, it was nearly 2pm and she needed to leave our house. They are suposedly going to call me back about returning tomorrow, but here it is-- nearly 4:30pm, and I haven't heard back from them. I wonder why they didn't actually test the machine before they left. Guess I should call them again. . .

Comedy of Errors

This weekend was one of those weekends.

First, some history. We have two bathrooms-- one in the master bedroom and the other off the main hall, which is used by Casey and any guests. A few weeks ago, when I decided to finally paint our bedroom with the paint we'd purchased a year or so ago, I noticed part of the wall was wet. Upon further exploration, we discovered that water was flooding out of our shower and onto the floor, soaking int othe wall shared by our bathroom and our bedroom. We tore out the drywall and checked for mold. Fortunately there was none, and all that remains is repairing hte drywall, which we haven't had time to do yet. Our house is 20 years old, though, so I guess we have to expect some problems. Like our toilets-- which flush but don't always refill. And our guest bathroom toilet has been leaking water. Jason just commented that he needs to lift hte toilet off the base and repair it. It's now something we really can't put off . . .

Yesterday, while I was on the phone giving my brother directions to our home via a detour (the main road was closed for freeway onramp work), Casey decided to unroll an entire roll of toilet paper, plug it into the toilet, and flush. I found him playing with the mush toilet paper, jammed in. It was gross. I guess one good thing that will come of having to take the toilet apart to unclog it is that it will force us to fix the toilet before we have any more guests use it. (Again, the "we" there is only figurative. I wouldn't know what to do with a toilet separated from the floor.)

Then, today, as we were getting ready to go to breakfast, we heard a loud ruckus coming from the laundry room. Turned out it was a 3 1/2 year old Maytag Atlantis. We shut if off. This is our second break-down in a year. And of course our warranty just wore out. It's useless to me. I was going to go to a laundrymat to finish the clothes but I never made it-- and I'll explain why in just a minute. I will be calling the Maytag service people tomorrow. Fortunately for me, my mother-in-law has a functioning washing machine, and she is going to wash Marcie's clothes for me this week. Hopefully our machine will be up and running in the next two days, and I won't have to rely on my mother-in-law to do the laundry-- but aren't I lucky to have her help?

So after the washing machine broke, we decided we could still be productive by finishing the rest of Marcie's room. That would require caulking (for those of you watching my spelling for me, I checked-- and it's correct to spell it caulk or to spell it calk), touch-up paint, emptying the closet shelves, and putting the crib together. I set off the caulk the moulding, and Jason went to dig the crib out of storage (also known as our garage rafters). But Jason couldn't find the hardware for the crib. So we looked. We searched high and low. We searched inside and outside. We searched cabinets and drawers and shelves and closets and pantries-- no sign of the hardware. And not the kind of hardware you can just replace by purchasing it at Home Depot, either.

So what are our options? Rely on the kindness of strangers to help us out, or purchase a new crib (at $300 - $500, this was not an obvious solution). (This scenario reminded me of our honeymoon, when we couldn't find Jason's birth certificate and he had no passport, so we flew to Los Angeles, just hoping they would be nice and let us on the plane to Mexico, figuring if they didn't, we'd just use our wedding gift money to buy tickets to Hawaii or somewhere we didn't need birth certificates or passports.) Bryan and Tram (pronounced Chum) to the rescue.

Bryan is my younger brother, and he and Tram have a two year old named Joey who recently transitioned into a bed. Lucky for us. They said they won't need the crib-- at least for the next nine months-- and we lucked out. So off we went to their place to pick up the crib. Only it didn't fit in the car. We took what we could, and then returned home-- Jason was to go back and get the last piece of the crib.

Once we arrived home, I asked Jason to mix the paint so I could touch up Marcie's room while he was gone. This sent us on another hunting expedition (how does one lose 5 gallons of paint?). Fortunately, Jason remembered pretty early on that there had been a problem with the paint and he had to throw away the can. And even more fortunate (perhaps that's the wrong word since it wasn't incidental), Jason saved a small tupperware container-sized worth of the paint. Which I mixed easily and used to touch up the walls.

So the crib is put together. Some of the items that will end up on teh wall are hanging. Jason is hanging the curtain rod as I type. There is still so much to do. I'm sure we'll get it done in the next week and a half. We can only do our very best-- even when it seems like the world has conspired against our coordinated efforts.

Bits and Pieces

That's how our travel information is coming in. But we do have some more information.

We are leaving August 16th in the evening for Los Angeles. Then from Los Angeles to Guangzhou on China Southern. The flight is on a Boeing 777, and we're lucky enough to be flying in premium economy. This pleases us greatly. From Guangzhou, we travel on China Southern to Beijing-- we'll arrive Saturday, August 18th in the late morning hours.

We are returning Friday, September 1st. We depart Guangzhou on China Southern (another Boeing 777!) around 9:00 pm. We land in Los Angeles around 10:00pm and then head for San Diego, where we are scheduled to arrive some time in the 11:00pm hour. Strange to think we'll have been on a plan for over 12 hours but we will arrive only an hour later. Then again, we are losing all of Thursday, August 17th in transit to China, so go figure.

We don't have any of our in-country information yet. We anticipate receiving that some time this next week. We have a lot to do this week-- step one is making lists of all the things we have left to do! Actually, step one is unclogging our guest bathroom toilet, which Casey oh-so-kindly emptied the mega Charmin roll into and flushed earlier today. Ugh. Good times.

I HATE SPAM

Someone has been spamming the comment section of several of my posts. I think this is rude. Of course the person (or persons) does it anonymously so I can't e-mail them and ask them to knock it off. And they never post a comment to the most recent message, so I have to go through the archives and find the comment and delete it. It's a pain. I turned off moderated comments because I want you all to be able to comment without my approval. But please, don't advertise or post links to a bunch of crap that my family and friends aren't interested in anyway. They are all tech-savvy people-- if they want to find whatever it is you're advertising, they will get online and find it themselves. So please stop.

WE HAVE OUR TRAVEL DATES!!!

We are officially leaving in two weeks!

We got confirmation from the U.S. Consulate (and our agency) today. And, my, my were we surprised! We assumed we'd fly in and out of Hong Kong because of where Chongqing is located-- but they have arranged for us to fly into Beijing! The bummer of this is that we won't get to visit with Jason's relatives (his mom is from Hong Kong). The cool thing about this is that we'll get to see the historical sites of China. Our agency is arranging for a two-day sight-seeing tour the days after we arrive.

So here's what we know so far:
We need to arrive in Beijing August 18th.
We will tour Beijing the 19th and 20th.
We will fly to Chongqing the 21st.
Our consulate appointment in Guangzhou is the 30th.
We can either leave Guangzhou after 9:00 pm on the 31st, or we can leave Hong Kong after 11:30am on September 1st.

What's next:
Now we need to find affordable airline tickets from San Diego to Beijing and from either Guangzhou or Hong Kong back to San Diego. We are going to see what our agency's recommended travel agency (J.C. Travel) offers us. We are also going to look into another travel agency (Lotus Travel). I hesitate to do this on my own because we are flying in and out of different cities and I imagine the prices will be astronomical that way. Many airlines offer discounted fairs for adoptions, but it's hard to know what that means. Flying in and out of Beijing for those dates, for instance, on United would cost us $1700 each-- and that was in economy/coach!

What else is next:
We need to finish Marcie's room this weekend. And start packing (at least the baby stuff). And I need to contact the law school and let them know I will be missing the first full two weeks of my last year of law school. This causes me tremendous anxiety. I hate that I'll be starting out so far behind. Don't get me wrong-- it's totally worth it, but still . . .

I also need to let my running partner know this means I won't be running the America's Finest City Half Marathon (sorry Caroline!). The good news, though, is that I won't be forcing myself to run 12 miles on Saturday in preparation for it (Phew! I wasn't looking forward to that!). . .

Keep checking back and we'll let you know what's going on as we learn the information ourselves!

YAY for Travel Notices

FINALLY. Our travel notices arrived to CCAI (our agency) today. They have faxed the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou and requested appointments for the week of August 28th. If the Consulate accepts the request, we will be leaving the United States around August 17th. The Consulate can take up to five business days to reply to our request. Once we have their response, our agency will build an itinerary and we can make arrangements for international travel (they do all the in-country travel arrangements for us).

So this means that by next Monday, August 7th, we will have Travel Authorizations and a better idea of when we will be meeting our precious Marcie (who will have just turned 9 months old when we are in China).

Yay.