Orphanage Visit

I realize everyone is waiting for the daily blog post. Sorry to disappoint tonight. Ron is out shopping the market around our hotel...with the camera. So, photos of our journey today will have to come later. I promise I'll do my best to give an update tomorrow. Today was pretty wonderful! I'm so glad we made the trip. It is hard to put into words just how priceless it is to gather pieces of Luke's story to share with him as he grows.

P.S. The bullet train was pretty darn cool, too. :)


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Registration Complete

Luke ~ Ready for the Day


Today was our adoption registration. As of about 10:00 this morning, Luke became our son in the eyes of the Chinese Government. It was another emotion filled day. It all happened very quickly. We were the first of three families to go through the process. First we were seated at a table with an official of some kind and we had to answer some of his questions, i.e. name, age, occupation, do you realize this is a special needs child, do you promise to provide education for him, do you promise never to mistreat or abandon him....CHECK

Daddy, Mommy, and Luke all had to provide thumbprints on the documents.








The next table to the left was the notary. She made our documents official. Guess we passed. :)

Then we took a little time to take family pictures. Never mind the finger in the nose. This is a habit we have to work on breaking. Oh well.





This next picture includes our Province guide, Nancy.


This is the assistant director of the SWI. It is so obvious that she loves these children. What a blessing she is. We will get to spend some more time with her tomorrow during our visit to Xuzhou. Send me some good questions I should ask. HELP!


Three adoption finalizations today! Yea for these forever families!



Tonight we tried this restaurant. (photo below take from our hotel room window) The restaurant is the one with the red lanterns behind the blue bus. It really was delicious. Let me set the scene for you. We went with another family and chose to go somewhat early. So honestly, we were the entertainment in there for the night. We drew a crowd. I'm not sure anyone really spoke any English, but there was English on the menu so we did some pointing. Now for the funny part. They brought the food, and then stood back to enjoy the show. Not all of us are proficient with chopsticks so you can imagine the chuckles going on around our table. Hahahaha After about 10 minutes of this, they brought forks. Can you imagine? :) I was thankful for the fork just for cutting Luke's food. He ate well from chopsticks, but he doesn't really get that he's supposed to bite off noodles of that he can't have an entire chunk of sweet and sour pork in his mouth all at once. Ah well. It was good, and I would bet that we'll be back over there at least once before we say goodbye to Nanjing.



Big day tomorrow! Bullet train to Xuzhou to see the SWI. Prayers for emotional strength for all of us and that Ron and I are the parents Hope and Luke need us to be tomorrow as they process this visit.

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Gotcha

I thought I'd share a little more about yesterday.

We were up fairly early yesterday again. I suppose it was about 5:00 or so when we woke up, so not as early as previous days. It helps to have heavy curtains on the windows. I'm sure part of the not sleeping had to do with jitters, too. The first thing Hope said when she woke up was, "I can't wait to go meet my brother today."

So we headed down to breakfast around 7:00 with our new friends Terrie and Jason from Illinois. They met their son, Benjamin, yesterday as well. Benjamin also has microtia, but bilaterally, so our boys have a lot in common.

Breakfast here is good. There is a combination of both Chinese and Western options to fill our plates. We do not go hungry. After breakfast, we decided to stroll the area around our hotel. It seems that this hotel building was planted right in the center of a very busy street market. We'll have to venture out again with a little more confidence sometime before leaving Nanjing so we can make some purchases.

We were scheduled to meet Nancy, our guide, at 1:00 to go to the bank to exchange money for our fees needed here n Jiangsu. So our morning wandering didn't last too long. Multiple showers a day are needed here if you spend any time at all outside, so we all had to get cleaned up for the big afternoon.

Here are a few of the pictures we too as we we out and about.











Once we were ready, we walked with Nancy across to the bank. Anybody who has been through an adoption where you're unable to wire some of the fees before you travel knows what an uncomfortable part of the trip this is. But, I'm happy to report that all is well. WHEW!

Waiting for the driver...





Once that business was taken care of, we had about a half hour to wait for our driver to pick us up to head to the Civil Affairs office. He was to be here at 2:40. The rest is pretty much a whirlwind. We were so unprepared to meet Luke. For Hope's adoption all the parents see sequestered in one room and the babies were across the hall and brought in one at a time. Yesterday, we opened the door to the office and THERE HE WAS! We didn't have time to get out the camera or video camera for those first moments. But we managed to catch a few shots.


First time in Mommy's arms and snuggled right in...


Already loving jiejie...


First moments with Daddy...





So that was it. We walked in and there he was. There haven't been may tears yet, unless I take away the water bottle or a stacking cup. He truly is a happy boy. We are waiting a bit for the shoe to drop and for some grieving to begin. Tomorrow we take a train to the orphanage, so I'm expecting some emotions from both my children then. There sure is a lot to absorb. We are loving all your comments and messages. Thank you so very much for keeping us close to your hears during this time. Love to you all!

Luke slept well his first night.


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Would anybody like to meet our son?

Final picture as a family of three...


I have lots to share about our day, but I'll skip to the good stuff. You can hear about how we spent our morning and see those pictures another time. I know you're all waiting for a big introduction. :)

It is with happy and full hearts that we introduce you to our new son and brother Luke LeGuang.


He is so much fun! He was making us giggle from the start. Can you follow his eye gaze in the above picture? What do you think he's after?


If you said Hope's bow, you're correct! He snatched that thing and promptly put it on his own head. It was the funniest thing.


We couldn't be happier! My whole family is sound asleep and I need to head that way too. Tomorrow we head back to the Civil Affairs building to complete our adoption registration and promise to never mistreat or abandon our new sweet boy.

Please continue to pray for our family as Luke figures us out. Pray for Hope as she wants so badly to help and do everything for Luke. She's taking her big sister responsibilities very seriously. Pray for health for all four of us. Luke seems to have a bit of a cough. Please continue to pray that the remaining days of this process continue to go smoothly. And finally, please say a special prayer or two for Luke's birth parents, to whom we are forever grateful for the blessing of this sweet boy.

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Goodbye Beijing. Hello Nanjing

We just wanted to let everyone know we made it to Jiangsu!!! Yesterday was an adventure we didn't plan on, but we are here now so I can breathe easy again. We were up early again an had time to stroll around our hotel and take pictures a bit before meeting our driver at 10:00. That's when the adventure began. We were supposed to have an English speaking driver who was going to get us to the airport and help us as far as security. Well, our driver spoke no English, didn't know from which airport we were supposed to depart, and when we did get to the airport, he just dropped us at the door and we were on our own. Holy cow! Trying to get things figured out was comical I'm sure for everyone on the outside, but we were nervous. We thought there was one good Samaritan who was going to help us but when he started begging for a tip we sent him on his way. Somewhere in the mix I lost my coat in the car or airport too. UGH

Rant done.

Hope and Ron take on the Beijing airport with confidence.


We arrived safely at the gate with about an hour to spare.


Goodbye Beijing





Our flight to Jiangsu was quick and easy. We had a pretty good chicken noodle lunch en route, too.

Hello Jiangsu


Next period of anxiousness was waiting for our luggage. I think our bags were the last off the plane. It was so funny to see Ron's face light up when our final suitcase came off the belt. Such relief.

Our guide sent someone else to meet us at the airport because she was working with a heritage trip family. It didn't matter who came. I was just happy to see someone holding a sign with our name on it. Again, relief.

So, we made it to our hotel safely close to 4:00 or so. We met Nancy and got checked in. First order of business was walking some of our laundry down the street. After a few sweaty days in Beijing we need some clean clothes. We also went to a market close by to get some water.

We had a little time to sit down with Nancy to get some f the particulars for tomorrow ironed out and then we went next door for a quick dinner at Pizza Hut (of all places).

Now it is Monday morning at about 6:30. Hopes first words today at 5:00 were, "I can't wait to go meet Luke today." :)

We are pretty excited. We are going to go down for breakfast and then I'm going I do some nesting in our room to get ready for Luke's arrival. TODAY IS THE DAY!!!!

Here are a couple of pics from this morning Hope took out our hotel window.





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Hope

I want to dedicate a post to our special daughter. She has traveled so well! I can't even begin to tell you how she has impressed us thus far on this journey.


She has embraced new experiences (tours, food, people), overcome fears (flying, racing the elevator doors), and accepted challenges (physical endurance) all with grace and a smile. Her spirit is absolutely precious and to watch her soak up the beauty and depth of her home culture with such wonder has been our absolute privilege! What a gift she is.


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Disclaimer

We leave for the airport in about an hour. Would you believe we woke up to blue sky in Beijing this morning? It is so pretty. We were thinking that it would be a pretty day to hike the wall, but it is so HOT. It's hard to know what is better. The wall on a sunny day so you can appreciate the views, or the wall on a day like we had where visibility was very low, but we didn't have the sun beaming down on us either.

Now for some important words of caution. Hahaha...

We are getting excited since our gotcha day is tomorrow. We understand that the material contained in future posts will include adorable pictures, sentimental language, and content that may elicit emotional responses.

USE EXTREME CAUTION WHEN VIEWING THIS CONTENT!!

There have been reports of serious side affects and possible addictive behavior. Some of the reported side affects include but are not limited to restlessness, watery eyes, and shortness of breath.

Read further at your own risk.

We love you! Prayer requests for us today...

* that our travel is smooth uneventful
* that our health continues to be good
* that the lord is preparing our hearts to meet our little boy
* that God's hand is on our son/brother as his world is about to be turned upside down


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