Guangzhou

We arrived in Guangzhou and have settled into our room. The flight was pretty easy. Dennis closed his eyes when we took off and Brooke imitated him and she fell right to sleep. We knew she was in need of a nap so that was great. She slept through most of the flight.


Tomorrow she will have her physical. Our friends have also arrived here so we will meet them for breakfast and meet their new son.


We will post more tomorrow.

Shanghai

As we wait for paperwork to be completed, we had a chance to see a small part of Shanghai.  We have been assisted by our guide, Ming Ming, while we have been here.
  

The fist place she took us today was the Bund.  If you have ever seen pictures of Shanghai you most likely saw this area.  We took the chance to take a group picture.  One more family will join us tomorrow when we go to Guangzhou.  

From there we went to a garden and also had lunch at a steamed bun restaurant.  Brooke loved this lunch.  She does chop sticks very well but also uses a fork well.  In fact at breakfast each morning she will choose to use a fork over chop sticks.

She continues to do so well.  She is starting to tell us she loves us.  When we sit down to eat, she waits until we take her hand, then bows her head while we pray.  

  

The area around the garden we visited was very busy.  She told someone we met that there were too many people.  Overall she handles all of the activity well but it does tend to get her excited.


We decided to venture out as a family tonight so we took a taxi to the Carrefour.  It is similar to a super Walmart. Our guide, Ming Ming had written down the destination so we could just give it to the taxi driver.  We had fun looking around and getting a few small things.  Brooke loves these little fish crackers so we stocked up on those for her.  


We decided to have supper there as well.  After we had ordered, by pointing to pictures, Brooke told us she had to use the bathroom.  We had no idea where it was but knew we had to find it.  Well, when you are in a country where you don't speak the language you do what you have to and I resorted to using the universal child sign for needing to use the bathroom in order to ask for directions.  It worked.  Dinner was good but there were portions of Dennis' meal that he decided were manna - what is it!  We took the taxi back to the hotel.  Brooke drew a picture of the three of us on the back of her place mat.  We kept this first drawing she has done of her family.


While I started to pack us up for our flight tomorrow, Dennis helped Brooke with her bath.  This girl LOVES water.  We brought along these little bath toys - thanks for that suggestion Beth - and she has so much fun with them.


So tomorrow we are onto the next part of this trip.  We will fly out early in the afternoon and arrive in the early evening.  This will be Brooke's first flight.


Thanks for your prayers.  We love seeing your posts and emails.  By the way, if you are emailing us, the only account that is working well is our gmail accounts so please forgive us if you have emailed our regular addresses and are not getting answers.

Orphanage Visit and Finding Spot

Today we went back to the orphanage for a visit.  We used Google Translate to tell Brooke we were going for a visit and she would not be staying.  We asked her if that was OK and she said it was. She did not seem upset at all while we were there.  She showed us where her desk was and where her bed was.  She had not lived there for very long as she had been in foster care for over 5 years until we were coming to get her.  

We also visited the1-2 year old group as one of the families in our group has a little girl that is in this age group.  We all wanted to just take home these precious little ones.  We loved seeing our precious daughter reach out to this babies.

We took this picture as we were leaving.  Not sure what the sign says.

We also visited the  spot where Brooke was found.  She was very sick at the time and was placed outside of a middle school in a very busy area where she would be found quickly.  I can't imagine how hard that must have been for her parents.

We walked around a large downtown shopping district today.  It was much like 5th Ave in New York so we did not get much other than lunch and some mittens for Brooke. We will do more shopping in Guangzhou next week.


As I write this, Brooke is playing games on a tablet and Dennis is falling asleep on the bed.  She has been so full of energy today.


She is gaining language so rapidly.  She is using words like thank you and your welcome on a routine basis.  She initiated a hug for the first time tonight.  It was great.  


Our guide told us that Brooke thinks our hotel is America so Dennis came up with the idea to do a chart and check off the days until we fly home to America.  We have a ball along that is a globe so with the chart, the ball and Google Translate we explained what the next 10 days will be like.  We will put a sticker on the chart each day to help her better prepare for her future.


She loves a bath but hates having her hair rinsed.  We will have to work on that. 


We are all doing well.  Thanks for your notes and prayers.  

It Is Legal

Today was paperwork day.  We went to several different offices to get it all done. Here we are holding the adoption decree.  We then went to the Notary office to get all the documents made official.  We signed them there.

 

It was and exhausting day for everyone.  

We stopped at a mall and had lunch at Pizza Hut.  It was good and nice to have a taste from home.  We took this picture of Brooke there. 

When we got back the hotel Daddy and Brooke played with a beach ball and blew bubbles.  It was fun hearing her giggles. (I was writing this blog.)

She is really doing well with the adjustment.  We expect there will be some hard days ahead but she is doing very well. we are surprised at all she knows.  We were looking at a book of pictures we brought along and she knew many of them in English.  

She was sick yesterday with a fever. We have antibiotics along from the pediatrician and started those and she was doing better this morning. 

We stand amazed at all God has done in bringing her into our lives.  

Thanks for all your words of encouragement and prayers.  We are blessed to have so many friends standing with us at this time.

We are Parents

We have prayed and dreamed about this day and it is finally here.  We were not anxious or nervous at all as we headed out this morning.  We experienced a peace only God could give.There are two other families with us.  One adopted a two year old girl and the other a 10 year old.  We are blessed to have these experienced parents with us.

Dennis signing papers

As we entered the orphanage, we were first given a pile of papers to sign.  They included everything from temporary guardianship to some of the adoption documents we will finalize tomorrow.


Shortly after, Brooke entered the room.  She was absolutely beautiful!  She came to us right away and seemed comfortable with us.  It didn't take long for her to be sitting on the couch with us and interacting.  

Our first family picture.

Her smiles were amazing.  She had with her the Wisconsin sweatshirt we had sent her and pulled it out of her bag to show us.  She also had all of the other things we had sent her.  When she pulled out the stuffed springer spaniel we sent her, we thought it was a good time to tell her there were dogs at home.  Dennis pulled up a picture of Willow and one of Maddie and she pointed to parts of the stuffed dog and then to our dogs.  The interpreter asked her if she liked dogs and she said she does.  The interpreter told her that the dogs in the picture were at our house but would not be there when we first got home.

She wrote on the doodle pad, "Mommy and Daddy I love you."

Daddy and Brooke playing a video game.

At the door as we left the orphanage.

She also took out the photo album we sent her and pulled out a letter from her foster family along with contact information.  We were advised not to use it immediately as it may make it hard for her.  We are so grateful to this family for the love they have given her. 


We stopped at a McDonalds for lunch and then to a grocery store to pick up some snacks.  At McDonalds she would take a bite or two of her corn and then put the spoon up for us to have a bite.  She did the same with her ice cream too.  Such a sweet girl.

Asleep in the cart.

By this point she was exhausted and said she had a headache.  As soon as we got to the hotel room, she crawled into bed and went to sleep.  


We will spend the rest of the day relaxing at the hotel.  We will go for a short walk to a get a bite to eat later but mostly we will spend time getting to know one another.  


Our hearts are full and marveling at the gift God has given to us. Please remember to pray for us as we bond together as a family.  

Update from Beijing

We have had such a great time in Beijing. We have had great fellowship with our friends and will meet one other friend for breakfast tomorrow morning. We are blessed with the wonderful friends we have met from China who had come to Wisconsin to study.

Francis, Dennis, Ellen, Tracy and Ping in Tienanmen Square

If you have ever seen the movie The Last Emperor you will recognize the next photo.  It is in the Forbidden City where the emperors lived.

Today we went to the Great Wall.  It had snow yesterday and although this made the scenery pretty it made the footing on the wall very slick.  You literally could not get up the steep slopes in places.  We made it part way up and then took the sleds down.  It was very fun.  

Tomorrow we head to Shanghai.  Although our time in Beijing has been wonderful, we are eager to get to Shanghai and meet Brooke.  Please pray for us as we meet her and help her adjust to a very different life than she has had up to now.  

In Beijing

We had an uneventful trip to Beijing. Dennis caught a few short naps but I never fell asleep.  We arrived in Beijing and were greeted by our friend, Ping, who got us to our hotel.  We met up with her husband and went out for dinner.  At this point I was going strong and Dennis was fading fast.  By the time we went to bed it had been 26 hours since we had last slept.  We slept well.  We were up briefly in the night but overall were sound asleep.


Today Ping's family and Tracy took us around Beijing.  We saw Tienanmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven.  For supper we went out and had Beijing Duck.  The highlight of the day was the time with our friends.  We got to know Ping, Francis, Alex and Tracy when there were in Madison at the University.  Tracy headed home tonight on the train but Ping, Francis and Alex will join us tomorrow morning to go to the Great Wall.  


We are doing fine with jet lag.  We are tired tonight but it is almost 9:30 here.  We will post some pictures later but we need to get to bed as we are heading out early tomorrow.  We have had some problem getting to email so you may want to stop back here for word of how we are doing.


We will be with Brooke in just a few more days.  Wow, it is almost here.