On our way!

We're on our way! Nervous stomachs! I woke up and was sure it was morning & it was only 11:44 pm!  Didn't sleep much after that. Aaron said it's like a kid trying to sleep on Christmas Eve. Will post more hopefully soon!

Our First Day in China

We had a fun first day here! Woke up early (were only able to sleep about 4 hrs and then we were wide awake since we were so off-schedule), then headed down to the hotel breakfast buffet which was huge (and thank goodness had a fair amount of Western choices)! After breakfast we took a walk around the city for several hours, exploring the area and going to the mall and supermarket/Walmart-type store that Amy suggested to us yesterday. We still have yet to see any other Americans and almost no one speaks any English which makes things interesting. The sights, sounds and smells remind us a lot of what Seoul was like when we adopted Olivia. Tons of crazy traffic, motorcycles everywhere (even down the sidewalks), the constant sound of honking, street vendors everywhere, and that distinct city smell (mostly exhaust fumes). The weather is not too bad, maybe in the 50's. Pretty much feels like how it was when we left home. Here are some pictures of the city.... The grocery store with lots of interesting stuff, some familiar, some not so familiar: frogs and turtles(yes, these are at the grocery store): Our hotel, with lots of pretty Christmas decorations: And the view from our hotel room:
We got things situated in our room and ready for tomorrow. It is now 7 pm and we are fighting to stay awake. I think we will go to bed early and try to get a good night's sleep. Our guide and driver will pick us up at 9. We will go to the Civil Affairs building to meet Audrey at 10:30 (at home this will be Sunday during the night). From what we understand, there will be 2 ladies from the orphanage that will bring her by train (just over an hour ride on the bullet train). We are praying she's not scared of us and that all goes smoothly!  I'll post pictures as soon as I can!

We're in China!

We just made it to our hotel, approximately 27 hours after we left our house yesterday, so we are exhausted! With the time change, it is late Saturday night here. Our 3 flights were all on time, we traveled from St. Louis to Chicago to Beijing to Changsha. Our guide, Amy, was there to meet us at the airport and she has been very sweet and helpful. Our driver, Steve, took us all to the hotel about 30 minutes away and Amy helped us to get checked in and to our room. The hotel is beautiful! It is in downtown Changsha, a city of about 5 million people. It is the capital of the province where Audrey's orphanage is. Haven't seen any other Americans here yet, and not very much English spoken by the hotel staff. We have gotten a lot of stares! Our room is on the 30th floor, and we did a little exploring of the different areas of the hotel, but the staff thought we were lost and kept trying to show us the way back to our room and didn't understand we were just looking around so we gave up on that! Tomorrow we have the day to rest and try to recover from the jet-lag, then our guide picks us up Monday morning at 9am to go meet Audrey!

(snow-covered mountains in Beijing)

Audrey's Friends

Over the past week, 3 of Audrey's friends have met their forever families! They will be going home to Georgia, Texas, and Kentucky! These are girls that have surrounded Audrey every single day at the orphanage, eating, sleeping, & playing.  I wonder if she senses what it going on at all, not seeing them anymore?  I have connected with their families and we hope to get the girls together for reunions in the future!  The families were very sweet to snap some pictures of Audrey while they were visiting the orphanage. These were from the first 2 families that visited last week. Poor baby had a cold they said....... And here's pictures from the other family that visited just last night! Looks like she is feeling better. That is an apple she's holding in her hand (& eating in her bed!) I can't wait to tame that wild hair!

Nine more days till we leave! It can't come soon enough!

2 Week Countdown

We received a new picture of Audrey today from our agency.  Two weeks from today and we will have her in our arms!

Travel Approval!!!

Today we received our Travel Approval! We will be leaving for China the day after Thanksgiving and will meet Audrey on November 30th! Just a little over 2 weeks to go!

Waiting for Travel Approval

Tonight while we sleep, or agency's representative in China will pick up our paperwork from the consulate in Guangzhou and then we will officially just be waiting on travel approval!  We've finally reached the last step!  We are hoping the travel call will come at the beginning of next week, but could take a few days longer.  So we're hoping by this time next week we'll be booking plane tickets!