http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy8RW6aHXWQ

There’s a little girl trembling on a cold December morn
Crying for momma’s arms
At an orphanage just outside a little China town
There the forgotten are

But half a world away I hang the stockings by the fire
And dream about the day when I can finally call you mine

It’s Christmas time again but you’re not home
Your family is here and yet you’re somewhere else alone
And so tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in his arms
And tell you from my heart I wish you Merry Christmas

As I hang the tinsel on the tree and watch the twinkling lights
I’m warmed by the fire’s glow
Outside the children tumble in a wonderland of white,
Make angels in the snow

But half a world away you try your best to fight the tears
And hope that heaven’s angels come to carry you here

It’s Christmas time again but you’re not home
Your family is here and yet you’re somewhere else alone
And so tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in his arms
And tell you from my heart I wish you Merry Christmas

Christmas is a time to celebrate the holy child
And we celebrate his perfect gift of love
He came to earth to give his life
And prepare a place for us
So we could have a home with him above

It’s Christmas time again and now you’re home
Your family is here so you will never be alone
So tonight before you go to sleep, I’ll hold you in my arms
And I’ll tell you from my heart, and I’ll you from my heart
I wish you Merry Christmas

Click the photo above to see all the photos.

This year we hosted the 5 Texas families from our travel group over the weekend of July 22nd. (we invited everyone else, but it didn’t work out. We saw the Hatcher’s in GA on our road trip, so we actually spent time with 6 families this year) That was our 4 year Gotcha Day anniversary and it was a delight to spend it with some of our travel mates. Michael, Lisa and Angelina stayed with us and we all had a great time. They came a day early so we hit the Fort Worth Science and History Museum in the morning. The girls had a blast! Check out the giant light bright.

That night we had everyone over for some pulled pork and other goodness. It was a relaxed time for the girls to play and get to know each other again. Click the photo below to see the album from that day.

The next day we met up at the zoo in the morning. It was BLAZING hot, but we had a great time. It delighted my heart to see the girls playing and having a great time together! Us parents are like the paparazzi with the kiddos. Now on to the photos!

We headed back in the afternoon for naps (or for some – shopping!) In the evening we met at the hotel for a pizza and pool party. The girls had a good time to play and the parents had more time to visit also.

It was a wonderful weekend and such fun to see how big the girls are getting! Thanks for joining us everyone. And to those who missed, we wished you could have been with us too.

Amelie, Reagan and Nadia. Click the photo above to see the entire album.

The adoption agency Dillon International  hosts a China Heritage camp in Tulsa, OK each summer. We have known many families that have taken their bigger girls, but children must be 4 to attend so this was Nadia and many of her buddies first chance to attend.  We made plans with local friends and with friends from the Internet that I had never met in real life. All of the girls were in the same class – The Dragonflies. Each day we dropped them off at 9:30 and then picked them up at 3:30. Throughout the day the girls did Chinese language, cooking, Kung Fu, crafts and more. On the first day they had a ceremony for the parents and children complete with a lion dance.

Amelie was not excited about the lion dance. She kept covering her eyes like above.

The first night we invited everyone to our hotel for a pizza and pool party. Our friends the Cannons who live outside of Tulsa came out that night so we got to see them and Alyssa again. After we had pizza and before the swimming the girls played and played. It was so adorable that I actually teared up watching them because I was so overwhelmed by the fact that God brought them halfway around the world to be a part of all these families.

The next day we dropped the Nadia off and when we got back to the car Amelie was saying, “Nadia, Nadia” and pointing at her empty car seat. We told her that we would come back to get her later. Then at the hotel she wandered around the room saying, “Nadia, Nadia”. It was cute to see her wondering where her big sister was. The second night they had a picnic and swim time at a local park, but we were fairly tired and the girls were very sleep deprived so we grabbed some to-go food and had dinner with the Landy’s at the hotel.

At the end of the last day we joined the kids for a Chinese lunch and their program. The kids were all so cute and there were a record setting number of kids attending this year – 258!

After the ceremony we got some photos of the girls (Kiy we missed you). They were SO.TIRED. from going for 3 days.

Nadia fell asleep in the car when we were less than a mile down the road. She slept about 90 minutes and then woke up and talked for almost 2 hours about everything she had done for the last 3 days. We asked her every night, but she didn’t say much; she apparently saved it all for the ride home. We plan on going again as do many of the families who have attended.

Four years ago we entered a sweltering hot room with 8 other families to have our lives changed forever. Babies were screaming and all of us parents, grandparents and siblings were desperately trying to pick out the new addition to our lives based on photos that were months old. We were looking at all the children and then the nanny holding Nadia pointed to me with Nadia’s hand and I could hear her saying, “Mama! Mama!” I thought I was going to faint right there.  It was agony waiting to hear our name called so we could go forward to meet her. Here is our Gotcha Day video for those who haven’t seen it (or would like to see it again).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQPvtOXRSeU

Sweet Nadia we love you so much! You are such a delight and so much fun to have around. You say the funniest stuff and so often I wish I had a permanent recording going because I can’t remember it all. You love to dance and make up songs. You love to take photos and now to also stage videos. You are eager to learn and have a memory that shocks me most days. You can be incredibly strong-willed, but I think it will serve you well later in life mixed with your sweetness. You have become such a good big sister to Amelie. You try to teach her things and I hope they are all good since she tries to imitate every single thing you do. It’s a delight when you say things like, “She just said this or that for the first time. Isn’t that great?” I love that when we told you that we would buy you a Batman and Superman t-shirt you immediately asked if Amelie could have one of each too – “so that we can match.” Right now you love all superheroes and Batman most of all. You want to fight for justice like they do; I hope that fire continues to burn in you and God uses you in an amazing way.

As I watch you grow and learn more about the world, I am so grateful that God saw fit to make you a part of our family.

Layer 1 – sweater and socks

Layer 2 – topped with winter PJ’s.

Layer 3 – Topped with snow pants, boots and a lined jacket.

And we were expected to bring a winter coat and hat for her to take her back to the hotel, which of course we did so the ladies wouldn’t come after us

That is a lot of travel time and we are grateful for your prayers. Specifically:

• For Mike’s ear to stop hurting so bad.
• That I wouldn’t cough so much since that is what aggravates the pain in my side.
• That both girls sleep on the planes.
• That no one pukes or has any other sickness.

Thanks for all your support during this adventure.

This is going to be the fastest typed post in the East because I am tired and we need to get to bed because we leave the hotel at 10:30 am to head for home. We have almost everything packed except the toys and the toiletries so I am feeling like I will sleep well tonight. Praying that Amelie sleeps all night! We got up and headed down to breakfast and then decided we better head to the island to finish our shopping while I was feeling good from all the medicine. We headed to “Jade’s Place” to get a chop with Amelie’s name and “Michaels Place” to pick up some gifts I had on my list that I didn’t get on Tuesday. We saw a family from our travel group (the Nielands) and posed for a quick photo since they were headed to Hong Kong in the afternoon.

We had lunch at the Deli at the White Swan and then went back across the bridge to our hotel so Amelie could have a nap. At 3:45 her and I headed down to the lobby to wait for Grace to show up with the children’s visas and our brown envelopes for immigration in America. After that the Hameloths said they were going to get Pizza Hut so we decided to have a pizza party (reminded me of Nanchang with our 1st travel group). That sounded great to us and we went down to the club level to eat. Here is Logan and the girls playing “ring around the rosie”.

And here is a photo of us with the Hameloths. We traveled the paperwork and matching road together so it was very fun to get to spend our week in Guangzhou together getting to know them in person.

Click the photo above to see the whole album.

So I went to bed on Wednesday basically in tears and woke up in tears and told Mike I had to go to the doctor. There is a clinic in the White Swan on the island, but after reading about everything we decided they might want to do an x-ray so we should head over to the big ex-pat CanAm clinic at the Garden Hotel. After breakfast we took a cab over for my 11 am appointment. In the cab Nadia puked all over herself and Mike. I was glad that she refused to eat breakfast at that point so it wasn’t really icky.

At the clinic they were very friendly, everyone spoke English and they asked a lot of questions on the consultation. After that the doctor decided that I should have a chest X-ray and we waited around for the results. The X-ray came back that I hadn’t done anything to my ribs and from the other exam she said my heart and lungs were fine. She did say that I had a respiratory infection, but that it was strange that I didn’t have any fever or ear pain. She said that my throat was swollen where my tonsils should be. They gave me a stronger anti-biotic, a Chinese cough syrup, an American cough syrup and some extended release Advil. By the time they were done with me Nadia was back to her old self and chipper as ever. She was still coughing though and we have continued to give her medicine.

The Garden was really swank. Check out this staircase and Nadia counted that it had 50 steps.

We headed back to the hotel and hung around the room. At one point Mike went to get the photos from the orphanage, but only 4 came out because we think the film was loaded wrong. I will post those after we are home. For dinner we just went down to the club level and ate there. Then we all went back to the room to get to bed early. I was in pain again and was ready for sleep.

Here are some shots Mike took from our hotel room.

Amelie continues to be more and more relaxed with us. Nadia continues to learn about real sharing since she didn’t really expect this about having a sibling no matter how much we talked about it. She is very possessive, but the good thing is we are hearing less and less about the Green Goblin and how he would react to situations.

Click the photo above to see the whole album.

We woke up on Wednesday after a good night’s sleep and not so much screaming from Amelie at bedtime. Mike has a master technique with her and it’s a relief to me that he can put her to bed so well. We went down for breakfast and had to head straight up to our room to wait from 9 – 10 am in case our guide Grace called from the Consulate. Grace called a little after 10 to tell us that everything was fine and to be in the lobby at 2:10 pm to head to the consulate so Amelie could be sworn in. I got the girls a bath right after that and we got Amelie down for a nap. The rest of us had a nap too and then got up to get ready.

We got to the Consulate in about 40 minutes, went through security (they take your camera and cell phones because no photos are allowed inside). We waited around for a while and then the head of the adoption unit came out to explain to us what the process would be. She told us that there were 3000 adoptions from China in 2009 and 3400 in 2010 (60% special needs children). So far in 2011 she said that 73% of the children were special needs. I read in a Chinese newspaper a couple days ago that so far 60,000 children have been adopted out to the US and 90% were girls. Then she had all the parents stand up and take the oath for the children. Everyone clapped and cheered when we were done. Then she said we would wait for our name to be called so we could sign the last document for our adoption (insert more clapping and cheering).

Once our turn came up Mike was about to sign when I noticed that we had the Hameloth family’s signature page and I said, “Stop, that’s not us!” The woman looked very confused, but then she went to see what happened. Somehow they ended up with 2 copies of the last page and our last page was missing. They called us back and we signed the form and we were officially done. All of our group headed back downstairs and here we are with our soon-to-be new US citizen.

Here is part of the group on the bus after the swearing in.

After returning to the hotel our guide Grace took Lynnea and us to the photo shop to get our film from the orphanage developed. Once that was dropped off we decided that we would eat dinner at the Guangzhou restaurant which has been around since 1935. It has a pond on the floor inside which is pretty cool. Once they got a table put together for us they came over to ask us what kind of tea we wanted. We all said no tea. Then they got really stressed out and they showed me a translated booklet that basically said ‘everyone gets tea in our restaurant’ and the woman who couldn’t speak much English was saying it was custom to get tea. So we all had tea because what else could you do but leave? Then we placed our dinner order. It was really fantastic and I was once again wishing that my stomach was bigger. We had dumplings, shrimp fried rice, Guangzhou style fried noodles, some fish dish, a beef dish with veggies and shrimp balls with Mushrooms.

After dinner Amelie decided that a meltdown was in order and we took off to the hotel. We got Amelie to sleep in no time flat because she was so worn out. It was a good day.