home

we're home and getting used to life as usual. at least, as usual as it will ever be now with two kids. i think i've seen other folks who've managed to survive it so i figure we have good chances of doing likewise.

life is good. joy is good. brother, dad, mom - we're all doing good. here's another pic and there are a few more on flickr to check out as well. just wanted you to know we made it home.

let the fun begin.

home (almost)

it's 3am and we're in wichita. amy, isaac, and jake are all wide awake. the rest of the house is passed out. of course, to them it feels like 3 in the morning. to us it feels like 4 in the afternoon. primarily it's joy that has us up. we slept all day yesterday. literally. we were awake for about 4 hours total. which also explains the heretofore lack of posting. it's been nice not to be all the way home just yet so isaac isn't sitting in the house the only person awake while everyone else sleeps.

speaking of isaac. he loves his sister. and she loves him. so far it's been a wonderful and peaceful meeting. he is a great big brother. it's awesome to be back with him. i still miss him, though, because our schedules are so off. he's awake when i'm sleeping and vice versa. at least for the most part. i'm hoping it's fairly well sorted out by the time we head home in the next day or two.

i'm thinking about retiring this blog in the next couple days. i'll change the URL so it's still live and available to see. like a little time capsle. i'm pretty sure i'll keep some sort of blog going but haven't settled on the details just yet. in the meantime, i'm adding a few more pics to flickr and maybe another movie or two to the journey to joy - files sight, too.

much love to you all. thanks for keeping up with us and being such great friends.

jake

back in the US of A

i'm typing on wireless internet access from our hotel room at the hilton across from the airport in LA. we've had room service. the total at the end of the bill was the same for what we paid for room service in china except this isn't in RMB. but it was sooo good. and we're taking turns drinking water straight from the tap. i want to stay up all night just reveling in being back in the USA but i don't know that will be very conducive to us getting used to the time difference. it's 1am at home. it's 11p in this hotel room. but our bodies think it's 2p. we have 10 hours to get back to the airport and continue the trip. we're far from home but it sure feels close.

you'd think there would be more ceremony but joy is now a US citizen. a gruff guy in uniform took the sacred brown envelope that we were repeatedly forbidden to open and just tore into it. no momentous words, nothing. and he threw the envelope in the trash, took the papers out and handed them to another person and said we could go. that was it. four to six weeks we're to get the actual certificate in the mail.

but for now, it's just good to be where everything is in english and we pay way too much for a hamburger delivered to our room. if i don't pass out soon i'll upload the rest of the pics and video clips we took. but for now joy is not enjoying the idea of falling asleep. better attend to that.

see you all soon.

one last time from china

zai jian, wode pengyo. i think that means goodbye my friends. i wish i had studied harder before coming out here and i hope to at least retain what i've already learned. i haven't given up on the dream of actually living here for a while. just not right now.

we're packing up, sorting out stuff we're going to leave behind (the store i mentioned earlier, a gift from china, also has a spot for americans to pick up needed things and to drop off un-wanted things), and generally getting ready for a very long day on the road. after the room is packed and we're cleaned up we'll get some lunch, stop by sherrie's place one last time, and meet up with the gang in the lobby. then it's waiting at the airport for 9:00p to roll around. then it's sitting on the plane. then it's LA. then it's a sleepless night, most likely, until we head back to the airport. then it's denver where we hope to catch up with cousin emma during our layover!! and then, finally, just in time for his birthday, our boy gets to meet his sister for the first time and joy gets to meet a slight number of the crazy people we affectionately call family.

feels like i should have something profound to say. but i don't. it actually feels more like the start of something new then it feels like something else is ending. i wonder how long till we miss china? how long till we miss this trip? how long till joy misses china? how long till we come back?

lots to think about.

can't wait to see you all very soon. much love.

final night

it's almost 10p here. amy just got back from the massage place. you'll have to ask her what she thought of it. joy is sleeping fitfully, like usual. i used to think that meant sleeping well but really it means having little fits throughout the sleeping. for now she's out cold. i hope she stays that way. but if not, maybe she'll sleep better on the plane tomorrow night? but if she doesn't sleep well on the plane then maybe she'll sleep better in LA and make the shift over to USA time more quickly?

check flickr for more interesting pictures from today's activities. we crossed the river into the meat market before lunch. maybe that's why i wasn't really hungry? and i've posted a couple videos from today on the journey to joy - files site, both from the meat market. hope you like 'em.

i'm looking forward to waking up to our last day here. it's been great being here. i suppose it won't be too long after getting home that i'll really miss being here but right now i just want to be home and get on with real life. even if i don't really feel like i know what real life is. i'll probably post one more time before we leave. and i hope to post a little once we hit LA. i imagine after being stuck on the plane for 12 hours with a child stuck to me will allow me to come up with at least one or two things to say.

did i tell you that joy likes to dance? she loves it. i was playing music tonight on the laptop trying to calm her down a bit so she could sleep. she passed out after guzzling a bottle but woke up 20 minutes later, as she is want to do. i think when she woke up and couldn't find amy it kinda freaked her out. she did better tonight than last night, she wouldn't calm down at all for amy. but i think she has decided we are her parents and we come in a set. so, anyway, she was passing out and still dancing in her sleep. she loves music. even if i'm singing Jesus loves me she dances. and she loves seeing bright lights outside. and she loves seeing rain. and loves waterfalls and fountains. she loves babies. she loves mirrors and the red numbers on the elevators. she loves pictures on the computer and pictures of her brother in the little toddler chewable frame we have for her. she just loves life. certainly is fun to be around.

we got to swear at the american consulate today. really underwhelming. we all moved into this large area that is the waiting room. i guess it's novel that we're in the new building where everyone else is used to the old one here on the island. so it was about a 20 minute drive from the island, a new building, lots of unfinished office space. they won't allow cameras in. we sat in new wooden chairs with families from other agencies. many of the people we had met on the flight from LA to guangzhou some 2 weeks ago, or in changsha at the hotel or provincial office. there were about 50 or so families and all their kids, etc. after checking all our IDs and verifying we were who we said we were a lady gathered us all together and, speaking into a microphone, said a couple words of congratulations for having come this far and then had us all raise our right hands - joy didn't comply. the lady had us repeat after her that we swear that everything we said on our paperwork was true and honest. and that was it. they gave us all visas for our daughters to enter the country. once they touch US soil they officially become citizens. after well over a year and many bureaucratic hoops jumped through, that was it. no more official govt. appointments for quite some time.

and that's all for tonight, too. hope the posts and the recounting of the journey haven't been underwhelming as well.

much love.

so many questions, not many answers

i'm feeling kinda sentimental right now, just woke up feeling that way, and i feel compelled to get this stuff down on "paper". i hope this blog becomes more than just an amusing scrapbook for an amazing trip. i want to be able to go back and remember how i felt through all of this. i want joy to be able to go back and relive vicariously something so vital to her life but at the same time something she won't really recall.

tonight we're having dinner together for the last time. we're all on the same flight back to LA together and even though it's 12 hours long i really don't know how much time we'll get to talk. i don't know how much i'll get to tell these people or if i'll even see them again because once we hit LA we all scatter (just like the fire escape instructions on the back of our hotel room door).

i want to tell these people how important i think they are. how special i think it is that we have gone through this together. how i really hope our daughters grow up knowing each other. it's kinda like we've all been living on the same maternity ward floor for the last 2 weeks except no one really talks the language we do and the nurses also bring room service. but it's not like that, too. nothing is like this experience and we've all shared it.

is there anyone else who will be able to say that their daughter falls asleep the same way as mine? and that their daughter also wakes up terrified after being asleep 10 or 15 minutes? as i type, i wonder if the two other families in hays who have also adopted from china if their girls are much like joy in this way? maybe it's a part of being orphaned all together? i'm so grateful we have those wonderful friends. i imagine i would feel a great sense of dread right now if i had to face the idea of going home with no one to cling to in all of this. they are a huge blessing and i can't wait to get home to share life together.

but even still, the people that have been on this trip with us will also hold a special place in our hearts and in our lives. i want to see how baby rose grows up. and i want baby sydney to know that, even though she is in vegas, that she has uncle jake, an aunt amy, and a cousin joy who love her. i want to talk with the dads who weren't able to come on this trip and help get them up to speed if they need it. these girls we're all taking back to the states, they're family. i'm going to miss these people.

and i'm so grateful for the family we're going back home to. i think we're going back to the best situation of all the other families on this trip with us. we've really got it good.

being a parent is hard. for us, becoming parents has been hard, too. i wonder why that is? we've had to jump through so many hoops to bring this girl home with us. we've waited so long for her to born into our family we might as well be elephants. for example, we didn't have to take an oath for our son to become a US citizen. nor did we have to swear, to any government, that we would always take care of him, never leave him like we did to China for joy. a social worker never visited us during amy's pregnancy and we had no appointments set for after isaac was born. and we didn't have to convert any currency or give any gifts not made in china through the whole process. and yet, they both are our children. joy is our daughter, my child, in every sense and just as much as isaac is my son. i feel she is the same gift from God, the same miracle specifically for us - that it could be no other way, just like i have felt about my boy. i really do feel that these particular children have been loaned to amy and i, by God, for a specific reason and at this specific time. that sounds kinda branch davidian. i don't mean it that way. i just mean that both our children are ours in every sense of the word. in everyway i don't feel any differently toward one because he's white and the other because she's asian. because i was there the day one was born and not the other. all those differences between my son and daughter are arbitrary to my heart, mind, and soul. and i don't exactly know why that is. it's very mysterious.

at the same time it's neat how similar to isaac joy is. they both love to laugh and smile and giggle. they both were over 20lbs at 10 months old. (there was something else i noticed yesterday that reminded me of isaac and i can't recall it now.) it's as if they both come from the same gene pool as scientifically impossible that is. maybe i'm getting to see how much humans are alike no matter what? and i know that not everyone will see it like i do. for the last two weeks people have just stopped to stare at us. amy, wisely, has said she's just letting this be practice because it will happen at home, too. for the rest of our lives i imagine. i'm just feeling the weight of what's about to happen. of being a family of four. of seeing the world through the eyes of a minority. of raising a little girl. of helping an orphan transition to being a daughter. you start thinking about all that first thing in the morning and it can be a bit much. all of a sudden leaving disneyland isn't as appealing. (after lunch i'll will have forgotten all about this post and will be more then ready to go home.)

i should stop there. i should go back and edit this down considerably (or even check for typos) but not today. if ever. it's just how i'm feeling right now. thanks for coming along for the ride. i know the vast majority of you reading are doing so because you can't wait to meet joy for yourselves. that you've signed on, either because you have the unfortunate reality of being related to me, or out of choice. i know that you understand because you already love this girl, too. life is strange isn't it?

so, thank you for reading. for being our friends, our family. our loved ones. can't wait to get back home to you all.

quick update

i've added a few short movies we took with our digital camera over the last two weeks. not very high quality and rough around the edges but you can see life in action around here. go to the journey to joy files link to the right and you should be able to download and view them.

quick update on the end of our wednesday. the massage place we went to was even better then the one in changsha though no one was folded in half. the gal that worked on me marveled at my pale white and soft skin. yep, that's me. tall, pale, soft.

babies lie (aka - while you were sleeping)

it's 1:51a on wednesday, august 17 back home in kansas and i just went across the street, in the middle of the afternoon in china, during a pouring rain to the 7-eleven primarily to get a slurpee. i want joy to try one here and a snoball in hays and let her be the impartial judge. unfortunately the rule of one-click-off comes into play and all they have for flavors of slurpees was a fanta pineapple flavor. i took pictures for you to enjoy and am posting them on flickr.

in case you can't tell, i think we're feeling a bit bored. we were told to be in our rooms today from 10a to 11a in case the american consulate needed to call regarding our paperwork and like good students we were all in our rooms by 9:59. i think if morgan wanted to he could, just to keep us busy and out of his hair, give us some location, a specific time, and any sort of task and we would all dutifully be there no matter what. midnight, be in the lobby, have to test to make sure the bus will hold us all. 3:03p be at the polish consulate for picture with local official. a must have in order to get your babies out of the country. we'd be there.

i realized i haven't described any of joy's cute little quirks. like how she thrashes before falling asleep. but she won't fall asleep unless i'm holding her. she rubs her face, no grinds her face into my shoulder. the typical baby generator kicks on and here head full of hair turns into this moppy mess until she finally passes out. or how once she's asleep i have to slowly ease her onto the bed because if she wakes up i'm holding her again. there's been plenty of nights on this trip where i've fallen asleep with a joy blanket. or how she can chug a full bottle in less then 5 minutes. making a this high pitched squeaky noise with the bottle as the air and milk struggle to pass through the same space. or how she literally rips at her hair when she's tired. pulling out pig tails, pony tails, anything that is in the way. or how she loves music. as soon as she hears it she does this cute little butt-wiggle, throws her hands in the air and rocks back and forth.

amy pointed out how difficult it is to deduce standard baby raising tactics in yuanling, china based on what you observe the baby doing. pretty impossible to do. amy says the girls are taking full advantage of the situation. babies lie she says. oh, yes, i get sugar in my bottle. oh, i can watch tv until 10p! my grandma in yuanling let me! i always get to play with the scissors. my yuanling grandpa let me drive the motorcycle. so, i'm suspicious of all the little grunts this girl is making at me.

well. i think we're going to venture out to the massive meat market across the street off the island. if we find it there should be some decent pictures for everyone. i aim to please. then more dinner somewhere. truthfully, the food here has been starting to catch up with me. doc amy had to dig into her bag of goodies to set my guts straight. so far so good. i just don't want my guts to be out of sorts on the 12 hour flight home! so i'm a little nervous about eating in general. but, since it is somewhat neccesary i think i'll risk it. tonight is daddy massage night. tomorrow we swear at the american consulate, have a group dinner somewhere, and the ladies get their massages. and then, finally, we pack up the head home. we essentially get friday three times. hotel friday is for packing and getting ready to go and ends when we get on the airplane at 9p. airplane friday is the 12 hours on the plane. and then there's LA friday where we land at 6p to spend the night until we can get on our flight to denver to get on our flight to wichita all on saturday.

i should post at least one or two more times before LA even if i don't really have anything to say! and, since my body will think it's 10a when we land in LA i'll probably post again from there as well. see you soon.

tuesday

as absurd as it sounds i think we're getting into a groove here. it seemed like an average day, you know? i mean, we did walk to the mall we went to earlier in the week and passed many shops, stores, people living their usual lives in guangzhou, china and got to spend a good deal of time with a great couple - boston dave and his wife - but that's just kinda how life is these days. when we get back home i'm going to pick up the phone and try to order room service from the operator. or to tip the wal-mart gal a buck or two for handing me a cart at the door.

so this morning, on a whim, we decided to walk back to the mall because moe, neat lady who's on her third adoption trip and is therefore quite the expert on this whole experience not to mention guangzhou, was going and had walked there before. while there i picked up a couple more movies. amy picked up a couple more bracelets. didn't take any pictures, really. then back to the island to try the deli at the white swan. not bad at all. very western in most respects. amy and joy crashed at the hotel while i met with half of the group to do the paperwork for the consulate appt. on thursday. i was wrong about the medical check up being the last thing we did with the chinese government. the medical check up is required by the US govt. so, technically, once we left changsha the PRC was content that joy was in good hands.

the paperwork was pretty straight forward. so glad we're not trying to do this on our own. morgan is a blessing. and then it was off to try to find some dinner somewhere. i was still looking to try basically western food and amy wasn't up for leaving the island. we caught chris and tonya in the hotel hallway and headed across the street to a steak house. they were very western. even played country music the whole time. not too bad. but everything is just one click off from what we're used to. we are in china after all . . .

we strolled around the island afterwards. we met a chinese couple with a rottweiler - the largest dog we've seen on the trip. and chris caught a tiny gecko on an eucalyptus tree. we cruised along the pearl river and stopped in at the deli again to try the mango cheesecake. again, just a couple clicks off from normal. joy liked it though. and now we're back home.

i'm tired of calling this place home. it's nice enough. things are good. but even disneyland can never truly be home. i want my life back. i don't regret, for one second, being here. but there comes a point where the adventure becomes an interruption. i miss my boy. i miss kansas, believe it or not. i miss grass. even the smell from the feedlot will be welcome. and i'm excited to get on with this next phase of our lives. life back home will never be the same and i'm ready to get started seeing what it's going to be like. at the same time, we keep saying to each other, um, we're in guangzhou, china!!? so, i'm happy to be here. but i'll be happier to be home. and it IS all about me being happy, right?

so, it's tuesday. i'm up waay later then i have been this entire trip (11p). maybe i'm starting to shift back into kansas time? hopefully i can get a nap tomorrow. life is good. tuesday was good. it's amazing to be here. life, in general, is amazing. thanks for following along. check flickr to see a couple more pics from today.

one in a billion

morgan is a slave driver. and it's awesome. yesterday he said we'd be back to the hotel by 3:30p and we were pulling in at 3:29. today we had a couple items of business to get done but otherwise it was a couple group pics and you're on your own. the island is not very big so it's easy to cover the territory quickly. it's a blessing and a curse because it's easy to feel claustrophobic and that you just want to go exploring this massive city. at the same time the pearl river becomes this magic little moat keeping you safe in disneyland. tomorrow we have a chance to go exploring the city with a private guide. there's nothing on the agenda until 3p where we do paperwork to get ready for our appt at the US consulate on thursday. and tomorrow night is daddy's night out at the group massage place. i think we might just take the chance to see the city. but come sunrise disneyland may be the most appealing thing. we'll see.

so today morgan rounded us all up and had us in our AAC t-shirts. we took a group shot in our hotel lobby then strolled as a group over to the white swan hotel for a group shot there. if you're even thinking about doing chinese adoption you've probably heard of the white swan. it's a massive hotel that is THE stopping place for the vast majority of americans adopting from china due to it's location next door to the american consulate. at least until last week. last week the consulate moved to a building in the city. we'll see what that does to the swan. i imagine not much. if you go to the flickr sight you'll see the lobby of the white swan. a swank place. maybe swanker then the dolton hotel in changsha and from what i've heard there're are some decent western shops and eateries nearby the hotel. i think we'll shoot for breakfast over there in the morning. (we've tried room service twice now with mixed results. the first time i called they asked me to call a different number, i'm assuming to speak with someone in english, but no one answered, so we ate from 7-eleven. last night we filled out the little card and hung it on the door so there'd be breakfast in the morning. about the time we had given up on the food ever getting here this morning the phone rings and the gal says, the dim sum in on the two. you can imagine my confusion. i'm pretty certain we didn't order dim sum for breakfast so i was trying to ask amy and tell the gal i think she might have the wrong number. she says again, the dim sum is on the two and then finally hangs up. a few minutes later food was here. hopefully that wasn't some sort of secret code in case communists were listening on the line. i'd hate to think i missed out on international intrigue on account of being dense.)

after the swan we headed to the medical exam place just up the street from our hotel where they have a room set aside for adoption checkouts. it's a checkout for two reasons. one, they are checking the kids out to make sure they at least look ok. no bleeding from the eyes or aliens popping out of their stomachs. they play a dinky keyboard to see if they turn their heads to sound, and then you're gone. it's also a checkout because this is pretty much the last thing the chinese government does with these kids before they leave the country. it's all on the US side now - excluding customs at the airport, that is.

after the medical check up we came back to the room to crash for a nap. it's stormed twice since we've been here and this afternoon it was really neat. kinda reminded me of colorado's afternoon thunderstorms where it's sunny in the morning, storms intensely, and then is sunny again. this was just like that. except in chinese. after the storm and the naps we kinda just hung out in the room for awhile, joy had beef jerky. then we suited up and cruised the island. had a couple errands to run, including stopping at sherry's place (sherry did our laundry for us. she sends it back clean, folded around cardboard and wrapped in plastic like it's newly bought) to arrange to have her engrave a family portrait into granite. we gave her a picture of isaac so it'll be of all four of us. sherry's really nice. the kind of person you feel you've known for a long time. she has strollers for free for adopting families to use. she gave joy a little bracelet for free. i'm sure we'll see her again and i hope to get a picture for you all.

we ate dinner at a thai restaurant on the corner called "the cow and bridge". don't know if that's another weird english translation or what. i felt a strange cross-roads of cultures sitting in a thai restaurant in china, two white people with their chinese daughter, sitting next to two german flight attendants. the food was decent. joy was fun. got recorded her downing rice congee which is overly cooked rice, kinda like oatmeal. it's quite the site to behold.

we stopped at 7-eleven to get a calling card and some chocolate. they have slurpees here, too. i'm sure they are just as good, if not better than sno-balls back in hays. if they would keep i would bring one home. maybe i'll have one and just have to be the impartial judge?

right now i'm finishing off some skittles. joy just passed out in amy's arms in mid drink from the bottle. too much partying for that girl. and i can tell amy is quite happy to be there with her. it's sweet to watch. can't wait to get home and be with my boy. we showed joy the little movie of isaac mugging at the camera (you can see it on the vids and pics link under narcissism). she flipped out. i think they are going to be fast buddies. and the worst of enemies, too! both are used to being the center of attention. i sense a couple smack downs coming. and lots of love. i think amy and i will both be dethroned by the enamouring power of the older brother.

there's a store here on the island that amy had shopped at before we ever came to china. she found it online and it's called "a gift from china". she bought some cool necklaces that say mother and daughter in chinese characters. we didn't realize the store was on the island. they also are a charity for orphaned and disadvantaged children. you can find them at www.agiftfromchina.co.uk and they are an outreach of the good rock organization (www.goodrock.org.uk). neat stuff.

thanks for keeping tabs with us. it's been amazing to be here but it'll be more amazing to be home.

our first day in disney world

it is really remarkable being here. most folks speak english. many folks know why we're here so they don't stare. and many of the folks here run shops specifically to cater to us being here. so the laundry gal, sherry, comes to our room and gives us a special discount. she takes our laundry and delivers it the next day. all the folks at the restaurants ask us, in english, to come in and eat in their place. some are pretty decent at western food. i had a bean burrito tonight. and it feels like walking around in some quaint tourist town, because, that's really what it's like.

we started the day today attempting to order some congee for joy at breakfast but the hotel gal wasn't understanding my "chenglish" so we had breakfast thanks to 7-eleven. we've been awake extremely early in the mornings so getting ready on time hasn't been a problem but this morning we all slept in plenty well and were rushing around to meet the group. it was good for joy to see because that's what the rest of her life is going to look like.

our first stop today was at the chen clan academy. a school started for people with the last name chen and one of the top tourist spots in guangzhou. it's actually kinda nice going to the tourist spots because then it's not just white people walking around with cameras. i've seen the stereotype that japanese people in the states always have their cameras out snapping pictures. i think in asia it's always white people running around with their cameras. i also learned today that guangzhou is one of the top 3 populated cities up there with shanghai and beijing. back the academy. neat place. very peaceful. looks like a set from crouching tiger hidden dragon. neat stuff. took lots of pictures.

from there we went to a famous buddhist temple where it was arranged for the group to be blessed by a monk in front of a woman buddha. we opted to just take pictures. got the ceremony on tape. a bit strange seeing something that is essentially centuries old, including how the monk was dressed, mixed with obvious 21st century stuff. after the ancient ceremony the monk checked his messages on not one, but two cell phones. see the pictures on flickr. it was here where the beggars first came out of the woodwork. being a touristy spot and all. and some of these folks were in really bad shape having some fairly severe deformities.

next stop was a jade and other unique store type place. i have some great pictures of pickled snakes in a jug, could be some kind of snake liquor, too? and a really neat guy who will calligraphy your child's name for you on two big scrolls and will even create a poem about the name. don't know what he said yet but it looks good. he even can do calligraphy with both hands at the same time, with his feet, and with his eyes closed. and we had a good time playing good cop/bad cop with the guy selling some jade necklaces.

we piled back in the bus and headed to this amazing 3 story restaurant in the suburbs that's owned by a single individual and is part of a chain of places he has across the city. there was squid and octopus on the table for this meal. morgan is quite the tour guide. and joy just eats and eats and eats. all these girls are good eaters but, of course, ours is the best.

then off to this massive mall. cavernous. labrynth like. when i say cavernous i mean having 6 or 7 levels and labrynth like means row after row after row of individual booths tucked into the middle of what i would call the typical western type mall where stores outline the outside walls. the girls stopped at a pearl store where morgan gets us a discount and the guys headed to a store where they sell dvds. pretty much any dvd you want, even for movies that are still in the theaters or aren't even quite yet for about $2. and this building was one of 10 morgan told us.

we got a taste for how massive this mall is and for how crowded this city is as we walked across the 2 mile shopping street. i took pictures. people everywhere. see the pictures on flickr. then back to the hotel where joy should be ready to sleep but is just happy to be alive, living up to her name and all. at this point, let me give you a quick tour of our room. it looks like a pretty standard hotel room. the light switches are all a bit strange. the bed is lower to the ground and smaller than in the west. the tv doesn't work. and everything is in chinese with some strange broken english translations underneath. for example. the little card that tells us to dial 88 for room service also says:

friendly tips
- welcome to our hotel. please kindly note that gun, explosions and any other lawless or dangerous items are forbidden to be taken here for the safe reason.
- we recommend you to use the latch to avoid the disturbance.
- please do not let stranger into your room to avoid the accident or unpleasant situation may be possibly occurred.
- please beware the fire and do not smoke in bed and dry your clothes on lamps.

that's it word for word. i'm still waiting to meet the safe reason and thank it for speaking up so there are no guns or explosions in the hotel. and i must be doing a good job avoiding the disturbance because we haven't seen hide nor hair of him as of yet. but the fire. there's another sign on the back of the room door to know how to deal with him. here's what it says:

keep calm if fire break out
plese (sic) phone to the Fire Control Centre (inner line No.59) at once to point out the fire position and you can scatter from the safe passageway on the map but don't use the lift. if you can't go down from the stair, please scatter to flat root at once. please shut all windows and switches when you leave your room. don't go back the room to take your any thing.

now, there are many things that concern me about meeting the fire. and i'm generally confused about the proper way and direction to scatter. what if the safe passageway and the fire are on opposite ends of the hallway? how can i possibly scatter from both? but the hardest thing i can figure out is which comes first, the scatter or the shut all windows and switches. good thing we didn't bring our any thing because it would be out of luck if the fire were to show up.

so joy wasn't having any of this napping business and we all headed out to canvas the island. beautiful place and fun to be for all the above reasons. you can even get diet dr. pepper on the island. we met some neat people. friendly. and headed back home shortly after dark which is around 7p or so here. there is only one time zone for all of china. by 8:30p joy was passed out. after i finish typing this i might just watch one of my new movies . . . but will probably fall asleep.

not much planned for tomorrow. medical check up, picture at the white swan of the whole group. then tomorrow night another group massage. in case you hadn't noticed, joy is a big baby. my back could use a little working over.

much love to you all.

living up to your name

hey! we have internet in our room. woo hooo. amy kept saying she felt like we were going to disney world. and this place really is a whole other world compared to changsha and especially compared to yuanling. the island we are on, which i've only seen one tiny bit of as we drove here from the airport, dates back to when guangzhuo was called canton and was a colony of, i'm guessing england? the buildings look like they were designed in a different era and in fact were all used for embassies back in the day. amy made a trip across the street to 7-eleven and down the road to get joy a couple more outfits in her size but otherwise we've seen very little of the island or the city. guangzhou is an 11 million person city and you can immediately tell. there's a highway system criss-crossing the city. the buildings are many and they are huge. funny how relative things are. 6 million used to seem like a really large place to be. this city is also known as the city of flowers because it is green and in blossom year round. tomorrow we'll take a tour and do some shopping for their famous jade. life on the shaimen island is going to be fun. it's not nearly as intimidating as changsha was - and i haven't even left the hotel yet. if this is any clue - we had pizza delivered to our rooms for dinner tonight.

and joy continues to live up to her name as well. every day she becomes more familiar with her new life and her new family. her and amy are getting along much better and actually fell asleep on amy for the first time since we've known her. they are both passed out on the bed right now. i'm not too far behind them.

i haven't found a fix online for my iphoto woes. teach me not to bring the install discs . . . so flickr is the best place to see pictures of the whole adventure. i'm getting ready to upload pictures of people dancing in the parking lot next to the hotel in changsha this morning. chinese culture is to get out around sunrise and exercise - dance, tai chi, etc. the local aunties loved joy. but they were a bit too free flowing with the advice on how to hold her, etc. so i was happy to head in for breakfast. and you'll also enjoy pictures from dinner last night. careful, craig.

it's good to be here. it feels that much closer to being home. it's amazing how much good it will do you to have at least some familiar surroundings, pizza, 7-eleven, internet access. but the i think what is really behind the euphoria we're feeling tonight is that one week from today we'll be home. the flickr link can be found to the right.

much love.

shopping in changsha

it's nap time. i'm blogging. just got back from shopping again. we hit the wal-marts (that's how they say it in hays, don't you know. but in china they call it war-mart, no joke. and the name is fitting) and the mall that surrounds it. the war-mart is on the second floor of a mall. then we crossed over to another building and ate at mcdonalds. so there are more pictures of our hotel, chinese mcdonalds, and from the massage trip last night.

nothing incredibly profound but still fun. this hotel is really great. it's a home away from home and i'm somewhat dreading having to move. but, just more adventure. found out this morning that though joy absolutely despises baths, with a passion. can't emphasize it enough. she's ok in the shower. at least with me. so, at the very least my daughter won't be the stinky one in class. once we get home i think her and the boy will have a blast together splashing.

this girl is so much fun. she loves to laugh - it's more of a wide eyed, whole face, toothless grunt. but it's good.

more later. hopefully one more post before we hit guangzhou but don't be surprised if you don't hear anything new until saturday night our time which is saturday morning yours. thanks for all the comments! it's great to hear from everyone. and i love that we'll have this to look back on in the years to come.

much love.

masochistic massage

i've never had a massage done. i think on a not so subliminal level i'm afraid of what might happen to me. something could snap or unravel. how do i know that the tension within my muscles isn't precisely the thing that keeps my whole body from just coming apart all at once? then there's the whole personal space issue involved. i'm a very ticklish person so having a stranger rub and prod me can be more like torture i imagine. and i figure i'll be the guy who gets the girl or guy with large moles growing hair who smells like they haven't bathed in recent memory. but since i'd already done acupuncture and since amy had had such a great time a couple nights ago and when else am i going to get the chance to say i had two chinese girls giving me a massage in changsha, china? so i joined the other 6 or so in the group who didn't go the time before. there are some really funny guys in the group. one guy is from boston and it's just fun to hear him talk. about anything. his accent is great. at acupuncture he had them light up his shoulder because of an old hockey injury. they stuck him full of pins and then wired him to a light switch and lit him up. he turned white as a sheet and so morgan had them dial him down a couple notches and unplug a few pins. he did much better after that. he was in this group, too. so i figured i was in for a memorable if not fun time.

i didn't get as great of pictures as i could because i was laid out on my back with a gal working over my head and face and another one working my feet and legs. the feet and legs were almost torture due to the ticklish factor. the head and face were ok but when she got to my neck - oh man, i thought she was going to take my head clean off. then the face and head gal moved to my arms and back and by this time she was getting wore out. the other guys in the group got their shoulders done but my gal was sighing with exhaustion after doing my arms. morgan was in the room with us and he said they were talking about how much bigger western men are compared to chinese men. so i guess we don't get as much bang for the buck because they can't cover as much territory in the hour. oh well, it was still only about $10 for the hour. and then the really interesting thing happened. they took morgan and folded him in half, backwards. dave, the bostonian, thought that looked great so he had it done, too. i did get pictures of that because my gal had long since tired and left the room.

as we were leaving all the gals wanted their picture taken with a very blond girl from alabama who's here with her mom. dave the bostonian told them she was jessica simpson. i don't know if they know who she is because every time we go someplace they put on one of three western songs, usually it's richard marx singing "wherever you go" - you know, the love ballad where in the video he's singing to a crowd of smitten asian women - but sometimes it's michael jackson or even boys to men. oh, while i'm at it, i think the ice cream truck plays christmas tunes. i think it's an ice cream truck, i have never seen it only heard it, but it's the same style of music as an ice cream truck in the states. except it's jingle bells, santa claus is coming to town, etc. i've heard it twice now. for all i know it's the frozen fish head truck. i wonder if the songs played on ice cream trucks in the states are some familiar chinese tune, possibly from the chinese new year? wouldn't that be nice symmetry?

we're gathering up other white folks to brave another trip to wal-mart and the huge shopping district next to it. tonight we have dinner together and tomorrow we hop our flight to guangzhou. waiting around and doing nothing is kinda fun. joy is blossoming more and more, well to us it looks like blossoming, in reality she is becoming more herself. her and amy are getting along better, too. but i'm still number one. my back is paying for it. the kid is heavy. and there's a spot on my left thigh that's numb, i think from some kind of pinched nerve or after effects of 18 hours on the bouncy bus to yuanling. you'd think massage and acupuncture would help that sort of thing but being from the west the physics don't work the same i guess. all in all, an amazing trip.

one other new thing. the hotel just keeps filling up with more white people and their new asian babies. our section (the one where all the white people sit with their asian babies) in the restaurant is nearly full. on the one hand it's really cool to see. on the other it's a bit troubling because i know for every one little girl we see in this hotel how many more are there out there? it's one of those things you don't really want to process through all the way. why spoil the good time everybody is having?

unwinding and flaming needles

i think there was an entire post that blogger or the great firewall of china has lost for me. i'll have to double check and repost it, eventually. in any case here is the latest for today:

just a few minutes here in the business center before we go on a group trip to the health clinic. some of the folks want to try acupuncture. i want to take pictures. amy wants to see how cleant he needles look before she does it. i might try one just for a good pic! see the lengths i go to keep the fans happy?

yesterday we toured an academy that was started 1200 years ago and is a part of hunan university, which chairman mao attended. he was born not too far from here. check flikr to see some pics.

we also went to a silk factory which hunan province is also famous for - at least that's what i'm told. but i can see why. i also have some pictures for you to see there. everything is emroidered. not painted. amazing. and they have two sided silk pieces that are, say, a tiger on one side and a panda on the other. unbelievable.

i left joy and amy at breakfast. they are coexisting fairly well this morning. i think joy has decided that if it's just the three of us then she's with me. but if she's in a crowd amy is ok as long as i am close. we'll see how they've faired with me completely absent from sight. tonight i'm going with the guys to get a foot massage that amy says is amazing. and foot is some what of am isnomer because she said they massage all the way up to the groin. or maybe that was the guy just getting fresh with my wife. i'll be doubly disappointed if i don't get treated the same. but, now as i type, if it's the same guy i may be happy to have him not massage that far up my "foot".

it's great to read your comments. hope the formatting on the blog didn't go bad with that last post! can't see it myself. tomorrow is another day of waiting and then saturday we take off for guangzhuo. joy's first plane ride.

right now it's all good. i'll keep you posted.

well - i'm no longer at the business center but am back at the laptop in our room. blogger decided to do a database upgrade right in the middle of my post. so i have the text of the post saved but didn't actually get it posted. and i'm really kinda bummed. i only have a 128mb memory card so after each trip i have to dump the pictures off the card to the laptop and then i'm good to go again. with iphoto tanked like it is i have to manually copy the photos from the card to the laptop. no sweat. unless you think you uploaded the photos to the laptop but actually didn't. so when i deleted the stuff off the card from yesterday i lost em all. it could be worse, though. it wasn't of us meeting joy for the first time. it was of the thousand year old school and the silk factory. we took video at the school but i lost all the pics at the silk factory. i'm not the only one here taking pics so i'll get those from somebody else later. but can't share them with you now.

but i now i have pictures of our trip to the acupuncture clinic. everyone had some sort of real problem they asked to be treated - old sports injured shoulder, lower back pain, cold, etc. i just wanted to try it. so while amy (chronic shoulder pain) got stuck with needles that they later lit on FIRE i just got stuck with a few needles that they twisted like screws every few minutes. can't say i feel all that much better because there wasn't anything really wrong with me to begin with. no surprise there, if you asked amy i would say there's never anything wrong with me. but it was an interesting experience none the less. the strangest part was i could feel the needles they stuck in the back of my hand being twisted on the inside of the palm of my hand. my right arm is actually more sore now. but that couldn't be because i've been hauling a 22lb of Joy across the city. oh, and they stuck a freakin' needle in it, too.

joy is already living up to her name. she smiles all the time. loves babies. loves the baby she sees in the mirror. has a blast dropping things to the floor. and she gets a kick out of me doing the dubbed karate movie voice. after we got back from lunch, more on that in a second, she just kicked and scooted along the bed grabbing what ever she could get her hands on. just smiling. just having a good ol' time. then she passed out. first time she's fallen asleep not in my arms. very nice! oh, and her and amy got to chill together most of the morning. i did manage to delete some sweet pictures of them at breakfast together. guess i'll just have to take more later. she was really on quite the buzz. at first we thought it was because she just was happy to be here with us. then amy remembered she and joy drank a lot of green tea at the clinic. how cool is that? they served us gobs of green tea at the medical clinic? it was interesting to say the least. and amy says her shoulder hasn't felt that good in forever.

these girls are all coming out of their shells. they've started to accept this new phase of life and are even deciding it's not so bad. i think joy has never really been able to just scoot along on the floor. she certainly hasn't been given this much chocolate ever before. and it all punctuates how this is such a strange way to go about gaining a daughter. but i love it! i don't feel any different about joy then i do isaac. i've gone through the same emotions as i have right after he was born. the whole thing is just as wonderfully strange now as it was then with the added bonus of being in a foreign country and eating at a restaurant where they serve alligator.

oh, yeah, lunch. so this meat market amy saw the other night on her way to the foot massage, which i'm going to the place tonight, let the reader understand, has an alligator in a cage that sits on top of a cage that has turtles. in tanks they have all kinds of fish and shells and eels and what have you. i didn't really think about this meat market being attached to the building where we decided to have lunch until after we were already inside and seated. it was pretty comical. there was no english menu. i did have a little cheat sheet laminated card with all kinds of phrases and things on it but there weren't any chinese characters for ordering food, just pinyin. most chinese can read a little english since that is what they are taught in school but if i just point at rice and noodles who knows which version of rice and noodles you end up with? and on the pimsluer CD the only phrase i could remember at the time was how to order two bottles of beer. so that's what i ordered was two bottles of beer. on the one hand i'd have to say my finely honed mandarin skills paid off. we did get noodles and we did get rice. we did get two bottles of beer. two large bottles of Heineken. and the other couple we were with don't drink beer. the rice was the greatest success as it came in four individual bowls. the noodles were more of a noodle soup with some sort of mushroom and green vegetable and some kind of white meat in it. both were delicious. the other couple we stopped on this little adventure with are not beer drinkers. but being as it was so very hot and it took an hour and half amy and i downed both bottles, for the most part. crossing the street in china is it's own sort of blood sport. i was a little worried my blood alcohol level would be too high for competition but it turns out it actually helps. while tonya and i stayed at the table with the kids chris and amy headed over to the fish tank to point to what we wanted to eat since there were no pictures in the menu. when we walked in we were the first ones there for lunch, except for an elderly couple in the corner. i've learned some things are universal: western doctors and eastern doctors have the same look about them. they give you the same sort of gaze, talk to you in the same way, look at you over their glasses. except in china you have no idea what they are saying as they stab you with very long needles and light them on fire. and elderly couples, whether in miami or changsha, have lunch at quarter to 11 in the morning. so, chris and amy pointed to a cod fish - that was still swimming - and a lobster - that was still, doing whatever it is you call a lobster does. the point is, one minute they were alive. the next we pointed at them and took care of that problem. i ate both. and both were good. won't hurry to do so again and won't bother getting a whole plate or anything but all in all, good stuff. the bigger challenge was figuring out how to "cut" the fish and lobster with our chopsticks. we managed. and joy is a great eater. she loves to eat. don't know if you can tell by looking at her.

by the way, she's a size 18 months, for the most part. i mention it here because i know there are grandparents reading all this.

i might post again tonight after the massage. one more full day to kill and then we'll have joy's passport and our officially stamped adoption decree. then saturday afternoon we hope the plane south. amy is thinking about going back for more acupuncture on saturday morning. i just know i'm going to end up having to push her through the rest of the trip because they will have bruised or fried some nerve or something. there is a movie theater next door. i may try and see a movie. it'd be good excuse for amy and joy to bond some more. as i type this i realize i lost a picture i took of a movie poster in chinese for star wars 3. it was playing at the 1000 year old university. i'm sure there's something profound i could learn from that but i'm just bummed i lost the picture.

well, again, apologies for the poor grammar, typos, and general abuse of the language but i'm not stopping to do much proof reading. love to you all. oh, email me if you find out if there is a starbucks anywhere in china.

journey to joy - free day in changsha

journey to joy - free day in changsha
Originally uploaded by jiglover.

official

hey, i think this might actually work. maybe. sorry if the formatting is all screwy on this post but i can't view it from here. but i can get your comments! thanks so much! we love you guys. and, there's more like that chicken one. i almost took a picture of a dried pig face - for buying and eating - but didn't get up the nerve. won't make that mistake again. amy said she saw tonight a street meat market where they are selling live alligators. cool, eh? for now, check flickr often. that seems to work well enough. here are my thoughts from the last couple days. much love:

a few finger prints, a few signatures, and one foot print later and it is finished. she is our daughter. now we're just waiting for the papers and permission to bring her back to the US. next week in guangzhou we start the process for her to become a US citizen. the last several days have been insane. it feels odd to be sitting still. just being a family. don't let that fool you. it's still exhausting.

after 2 days of no love from joy and the non stop go-go-go amy had maxed out on emotional overload. more on that In a second, did i mention the hotel is swank!? in each of our rooms are cribs and strollers and they've converted the conference room at the middle of the floor to a massive play room. i'll post a picture, eventually. and when we checked in they only gave us 2 towels. the day we got back with our girls there was a note and a flower saying congratulations and now they bring 3 towels. so it's been nice to have this place to decompress. but i think the reason it's so attuned to us is because they have plenty of practice serving folks from the west adopting from china. at first i thought our ten families were the only ones they had done all this for. but breakfast monday morning revealed a whole new batch of folks on their way to the same place we were, to the provincial office to get their girls. and people we met at the office also going through their "gotcha" day suddenly appear on our floor of the hotel in the play room. the realization of what is going on here sinks in a bit more for me when i noticed that.

amy is far more advanced then i am in most every way but especially in emotional awareness. at the office where we officially were given our girls there was another family adopting a 2 or so year old girl with a club foot. and watching this happen just made amy bawl. it wasn't until after all the paperwork and etc. was done and it was the three of us in our room and amy is still pretty undone by the events of the last several days do i at least get a bit more of a clue. and to top it all off here is this dream we have had for over a year, this hope, this joy we've been waiting for and amy can't play with her. can't hold her. can't get her dressed. the trauma for our daughter is so acute she is terrorized and in shock. and, for whatever reason, she chose me to be her "transition person". it's tiring for me but absolutely rewarding. isaac and amy had their special thing going on the first several months of his life since amy was his lifeline. so for me it's great to have a baby who falls asleep on me, wants to cuddle with me, always wants me close, who needs me. and it's that much harder for amy. and i'm so proud of my wife. she's amazing. i can't imagine life without her, let alone being on this journey. she's doing really great In the midst of the chaos. she's definitely holding the ship afloat.

so last night the three of us found ourselves in our little home and some of the greater truths going on here sink further in. that this is the third time someone has named my daughter, assuming her birth parents at least called her something. they did have nine months to think about it. but it's the first time she's been given a personal last name. a family name. and since before she was born she had this name. before she ever was she was known. and the reality of being an orphan became more real to me. in a culture where personhood can be withheld (they won't give birth certificates to second born children unless a fine is paid. without that there are few jobs, no schooling, etc.) our daughter was being thrust into a world where nothing was familiar. so we found ourselves all weeping. i wept for my daughter and how what she was born into wasn't fair, wasn't right. and how i can't explain or understand that if she hadn't been born that way she would never be in our arms. i wept for amy for how hard it is to love someone so dearly and have so little to show for it, as temporary as it may be, it still hurts. and joy just cried. for things she can't express or explain but feels intensely deep within her - to the very center of her heart she hurts. and we had an unplanned ceremony right then and there. we professed our love for this girl. out loud, even though she doesn't understand our words, we confessed our devotion to this girl and taking her into our family. we told her we were sorry. that we loved her. and always will. and we held tight to each other and cried together. and prayed. it felt right. it felt good. and something shifted with that. joy is warmer toward amy now. amy held joy on our little shopping excursion this afternoon. joy laughs more. she's playing with toys. she's eating (and pooping, which is a big deal because they can be stopped up for a week or so). still not out of the woods but today has been really nice.

It helps knowing that the boy Is doing well back home. he sounds so grown up on the phone. we miss him tons but It's good he stayed behind. and he Is just thriving at paw and bew's house.

tomorrow we tour the city in the morning. the girls went out for a foot massage tonight. the guys go thursday night. and i think i found a massive theater right next to the hotel. there was a poster, in chinese, for war of the worlds. maybe i'll hit that? nah.

i'm sure there's more i could be putting down for everyone but it escapes me at the moment. i'm going to go down to the business center and get this posted before i pass out for the night.

gotcha day

i'm back in the hotel business center. not only can i not connect to the internet but iPhoto has croaked on me. i can't upload pictures into the program. i can still load them to the laptop but not into iPhoto. i probably can fix it with some online research but then getting online is a problem. so, keep checking flickr (see link to the right). i'm emailing pictures there a bit at a time. i type blog entries as i go and post them as i get time.

it's ten till 1p on monday here. we did our official gotcha day thingy this morning. having spent the whole previous day with the kids it's not the big deal it is for other folks but we put on a good show anyway. it was hard on joy. she's just getting used to us - mostly just to me at this point (i think she's avoiding dealing with being separated from her foster mom by avoiding having to attach to amy) - and then gets handed back to the chinese nanny's only 10 minutes later to be handed back to us. what made it worse is she fell asleep with me holding her. she awoke with the nannies. but i think she forgave that little injustice and was back to clinging to me. right now her and amy are snuggling in our room. that's the only time amy gets to hold her is after she passes out on me. and she's a heavy kid!

after we finished at the provincial office we immediately came back to the hotel and filled out paper work in a conference room. it was hot, stuffy, and intense. but joy was a trooper. it's interesting trying to interpret 10 months of this kids life to figure out who she is, what makes her laugh, how she ticks and to factor in the chinese translation at the same time.

here in an hour and a half we go back to the office and finish the paper work and get interviewed by the chinese govt. swearing to be good parents. then, oddly, we have nothing scheduled - as of this writing - until wednesday where we tour changsha - and then nothing again until we leave for guangzhou on saturday. it's really starting to set in exactly how long this trip is. and being cut off from home makes it longer. i can't hit my email at work - sorry folks - and the international calling card seems to work fine one day and then it doesn't today. the computer voice on the other end is in chinese so all i understand is - "sorry" - and then a bunch of gibberish ending in no phone call connecting us to our boy. if you're reading this grandma hopefully we'll get you guys called when you wake up monday morning.

so much has happened. i don't even really remember what i've told you and what i haven't. excuse me for repeating myself if i do and for being vague in other cases. i'm also not wasting time correcting spelling for the most part. sorry for that, too. i'll probably get so bored later this week i'll send in posts every 15 minutes.

this will have to do for now. i can get your comments, though! feel free to let me know if flickr is working and to know you're getting this stuff.

love.

sugar and spice . . .

did i mention that the road to yuanling is not for the faint of heart and fraught with many dangers? (don't get to use fraught that often.) we made it back in 8 hours. but it was 8 hours of terrorized, screaming infants; chinese nannies babbling; knees crammed into the seat in front of you; brain cells dying left and right as your brain sloshes in the noggin'. man, what a trip.

how do you sum up a watershed day in your life? some watershed days you know are coming and you do your best to get ready for them - getting married, the wife going into labor, the broncos in the superbowl. other watershed days sneak up on you and it's not till later you realized how truly significant the day was. i don't know where to put what is happening with us right now. to be certain we've been preparing for this day for well over a year but so much has happened that we'll look back and realize something that snuck by in the myriad of events, some small event, was as big as any of the things we've taken 100 photos of. i don't know. i'll have to add to that thought later.

mostly i want to tell you about my daughter. she's sleeping right now. i should be but we're on our standard go to bed really late and get up incredibly early. partly amy passes out (in a dramamine induced coma) in the early afternoon. even on a bus that is literally flailing its contents to and fro. remarkable really. in fact, amy was holding joy, both asleep, and i had to keep one hand on the infant because amy is so zonked her hands just fall limp to her sides. so i end up staying late, typically fighting with the computer (now it doesn't want to import photos), while amy is out cold. amy wakes up some time around 4a and is ready to play. so i get up, too. at least that's what is going on right now. but i want to tell you about my daughter. i'll just give you bits and pieces and hope to fill in details later.

walking to the bus all 5 of us are crying. joy who knows she's about to be dumped on some really strange looking white people (i mean, how hard is this? it's the second time in her short life she will feel abandoned) is bawling. her foster mom is crying because she'll never see again this precious girl who she has raised as her own for the last year. the foster dad is also crying. amy is in on the act. and the whole spectacle is more than i can handle.

joy's foster parents give us a bunch of gifts to send us off. they basically packed a lunch for joy - yummy breads, fruit. but they also wrote two notes to us. haven't had them translated yet. we have their address and will keep in touch.

joy falls asleep on amy, doing that snuffling/breath catching thing kids do after they've just cried really hard. she's doing that in her sleep.

joy and i play eat the cracker from the baby's hand. she has this great big, whole face (and it's a large face), toothless smile. little did i know that this was some sort of intense bonding ritual. joy instantly became a daddy's girl. i can't be out of her site. she's pretty much been stuck to me for the last 8 or 9 hours. i can only type this because she's passed out.

she woke up a few minutes ago. amy was there but she wanted me. amy made her a bottle from the two week supply they gave us at the orphanage. she chugged. no, i mean, chugged nearly the entire bottle in 5 minutes. she went from sleeping, to fussing, to chugging, to back to sleep in 7 minutes flat.

amy is doing great. so far she's bemused at playing the daddy role (getting the bottle, moving the blankets, etc) while i get the usual mommy role of baby stuck to my side. hmm. wonder how that will go over at work when we finally get back to the states? amy is euphoric. when she's not completely crashed and passed out she's on a perpetual high. and, being in a hotel room that means packing, re-packing, sorting, organizing, and packing some more. (editor's note: in her fit of reorganizing and packing amy just discovered in the closet some complementary condoms - lubricated, size 33mm, strawberry's on the package). another story of life when amy and china intersect. after breakfast on saturday amy headed up to the room before me. i make it up to the 26th floor a few minutes behind her and she is going down the row of doors trying her key because she couldn't remember what room we're in.

today we're off to the provincial office to do the official handing over of the babies to the parents. but we won't do the paperwork part until tomorrow. it's nice to be "home" for awhile. i'm going to see if i can't get the last couple blogs uploaded and maybe a picture or two while i'm at it.

ni wode nu'er (you are my daughter)

the road to yuanling got much worse. chinese driving is quite the thing to behold. it's almost like a dance. whether driving a 200 lb scooter or a 20 ton people mover the drivers weave in and out of one another with an amazing grace. we had lots of grace on our 10 hour trip into the mountains. i'm not the kind to get car sick but there was one point there where i was glad to be stopped. it was bad. road side gas stations are interesting, too. i'll try to get a picture of the toilet on the way home. i don't know if it's because of the olympics, massive expansion, or what but they are rebuilding much of the national road we were on. on level, straight-ish sections this creates a mildly energizing and entertaining experience not unlike a trip to six flags. on a curved mountain road it grinds everything to a halt. a road that barely holds 1 truck attempts to become a three lane highway as drivers squeeze in and out among the massive piles of construction materials dropped in various places on the road. and then everyone stops. we were stopped, wedged window to window with another people mover, except it was full of chinese people, for well over an hour. there are no traffic cops to help you in a situation like this. it's whom ever's opinion rings the loudest wins. in this case it was a nicer dressed gal with a red purse.

we started moving again and then the bus started to die. it'd had been a hard day for the poor guy. but, like i said before, the A/C worked the whole time. all i am worried about is we have to take the same bus back tomorrow, on the same road, with screaming babies. oh, yeah, screaming babies. don't get ahead of me. so we finally make it to yuanling. it's a nice little city. pretty happenin' place. no mcdonalds that i've seen but happenin' none the less. being two hours late we get to the hotel in pandemonium. the mayor of the city has been waiting for us at the orphanage all this time. it's a mad dash to our rooms. most of us are on the same floor of an adjacent building to a good size hotel that probably hasn't been fully occupied in a decade. we have no keys to our rooms. the attendant just unlocks every room on the floor and each family picks a room. there really is no time to do anything because the mayor is waiting for us. the room is on par with a bottom rung motel 6. except it's chinese. and it wreaks of smoke so much my eyes burn. wondering if our stuff is safer on the bus or in this room we have no key for we hastily grab the cameras and shut the door behind us.

there is a massive hill leading up to the orphanage, the driver almost attempts to take the bus up there but wisely changes his mind. we jump out and begin walking up the road. amy has been passed out most of the afternoon having stayed up all night. i litterally have to drag her up in her chair to get her moving just to get our stuff into the hotel. she's still groggy when we hop out to hike up to the orphanage so we're at the back of the group. there's this massive cacophony as the front of the group rounds the bend. drums. and cymbals. a lot of them. lining both sides of the street is this massive band entirely of older women all dressed the same. kinda like the shriners, except they have drums not little cars and their chinese and their women. there were big drums, small drums, crashing cymbals. beautiful. i was choked up. why all this fuss for us? a social welfare institute is a combo senior citizens home and orphanage. all the older folks' apartments line the road so they were all out to see us walk in. being in remote, mountainous china this kind of thing doesn't happen that often so we quickly drew a good size crowd. it was elaborate. it was amazing. the mayor was supposed to come out and address the whole crowd (we found out later) but morgan ushered us into the building before he could talk. so he addressed us in the dining room. not the same political punch he had hoped for but many pictures were taken anyway. must be an election year.

the meal was elaborate. i stuck to the fried rice. good stuff. tried the ribs. not bad. the strange clear fungus water stuff, had a bite. that was enough. the bread was good. didn't try the green bean drink. or the fruit flavored milk/yogurt. i even ate some cabbage. amy said i was eating like a good big boy. everyone had a can of budweiser at their setting (canned in yaunling). the mayor toasted us in chinese and we all quick opened our cans so we could have some cheers. they brought out more bud during the meal, too. but, as amazingly thoughtful as all this was and quite the cross-cultural/political good will-edness of the whole experience we weren't here for that. and you're not still reading this for that either. where were the girls?

after the meal the girls were brought to each family alphabetical by state. being with a CO based agency put us toward the back of the bunch. now this was pandemonium. foster parents, new parents, screaming baby girls - who were all dressed identically in pig tails. we got one short hour with them and then the girls went back home to their foster parents. we catch up with them in the morning before heading back to changsha. when we introduced ourselves to director zhao - who seems like a really great woman. a get it done kinda gal. i'm proud that my daughter spent the first 11 months in her care. so, when we introduced ourselves to her and that we are zhao mei wen's parents she said, oh! and mimicked large cheeks. funny. so they call out joy's chinese name, our name, and in through the door, held by her foster mom and dad trailing close by comes our chubby little joy. the foster mom hands her immediately to amy. joy immediately freaks out. joy goes back to foster mommy. she calms down. we say thank you thank you. foster mom gives her back. joy freaks out. foster mom motions for us to take her into the other room. put some distance there. amy and i took turns holding her for 20 minutes or so joy screaming the whole time.

joy is beautiful. feisty. strong willed. strong. she arches her back when she's mad and tries to get out of your arms. her hair was cute. all the girls were in matching dresses. wow. and she's a good screamer, too. foster mom and dad came and found us. we gave them their gift, they gave us one, too. hand made, minority chinese style, shoe inserts. i tried to talk in chinese a little bit to them, where is their daughter, etc. but they speak real chinese. i speak fake chinese. fake is much slower and unintelligible to real speakers. and i'm not that versed in fake chinese either. joy knows the difference as well. i tried telling her i love her. she screamed. after foster mommy had her and she had finally calmed down i tell her in fake chinese that she is my daughter. she paused. considered. translated. and burst in to huge tears and screams. the foster parents and i got a good laugh out of that one.

so, off to a good start it was time to give the girls back and head to the motel 6, except chinese. motel liu. we were both in a daze. a funk. stunned. tired. drained. like deer in headlights. the room still wreaked of smoke. i have to manually flush the toilet by pulling the stopper in the back of the tank. there is no shower just a rubber mat on the floor next to the toilet and above a metal pipe. we finally passed out. at 10pm there is much noise and honking on the street outside. at 4am we're both awake and i'm typing this out. it'd be great if we could just leave now. our room has more in common with what i picture a jail to be like. we're locked in our rooms (still no keys, we can leave but can't get back in). there are bars on the windows. the toilet/stall thing. out of toilet paper and the manual flush. and as we talked at 4am a huge cockroach trailed by to see if we had anything good to eat. i have him on tape if you'd like to meet him.

time to wrap up. i'll maybe fall back asleep but amy is on my bed and i'm pretty certain the roach has snuggled into amy's. it's still another 2.5 hours before we leave. maybe i'll watch napoleon dynamite and make sure mr. roach doesn't cross over into our half of the room. all in all, an amazing trip. several times on the bus i just laughed. did i mention we were even listening to john denver singing take me home country road, too? just an amazing trip. we don't officially become joy's parents until tomorrow morning. the orphanage staff is riding with us back to changsha. i think we'll have joy for the ride. if she'll have us. she spends the night with us tonight. tomorrow morning we pretend to meet her for the first time and then, she is ours. whether she likes it or not. i'm hoping by tonight she can at least stand to be around us without screaming. i might just stick to english, too. i feel for the foster parents. joy has been loved. they had one last night with her and then she's gone. we'll have to keep joy in touch with her chinese grandma and grandpa somehow. wow. this has got to be one of the strangest ways to get a kid.
one thing at a time. first - keep peace with the cockroach. second - back to orphanage for breakfast, see the city and hopefully the place joy was found. third - bus ride back to changsha. that's plenty. i'll worry about how to raise my chinese daughter later. thanks for reading this far. hopefully i can get some pictures posted. much love.

the road to yuanling and flying fish at wal-mart

the road to yuanling

as i type we are on the highway heading to yuanling. pretty bumpy. the road isn't nearly as crowded as i thought. pretty interesting. and the A/C on the bus is great. in fact, i'm kinda cold. i think we've been blessed with some mild weather. it looks a lot like mexico to me. except different. there are fairly large houses dotting the way there. not fancy like something in the pricey part of town in the states but still a couple stories big. i wonder how many live in one house? they almost have that abandoned look to them but i' m certain they are very well lived in. things just aren't organized here like what an american mind is used to seeing. neighborhoods don't look like the typical suburb back home. many of the buildings look half finished. is that because they are new and waiting to be done or not finished falling apart yet? i just don't have a frame of reference, i need a key to help me decipher what i'm seeing.

i'm wondering as we drive, how much of this will Joy miss? she's too young to really "miss" it but what will she want to see when she gets older? will she feel this longing for a part of her she's lost? as her father, her provider, i hope not. i hope to be all sufficient but i know that is not practical or likely. will we ever be back? i don't know how to separate out feelings of being the father of a daughter and being the father of a chinese daughter. i think the two are now impossible to pull apart. just like isaac has blue eyes, brown hair, a small hole in his heart and a wheat alergy - he's my boy. joy is my daughter. that's just how it is. i really have no clue what i've gotten myself into here. clueless isn't that bad. right?

in other news. we hit the town last night. just to go to walmart. and that was plenty. it's intimidating being here. i'm the tallest person, next to one other guy in this group, i've seen in days. i suppose i present an imposing figure for the majority of the people i come across. but i'm the one intimidated. it'd be easy to just sit in my room and watch HBO with chinese subtitles. afterall, we don't have cable at home. at the same time, this is such a blast! everyday should be an adventure. life is just good. but this is the most amazing ride to be on. wow. simply, wow.

there and back again

hey! i'm typing this from china! but not on my laptop. unfortunately i can't get the hotel network to play nice with my mac. but i'm still working on it. so i sneaker networked some pics and short movies for your viewing pleasure. go to the journey to joy - files link to the right to view them. if that doesn't work try the flickr link also to the right. just some raw footage of us landing in changsha, the "barkers" hawking stuff at walmart, and us saying hello from our room. kinda like the astronauts when they say hello back home. (editor's note: i typed the above sentences before actually trying it out. so far it's not working. i'll keep trying so you keep clicking those links to the right. if nothing else, you get our thoughts if not our pictures.)

below are some thoughts i've typed up along the way. i type as we go even though i'm offline. hope you don't mind the non-sequester-ish-ness of it all. in brief: things are really, really good. we're on the trip of a lifetime and haven't even met our daughter yet. that's tomorrow after the 8 hour bus ride. more on that later. here are my thoughts from earlier:

LAX - wednesday night

i really must have something important to say right now because i have no guarantee i can charge my laptop while on the ensuing 15 hour flight (which still doesn't happen for another 2 hours). i better say something more entertaining than napoleon dynamite because that is the potential sacrifice here. at least for me.

i think i'm finally excited to be on this trip. i'm finally able to focus on the task at hand. having said goodbye to isaac - though he slept through the whole thing - i can be here now. and even though i'm in the midst of being incredibly bored i'm having a good time being so. i picked up a couple books while in wichita. both are about basically the same thing - the world is not as it appears. that we have, typically, boxed God up which is a foolish thing to attempt. so these thoughts are floating around my head, mingling with all the people watching. observations on people gathering in LAX late on a wednesday night mix with my internal dialogue on the nature of existence. and i had wolfgang puck for dinner. it's interesting and passes the time.

we've met our chinese travel coordinator, morgan. the same man who walked my aunt and uncle through this whole experience two years ago. we've also caught up with everyone in our travel party except two couples. morgan is off somewhere looking for them, i imagine. or drinking a beer in a different concourse putting off the inevitable ball and chain all us will be over the next two weeks. we're like little baby ducks to his momma duck. and a very capable duck he be. so far, it feels like we're on some sort of reality show. like the great race mixed with real world. we have the first time parents, yoga/new age-ish couple. a couple mother/daughter teams. one from alabama and youngish, the other from las vegas, new mexico and older. native boston couple who now live in metro denver. ex-military guy and his wife. and the reclusive couple, wife being a doctor, don't know what the husband does, with 4 year old daughter in tow. who knows, maybe we'll get some drama going while on the trip? outside the expected going to china and gaining a daughter type drama i mean.

joy feels more real to me now than ever before. maybe the process of being strip searched in airport security is the difference? i'm hoping for electricity on the 15 hour flight. typing is fun. i apologize now.

changsha - dolton hotel.

it's like we're in a whole other country. couldn't charge the laptop on the flight. so i watched (with chinese subtitles) spanglish, a series of unfortunate events, hero (english subtitles), and a candian variety show (no subtitles though the accent could be tough) - 3 times. i've taken lots of pictures already. basic here we are in the airport kind of thing since that's all we've been doing for the last day and half. the hotel in changsha is SWANK. very nice. i now have power. but no internet access. tech guy comes up here and says, oh, that's an apple. internet doesn't work on apple. he leaves up dialing his cell on the way saying he'll be back. that was two hours ago. america or china some things are always the same.

we ordered chinese food to our room. i busted out my mandarin on the phone to order. i asked, in mandarin, if they spoke english. which they did, barely. but the guy who brought our food up spoke english very well. i asked him about the internet. he said he didn't know. we purposefully ordered our usual meal from the chinese place up the street from our house. turns out, the place in hays makes some fairly authentic chinese.

here in a bit the whole group of us gets together for dinner. we'll grill morgan for tomorrow's plan. one point i've learned already which makes sense but bums me none-the-less our girls go back home tomorrow night with their foster parents. i'm so excited to just get this girl with us. she feels more like my daughter now than ever before. it just fits. she belongs here. all the families are on the 26th floor and they've put together a play place for the girls that overlooks the city. i'll post pictures. when i can post. we're also getting a calling card after dinner so i'm hoping to get isaac called. it'll be friday morning for him. friday night for us. i miss that little guy. so excited for him to be a big brother. i'm just happy to be here. just having a blast. if only i could post so you can actually read this. details.

orient express

have i said this already? how can something you've been planning for so long sneak up on you? we're leaving in just a few hours. unless i find some wifi at one of the airports this will be the last post until after we get joy and get back to changsha. that will be tuesday.

as a refresher, here's how this will work. use the links to the right. you can see photos posted to flickr there. the homepage will have videos and slide shows assuming the great firewall of china doesn't stop me. just in case i also hope to post videos and pics in the journey to joy - files site. we'll just have to see how it goes. hopefully this isn't the last post you read until we get back!!

this time tomorrow

it's interesting getting ready to travel to the other side of the planet and at the same time get ready to have a daughter. there are elements very similar to waiting for labor to fall upon you like a 20 ton boulder off the side of a mountain. there are other elements of the world adventure sort. you would think it would be non-stop fun but it really does start to get old. i wish i could make up my mind which thing to either be excited about or to be in complete dread over because the constant roller coaster is very tiring. i used to think i'd like to do one of those roller coaster marathons, you know, like they do for charity. but if it's like this, i'm not so sure anymore. (speaking of charity: help us build an orphanage in cambodia! see the link to the right.)

i've had various theories of preparation over the last year or so. one has been to try to learn mandarin. we'll see how that goes. i'm hoping to be, at the worst, an amusing if not slightly annoying very tall, very white stranger in a strange land. but i'm not going to be surprised if i cause some minor international incident. the words for horse and angry and mother are extremely similar. as are the words for chicken and prostitute. another theory i have is to try and switch over to chinese time before i even leave wichita. it's 8am right now in that case. i did take an incredibly long and late nap. so i sort of feel like i'm just waking up. i'll have cereal for dinner. in order for this to work i have to stay up the remainder of the night, too. the downside is that though my mind may be in china my body is still solidly in kansas and unless i want to try and sleep walk through the airports, my poor wife wheeling my lifeless body along with the luggage, i have to also stay awake through my usual day here as well. the truth is, i probably am not going to sleep much any way you slice it.

amy is re-re-re-re-re-re packing. clearly some of us deal with stress in more constructive ways than others.