Good day/night from Nanchang

Well it is 0200 AM Monday and I have been up since midnight and Dana has been up since 0100. But guess who is still sleeping? You can bet it is Celia. She has done very well since she has been with us. Some of the other parents said that their babies have had breakdowns. One baby is sick and may have a virus. We hope that the other babies don't get it. I went to check on her and she had a 101.0 fever with a rash, vomiting, and diarrhea. One of the other parents is also a nurse and has a pediatric background so I went and got her to look at her also. We went to a grocery store by the hotel yesterday to get bottled water shortly after we got here. It is raining here now and has been very windy since we have been here. They said there is a typhoon in Taiwan causing this weather, and we have to go do some paperwork tomorrow, so we may get wet. I will try to attach some pictures for your viewing pleasure!!
Greg

Another Pic

Here She Is!!!!!!!

Finally we are on the Internet!

Sorry everyone but we could not get back on the internet yesterday and today in Beijing.  We were trying everthing and it would not work.  It has been very frustrating.  Yesterday we toured Tian Na Men Square, the Forbidden City and the Great Wall.  They were all incredible to see and the history behind them is amazing.  We have some pictures that we are going to try to put on our blog.   I woke up at about 3:40 AM this morning and Greg was up long before that.  We are very tired but we can't seem to get on China time.  China is an amazing country and the people are very nice.  They love Americans.  Greg is wearing a UT cap and has gotten his picture taken with so many Chinese people.  It is quite funny!  We are getting ready to go and meet Celia for the first time.  They moved our time up to 3:00 PM.  Veronica gave us some information about her that she received 10 days ago.  It included her height, weight, personality traits, favorite foods, favorite toys and other things.  We are so excited.  We still cannot believe that we are here and that we are getting ready to meet our daughter.  We have also found out that she has been living with a foster family and not in the orphanage.  She has also been sleeping in the family bed so that will be an adjustment.  She was taken away from the foster family this morning and is being brought here to meet us at the hotel.  Veronica said that the babies know that something is going on because when they were taken away the foster family is very sad and they tend to pick up on the fact that something is wrong or different.  They will take a 2 hour bus ride to our hotel and that's when we will get them.  Whenever we get back to our room I will try to post again and let you know how things went.

---

Get back to school stuff for them and cashback for you. Try Bing now.

Aug 8th

Good morning (or evening in USA) from China. We have been up since 03:00 this AM. We did turn in early last PM. We are getting ready to eat breakfast and do some touring. We are trying to get a calling card so that we can call home.  We weren't thinking when we signed in at the hotel.  We had gone upstairs to get our luggage put into our room and when we came back down to meet for dinner Veronica had gone to the airport to pick up more families and no one spoke English.  You should have seen Greg trying to explain that we needed to buy a calling card.  It was quite humorous.  The girl just smiled and nodded her head.  She didn't get it.  We are going to do some sightseeing all day today and traveling out tomorrow to Nanchang to meet that bundle of joy. After all, she is the reason for this whole trip.  This trip still seems so surreal.  We keep looking at each other and saying "we are really in China and we are here to pick up our little girl!"  All I can say is "Wow, our God is an awesome God!"  We will hopefully be able to write back this afternoon and we will get some kind of calling card to call our family.  Talk to you soon!

---

Get back to school stuff for them and cashback for you. Try Bing now.

WE ARE IN CHINA!!!

We have finally arrived in China.  We are totally exhausted!  I was unable to sleep on the plane but Greg was able to sleep a little.  Our plane ride was uneventful, which is exactly how we wanted it.  We got through security okay and are now at our hotel.  Our guide, Veronica, has already taken us to a little grocery store where we were able to buy water and snacks.  We just got back from eating with our group at a Chinese restaurant.  It was very good!  Tomorrow we will eat breakfast at our hotel and leave at 8:30 AM Beijing time to go on our tours.  I am going to have to sign off now before I fall asleep at the computer.  I will e-mail another update tomorrow.

---

Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. Check it out.

Ready to Travel

After two WONDERFUL baby showers and lots of gifts we are now ready to travel. We have our bags packed, which was very difficult since we have strict weight limits. We will be arriving at the airport at around 3:30 AM tomorrow and our plane should take off at about 6:15 AM. We will arrive in Newark, NJ at around 9:30 AM and leave that airport at 12:00. We will arrive in Beijing on August 7th at 1:50 PM barring any delays. Please pray for us that we will have safe travels and that the flight will be uneventful. Please pray also that God will prepare Celia's little heart for this major transition and that we will be able to figure her out enough to make her comfortable with us and to figure out her needs. I know that we have had experiences with children before but we have never been parents before and we want to be the best that we can be. Thanks again to EVERYONE that has supported us and continues to support us. We can honestly say that WE ARE LOVED!!!!!