Molly video

Hopefully you can see the video below:

More pictures

Orphanage pictures

I forgot to include what Michelle had said in the post that failed. On Thursday we were able to visit the orphanage where Molly had lived. This is the Jiangyin Childrens Welfare Institution. This facility is only a few years old and the place is very nice and clean. We got to see the different places where Molly slept and played. We also got to see the other babies and the children who have special needs that prevent them from going to normal schools. The rest of the childred were at their schools as it was a normal Thursday morning for them. To our suprise the Director asked us to lunch and we gladly accepted. The restaurant that we went to was very nice and the food was excellent! We were pretty weary of trying new things, but the director ordered several things that he knew would fit our tastes and he was right. The kids even got to eat a fried chicken dish that tasted much like chicken nuggets. After eating we took a quick tour of the city and were able to see the intersection where Molly was originally found. It is humbling to know that she was left on a street corner at four days old and that God has allowed her to be taken care of so well. It truly is miraculous to have her healthy and happy and in our arms! Oh how we are blessed!

Steve

Guangzhou

It has been a while since our last post. Actually Michelle did type a post out, but it never made it to the blog. We are in Guongzhou now which is the last leg of our journey. We arrived here from Nanjing late on Friday night and got into bed around midnight that night. This morning we had a wonderful breakfast at the hotel with bacon cooked almost all the way, and French toast, and waffles! After the five days in Nanjing, this was heaven. After eating, we took Molly to get some pictures made for her visa and then she went through the visa medical exam as well. Everything checked out fine and we are very glad to get that over with. We then got to play down at the beautiful pool here at the White Swan hotel. It is almost 80 here, but the pool was very cold. I didn't know if we would get in or not, but of course Paul jumped right in without a second thought. I had to slowly get in to play with him, and Zachary got in on the steps up to his waist. Amber got in almost up to her knees! Chelle and Molly only dipped their feet in. The kids took late afternoon naps while Chelle and I took care of the final round of paperwork and then we went to Lucy's for an early dinner. Lucy's offers American staples like cheesburgers and chicken fingers with french fries! We all pigged out. We then went shopping at some of the local markets and Chelle had fun "dealing" with the shop owners for the best price. In China, everything is negotiable! Everyone is asleep now, and we are not sure about our plans for tomorrow. We will have to see what happens when we wake up. I am going to post some pictures to go along with this update.

Good night,

Steve

Nanjing pictures 2

Nanjing pictures

Life in Nanjing

Well, there is not a lot new to say, but we are hearing that everyone wants more pictures. I am going to post several here of Molly, and all of us. I have a few good ones of "the kids". I can't say "the boys" anymore! A few here were taken when we visited a nearby city park. There were some rides and a big inflatable ball that Paul was able to "walk on water" in. We are trying hard to have fun while waiting on paperwork to be processed.

At 0800 on Thursday morning we are going to head to the orphanage in Jiangyin which is about 2 hours from here by car. We will be gone most of the day and will try to post some pictures of the orphanage that evening. We were able to eat at Pizza Hut today and it was awesome! It was also a very fancy Pizza Hut with marble floors and an upscale setting.

Molly is doing so well, we know that all of the prayers have certainly been heard as God has made this a very easy transition for her. The only time she cries is when she is hungry or tired. She wants to eat all the time and can eat just about anything we have tried. She took a 4 hour nap yesterday and then slept through the night again! She has already become very attached to Mommy and always fusses when someone else has to hold her. She quickly calms down, but she definately prefers her Mommy to anyone else already. This is great progress and exciting for Michelle of course! She smiles easily, tickles and laughes easily, and knows how to play peek-a-boo! She is a very fun baby. Anyway, enough talk, here are some pictures.

Steve

A family of FIVE!

The day we have prayed for and dreamed of for so long has finally come! About 10:00 this morning we went to the Civil Affairs Office and waited for the orphanage to bring Molly. Several other families were there as well. About 10:20 the director of the orphanage walked in with her. Steve saw her first and squeezed my arm. I turned and saw her, and I was overcome with joy! She was dressed so cutely in a pink snow suit type outfit, with three layers of clothing underneath. She came right to us. She loved the boys and smiled several times right there in the office. Other babies came in and were screaming, but Molly was happy the whole time. Paul is currently singing and dancing for her, and she is laughing at him. She is wonderful and we are so totally in love. She is very active, and alot like Zachary at that age, which is actually a little scary! If you know our Zach you know what I mean! Paul is totally enamored with her. Zach is not so sure about this baby that is taking Mommy's time! Amber took pictures for us, but her camera's card does not work in the laptop that we have! So, we captured one picture from the video that we took, so that is the only picture we can post right now! We will take some more pics with our camera later and post them. Hope the one picture will hold you guys over!

Sightseeing for the Day

Yesterday, Saturday, was quite a day. We woke up early and had breakfast at the hotel. There were many things we didn't even want to try, but also many western-style foods. Amber was excited to find the fried potatos, and Steve and I were happy to get some eggs scrambled to your liking. We had them add a little cheese, and they were perfect! They also had toast and bacon and the boys both filled up on that. After breakfast we met up with the group at 8 am, and for us to be up, ready, and fed by 8 am is quite the feat for our family. We headed off for Tianneman Square and the Forbidden City. It was quite beautiful, and very large! On the walk there we were bombarded by people trying to sell us things, and not wanting to take no for an answer. We did let Paul buy a paper Chinese flag, for 1 rmb, which is about .15 cents USD. The boys were again very well behaved, though they got a little bored walking through the Forbidden City. The most exciting part for them was all the Chinese people wanting to take pictures with them. Paul, Zach, and Amber, all had their picture taken more then once with Chinese people. A couple of people would ask, others just took the pictures. We told Amber they thought she must have been an American celebrity, maybe one of the Olsen twins! She didn't agree! A couple of people would touch Paul's red hair, which he thought was strange, and didn't stray too far from us for a while after that happened. We also had our first experience with "squattie potties", something I would have gladly lived without. They were nice bathrooms, but no one waited in line, you just jumped in a bathroom whenever you could, there were no locks on the doors, so anyone could open to see if it was empty, there was basically a toilet type thing on the ground and no paper. There was also no soap at the sinks. It was quite an experience!After that we went to a Jade Factory, Paul thought it was interesting to watch them cut the Jade. The jade was I guess great prices, but I am not an expert! We bought a small jade pig for Molly, since she was born in the Year of the Pig. We were going to buy a pig pendant, but those were a little pricier then we wanted to pay. We were also able to get a snowglobe of the Great Wall for Morgan! We ate lunch at the factory, it was again a family-style meal. The food was actually pretty good and they even had french fries, the boys were so excited. They have been so good about trying the different foods. I can't even tell you what we have eaten! I know I had something that tasted like chicken and it was really good. There was another food that I think was chicken as well, and it was excellent with the rice! Steve has been the most adventurous of us all and tried just about everything.

After lunch we finally made it to the Great Wall. Paul was so excited! He has really been looking forward to this! We didn't realize how many steps we were going to have to climb. Zach was so tired, and wouldn't have been able to make it up many of the steps. The steps ranged it height from about 2 inches, to well over 20 inches. So, it was rough going. Steve carried Zach much of the way. Paul loved climbing up. Amber made it much quicker then the rest of us! We got to one tower and Steve, Zach, and I stopped while Paul and Amber continued on. Zach was very tired so we have pictures of him almost asleep on the Great Wall sitting in my lap, eating a banana someone had given him. Going down the wall was quite challenging as well, but we had a good time! On the way back to the hotel we drove through the area where the Olympics will be held. It was neat to see all the architecture. We got back to the hotel and had another family style dinner, this time there was not much of anything that I was willing to try. The boys ate a few bites when I fed them with chopsticks. Steve and Amber tried a few things. We are all so tired that we don't really feel much like eating! We all slept fairly well last night. The boys woke around 4:00 am and were hungry, so they had pop-tarts and went back to sleep until about 6:30.

Today we will head to Nanjing where Molly is. The plane leaves at 12:00 noon and it's about a two hour flight. We don't have anything planned for the evening. Hopefully relax. There is a possibility that they will bring Molly to the hotel this evening, but more likely we will meet her at the Civil Affairs Office in the morning.

We Made It!!

After a very LONG plane ride we made it! We can't believe we are actually in China. It has been a dream for son long, and we are finally here!!!! God is so good! We left home about 6:45 Thursday morning. After checking our bags and trying to get all of us through security we boarded the plane for Chicago with no major catastrophes, except for spilling a full Chai Latte--I was heartbroken! Anyway, the flight to Chicago was uneventful. We got to Chicago about 1 hour before our plane took off for Beijing. The gate for the plane to Beijing was PACKED. We somehow met up with three other adoptive families, 2 of which are with our agency, and we will be travelling with. We are the only once who brought our children along. After a couple of long lines for Visa stamps we made it to the plane. The flight was totally uneventful, and the boys were WONDERFUL. Zach slept for the first hour or so, and then we played cars, colored, walked around, and sat and talked. They played 4 movies and several hours of tv on the overhead tv screen. Paul watched part of one of the movies, but for the most part he played GameBoy, talked with us, colored, read, and played with cars. We had an interesting snack of Chinese noodles at one point. Zach loved them, Steve and I tolerated them, and Paul wouldn't try them. The other two meals were typical airplane food. We did get both boys to sleep aroud 9 est and they slept until about 1:30 est. We landed in Beijing on time at about 3 pm local time on Friday afternoon, which was 3 am est, Friday morning. We were worn slap out, but made it through customs and got all of our luggage with out ane problems. We met up with our guide and the rest of our travel group without trouble, and made the one hour bus ride to the hotel. The hotel is very nice, and the beds, though not huge, are larger then I expected. They are hard as rocks, but we were so tired it didn't really matter. After getting our room keys we went to dinner at the hotel. It was good, but Steve was the only one who ventured out. It was several different foods served family style. Zach, Paul, and I stuck with the lemon chicken and the rice. I am not sure what all Steve ate, but he said it was good. Amber picked a little here and there, but said she was too tired to eat. We walked around the hotel a bit and there was a seal in one of the aquariums that the boys really enjoyed. They also enjoyed all the other types of fish in the various aquariums. We finally crashed about 9:30pm local time, 9:30 am est. The boys were tired so they went to sleep no problem. They did wake up about 2 am, and they were HUNGRY. I gave them some dry cheerios and they ate them up and went back to sleep in about 1 hour. We all woke up between 5:30 and 6:00 this morning. Steve and Paul are now out exploring and getting Amber and I some Starbucks! We will them head to breakfast at the hotel buffet and then off to do some sightseeing. Because our flight to Molly's province leaves early Sunday morning we will not be able to do any sightseeing Sunday, so we are going to see The Great Wall, Forbidden City, and Tianneman Square today. It should be a pretty long day, but we are excited about seeing soe of the culture. I will try to post tonight or in the morning about our adventures in sightseeing, but we are having a difficult time with connectivity. We thought we would hae WIFI, but we don't and the connection we do have is a bit iffy. We also don't have any phones that work. We are remedying that this afternoon when PandaPhone delivers a couple of new phones, since the SIM cards we ordered don't work in our phones. So, hopefully we will be able to call a couple of people this evening. So, I have probably written way more detail then many of you care to know, but I wanted to get it all written down. Have a great evening their in the states.

Leaving for China!!!

We are leaving for China in less than 24 hours! We are all packed and ready to go! I wanted to say Thank You to everyone who has kept us in their prayers. God is so amazing! He has shown us His hand every step of the way in this amazing process. We are so blessed by His power! We will be attempting to keep the blog updated during our stay in China, so check back in to see what's going on! I will try to post our itinerary a little later today. Please continue to pray for our trip, pray that the plane ride won't be as bad as everyone is saying, and that the boys will sleep a good part of it. Pray that Molly blends in with our family seemlessly, and even though she is going through quite a traumatic experience in her young life, pray that she adjusts well to having a family that loves and adores her! We have to remember that although we have been looking forward to meeting her for months now, she does not know us from Adam! Pray that everything goes smoothly in all aspects!

New pics of our BABY GIRL!

Someone I met on a Yahoo Group of Molly's orphanage took these pictures last week when she went to pick up her child. It was such a blessing to us for her to take these pictures and send them to us. She said Molly is being well taken care of and loved. It is good to know that she is doing well. I just want to go get her NOW!