Journey to Chongqing Day 1

First Post: Hello Friends and Family,
After much trial and error we are hoping that this post is posting!
We are in the city of Chongqing which is a 90 minute flight from Guangzhou. The city is huge! It is built on many hills much like San Francisco. The river is dry due to a drought and the weather is very warm and a bit humid. Of course we packed all clothing for a cooler climate!!!
The people are friendly and we are enjoying our visit. Today is also "gotcha day" and we will meet our little Emma around 3:00PM. wuk

There are about 15 families that are receiving their babies. We will travel by our faithful bus to the Civil Affairs Office to complete some papers and get our little ones and have a family photo taken. :)

When we arrived we were taken to the floor where the babies waited. The building is very new and modern. What a site we saw! The babies were grouped by orphanage and each group wore there own little outfits! There were babies in walkers and some walking wearing orange, pink, red, yellow and one little light blue outfit which was our little Emma. She traveled alone from her orphanage with her nanny. All of the babies looked wonderful! It is obvious that they have been well taken care of and loved. :)

One by one we were to receive our babies and that allowed us all the time to congratulate and take photos for each other. We were the second family to receive our baby. It went like this;
Her nanny placed her on the floor since she is walking and called our name. We walked towards her and she totally freaked!! That was very encouraging to us.....so we are told. I, mom, picked her up and just rocked her as she cried her little heart out. I sure felt like a mean person to be upsetting her little life. I will tell you that I was scared and as soon as I saw her I was in love! She is lovely and tiny. I am going to love on her until she is ready to love on us. :)

This is the most amazing thing I have ever done in my life. We felt that way when we brought our Nadya home from Russia, but this is different. We knew Nadya and she was old enough to communicate with us. Little Emma is a baby and is so dependent on us. Those of you waiting to travel for your child, prepare for the most amazing time in your lives.

China here we come! :)

Well, the day has finally come and we are leaving in one hour for the airport. We fly to L.A. and stay the night to visit and then we are off to China at 11:50PM Friday. Yeah!!!

Aimee, Bekki and Nadya, We love you, take care while we are gone.

Sam & Hallie (the dogs) Don't miss us too much! LOL

Family and Friends, stay in touch through e-mail. We love you all.

Katie and Nate, we will see you very soon!

Nicole, Melissa, Brian and Nate, We can't wait for you to meet the newest family member!

Feb. 12, 2007

Shopping and Packing for travel! We celebrated my daughter, Bekki's, 16th birthday today! I can hardley believe she is so grown up. She is such a blessing to our family.

I spent several hours browsing the aisles of Target and Old Navy today picking up some items I need for Emma. There is so much out there! :) I will start packing tomorrow. I can't wait to leave in 10 days! We will get Emma in 13 days! How do you like this sweet photo of her from last June 2006? Isn't she a cutie?!

Saturday night my husband's assistant threw a wonderful baby shower for us! So many people came to wish us well and we feel so blessed to be here in Ohio. Thank you all! I will post photos later.

We are expecting a winter storm tonight, and I thought we had moved to a warmer climate! LOL

Emma, we are coming for you soon. We love you!

Travel dates all set!! Another step closer!

What a busy couple of days it has been. First keeping up with my ladybug believers posts that I love to read. Thank you ladies! So, we will fly to LA on the 22nd and stay the night. We hope to visit with my neice and her husband and their little girl, Ellie, who is 2-1/2. I have never seen her! :) (except photos!) We will meet with our group at LAX on the 23rd and fly out that night direct to Guanzhou, a 15 hours flight! Yikes!! That will be hard enough on me never mind the return with a two year old!! Better make sure the Benedryl will help her relax! When we land at 6:20AM in China we will be wisked off to the China Hotel to drop our bags and then off to a welcome breakfast of dim-sum. They call that breakfast? After that we will take a little tour or the area and then back to the hotel to rest and get to know each other. We leave the following day for Chongqing and will spend five days there at the Mariott Hotel, not too shabby!! I looked at it on line and it apprears to be quite nice. :) We will also receive our little girl the same day, it is called "gotcha day". That is all I know at this point. We are trying to make the travel plans and getting ready to pack. I think we will purchase 2 large rolling LLBean adventure bags which are reccommended. I will keep you all posted.

WE'RE GOING TO CHINA...TA ARRIVED TODAY!

We received our TA today around 2:00PM. The phone kept beeping in while I was on another phone call and I looked at who was calling. When I saw that it was from Florida I knew something was up. So, we have been approved to travel and we will be leaving Cincinnati on Feb. 23rd!!! We are still waiting on the consulate appointment, but that is in the works. Yeah!!! :) Cloud # 9!!! My DH is smiling from ear to ear! Tomorrow reality sets in and all that needs to take place before we go. I've got 3 weeks to pack. YES!

I will post more photos later.