Saturday, February 28, 2009

"Spicy girls" are now in Guanzhou

Chongquing is known for its spicy foods so several Chinese have referred to the girls adopted from that province as "spicy girls." Megan survived the two-hour flight from Chongquing to Guanzhou so we are hopeful for the two flights home. She was a little antsy at the beginning but with a bottle of tomato/strawberry juice from the airline, she was asleep through the landing. Security check was a problem for us all. Arlie had checked the airline rules but it turned out we returned to Guanzhou on a different airline. The group head told us we could take the diaper bags but told us we were not specific enough and should have asked her if we needed to dump the baby bottles and the answer would have been "yes." In the disposal process, we lost part of the curved bottle which was Megan's favorite. Grace, we now really need to get more of those bottles! We took Megan to the playroom at the Westin Hotel where we are now staying and she enjoyed the toys. Tomorrow we will go to church, see part of town, and shop. During the week, we will go to the US Embassy and begin that portion of the trip. I have to go now because I am exhausted.

White Daisies Sorta Make Me Smile...

So the plane ride was a success and honestly I don't think we can complain. It was only about 2 hours, maybe a little less. In the beginning she was kinda fussy, but with cheerios and chicken nuggets we managed to get through lift off without much crying. Maybe half way through the flight she passed out with a half a bottle of strawberry and tomato juice?! I'm not so sure about these crazy combination's but she drank it, kicked off her shoes and put her feet on the chair back and laid out like she was a queen. As long as she was not crying, we were going with the anything goes attitude, but while she was awake, I couldn't even have a sip of water without her turning around and trying to steal my cup.

The airline we flew was different than the first 3 times and they were super strict on liquids, to the point where we had to dump the milk and water. Most airlines actually allow a baby bottle with liquid, but not this one. They were kinda nazi like and even took the bottle one of the other little girls was drinking and made them dump it. I understand the restrictions but sometimes it's just a little much.

Currently we are in Guangzhou, where we will be till Saturday to begin the marathon journey home. It will include a 45 min. plane ride to Hong Kong and then the 16 hour flight to JFK. After arriving here, we were up for about 26 hours so I can assure you, we will need sleep and Megan will be wide awake.

Now we are staying at The Westin, and it is a very nice hotel. Still adjusting to the differences from the InterContinental, especially since Megan befriended every worker there. Originally we were given a room with 2 twin beds and that was not going to fly, so we got switched to a new room with beds a smidge bigger. Megan finally has a crib that resembles a crib, instead of a portable crib and can't jump out. Always a plus.

This hotel also has a room with toys for the little kids to play with. Mattel teamed up with The Westin and donated the toys for the families that are adopting to have a place to play. We decided to check it out after dinner to keep her occupied. She seems to get bored easily and needs things to distract her from the pain of teething. I saw the top tooth has broke through and there are a bunch more you can feel under the gums. So we go in and there are tons of Pooh Bears, Eeyores and Tiggers among other stuffed animals and we decided to play with the Pooh family. Well they got all the taking ones, so you play with the talking eeyore, he has lots of fun stuff to say, including "white daises sorta make me smile" and he says it in such a down voice, I can't help but laugh. So there's the story behind my blog title tonight. He has other stuff to say about red hearts and purple moons, but the daisies are the best.

One last thing..we found out yesterday on the way to the panda zoo that 8 is lucky in Chinese and their unlucky numbers are 4 and 14. Ha, wouldn't you know..just my luck.

(Pictures should be up tomorrow. Still unpacking since we have to keep the wiggle worm in constant motion)

Friday, February 27, 2009

Our last days in Chongquing

Our trip to Wal-Mart was disappointing.  I could not get contact fluid or Origel.  We enjoyed our trip to Flying Tigers Museum yesterday where we watched an artist paint and did some shopping. We like bus trips because it is cooler than our room and Megan takes a morning nap only on a bus.  It has been gray and rainy today and yesterday.  I actually put Megan's winter jacket on but she did not like it because it was so stiff.  We should have brought the coat Jasmine gave her but everybody said it was too nice to take.  She will wear it when we get home.  

We went to the pool again yesterday and Megan fell asleep in my arms while in the pool. Clearly part of the right family as me, Donald, and Ed always enjoyed the pool.  Last night we ate in again and Arlie and I took turns getting massages because we were both so sore from lifting and wrestling with her.  I had the "signature" massage which meant that one woman massaged the back and up and another did the legs and feet.  I was in screaming pain at some points. For such small women, they have really strong hands.  I felt better today so I guess it worked.  

Megan went into the stroller for the first time today.  Unless it kept moving, Megan was not interested.  She is really bored easily.  We went to the Panda zoo where we saw some pandas, the top of a hippopotamus, and some tigers.  Megan had the same attitude I had as a kid (Ok we saw them now let's go).  We came back but I have some meetings to attend and need to be around until 5 pm so we have delayed going to the pool.  I will be getting Megan's passport, etc. The clothes we sent out (hoping and praying that they followed the directions to wash in cold or I will continue to wear the same clothes until we get back to Guanzhou) will be back at 5 pm. I don't know how or when we are going to pack because Megan won't stay in her crib before 9 pm and only if nearly every light is off.  Megan lets us file her nails but not cut them.  We can't cut them when she is sleeping because we can't see what we are doing in the dark.  I haven't figured out how we are going to pack in the dark. Since the corridor is cooler and there is light, we are thinking of dragging everything out into the corridor and packing after she's asleep. Arlie is walking her out in the corridor now (probably visiting some of our pals) so that I can blog now.  

Megan likes meat (like any good granddaughter of a butcher, retired or otherwise).  Today she had a half-pancake with syrup, a half bowl of oatmeal, two bites of bread pudding, and two bites of banana.  We watered down her milk and she is pooping again properly.  We are going to be having a water and formula give away as part of our packing.  We are trading the puffs Grace bought and which Megan has rejected for Donna and Mike's cheerios.  We traded diapers for orajel and received teething beads for a swimmy diaper.  We gave away the Bactroban for Nicola and Scott's daughter.  We got some prune mixture (we brought them here to Chongquing but can't find them among other things we can't find) from Sou and John.  The families have all been great.  Effie and Jamie's daughter, Ruby, needed an intravenous line for fluids and an antibiotic.  They have had the roughest time but both speak Chinese and were able to communicate with the doctors.   Megan seems happy and well-adjusted and I am very thankful.  Today she pulled the place mat out from under at another table before we could stop her.  Everything tumbled to the floor, a baby woke up, and she looked like she was still ready for another adventure. Because she does not usually cry during meals in the dining room, she was the only baby allowed to sit with the conference guests.  She flirted with men and women alike.    

Notes to mom and Grace:  Megan only likes the curved bottle like Grace predicted so we need to get more of those.  We also need homeopathic teething beads and orajel.  She can't stand teether toys.  Arlie is now weighing Megan on the scale.  We are clearly running out of ways to entertain her.  Hope Grandma, Pop, Uncles Don and Ed, Aunt Robyn, and Grace are ready to take over because if we survive 20 plus hours on the return flight home entertaining her without any sleep, we will surely be ready for sleep as soon as we step in the door.  

Next time:  The flight to Guazhou with Megan.  Forget about the babies' teeth--the parents will need the whiskey!

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Flying Tigers and Wiggle Worms

Today we ended up going to the Flying Tigers Museum instead of the zoo since it was kinda raining all day. It never got heavy, but it was not exactly the sunnier (haha) weather we had been having. The museum was interesting and it was basically an American history lesson on the side of one of Chongqings many hilly mountain sides in the middle of China. But the best part for all of us was the rice painting. There was an artist who came in and showed us in person how they do them and he had a bunch for us to look at that he had already done. While he was working, he pretty much blocked out the rest of the world and concentrated on his painting. It was amazing to see this white rice paper, come to life in just minutes.

We also got to visit a Chinese Wal Mart today. It was so like a Wal Mart and so unamerican at the same time it was weird. The store took up all the room behind all the front shops, so it was just on the street, plus the basement area, so it was 2 floors altogether. The upstairs seemed to be dedicated to all the grocery supplies, while the downstairs was the rest of the store. So instead of it being a left and right sides, it was upstairs and downstairs. To get downstairs you get on this moving belt. It was a like a cross between the flat belts at airports that you hop on instead of walking and an escalator, but without an stairs and on a slight incline till you reach your destination. The shopping carts are designed to have these little teeth like things that grip onto the belt, so nothing moves while your traveling. And on the sides, there are various items, like tissues, gum, chips, washcloths to pick up along the way. When downstairs, we were thankful to have Michael our tour guide to help with some translation, and still many things got confused. We found some clothes for Megan and a stroller, but failed to find baby orajel or anything of the sort (she said they don't have it) nor could we get contact fluid (try a glasses store she said). I went off on my own trying to see if I could find it, but no such luck. It's interesting to see the differences in a store like Wal Mart, just based on countries.

Once again we hit up the pool with our super fashionable swim caps. In order to use the pool, you need to cover your head, so now we all have these caps that make everyone look silly. Even the kids have to wear them. Megan was falling asleep in the pool, but it seemed to have given her a second wind, because her new name is wiggle worm. She will not sit still. The learning to walk thing is a new hobby and trying to leap, crawl, jump or anything off the bed is the new game. Crawling seems to bore her as she realizes it's pretty useless and will only seem to do it if it's a last resort. She even picked up the telephone on her bed adventure! Tons of laughing and smiling, giggling and cooing little words all day long. Her teeth seem to bother her around 2ish it seems and she gets super fussy, but even then that seems to be it for the day. The top tooth is going to break through any second now.
I went for a massage and Teresa is currently getting one. It took Megan almost 40 minutes after Teresa left to stop jumping around and fall asleep. Hopefully she will sleep all night though.

Tomorrow is our last day in Chongqing, so lots of packing after we hopefully get to the zoo and Saturday will be Megan's first plane ride. She loves the movement of the bus, so for the ear-popping aspect of this hopefully she will enjoy the plane ride. It is only about 2hours to Guangzhou so this will be the test, before we take the really long one home.

There are new pictures up, including the official adoption day, just hanging out and the rice artist. Enjoy them by clicking here!

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Picture Links...Maybe?

Traveling to China

Chongqing 1

On a hope and prayer that these links work

Nuggets and Pictures....

Tonight Megan and I decided to eat some chicken nuggets and she was determined to eat them on her own. It was great, but at the same time she would go and grab the biggest piece from my hand and then inspect it. She would not let me put the food in her mouth, but instead she decided it was much better to take the piece from my hands and do it herself. She seemed to have gotten her second wind from our late dinner and afterward walking around holding my hands, crawling all over my bed and jibbering about something. Ba-ba and da-da are the most recognizable words, but I think she also came out with na-na a few times.

The pool was amazing to get into. The room is so warm with the thermostat set at 25degrees c. There are 2 windows that can open, but only 1 will stay propped open. The cooler doesn't do much to help. Honestly, I think these people are a little nuts. They keep the inside temperature so warm, the fridge temperature is also pretty warm, but they love their spicy food....for every single meal. Each day at breakfast I am amazed to see soups, rices, full salad bar and tons of spicy noodles etc. So different than what we are used to. Some days there are even mini cold cut sandwichs with a toothpick holding them together!

I got to go back to Carrefour today with our tour guide and a small group of people. Since I had been there before it was useful finding things everyone needed, and having Michael the tour guide was great because he would translate for us. The way he took us was a little easier than last nights adventure, but now I know two ways. He also took us to a deparment store before Carrefour, so now I know where yet another random store is. The 7th floor was where all the baby stuff was, but all the other floors looked like a US department store in the city.

Tomorrow we are going to Wal-Mart and to see the Pandas so I should get all those pictures up in the next day or so. And of course tons more of Megan coming out of her shell more and more! Good night from Chongqing...I'm still working on how to link all the pictures to the blog for everyone. I currently have them loaded on picasa but every time I link to them, it becomes a page where you need to log in. I am going to do a little test and hopefully have it all fixed by tomorrow.

Megan Kathleen became legally mine

On Tuesday, 2/24, I counted out over 42,000 in yuan and deposited 35,000 of it in a bank in China while Megan and Arlie stayed in the hotel room. We then traveled back to the orphanage center. Megan was very quiet. I promised her I was not giving her back. It was a long 2 or so hours. I tendered the last 7,080 in yuan. Basically, I took care of her orphanage fees for the last year and paid other processing fees. They took a picture of Megan and me together and typed the final adoption document. They then took us into the ceremonial red room. Megan and I approached the podium. I took an oath to love her forever among other things. I had to struggle to say, "I will," because Megan stuck her long fingernailed fingers (after I filed them) into my mouth. I then had to stick my finger on a red ink pad and place my fingerprint on a couple of documents. Megan had to take her index finger, place on the red ink pad, and place her fingerprint on a document. They then took a family photo with us holding our legal paperwork. Arlie will try to upload a photo of the event. Yesterday was a long day and after our Pizza Hut celebration with two other families, we collapsed into bed early.

Today we did some shopping for baby food, etc. which was a long walk. Megan fell asleep in the hip hammock attached to me. Later I went for a walk with a few others to St. Joseph's Catholic Church which was built in the 1800's. It was a long walk up and down stairs and up hills a good portion of the way. Once there, a priest agreed to give us ashes as it was Ash Wednesday. After I got back, Megan became fussy and was crying. She only seems to cry when uncomfortable. We decided it was teething from the drool. One family gave us homeopathic dissolving balls and another gave us Orajel. Megan was still crying. We decided to keep to our original plan and we all went into the hotel pool (we forgot a camera). We each had to buy bathing caps. Megan looked so cute and completely stopped crying. She liked the pool and was splashing with her hands. We will go in again and remember to take the camera. Tonight for the first time, we decided to stay in and order room service. She loved the chicken mcnuggets. She also kept grabbing the elbow macaroni from Arlie so that she could feed herself. She has expressed dislike for formula and favors milk. She is already saying, "da da." She will put anything in her mouth except pacifiers and teething toys so the trip home is going to be tough. She took my hands and we walked today for the first time. Arlie is walking her now as I type. Megan keeps folding her right leg in when she sits and the right leg turns in a bit when she walks. It is not pronounced but we wonder if she will need some baby therapy. It looks like another tooth is about to come in as fussiness is setting in again. Gotta go. Tomorrow hopefully we get a stroller at Wal-Mart and see the panda zoo.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

My Chinese Grocery Experience

So tonight after a nice American dinner at Pizza Hut, I went with Effie, another mother to Carrefour, which is like a French Wal-Mart in China. How confusing. Effie by the way is Chinese so you would expect this could help us to get our mission accomplished. Megan needed some food mainly and Effie needed a bunch of things for her daughter. Well this was no small task. The aisles were set up on random diagonals, and the walls instead of being flat and straight across they were jagged and on an angle.

As we are walking throughout the store, Effie stops and asks the people where the items are that we need and some of them had no clue and others where semi-helpful. The biggest issue we found was that you have to pay for certain items in that section, but not everything, so at one point some girl comes running after me and taps my back which scared me half to death. Then in another aisle after having walked around for a while, this other girl starts to pull Effie's shopping cart back to the section to pay for just certain items. Meanwhile, you still have to go through the regular checkout at the end for the rest of the items. So confusing.

And then getting out of this place was an adventure in itself. We were following the exit signs but that only brought us to something that I can only imagine read emergency exit only since it was taped across the 2 doors and had the circle with the line through it. Then she asked some security guy and he told us through the KFC. Well it turns out what he meant was go to the KFC and turn right. Then keep on walking to the escalator which was broken of course. After making it to the street, we still had to regain our bearings and find our way back to the hotel. It's only like a 5-10 min walk at most, but there are no traffic signals, and crosswalks are there for looks. It's survival of the fittest when crossing a street here. Traffic stops for no one. And there was a cop just yards away. As many people drive in this area, just as many if not more take bus 11, which according to our tour guide is their feet. Probably some Chinese inside joke, but I can go with it. Another random fact we learned today: Chongqing is approximately the size of Austria.

Of course this was my second grocery store attempt. There is a department store across the street from the hotel and it has clothes, makeup (L'Oreal and Olay have counters like Clinque does in the states...so weird) perfume, fast food, and a grocery store. That time I was dragging people to aisles and pointing at pictures and making gestures. It worked, but I'm sure they all thought I was nuts.

On another note, today was the official adoption and Megan has legally become a DeMeo family member. We have some video for when we get home and hopefully tomorrow I can get all the pictures up and organized so there will be an album of what we have taken so far.

Monday, February 23, 2009

The 4 years was worth the wait for "gotcha" day.

In the international adoption arena, adoptive parents refer to "gotcha day." There was no organization or ceremony for our gotcha day today. Babies apparently got off the bus and suddenly 2 sets of parents were handed children outside the room we were in. Then other babies were brought in and other parents ahead of me indicated that they thought it was Megan (we had previously seen pictures of all the babies). I started to move closer and they called my name. The baby's caretaker was in her early 20's. She seemed hesitant to hand her over until she saw my smiling face and then gave her to me when I reached for her. Megan is more petite than the pictures seemed. Size 18 months is large on her. She is used to fending for herself. She is teething and keeps sticking her index finger into her mouth. She did not want the pacifier, teethers, dolly, or Cookie Monster. She was only interested in getting any paper and sticking it into her mouth. I changed 4 diapers. She peed and pooped. She seemed to feel better once we took off the layers of clothes which were too hot for the weather. She did not like the sponge bath or being naked but liked her new clothes. I laid down in the bed next to the portable crib and she kept staring at me through the netting, even pulling herself up to make sure she could see me. She is asleep now and soon I will go to bed myself. Tomorrow, 2/24, is the day she is deemed legally mine and we sign paperwork with the Chinese officials and pay the remaining fees. I have had to hold back some tears tonight because I miss Jim and can't believe he will not be there to see her when we get home. The day before our departure I found the SD cards for the camera which I had forgotten he had purchased for me. He is sorely missed on this trip.

Megan Kathleen is here...

Well here she is finally. This is her at dinner in the hotel, when she finally broke the stone cold face and started smiling, laughing and playing with a few toys.

This afternoon (Monday) we went to an adoption (and marriage) centre in Chongqing about 20 mins away from the hotel to get her. We thought the process was going to be a bit different than it was. When her caretaker walked into the room, we all decided that it had to be Megan just by looking at her.


Unlike most of the other kids, she did not cry that much and when she did is much softer than the other kids and took her longer to do so. The bottle that we made did not go over so well and neither did the bottle they gave us made with the formula and cereal she is used to. We tried some applesauce and got a few bites of that down before that too hit the rejection pile. Once back at the hotel another bottle was tried before she pushed that away after some if it. She has a strong grip and will push away what she doesn't want, but when she wants it she will try to grab it.

Not so sure about the crawling yet, but she is not walking. She seems to just be getting ready to fully try the standing thing. She will push up and while your holding her hands stand, but she is wobbly.
More pictures later

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Teresa in China

While Arlie was typing, I was taking a nap. I am still jetlagged. By the time we arrived at the first hotel last night in Guangzhou, I had been up 26 hours. We got up to our first hotel room on the 19th floor to find out our key cards had not been properly activated. When we went back up, one card did not work and the room had only a king-size bed. When we went back down the next time, I let the desk know that I had been up 26 hours and needed an appropriate room right away (said in stronger way because I was punch drunk on fatigue at that point). Arlie believes they are now afraid of me. I am fine with that. Once we got to a suitable room on 10th floor, I peeled off clothes and fell asleep immediately without unpacking a thing.

When we got up at about 4 am, we had to substantially downsize the luggage to take to Chongquing. There is one very heavy piece of luggage sitting for us in Guangzhou while I have maybe 3 tops for the full week in Chongquing. The temperature in Chongquing is warmer than we were led to believe and Arlie and I have been too hot especially since we have the wrong clothes. Also difficult to breath because everyone here smokes. I have a sore throat but hope it is gone by tomorrow. This is the end of the whining. By 3:30 pm or so tomorrow (2:30 AM on Monday for NY), we will see Megan for the first time and then we'll remember why we are putting up with any discomfort. She has the most clothes (although we did open up her vacuum packed clothes and reduce her clothing) and will probably like the heat.

Spicy times and Aprilie?

Well we have made it to China safely. Still adjusting to the time difference, which by the way is 13 hours thanks to America's daylight savings. When we get home it will be the first day of daylight savings, so only 12 hours to figure out?!

We left for JFK around 5am and got there by 5:40am. Our wonderful packing session the night before with Grace really helped weed out clothing and we managed to get our suitcases down to around the weight limit (2 bags were 2 pounds over so she waived the fees). The plane left the gate on time but, we got held up in a cue of 17 planes ahead so we finally took off almost an hour later. The flight was very smooth and probably one of the smoothest landings. Was Sully our pilot? There was a picture on the plane of a guy who resembled him. Hmmmm, I wonder.

During the plane ride we had a wide variety of movies, tv shows and games to keep us entertained. Neither of us really got any sleep on the plane. I took a catnap in the middle of a movie, but that was all. My tv set needed to be reset 3 times of course because I have that sort of luck. The really cool thing about the tv screen was that it had this option of seeing our flight pattern and where we currently were and it was constantly updating the local time in our origin, destination and wherever in the world we currently were. It also said the temperature and altitude. FYI: over the arctic circle, it is -56degrees F.

When we arrived in Hong Kong, we had to switch planes to Guangzhou where we would be staying for the night. We will also be there from Saturday the 28th till we leave for the US. The plane ride was only 45 minutes long, but by the time we got on that plane we had already been up for 24 hours straight. I stopped counting how many hours total before we hit the sheets but it was more than enough. At the Gunagzhou airport the bell hops from our hotel were waiting for us to take our bags and get us to the hotel. In Guangzhou we are staying the Westin hotel, which is very nice and modern, maybe too modern though. The shower definitely needed instruction on how to work and it was like a sauna in the hotel room. Turns out people in China have a very different idea of cold than we do. They like their rooms around 25degrees C but they also don’t have winters like we do.

We woke up early to get packing for Chongqing on Sunday because only 1 bag per person for this flight and it could only weigh 44lbs. Thankfully we had a scale and I jumped on and off with the bags to ensure we were under the limit. Once we arrived at Chongqing we were transported by a bus once again to the InterContinental hotel, which is home until Saturday morning. This is when we found out that the Chinese really like things warm and requested that the AC be turned up. Turns out that its central AC for all the hotel guests and it’s a bit of a struggle to keep the entire hotel happy with the temperature. They said that they would get us a cooler and I guess because I was the one who started explaining this to the women at the desk, my name was placed on the work order for our “cooler”. My new Chinese name is Aprilie. And we still don’t quite get how this “cooler” works as all the buttons are in Chinese. We also have the windows open so it seems to be cooling down a little.

We have found the food to be generally more spicy and the tour guide for Chongqing said everything is spicy. There is a KFC and a PizzaHut across the street from the hotel and we chose the KFC for tonights dinner. Even that was more spicy than at home and we even asked the only guy that spoke English in the place which is the least spicy. The language barrier hasn’t been too bad, but of course we have only been here for 2 days, although in my mind everything has been just 1 very long day so the fact that it’s approaching 8pm and tomorrow we meet Megan is crazy.

Chongqing is where the adoption centre is that we will be meeting her at and taking her. Tomorrow around 3pm we meet her and take her back to the hotel with us for the night. Tuesday is when the adoption actually takes place, which barring any huge obstacles, I will be taking a video of it. I will have no way to post that, but there will definitely be a new picture of her tomorrow.

As I have been doing all of the blogging up until now, this has all been Arlie-vision, but Teresa will be getting on here now, so she will be writing posts too. As it's approaching 8pm here I think it's time to sit in bed and watch Chinese tv? We shall give it a try. And figure out how much formula to bring tomorrow. Good night or good morning!

Thursday, February 19, 2009

15 bags and breakfast?

Hi everyone. About 14 hours till take off and Teresa just arrived in Staten Island. We must get to repacking and all that fun stuff, but I am just stopping by for a few minutes to update everyone.

I arrived at Grandma's this morning after finally finding an outlet adapter suitable for my computer. I will try to update as we get internet once in China, but no guarantees, so I will keeping a log on my computer to put up when we get the chances. I just did our online check in with our passports and tickets, so hopefully tomorrow morning will be smooth sailing at JFK. Haha, there's a funny one. We are leaving SI around 5am (FYI: neither of us are really morning people..)so there shouldn't be too much traffic. Thankfully Grandpa is usually up super early and will be quietly kicking us out of bed with the smell of eggs?! I think I just heard Teresa put in an egg request. Yay!

I managed to pack my suitcase without too many issues. I even still have some room left over for Megans stuff and souvenirs. Teresa on the other hand has about 15 bags so I have to go help her with that. My carry-on is probably heavier than my suitcase.
I will admit I don't have a fear of flying, but I have a fear of my luggage not making it to my destination with me, so it took almost a week to fully have my carry on ready, while I only packed my clothes last night.

I am going to head upstairs and see what progress is being made on the 15 bags. The next time I post I will be in China, and we hopefully will have some pictures of Megan to share with you!! See you all soon and thanks for the emails and tips. Every little bit has been greatly appreciated!

Saturday, February 14, 2009

I never said I was a history teacher but here is my shot....

These are the 2 most recent pictures that have been received of her. She is almost 20lbs already and just turned a year a few days ago (2/10/09). We were hoping to have been in China for her first birthday but just a few more days before we leave. (Notice the red shoes: red in Chinese means good luck)
The provinces we are going to are Chungking (Chun-ching) and Guangzhou (Guan-gho). The pronunciation and and spelling of the places don't translate as easily so based on the spelling we had and the pronunciation these are the names that I was able to find in my research that matches what we knew about locations et al.

There were a few spelling for Chungking but this one seems to be the most common. It is a very industrialized area and we are expecting alot of smog as it's nickname is "Furnace of Yangtze" because of all the soot. It is considered to be one of the most polluted cities in China. The tempertaure is not going to be as warm as Guangzhou but still not to bad with the average said to be about 47degrees Farenheit in February (one of the 2 coolest months).

The second place we are going to is Guangzhou in Guangdong. Guangdong is the province but Guangzhou is the largest city within the province.* This is supposed to be a less polluated area and one of the richer areas of the country. The weather is said to be more humid and has very short, dry and mild winters, while the summer seem to last forever with the average temperature of 91degrees farenheit in July and an average low of 64 in January. If these temps hold true we should be enjoying some nicer weather than we currently are. Of course the drastic temperature change is going to guareentee us to get sick.


*My disclaimer: It's very confusing how the country, provinces and cities all work together having changed dynasty hands many times over the history so doing this research I was very unsure if I even had the correct places but since these are the only places I can come up with, we are going with this information for the time being. I promise if I have made any mistakes, I will correct them as soon as I can.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Welcome!!

Hi all and welcome to my blog. This will currently be serving as a link to family and friends in the United States while Teresa and I are in China bringing Megan home.

We leave next Friday morning (2/20/09) from JFK nice and early for our 16 hour ride to Hong Kong. I have been looking up the names of the provinces that we are going to be in and we should be experiencing some warmer weather so hopefully that hold up. We will be there for 2 weeks before we come home on March 7, 2009. I will be taking millions of pictures and trying to keep this updated with pictures and details of our trip.

Have to get going for now, but tomorrow I am going to up load the pictures that we have been sent so far.