Maya :)

Hi Everyone! Well, we have officially had Maya for 1 day. I'm happy to report that her lungs work great. She cried for the first 45 minutes when they put her in my arms. She's super feisty. Once we got her to our room, pulled out some toys and fed her 1000 snacks, she warmed up to us. If you saw her now, you would never believe what a difference 24 hours makes. She's an absolute "daddy's girl"! Of course John is soaking it all in. She actually prefers him to carry her around rather than me. I love watching her smile and she has the most contagious laugh. Today we went to the civil affairs office here in Nanchang. We had our official family photo taken then finally got to unload a lot of the cash we carried over here. Phew! Afterward we went to Walmart and did some shopping. What a trip. I still feel like I'm on another planet at times. After shopping, we got some carry out dumplings and noodle soup for lunch. It was pouring rain all day so it felt good to come back to the hotel, dry off and have some lunch. It was the first meal we could get Maya to eat. And let me tell you, this little half pint can pack in the food. She ate more than me. I changed her clothes after lunch because she absolutely refuses to wear a bib so she was covered in soup. She sleeps like a champ. I put her down wide awake and she falls asleep within a few minutes. I'm slowly starting to figure her out her cues. When she rubs her face and keeps staring at me, she's tired. The only quirky thing we've noticed about her is that she hates sitting in highchairs, strollers and shopping carts. John had to carry her around Walmart, which felt like 100 degrees in there, so the two of them were sweating it out. Not sure how I'm going to handle taking her to my weekly Kroger and Target shopping trips. We'll need to work on this. I will try to download some new photos tonight so all of you can see her silly little self. She's quite a ham. Heard we got hit with a lot of snow back home. If I know Madeline and Will, they're praying for a snow day! Grandma is probably bracing herself for a crazy day if that's the case!

This is Madeline- they have Maya!! They haven't sent me any posts yet but here are some pictures. I skyped my parents and Maya and Maya is very smiley and she just giggles at everything. My mom says she's very tiny and she loves her puffs :)

-Madeline

Exploring Nanchang

John & I decided to explore the area around our hotel a little bit.  Wow!  What a culture shock!  You see people dressed up then you look down an alley and see others doing their laundry in pots.  The people are very nice and very intrigued with John and me.  My blonde hair attracts more attention than you can imagine.   I'm surely not the first blonde person to visit China, but because my hair is so blonde, it really throws them for a loop.  Teenage boys keep yelling out to me...I don't even want to know what they're saying.  Little kids are the funniest.  Their eyes bug out when they see me and their mouths are almost on the ground.  Most of the time they grab their mom or dad's hand and point to me.  We went to lunch and they sat us in front of a window.  All of the sudden, you see tons of people coming to the window to look at my hair and take photos.  John thinks it's funny being with "Jennifer Aniston" in China.  A lot of little girls love to run up to John and I and say, "HELLO!" in their best English.  We always laugh then they laugh and follow us for a bit.  The sights are magnificent.  We went to a tower/temple area and were amazed by everything.  I wish we could read Chinese because we had no idea what we were looking at.  At one point we went inside a Buddhist Temple and the men in there had us write our names on some red square plague.  We then made a donation and a man gave us some wood beads.  We learned quickly that it's easiest to communicate by playing charades.  We also went into a grocery store.  It was hilarious.  We had no idea half the time what we were buying.  Prices are good though.  We walked out of a grocery store with 3 full bags and spent about $13!  We'll be getting Maya soon.  We're both excited and nervous.  We have no idea how she is going to react.  I'm thinking if she's like the rest of the kids who saw me in the streets, she's going to be shocked!  

Nanchang Pictures!

Nanchang!

Well...John & I made it to Nanchang 2 days and 4 plane rides later! What a journey! We didn't run into too many problems. Phew! Our plane from Beijing to Nanchang was 3 hours late coming in. Our poor guide (Jenny) and driver sat and waited the entire time because it wasn't posted that our flight was delayed. When we checked our luggage in they told us it was only 20 minutes behind schedule. Part of the problem was that we sat on the runway for 1.5 hours! Here's the funny part...John fell asleep while we were waiting on the runway. He woke up about 30 minutes into our wait and thought our flight had taken off and we were already in Nanchang! Going through security in Beijing was a bit stressful. They ended up having John remove the money belts and a security guard proceeded to walk away with the money. Thankfully he saw the look of panic on my face and smiled at me & said, "It's OK Miss" (using the few words of English he knew) then he & another security guard showed me they were running it through the conveyer belt! I think my heart stopped beating for a few seconds!

Nanchang is much bigger and busier than I imagined. The traffic makes Rome & London look tame!

Our guide, Jenny, is a doll! She informed us that we will be getting Maya on Sunday at 4 PM (which is 3 AM EST), I don't know if I'll be able to contain my excitement for another 2 days!
We were so exhausted after traveling here, so our guide Jenny had a pizza from "Papa John's" delivered to our room! John and I were cracking up when Jenny told us they have "Papa's John's Pizza" here!

Looking forward to posting some photos of Maya with us! Stay tuned!

 

Hi from Madeline

Hi Everyone, this is Madeline saying that my parents left for the airport at 4:15 and they leave for Chicago in 20 minutes. From Chicago they go to Seoul then from Seoul to Beijing and from Beijing to Nanchang. They are supposed to get Maya on Monday. William and I already miss them.

Love, Madeline

We Have our Travel Dates!

Well hallelujah!  We finally received our appointment with the consulate in China and now have our travel dates!  We are leaving for China on Thursday, December 9th out of Chicago (at 1 a.m. - yikes)!  After a couple stops in South Korea & Beijing, we will arrive in Nanchang, which is in Maya's province, at 2:05 p.m. on December 10th!  We will be bringing Maya home on Xmas Eve (which is Madeline's Birthday - Happy 14th Birthday Madeline)!  Thank you to everyone for your kind thoughts, prayers and well wishes!