Trip to China
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Monday, November 19, 2007 Greetings from China. I hope everyone is doing well. Did the Colts win? Who won the NASCAR Championship? Although we have internet access, the only time I (we) have on it is to send these brief updates…because if they are sleeping we are sleeping… The girls keep us VERY busy and keep us tired. Everyone slept well last night. LuLa woke up around 2:00 am and was jabbering and looking around. We just let her go back to sleep. LuMei is a lazy bum like her parents. She slept in late and we had to drag her out of bed. At one point she rolled over, looked at us (probably thinking those crazy Americans are still here) and rolled back over and slept. It has not been all roses. They play and we have fun. But they have had “meltdowns” and cry uncontrollably. Talk about stress. Now we know why the hotel put us all the way down at the end of the hall across from the entrance to a stairway. They knew we would be noisy. But the location has been beneficial. We utilized the hallway and played ball, the girls pushed their strollers (provided by the hotel, very nice) and etc. Today we had another early start and left at 8:00 am for the Civil Affairs Building . The same building (and room) where we met the girls. We did not sit in the same place, hoping to not remind the girls of the events of the previous day. We were also stressed because the orphanage Director and staff were going to be there again. We thought if the girls saw them again, the tears would start flowing. It went ok. At one point (for a family photo with each girl) LuLa had to go to someone else while we were photographed with LuMei. She wouldn’t go to anyone except an orphanage official. Luckily, she came right back to us without hesitation! After that, we went to another building, which meant more riding and being terrified by the unbelievable horrible traffic (not just bumper to bumper, crazy people driving inches away from each other, cutting each other off, there seem to be no rules, no exaggeration). Honest to goodness, people drive on the wrong side of the road coming right for you. IT IS NUTS!!!!!! Not just cars, pedestrians walk in front of moving vehicles, bikes and scooters do the same. Cars do not stop for pedestrians (or people with strollers…us), it is just out of control. Enough on the traffic….the next stop was a notary. I thought I was special being a notary, but theirs has a big room with leather couches and gets a premium for his services!! Not even close to the $2.00 Notaries charge in the US ! The final stop was the police station for passport photos of the girls. LuLa fell asleep and held up the line because she didn’t want to wake up. When she did, she had no interest in looking at the camera. Then back to the hotel. We made a trip to a market today to get formula and etc. It was a scary trip. Again, we had to walk in the street (because people park on the sidewalks) with the crazy people, on the sidewalks, cars were driving on them (no joke). Scary! People really stare at us. There are NO Americans in this area. There are some in the hotel, but they too are adoptive families. We are definitely the minority, and even more because we have two girls. A man was waving $$ and making gestures (symbolizing big) at us in the market. Mary, our guide, said he was just saying did you use Chinese money to buy all the supplies for the girls since we had twins…but whatever she said to him (in Chinese) shut him up. We cannot wait to leave this province!!!!! It is not a place for site seeing or taking the girls outside for walks. We think poverty is bad in the US …you haven’t seen anything. Something we take for granted is water. You cannot drink the stuff or even brush your teeth with it here. Drink some out of the tap for me and enjoy brushing your teeth.

Already Artists Aren't they cute!!! Final Official Stop Today Police Station for Passport Photo LuLa Chillin' LuMei... they both love getting their photos taken Peanut Butter and Cracker Time!!!

Ok, you want to hear about the girls. They are incredibly smart. LuMei gives “thumbs up”, likes eating with a fork and drinking bottled water. LuLa is the queen of Cheerios, loves to share and jabbers all the time. I witnessed the craziest twin moment. LuLa bumped her head on a window looking outside. LuMei then proceeded to rub her own head as if she was the one to bump the glass. Funny stuff. Ok, it is almost 8:00 PM. Both girls are sleeping and we are going to try and do the same. We are exhausted. Please keep the prayers coming. We know they are working because the transition could be much worse. Thing are going well, but we definitely need prayers to get through the random meltdowns. Ok, everyone is asleep...my sign to go to bed. While we wait for official documents over the next few days, we have a few trips planned. Tomorrow’s big trip is to Wal-Mart, we have been told it is unique…stay tuned!!!

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