Thursday, November 4, 2010
LOVE IN ANY LANGUAGE!

We are experiencing the phrase in the movie "The Blind Side"... "You are changing that boy's life." Sandra Bullock says "No...he's changing mine." Our lives are forever changed thanks to a smiling, funny, fast-moving, speaking Chinese in 2 English tones, loving little girl named Annalyn.

Today, we started with a nice breakfast at the hotel. Annalyn wanted french fries for breakfast. She and Anthony will get along just fine with the french fries! LOL!

Then, we headed to a park by the Yangzi River. It was a HUGE park. Annalyn said that she had been there before with a relative of her foster mom...probably an aunt that she called mama also. The girls were so excited! They had a great time playing together on the big playground. Annalyn loves the slide most of all I think. After the playground we went to the "seaside" of the river. It has a small sandy beach. Many people were flying kites, so we decided to buy one (princess of course) and try to fly it ourselves. It was fun, but we were only able to keep it up for just a few minutes. We purchased bubbles for the girls and they were having lots of fun on the "seaside" with the bubbles. We left there and went to by headphones for Annalyn's new toy that we bought yesterday. It is so loud, we thought it might be comforting to her on the plane tomorrow and the one to America. Then, we went back to the hotel for lunch and hanging out in the room. I was actually able to take a 2 hour nap, which helped tremendously. I think all of our travels are finally catching up with me. I was more tired today than I have been in weeks.

We were really hoping to take a picture of her "finding spot" but our guide, Kathy, said that it was about 2.5 hours from our hotel. So we decided that it would be too much to try to travel there. We also received our notarized official adoption papers today! It felt good to get that out of the way. She is no longer an orphan!!! She has a forever family!! She will always have someone to love her and take of her!! She has a forever Mama, Daddy, Sister and Brother!

Today, we also walked down the street to the grocery store again. We are all going through the chips like crazy. LOL! Anyway, I love walking down the streets of Wuhan with all the stares. I am definitely a proud mama! They just stare, we smile and say hello or Ni hao and they smile back. Gwendolyn of course was the star again today as many people would stop us to touch her face as gesture to us how beautiful they think she is...also, another proud mama moment! LOL. At the time we were walking, the streets were very crowded. I think that school must have just let out. There were lots of kids with backpacks. It was so crowded that we really stood out from the locals. They are not use to seeing many white people...especially with blue eyes and a chinese daughter. LOL. I love it!

Today and yesterday we have been in situations that have shown us her functionality. It seems that the only joints affected are her shoulders, elbows, knees, and feet. I would definitely say that she is mild. She has great function in her fingers. And they are long! Maybe a future piano player?? I guess we will see. She can walk and run very well, but she cannot pick her feet up off the ground very high which causes her to trip a lot. She is very independent but I am thrilled that she is letting all of us help her when she needs it. She has signed the word help several times in the last 2 days. She is picking up signs very well and tries to do them.

Please help us pray for communication. We so want to understand everything that she is telling us. And bless her heart, I can tell now that she is using Chinese words with 2 English tones...thinking that it would help us to understand her better. LOL! God love her. We are basically using signs, gestures, body language and google translate on the computer (thank God for google translate) to communicate with her. She can understand what we are saying more than we can understand her. But she knows that if she can show us, that we will understand. After we leave the hotel tomorrow, we will not have the computer until we set up in the hotel in Guangzhou. I will have the electronic translator with me, but sometimes it is not as helpful as google translate. Tonight, Kathy told her that everyone in America speaks English. She had a look of surprise on her face. Kathy asked her what she will do to talk to them, she said no problem, I will just use gestures. Kathy asked her if she would be scared. And she said "Why would I be scared?" I had Kathy to translate to tell her that even if she gets scared, that we will be there for her. We will not let anyone hurt her and that she can always count on us. She said ok, and gave me a big hug.

So tomorrow, we will be packing ALL of our stuff again. It will take us most of the morning. We will meet Kathy at 2:30pm in the hotel. She will take us to get Annalyn's passport from Civil Affairs and then we will go straight to the airport to get ready to fly to Guangzhou. Our flight takes off at 6:40pm and lands about 8:00pm. We should be at the White Swan Hotel about 9:15pm. It will be a late night and an early morning as we start all of the medicals in Guangzhou in order to get her visa approval.

I have really enjoyed reading all of the messages that you have all sent to us! They have really helped! It makes you seem not so far away! Keep 'em comin'! I can still read email, our website guestbook messages, and all of the FB messages (I just can't tell what picture you are commenting on). All of that is sent to my email address. Thank you so much for traveling this journey with us! We can't wait for you to meet her! She is so excited about going to America!

My next post will probably be late tomorrow as we get to Guangzhou very late. Love to all! Enjoy the pictures!