We made it home

We made it home. The trip was interesting to say the least. The trip was almost 22 hours with about 19 of that being in the air. Let me just say that there are very few people I would wish that experience on. Sorry, there are no pics with this post but we have to find the disc to install the drivers to download the pics for this site on this computer. We will get that done and try to post some recent pics in the next day or two. Addie and I are still on China time and that means our days and nights are mixed up so we are trying to adjust to that. It is good to be home.

Kevin

Good bye China

We are saying goodbye to China. None too soon. This will be my last post from China. It is noon in China and as you can see Addie has gone down for her afternoon nap. We have a wake up call for 4:30 in the a.m. and our bags have to be ready to go at 5:00 so I will have to pack tonight after Addie goes to bed. We leave the hotel at 5:45 a.m. and our flight leaves Guangzhou at 8:30. From there we go to Tokyo, from Tokyo to Detroit and Detroit to Huntsville. Our trip will be somewhere around 22 hours so please pray for us during this time, we will really need it. I want to say thanks to everyone who has posted comments, e-mailed or prayed for us during this trip you have really lifted my spirits many times. There is no way I can thanks to everyone for everything ya'll have done for me and my family but I do want to say thanks to Tom and Laura Morgan. My journey has been much easier with your help. The computer has been a life saver. Thanks to my wonderful wife Leann, knowing Ellyse is taken care of and doing well is a comfort to me. Thanks to everyone. A note for anyone meeting us at the airport: We really appreciate you wanting to meet Addie but there are a lot of bonding issues to deal with when a child has been in an orphanage so no one else will be able to hold her or touch her except me, LeAnn and Ellyse. We don't want to offend anyone but we have to do what is best for Addie. If you are coming a long way to go to the airport you may just want to call us when we get back and come by the house to see her. Thanks again to everyone for everything. Your thoughts have meant more to me than you will ever know.

So long from China,

Kevin and Addie

hey

hello everyone,
we went on the river cruise tonight. it was nice. all along the river there are lots of buildings lit up in different colors. the colors change and move. the bridges are lit up too. we have our consolate appointment tomorrow. we get babies visa and then we are free to go! none too soon i can tell you. i am too old for this. i think i mentioned earlier about the lady with the broken leg. i got her full story today. during her first week here when they were in her child's province they were touring a rice paddie. she fell in a hole or something and broke the bone in her upper leg. she dropped the baby and the baby went in to the water face down. she reached out and twisted to get the baby and broke her leg a second time. they had to make a splint for her leg and carry her out. she had to go immediatley and have surgery. to make matters worse she is here by herself. they have hired a student to push her around in her wheelchair. i do not know what they will do about her going home. she definately needs all our prayers. looking at the pics. one is the girls in our group in traditional chinese outfits on the red couch. left to right is addie, annali and alaina. in the other you can see this child has some monkey toes. well see yall soon.

kevin

46 hours to departure

hey everyone,
we did not go to the toy market today. the other families were still a little sick or recovering from being sick. i decided to stay in the room and let addie get a good afternoon nap, it has been a few days since she had one and i can tell a difference. i have thanked the Lord many times for allowing me and addie to remain healthy so far during this journey. i will post some pice tonight.

Kevin

Things I miss

I miss water you drink from the tap, a soft bed, streets that don't smell like the french quarter and most of all the rest of my family. O.K. enough whining. I have eaten at Lucy's the last three nights. It is a place that serves some western food. Tonight I had the chicken fried rice, it was good but my stomach feels a little funny now. My stomach would probably feel real funny if I had eaten at the other place pictured. You may have to look close but you can make out some type of bird hanging in the window. I really feel ripped off, talk about false advertising. I went in to this one store and I did not feel any over 1.75 times as happy. I think it is a plain case of false advertising. Tomorrow we are going to the toy store. It is apparently a whole mall of nothing but toys. If no one else in my group goes I probably will not go. The way things have been going I may be the only one left healthy. We are also going on a river cruise tomorrow night. Addie and I are both doing well right now. She now has 11 teeth and I think I can feel 2 or 3 more coming in. At this rate she will have a full set before her first birthday. Did I mention she can snore loud enough to wake the neighbors. Go Saints and Roll Tide. Ya'll start praying right now about my trip home Thursday. Thanks.

Kevin

back from shopping

Hey, Those of our group that were not throwing up or worse or both went shopping today. This pictue is us eating at Pizza Hut. Not as good as the pizza hut at home. The other pics are of the inside of the mall and looking down a street with shops. When you are in a shopping area all the shops of one type are grouped together. One whole floor of the mall might be jewelry while another floor would be children's clothes. When we were in Wuhan two whole blocks were nothing but cell phone stores. Addie fell asleep while we were shopping so that ruined her nap for the afternoon. She is in the floor playing right now. She can spot a piece of fuzz on the floor ten feet away and makes a bee line straight for it. Tomorrow our guide takes our paperwork to the consulate and hopefully I will get Addie's visa Wednesday. That is the last thing I need and then I am free to leave. I just hope I do not join the others in my group who can not stay out of the bathroom. 77 hours and 15 minutes and I should be landing in Huntsville. See a'll soon.

Kevin

Sunday Night

Hello, Here are some pics. The first one is in front of the Swan Room. This is a large room, in the hotel, that Mattell Toy Co. furnishes with toys for adoptive families to use. You can also see Addie out for a night on the town in Guangzhou. Yes she is napping on the floor, yes it is probably nasty but I was not going to take a chance on waking her up after she finally decided to take a nap. She tends to fight sleep and I did not want to give her the chance to go another round, I was afraid she might win. Fortunately she likes to ride in the stroller. She will sit in it and not fuss at all as long as I am pushing her around. There is a lady here who has broke her leg since getting to China and getting her daughter. She is in a wheel chair and has a Chinese lady pushing her around. I feel sorry for her on the plane ride home. When I dread the flight home I know that it could be worse. Tomorrow our guide is taking us to some shopping area away from the hotel. I think it will be a cheaper area to shop. Laura, if you want me to get Sarah Ann some of the snacks you can e-mail me a picture so i will know what to look for. That is how I got more formula. Since I can not read the package I took a picture of what she was using with the digital camera and showed it to the lady at the store. This is a very touristy area. When I was shopping all the ladies in the stores would ask where Addie was from and by some strange coincidence every one of them was from the same province and same town. Strange how that happens. Well, I am off to bed.

Kevin

5 more days

Hello, We are back from the zoo. It is a nice place. You can see me and Addie at the fish exhibition. These gold fish are called Panda fish. She fell asleep at the zoo for a little while and I am afraid that ruined her afternoon nap. I am going to try to get her to go to sleep. Roll Tide. Good to have a Tiffin again.

Kevin

Bath day

It was bath day in Guangzhou. She takes a bath really well. In Wuhan I had sat her in the sink. Here the shower has a hand held nozel so she stood in the tub and held on to the side while I used the nozle to wash her. This worked much better than sitting in the sink. As you can see by this pic she is able to sit us by herself. Her crawling is getting better every day. From what I can remember about Ellyse at 10 months I do not think Addie is too delayed. She now has 10 teeth and at least 3 more coming through. She has them and is not afraid to use them. One song they will never sing about her is "Baby's got back" (takes after her daddy I guess). You older folks may have to find someone younger to explain that one to you. After her nap today we played in the room for a few hours and then went for a walk around Guangzhou. After supper we went to a grocery store and picked up some stuff. We got a 28 pack of pampers, a coke, 6 batteries, formula and wet wipes for about $15.00. It was a little rainy today, hopefully it will be sunny tomorrow at least while we are at the zoo. Hope everyone back home is doing well. I guess I should explain about the red couch picture. When you adopt from China you spend the first week of your trip in the province your child is from. The second week you come to Guangzhou. Everyone who adopts stays at the White Swan. They cater to adopting parents. So it has become a tradition to place your child on the red couch at the White Swan and take their picture.

Kevin

Found a few more orphanage pics

I found a few more orphanage pics on the other card. There is a little better pic of AnnaLi. That is here nanny holding her. You could tell which nannies cared for which babies because they followed us around the whole time and kept wanting to hold one particular child. You can see the whole family of each child in the group picture. The family on the far right is the Weeklys. They have a daughter age 4 who is a little camera shy. She was also adopted from China. Hope to post more tonight. I found the pics do better if you upload them first and then add the text. Maybe I can post larger groups of pics now since I know that is what you all really want.

Kevin

Orphanage pics

These are a few pictures from the Orphanage, I did not take many I did more video there. The little girl with the bow is AnnaLi Weekly from Huntsville and the girl without the bow is Alaina Pryor from Birmingham. Both of these little girls families have been great to help me at and I have really enjoyed this trip more because of them. Like I said I did not take many pics because I was using the video camera and switching back and forth was a pain because I was holding Addie at the same time. Amazing what all you can do with one hand when you have to.

See ya,

Kevin

It is Saturday, I think

Hey,
It has been a busy morning. We went for our physical, that went o.k. Addie weighs 17 and 1/2 pounds. She did well for the most part but when you are in a small area with about 125-150 babies it can get hectic, she was ready to go at the end, it was lunch time and she wanted a nap. When we got back I had to feed her lunch and then hurry down to complete some paperwork. She fell asleep while we did that so it made it easier. She slept really well last night. She went to sleep about 9 and did not get up until 5:30. I gave her a bigger bottle at bed time and that eliminated the middle of the night feeding but led to her waking a little earlier. When we got back from the medical and I was rushing to feed her and giver her a bottle to go do the paperwork the bottle liner busted and went everywhere and most of you know what dried formula smells like, well Chinese formula does not smell any better just sweeter. I stink. When we got in last night and were registering a couple of busses pulled up, there were at least 50 babies in that group. Apparently they were arriving all day because there are babies everywhere. In the room of adopting parents they leave a Barbie holding a tiny Chinese baby for you take home. It is cute. No more appointment today and tomorrow a.m. we are going to the zoo. In the pics you can see it was getting pretty rough around here, I had to resort to shackles. The other pic is of coure the long waited for RED COUCH PICTURE!!!!!

See yall soon.

Kevin

At the White Swan

I made it back to Guangzhou and I am in my room at the White Swan. We got to the hotel about 9 p.m. and I have just finished getting Addie down and unpacking. Tomorrow we go get her Visa pic made and then get her physical. I am going to give her some tylenol before we go for the physical just in case she has a little fever. The pland ride was somthing. She was not bad, just acitve. Holding a 10 month old in a tiny plane seat is like giving a cat a bath. I think she made have need for some Benadryl before we head back to the states. Probably more than one dose for a trip of around 22 hours. At least it is quicker going home than coming. It took us 28 hours to get from huntsville to here. We got our adoption certificate today. I was ready to leave Wuhan. The polution was really making my sinuses act up. It does not seem to be as poluted here. I hope not anyways. I will try to post a couple of pics. I am tired and going to bed. Next Thurs when I head home ya'll may want to think about having one of those continuous prayer vigels. If the 1 hour 20 min. flight today is any indication of the trip home I will be ready for a straight jacket when I get there.

Kevin

Orphanage

I guess since I traveled half way around the world to go to an orphanage I could at least try to tell you a little about it. I was glad I went. For anyone adopting I would recommend going to see your child's orphanage if you get the chace. You could tell the children were cared for and that their nanny's loved them. The staff seemed to be working the best they could with what they have. I doubt orphanages are at the top of the list during budget time. The facility was clean but was well used. As I said the food was very good. At the orphanage Addie was in, the children under age 3 go home with the staff at night and are only at the orphanage during the day. Every facility is different, the director has a lot of discretion on how he runs his facility. The director at Addies seemed to really care. I have some video and a few pictures from the places they would let us use our cameras. I have had a few comments from people doing the paperchase, good luck, I know it seems like it will never happen but it does. Before long you will be sitting in some hotel room in China. I will be happy to answer your travel questions when you get ready to go. I know it helped me to be able to ask someone questions and get advice on what is helpful during the trip.

See ya,

Kevin

Things you forget

Hello,
One of the things you forget about if you have not had an infant around the house for a while is the importance of a good dirty diaper. Unless you have lived it you really can not understand how otherwise rational adults can be consumed by the bowel movements of infanst. There has been much conversation in our group today about who has not pooped who has and when. I had fogotten that part of being a parent. On to a more acceptable topic. Before we left for the orphanage this a.m. Addie and I walked across the street (it took me this long to get up the courage) to a large park. There were probably 30-40 kites being flown. Most of the people flying kites were men in there 50's to 60's. The kites were mostly homemade and really something to see. In some places 2 or 3 people were working together. They put a lot of time is some of those kites. On one side of the park some employees of a business were doing pre-work exercises. They really get use out of there parks and public places here. The orphanage was about 2 hours away. As haphazard as traffic is in the city it is very controlled on the highways. I think we drove about 50 miles an hour and there was not much traffic. There were people sweeping the sides of the highways and the onramps all along the way. I really do not know how to describe the orphanage. The people were very nice and we were served a meal that was probably the best meal I have had since we got here. I think this was probably the most authentic Chinese food I have had. I am leaving to go back to Guangzhou tomorrow so I may not post anything but I will if we get settled in early enough. I am going to try to post a couple of pics here and then a few more on another post. I have had a hard time getting them to post lately.

kevin