Thankful.

We been home two months now and I still can't believe she is here. We are so happy and so thankful for our sweet girl, we love her so. I think she has given us the "thumbs up" too.

Her brothers are doting and love to spoil her rotten, which should make for interesting toddler years!

I'm wishing all my fellow "Marchers" speedy referrals and TA's. It has dragged on much too long and I am hoping for good news soon.

There's no place like home!

Hey all! We are back in the states and settling in with Miss Lucy. Life is good and Lucy is doing great. She's already been to her first soccer game to watch her brother play and tonight she's going to a band concert to hear her other brother play the drums. She's cruising around and trying to stand on her on. Today she repeated the word "puppy," (well it sounded a little bit like "puppa") while watching our crazy dogs through the window. That's her first word other than "momma" and "Ba Ba." She has only been home for four days! Such big strides and adventures for a little one who has come such a long way.

Here's the link to our blog while in China - http://www.babyjellybeans.com/web/do/site/home?ID=554843 Some of you didn't catch it on this site earlier. Sorry. But if you want to catch up, our whole China trip is documented there.

Friday night noodle quest ends in success!

This is a scene near our hotel, the Regal Kowloon. It is a lovely rainy Friday night. We wandered back behind the hotel to find a small orchestra playing traditional Chinese music on a pedestrian plaza lined with cafes and shops. Since we have arrived in China J. and I have been on a quest for the perfect bowl of noodles. After several delicious attempts we finally found the place right under our noses. We sat at the little European style open air cafe and ordered two Tsing Taos, note to future travelers, one is the size of a liter of coke! We understood why the waiter asked us twice in sign language if we wanted two. We pointed and motioned to a couple of things on the menu and something a guy next to us was slurping up, that looked pretty good, but he told us what we needed to get. Again, not much language in this transaction but it was perfect.

More...

Here are some more pics of the Aberdeen Fishing Village and some of Victory Peak. We are heading out for dinner - it's now after 8:00 pm China time. They have a nightly laser show on the harbor if the weather is good so we will try to catch that tonight.

Hope everyone is well at home. The next time we post it might be in Nanchang with Lucy. We have to pay for daily internet service here at the hotel so we're trying to get lots of pics in today.

Bye for now!

More Hong Kong

Today we did a bus tour of Hong Kong Island. It's still pretty rainy from the typhoon passing over so it was really nice to be carted around the island on a private tour where we were let off at all the hot spots and picked back up without having to wait on buses or big tour groups.

I'm still so tired that I can't come up with any interesting dialogue to go with these pics. So for now I'll just post some local color and maybe come back with some pithy remarks later on when I can start my day later than 3 in the a.m.

Tour of Aberdeen Fishing Village on the southern tip of Hong Kong Island.

This is home to generations of fishing families. Some spend their entire lives on the boats. They tie out boat stations where they live and take the "junks" out to fish for a week or two at time, then come back to their floating homes.

This floating restaurant holds 4,000 people. It's very touristy but is supposed to be a fun place to go to eat at night.

Ni hao from Hong Kong

We made it! It was a looooong flight! We got in around four yesterday afternoon and our guide met us at the airport for a 45 minute drive to Kowloon. We and the other family were pretty bleary eyed but headed out for some Cantonese food soon after we got to the hotel.

Hong Kong is beautiful. It's such a mixture of big city and island life. I am surprised how lush and mountainous it is. Contrast that with millions of twinkling lights from the high rise buildings and it's quite a contrast. It's also very balmy, that may be due to the typhoon heading for the coast south of us! Our guide said we will just get some rain and winds here.

Talk about timing - last night was our 15th wedding anniversary and also the four year anniversary of the night we mailed our first paperwork for this adoption. What a memorable way to celebrate! After a great dinner where I almost face planted into my rice bowl from jet lag, we walked along the harbor paths about 15 minutes back to the hotel. It was so lovely. There were lots of tourists like us taking pictures and posing with Bruce Lee bronze statues. Lots of young couples holding hands and sitting on benches watching the lighted ferries run back and forth from the pier.

Today we opted for a city tour and a visit to Victory Peak. It is now about 4:40 a.m. we have been up since 3:00. I'm hoping by tomorrow we will be adjusted to China time! I will try to post pics and again if you don't see another post here go to our BabyJellyBeans blog site. Scroll down and you will see the link.

We will fly into Nanchang on Sunday and hopefully have Lucy in our arms that afternoon.

Lucy here we come!

Hey Family and Friends! Hey sweet boys! We miss you already and we are just in the airport about to check in. Did I mention it is 4:00 in the morning? Did I mention that we got up and 3:00 but and went to bed at 11:00. We are excited and bleary eyed and one more step closer to Lucy. I can't wait to get on that plane and take a deep breath.

We meet the other family we will be traveling with in Chicago and will fly with them to China and back. It will be so fun to see them for the first time. We've talked daily, sometimes more, getting ready for this trip and preparing to meet our girls. Our little girls are already friends and now their moms are too.

Boys we will try to get in touch with you when we land - tomorrow?! Remember the 14 hour difference. We love you all!

Thanks again to everyone for helping get us to this point and for taking care of everything at home while we are gone. It has been more than a group effort!