First Full Day in Lanzhou

Today we went to the Civil Affairs building and made everything official.  Aaron and I put our red fingerprint over each of our signatures and Rebecca put her red hand print to signify her signature. While there, we were able to talk to the assistant director some more and Rebecca was able to play with her and another orphanage staff member who accompanied her today. Ms. Zhou was a staff member who woke Rebecca each morning and took her for exercises, since she came to the orphanage nearly 3 yrs ago.  You could really tell that both the assistant director and Ms. Zhou loved Rebecca and all of the children at the orphanage.

I had pictures from a few friends who have recently adopted from Pingliang as well and both were super excited to see them and how well they are doing.  The assistant director was really excited to see all of the children and asked me to email her their pictures.  I also had a few pictures from updates that I showed her and asked more details about and a video I got about 1 month ago.  She was able to tell me the names of the boys in the video and a little about each.  One is in the process of being adopted and the other has a CHD and she said was not available for adoption. That made me really sad to hear.

They walked out with us and said good-bye to Rebecca and I could tell they were really happy to see she had a family but also sad to say good bye.  It brought me to tears.  Just thinking about Rebecca losing all that she's ever known and all of her caregivers.  I know she'll do great and God has great things planned for her but it was still a sad part of my day.  Those were the tears I'd been waiting for. Now we begin praying for her little heart to be open to receive our love and for her to not be anxious and afraid of all that lies ahead.  Big changes for such a little girl.

We then ran to a mall to get diapers, snacks and a couple other things and lunch from KFC. :-)

Came back to the hotel to grab our gifts (I forgot them all this morning but Jessica was going back to Civil Affairs this afternoon and was dropping them off and then would drop the others off with the orphanage staff at their hotel) and Rebecca just burst into tears.  We knew the time would come and know that more days lie ahead and boy is it tough.  I just held her and let her cry and whispered calming words into her ear.  I think it was a combination of grief and exhaustion.  We heated her up a bottle, she let me hold her and give her the bottle and she promptly fell asleep.  That gave me time to update my blog.  She's still napping and my prayer is she'll be less anxious when she wakes up.  She is a happy little girl and very smart!  She's going to be a joy to have in our family and she has already blessed us in more ways than she'll ever comprehend.

Putting our red thumb print over all of our signatures to assure they are really ours.

 

 

 First picture with Baba

 

 

Putting Mei Mei's red hand print on paper as her signature to finalist adoption.

 

Mei Mei playing with Ms. Zhou while paperwork is getting finished.

Notary getting papers ready

Mei Mei with the Assistant director. 

Mei Mei with Ms. Zhou and Assistant director. 

Assistant Director and staff worker, Ms. Zhou looking at pictures of friend's children who have been adopted from Pingliang SWI over the last year.

Us with the assistant director and Ms. Zhou

On Our Way to Mei Mei

Today we flew from Beijing to Lanzhou.  What an amazing difference in the landscape!  Lanzhou is in the Gansu province and it is very desert-like.  Mountains of clay, little vegetation and few trees. And up out of no where pops the city.  We were starving from not eating breakfast.  They actually served us a hot meal on the plane but we couldn't identify what it was, so we ate the bread and I had a yogurt. LOL Our guide, Jessica, took us to her favorite restaurant in Lanzhou that serves Beef noodles.  Beef Noodles is a famous Gansu province dish and they were delicious!  Jessica said we were the first family to come to Lanzhou and go out for Beef noodles first thing. It was a local restaurant, we were the only Americans and they only had chopsticks.  It was a wonderful way to start our week in Lanzhou!

We settled into our hotel about 12:30 and Rebecca is scheduled to arrive between 2:30-3.  Well about 3 we receive a phone call from our guide that she is stuck in construction traffic and they are now expecting to arrive between 3:40-4.  She finally arrived around 4 pm.  The director and assistant director of the orphanage brought her to out hotel room.  They talked to us about her routine, answered our questions and gave us a wonderful book about Pingliang, then they snuck out.  Amazingly, Rebecca did really well and didn't cry at all.  We played on the floor a little, signed a few papers to get ready for tomorrow and then our guide took us to get her passport picture taken and our first family picture. A storm blew in, so we called it a day and just returned to the hotel, instead of going to pick up a few things we needed.

She is pure joy and we are already in love with her!  We got her to smile a few times and she began to loosen up a little with us.  We just ate at the hotel restaurant and boy, this girl can eat.  She eat just about anything you put in front of her. Tonight she polished off rice, noodles, pork strips, watermelon, another piece of melon and a cookie.

Then we went upstairs, had a warm bottle of milk and went to bed. All of us laid down and passed out at 8 pm (Seems to be our time).  She slept straight through until I woke her at 7:30 am because her big sister and brothers were dying to meet her over Skype.


Janet talking with Director of orphanage about Mei Mei's time in orphanage.

Looking at the city with the assistant director

Getting passport picture taken

 

 

 

Eating dinner in the hotel restaurant

She LOVED the congee (rice porridge)



Beijing- Day 2

Today we met Angela again at 7:30 a.m. To head off for a busy day of sightseeing.  Another WACAP couple joined us.  First we headed to Ti An Amen Square.  At 8 am, the place was wall to wall people.  It was CRAZY!!  From there we walked to the Forbidden City.  This is the inner ring of Beijing.  It is built on a ring system, with 7 rings (similar to a beltway) and the center of it is the Forbidden City where the emperor of China lived.  It has SO MUCH history and the buildings are magnificent. The emperor and the empress did not reside in the same buildings and the emperor would attend to different business in different buildings.  It took nearly 2 hrs to walk through the grounds and we did not wander to the side buildings, we took the straight path.

After the Forbidden City we headed out of town to the Great Wall.  We stopped and had a traditional Roasted Peking Duck lunch on our way.  It was supposed to be a 2 hr trip but the traffic was so awful it took 3 hrs to get to the section we were going to.  We rode a chairlift up to the wall and then hiked along it for a good bit.  It was so amazing to think it was built thousands of years ago and that it took 500 yrs to complete. After hiking it we rode toboggans down to the bottom, that was a highlight of our trip!  We then started the journey back to Beijing, which took another 3 hrs.

We made it to the Chinese Acrobat show with 15 min to spare!  Those people were amazing to watch and so flexible!  The show ended at 8 :30.  Angela brought Chinese takeout back to us at the hotel.  We finished packing up and went to bed right after eating.  We've been so surprised that the Chinese food in Beijing is not much different than the Chinese food we get at home.

Tomorrow, Angela picks us up at 5 am to head to the airport and fly to Lanzhou, where we will meet Rebecca Mei in the afternoon.

Ti An Amen Square

 

 

 The Forbidden City

 

 The Lover's Tree in the gardens of the Forbidden City.  Great story behind it.

The Great Wall

 

 

Tobogganing down from the Great Wall 

 

 Chinese Acrobat Show