JULY 2nd...WE ARE HOME!!!!

We got to the airport and told Simon farewell. He helped us get to the luggage check-in. The funny thing is we had to go through a process where they banded your luggage (for a small fee). Then you could take your luggage and check in for your flight!

We left around 7:30 am and we were happy to be on a plane headed home! The flights were good except for the long layover in Tokyo, Japan. They had a guard that wouldn't let people on the bus to go over to the next terminal...he kept saying it was the wrong bus! We waited for 1 1/2 hours to get to the correct terminal. Once we got there, the lady that worked with American Airlines was wonderful!!! She said that she had some better seats in the bulkhead that would give us more room for the flight home! She said that she would also make sure that Hope would have a bed for the flight! Well the bed was a little cardboard tote with a little cushion in it. Hope slept in that for just a little bit, but she was a little long for the box so her legs hung over the side.

The next leg of our flight took us to Chicago where Hope became a US citizen!!! We went through immigration and the processed us very quickly! I heard the one worker tell the other to please hurry, that they had a small child with them. I was forever grateful, because we were sitting on a bench with a LONG line of people trying to come into the US! They had us to the luggage claim area in about 10 minutes! We then went and grabbed our luggage and made the transfer from international flights to domestic flights! They guy laughed when he saw the bright yellow banding and didn't even want to search our luggage. He said no one would have been able to mess with it anyway, so he took our luggage and sent us through! By this time, we were hungry and had spent most of our extra money on the two extra days in China, so we found a hot dog stand, got one hot dog and 2 cokes with ice!!!! It was I do believe the best coke that I had ever had!!!! We then headed down to our gate and waited for our flight back to Springfield!!!!

The best part was seeing everyone once we landed and made our way around the corner at the airport!!! It was awesome to see their faces with big smiles on them! This group was the group that prayed us through and encouraged us the entire way!!!!

God has truly been faithful to us through it all! He has provided in many ways that we can never imagine! The most treasured thing to me is my friends and family!!! That's what makes my life complete....everything else is an added bonus!!!!!

July 1st...our last full day!!!

Well today is our LAST full day in China! We slept in a little, it was nice! We went down for breakfast and then we decided to go to the mall to get more goodies to bring home for everyone! Fred even managed to find a few shirts for himself! We were able to get some DVD's of some movies that we were wanting. Phillip will be thrilled to know that we got the new STAR WARS movie!!!! We had a good time just walking around! But I'm ready to go home!!!

After we came back to drop off our finds, we headed back to Lucy's (it became our favorite place to eat there!). We then went to the Carrefor and got a few things for the trip back home. We decided to get some sandwhiches from the deli at the back of the White Swan for dinner. We had to go back upstairs and try to pack and have everything ready for a 5:45 AM departure!!!!

Are we any closer to going home??? June 30...

Well the consulate got visa's to us late this morning...about an hour after our original flight left!!! Fred also talked to them about helping us find tickets for earlier than the 4th!

They put their travel person on it! It worked...we had tickets for July 2nd! It was an answer to prayer! We were on our way to walk down and pay for the new tickets when we heard someone call our name...it was Cedra from the consulates office. She came over to bring us the tickets. She was the sweetest thing! She kept telling us how sorry she was that this happened to us. Hope and I went upstairs to take a nap and Fred went with Cedra to pay for the tickets. When he got back, we went to dinner at Lucy's! We went strolling around and went to pick up our laundry at Jennifers! It is a very neat place right near the White Swan. They have all kinds of things. They let you borrow strollers if you don't have one...they have medications that other parents have left behind that haven't been opened so that someone else can have them. They do your laundry for practically nothing. The shops right by the White Swan are wonderful!!! You can find all kinds of wonderful things to get. I wish that we would have gotten more!!! After that, we met up with Kimberli and Scott and Mia, it was nice to still have them there with us. Scott said that we needed another massage, so he told Kimberli and I that he would pay for it because he thought we got jipped out of our last one!!! It was wonderful...it was a wonderful way to get rid of some stress!!!!

Even more pictures...

hope falling asleep in her mashed potatoes at Lucy's!!!
Hope taking a picture of Daddy after we were done with the medical exam
Autumn Moon Garden....Hope's finding place...She was left here when she was 9 days old!
Matt, Lisa and Emme our friends from Kansas City
Mike and Leighann one of our familes from CA.

more pictures!!!!

All of the "spicy girls" together with the moms on the famous White Swan Red couch! Every group takes pictures on these couches! It usually turns into a crying party!!
Hey Mia and Emme, do you think we can get them to stop taking soooo many pictures????? I guess we will just have to smile and get it over with!
CHEESE...well this is about as good as you are getting today folks!!!







This is Simon, our Guangzhou guide and our AWESOME guide Lina! She is a wonderful girl and we were truly blessed to have her with us for this journey!
This has been a wonderful journey even though we are going through the rough few days with the US Consulates office. We have had a wonderful time exploring our daughters beautiful homeland! I hope to someday soon bring her back to beautiful China along with her brothers so that they too may enjoy the amazing Chinese heritage that is now a part of our family!

To go home or not...that's the question!!!

People playing hackie sack in the park near Lucy's!

Well we thought we were going home in the morning!!! NOT!!

Lisa, Kimberlee and I went to have a foot massage done. I don't normally like people messing with my feet, but I decided that these gals will probably not ever see me again, so I will give it a try. It was great!!!

They took the three of us up to this room. They bring in these big buckets of hot water and they pour in some type of herb or somthing...the little we knew probably the better! You put your feet in the water. While we you are soaking your feet, they massage your back and your arms! After all of that, then they do your feet and calves. It was AWESOME!!!! We did have to laugh though. The girls that were doing our massage were talking and none of us knew what they were saying. So Kimberlee decided that she would translate for us! We were giggling. It was great!!!

After we were done, we were walking out and we see Simon, our Guangzhou tour guide. He said that he was on his way to the consulate and that there was a problem with some of the visas! So we came back to the hotel and found out that there were 10 families that the computer went down on and those visas couldn't be finished. One was ours and the other three from our group were supposed to be leaving tonight. I don't know who the rest were. It was HARD news to take. We would just have to wait and see.

We had a little farewell meeting for those in our group that were leaving. I had to leave the room. I just came back to our room and cried!!!

Well Fred and our guides were trying to work on flights back home because American Airlines said that they could only get us on a July 4th flight back home!!!

This was rough way to end a wonderful day with friends!!!

Tuesday June 28...

Hope thinks she is going home in the new suitcase!!! :o)
Hope in the lobby of the White Swan!
The fish pond in the lobby!!!


Well let's see...today we had to be close to the phone for a little while this morning because the US consulate was working on our visa's. Fred waited in the room and I took Hope with me and we went shopping with friends! It was a fun time!

Everything went well for the visas so tomorrow everyone should have their daughters visas!

Tonight CHI was having a farwell celebration for all of the families that were in the main travel group...all 57 families! We had it at a place right down the street from the White Swan. We went up to the 2nd floor. It was very crowded! They showed all of the power points that the travel coordinators created for each province. I think our's was the best!!! Lina did a really good job!

Then came the meal! The brought out several things and put them on a lazy susan. Some we knew, some we didn't, some things we left alone. They didn't have enough high chairs...but who would have at least 57 highchairs!! :o). After dinner we did a little more ...you guessed it...shopping! We have to now buy another suitcase to be able to get everything back home!





After a full day, we are now ready to go to bed!!!!

Medical exam day!!!...6.27.05

Well today is medical examination day! We all left the hotel in our little group around 10:30 and went walking down the street. We had to stop and have the girls visa pictures done. There were a few glitches, but got those done and taken care of! Then it was off to the clinic!

What fun to take those girls to the clinic! They had 3 different rooms to go into. The first one was ear, nose and throat. They had a little noise makers that they used to check their hearing. Then she went to the weight and length room. They said that she weighed 24 lbs and was 30.5 inches long. They kept making comments about her being a big girl! After that she saw the doctor! He said that Hope was a healthy, strong girl! After we were all done, we came back and Hope napped! After the nap, we had lunch and got our shop on!!!!

After that, we had to finish up paperwork for the visa's and such. After dinner we just walked around.

The one picture of her in the dress is the one we had made!

June 26...The Lord's Day!

Today was a neat day! We were able to go to a bilingual Chinese Christian church. It is very close by to the White Swan. It was wonderful to be able to be at this church in China worshipping the Lord!

The church was packed!! It looked to be about 400 people in all. We were blessed to be able to find a seat along the wall. Matt, Lisa, Emme, Dave, Ruthie and Mia were there with us as well. They sang songs in Chinese and English. The pastor spoke on putting things before your relationship with God and how that relationship will suffer. After the service, we were able to take with quite a few people. It was so awesome to be there.

After church, we went and had lunch and went back to the room for a rest. After that our group went to the Jade and Pearl market. That was a huge place! There were I think about 4 of 5 levels of stores! We were able to find a few things! After we shopped for awhile, we took a taxi which by the way was much calmer than in Chongqing, back to the hotel. We met several of our families for dinner at the Rose Garden. It is a beautiful place on the Pearl river. The food was wonderful! I tried the pineapple rice. It was steamed rice with shrimp, and crab served in a fresh pineapple. It was very yummy!!! It was also a nice breeze coming off the river. We saw the river boats going up and down the river. They were all lit up.

After dinner, we stopped by and picked up our outfits that we had made. They were beautiful! We also did a little more shopping!

What a wonderful day this was!!!

First Airplane ride and off to Guangzhou...June 25

Well today was the first airplane ride!!!! So we shall see how that goes! We made it through the security checkpoints ok!

Well the airplane was a little warm..probably because the temps outside were HOT!!! Joan told us that Chongqing/Fuling was known for the Hot temperatures, Hot food and Hot tempers!!! Boy did she have the Hot weather right!!!!! Needless to say the plane didn't get better. This was going to be a long flight!!! The flight was really bumpy then they brought out the meal...chicken or beef over rice and carrots and warm soda. It was a little rough!

The girls seemed to do ok! We were lucky and no one sat with us so we had the extra seat. Hope enjoyed the room and so did we! We couldn't have landed quick enough!

We were all excited about being back on the bus with air!!!! It was wonderful!!! We rode for about 40 minutes or so to the White Swan Hotel! We had been told that it had been raining alot there. We saw lots of flooded streets! We were also told that the swimming pools were closed because the river had flooded and there were fish in the pool!!!!

After our luggage was delivered, we met up with some of the other families in our group and went to Lucy's for dinner!!! They have a lot of American food! It was the best burger that I had had in awhile! It was almost exciting!!! Hope had mashed potatoes!!! I thought she was going to lick the bowl clean! After dinner, the roads had cleared a little more, so we did what all good American women do, we shopped!!!! There are a lot of neat stores close by to the hotel!

We stopped at one store that makes custom traditional outfits. So they took our measurements and said that they would be ready on Sunday night after 7!

June 24th...Happy First Birthday Hope!!!!!!

Well today is our sweet girls 1st birthday!!! It is also our last day in beautiful Chongqing! Tomorrow we head out to Guangzhou!

We had a little meeting and Lina showed 2 powerpoint videos that she had made up of all of the girls. We were all in tears! After that, Fred stayed with one parent from each family to fill out more paperwork. Hope and I went back up to the room to take a nap!

We were all meeting for dinner around 5:30. We were going to have Hot Pot! Getting there would be half the adventure! We got part of our group off in a taxi, but no other taxi's wanted to take us. Our travel guide was trying to get us all a good rate, so after she told them what we were going to pay, they would then tell her they didn't know where the place was. So we decided to all walk! It was about a 20 minute walk there, but it was nice to see more of Chongqing.

When we got there, they sat us around a table that had a round pot in the middle and in the middle of that pot is another pot with HOT spices and broth. Then they set out all kinds of meats and veggies to put in the pots. You let them cook for just a little bit, then you eat!!! They also had rice as well! It was very good and we enjoyed it alot! Fred was the hot pot champ! He ate a lot from the real spicy pot!!!!! Everyone was impressed!

After that, the Happy Birthday song started to play. The entire place started singing to these little girls who had never had such a grand party and deal made about them. CHI had a cake with each of the girls names on it for us to have! It was delicious!!! Hope loved playing in the icing! We had a great time!

We all managed to find taxis to take us back to the hotel! We got back and had to start packing for the first airplane trip for these girls to Guangzhou! Our bags had to be ready to be picked up by 8:00 am, then we had to be ready to leave by 9:20 for the airport!

Slow day...full of naps...more pictures!!!

Hope with Auntie Joan our wonderful Chongqing tour guide!
Hope with Emme her Kansas City friend...also Fu Ai Yu
Hope riding on the bus like a big girl!!!
Hope was trying to take a walk!!!!!


Today was a bit of a slow day for us! We had to stay close to the hotel today as we were waiting for the Notary to come from Fuling with the girls paperwork. It was nice to have a slow day!!!

We went and had a wonderful breakfast! The staff at the Hilton are wonderful! They enjoy talking to the girls and their families! After a great breakfast, we came back up to the hotel room and played for a bit. Then Hope was ready for a nap! She enjoyed her long nap!!!! I did too for that matter! Since we had no where to go or be we didn't have to wake her up, she slept from about 9 to 11:30 or so.

We had lunch when she got up because the notary got here around 1, so Fred and I waited until then to eat lunch.

After lunch, we went to the playroom that they have set up at the hotel for the families to use. After playing for awhile, she was ready for her afternoon nap!!! It was nice to relax. Fred went and checked out the hotel pool. He said that it was really nice! After nap time it was dinner time! She played for awhile before we went down.

At dinner we met a family that now lives in Chongqing but they are from Ohio. They had come to the hotel to celebrate their daughters last day of school.


After dinner we took a walk around Chongqing! We are getting ready for a good nights sleep! Hope has been sleeping just about all night long since she has been with us! She is such a good girl! She is coming more and more into her personality each day!!!!

Adventures to the old city!!!!!

Today was a neat day. We left the hotel around 10:00 and went down to see where the Yangtze river and another river (I don't remember the name) come together! It was neat to be able to see the two seperate rivers meet. The Yangtze looks like Chocolate and the other river looks like tea. You could actually see the line in the water.

There were also....VENDORS!!! They met us as soon as we got off the bus! They walked with us to the overlook and back! Hind site 20/20 I wish that we would have bought a box of fans to give as gifts. You could get 6 fans for about $3!!! It would also have gotten some air moving as we were walking!! It hasn't been toooo bad, but the humidity is what is rough!!!!

We then got back on the bus! Thank goodness the air conditioning worked! We were then off to Old Chongqing. That was the neatest place to visit! Lots of shops with traditional clothes, shoes, toys, snacks, food. Some things we recognized, most we didn't. We did buy Hope a pair of pink traditional slippers in her current size and a couple of sizes bigger for later. We looked at some outfits for her and didn't see her size so we decided to wait until Guangzhou. It was a beautiful day and Hope really seemed to like riding in her stroller.

When we got back to the hotel it was nap time!! We were in for a special treat for the evening. We had friends that used to live in Springfield, but moved back to China and of all places Chongqing.

So around 3 Zoe came to pick us up at the hotel to go to her and her mom's house. IT was time for another taxi ride!!! One thing for sure...the taxi rides keep you prayed up!!! It was probably about a 20 ride to their house. What a beautiful day for a drive and we were able to see more of beautiful Chongqing!!! We saw a big ferris wheel. It would have been neat to get up there and see the city from there!

When we got there, we knew that her mom would be there, but it was a true celebration!!! Her grandma, 3 aunts an uncle and a driving teacher were there. The meal was wonderful. They had a feast for us!!! We had some of the best corn!!! It was fresh corn!!!! Some of it we knew what it was,some we didn't. There are so many things that we in America take for granted! They don't have all of the room that we have in apartments. They have a fold up table that they kept behind the couch and then they bring chairs up to the table. One thing that was really special....is that they love being with family and friends. They take the time to enjoy one another's company! They were giving their all to make us feel welcome!

After dinner we went for a walk down to the flower market. There were some very pretty flowers there! It was a nice walk! When we got back, we had a little gift exchange! They had gotten Hope an outfit with the split bottom pants that a lot of kids wear Hope's age. The pants have no crotch in them. That's how they potty train!!! They let the kids wear those pants and when they need to go, they go!!!! We will probably use them for a pool cover up for Hope.

Around 7:30 we decided it was time to head back to the hotel and get Hope a bath and ready for bed. It was a day full of adventure!!! I was glad that we got to have a meal with Zoe and her family!

Take me to the zoo!!!!

Lions and Tigers and Bears...OH MY..... for real!!! We were off to the Chongqing zoo!

There were Tigers and Panda bears and Lesser Panda's. It was such a hot day that the Panda's stayed close to the shade eating bamboo!

The zoos there are a little different than the zoos that I have been to here in the states. They had small amusement park rides, but they weren't open. We saw the tigers first, then we saw the vendors....selling panda puppets, tshirts, post cards and whatever else they had in their bags! Then we were off to see the Panda Bears...we saw the Lesser Panda's which look a lot like raccoons to me. They were doing a little renovation around the zoo near the panda's. But off we went! While we were there we did get some post cards from one of the vendors and a stuffed panda bear for Hope.

We also saw people playing mahjong...a game that you see a lot of people playing sitting just about everywhere. At the zoo they were in a bamboo area...I guess because it is cooler!!!

After the trip to the zoo, we went to the Three River Gorges museum. This project is to help with the flooding in China. They are relocating a lot of people because they are flooding parts of China with the new dam that they are building. We walked through the museum and saw a painting of the entire project. After that, we went into the gift shop and saw lots of beautiful Chinese art work. We were able to meet one artist there that had no arms, so he painted with his feet and teeth. We were able to get a picture of the beautiful china cherry blossoms that he had painted and he signed it for Hope. He was a neat person to see do his craft!!!

After we came back to the hotel for awhile and had lunch and a rest, a group of us decided to be brave and take a taxi ride to a bookstore/shopping mall. It is daring to watch the taxi drivers from the bus or our hotel room but riding in one is quite the adventure!!!

We were able to find some cute books with Chinese and American words in them. Found some neat CD's for Hope. One is the Beijing Angelic Choir and another one was all Children's songs.

Hope managed to nod off to sleep in the taxi on the way back to the hotel, so needless to say she wasn't quite ready to go to bed. So we put in the Angelic Choir cd...it took a little convincing on our parts but we finally won!!!

It's Official!!! Fu Ai Yu is now Hope Noelle AiFu

Today we headed to the registrars office in Chongqing to make our adoption official in China! It was a small office! We got there and waited our turn. There were a couple of more families there when we got there.

We had to make sure we had our gifts for the registrars office!! We all sat around and talked about the first night with the girls, let the girls play a little bit. They were a little restless at times and who wouldn't!!! They went through a lot of change in one day!

When it was our turn, we went and answered a few questions, did a fingerprint, signed papers and then we took our first family picture with Hope (minus our two boys!!!) That was a challenge because Hope had become facsinated with Fred's ink pen. She wouldn't let go of that thing for NOTHING in the world!!! She held on to that pen for dear life!!! After everyone was done with pictures and the filling out of paperwork, they gave us a beautiful gift from Chongqing. It is a brass plate of the Great Hall of Government in a box made with wood from Chongqing! We will treasure that forever!!!!!

After we all got back downstairs, we left to go to the store. We went to the Carrefore!!! LOVE THAT STORE!!! It is very much like WalMart but it has several floors and you can take your buggy (cart) up each floor! They have escalators that have ridges that hold your buggy as you go up!!! It was neat!! Needless to say our little group got lots of interesting stares as we all went stroller shopping and snack shopping, baby shopping and such. Every where we went, we always got a lot of attention!!!

We all headed out back to the bus with our treasures and our groceries and strollers! Lina helped us all get a great deal on strollers!!! We all got the same stroller except when we bought all that the store had, they pulled out 2 more different ones.

After that excitement, we headed back to the hotel for a bit of a rest!!!!!

More Pictures of Gotcha Day!!!

Hope and mommy!







Let the stare down begin!











It seems to be ok...I have my daddy and my duckie!! Thanks Stephen!!!!

Gotcha Day will be a day that changed our family forever! That was the day that God gave us our wonderful gift of another child! We are truly thankful for Phillip,Stephen and Hope! Three amazing gifts from the Lord!

Fu Ai Yu -Hope

This picture is of Hope and her nanny on the way to where Fred and I were waiting! I owe alot to this lady and her amazing co workers! They were the ones that gave her wonderful care. Look at the wonderful smiles on their faces. I wonder what they were sharing together in those last few minutes?

One of our travel group familes was able to catch this wonderful shot for us....thanks Vivian and Mike!! This pictures means a lot to us!!!!

We often laugh because we say this group of girls went from the orphange to a 5 star hotel in just a matter of a few hours!

To this wonderful lady...we thank you!!!!

We are finally going to see her!!!!

This picture was taken of the children when we got off the bus!

We made it to the gate and the dear, sweet elderly gate keeper opened the big gate with a smile on his face to let us in. We all started taking pictures. This is where the girls spent most of the first year of their lives at. A couple of the girls in our group were able to be in foster care for a little while. We didn't find that out until later.

We were welcomed into the conference room by Vice Director Chen. He was very nice and was so glad that we were there. He said that we had gotten there a little earlier than expected so the girls were not completly ready. They had just finished up their lunch and were getting baths and getting dressed. So we all walked around in the courtyard for a little bit waiting and taking more pictures and talking. Well it was very warm to say the least. There is no air conditioning in China. They do have fans to kind of circulate the air around and they did have an air conditioner of sorts in the conference room. We had a good time playing with some of the older kids that were there. Fred really made some neat friends with the older kids. It was fun. Well we were all outside when we saw the girls start to come. They were all dressed in matching pink outfits that had little flowers all over the pants and sleeves of the shirt. They all had on little squeekie shoes. Hope was the last one out! I was sooooo busy taking pictures of everyone that I didn't noticed until everyone said "CRYSTAL". I turned around and Joan had Hope in her arms. She came to me. She really didn't cry. I just started to hum with her and just rock her a little bit. She did ok! We found out in the process of the girls coming that Dave and Ruthie's little girl Mia wasn't there, that she was on her way with her foster family!!! They didn't know that she was in foster care. So they had to wait a little while longer for Mia to get there. It was very rough on Mia to leave her foster family. They finally had to ask the foster family to wait outside the gate because everytime they would put Mia down to walk around a little bit, she would run right back to her foster mom or where her foster mom had been sitting. Dave and Ruthie got to spend some time with the family talking with them. Poor Mia...just cried and cried.

Hope really never cried. We went into the conference room to show her a duck that Stephen had sent to her, show her pictures of her new family. We gave her a blanket that had Raggedy Ann and Andy on it. She sat there and did ok until everyone else was crying!! She then started to tear up a bit. So I went and walked around with her a bit. Joan told Fred that we were close to where Hope was found if he wanted to ride over and take some pictures. I stayed back at the orphange to finish filling out some paperwork. We walked around after that touring the orphange, talking with the nannies, taking LOTS of pictures of as many children as we could find!

Fred came back and we spent some time getting schedules and such for the girls. Then the orphange gave each of the familes a bottle that was prepared for the trip back to Chongqging, they also gave each family a bag of formula and also rice cereal.

When we headed back to the gate and noticed that a huge crowd had gathered at the gate. When you see so many people, you often wonder if just so happens that your daughter's birthmom happened to make it to the orphange that day to see that her daughter was with a loving family! We will never know who was in the crowd of people that day. One can only hope that those mama's know that their daughters are loved and cared for!

We then headed back to Chongqing....it was a pretty uneventful bus ride for us. Mia and Ellie were having a bit of a difficult time because they both left their foster families that day!

Hope sat and watched out the window for awhile...she went back and forth between Fred and me for awhile, then she drank her bottle and went to sleep! She slept until we got back to the hotel. After we got back to the hotel, all of the new families headed to their rooms for some quiet time with their new daughters. Hope played with some of the toys that we brought. She wanted to explore a little in the room. We then gave her a bath...well apparently she relaxed a lot...she pooped in the water!!!!! So we started all over!!! She LOVES to take a bath!!! After the bath, we decided since things were going to well, we decided to head down to get a bite to eat. We got there and had dinner with Dave,Ruthie, Mia, Scott, Kimberli and Mia. A few more came down. It was a wonderful day!!!! We all were ready to go to bed when it was time!!!

GOTCHA DAY---Happy Father's Day 2005!!!

Happy Father's day!!! Today is June 19,2005.....Gotcha Day for us as well!

The morning came and we were all excited!!! We ate breakfast, and were given the run down for the morning....Scott and Kimberli would be going to the orphange in Chongqing first to pick up their daughter Mia. When Lina and Joan got back with them, then the rest of us would head out to Fuling. We would be taking the bus for the 2 1/2 hour bus ride to Fuling.

So we were all waiting anxiously for them to get back. They got back faster than we expected so Lina told us that we could leave for Fuling earlier than we thought. That was all she had to say to us!!! We all were ready to go and in the lobby waiting for her when she came down. As we were getting ready to go outside to get on the bus, we happened to see a crowd start to gather out front of the hotel. It was a wedding party arriving for their reception!!!! We all thought that was a neat thing to see as we headed out the door! We all stopped and watched and took pictures!!! It was simply beautiful, the bride and groom together just beaming!!!! So we then made it around the crowd that had gathered and laughed thinking if we just so happened to get into some pictures...they would spend the rest of their days trying to figure out who were the Americans that were in the pictures!

We then headed out for the beautiful ride to Fuling. We passed through some beautiful countryside. Your mind starts to race....wondering about the people there, the life that they have. There is a lot of farm land there in Fuling. Before coming to China, we read The Rivertown by Peter Hesler. What a wonderful book to read or get on tape from the Library for Fuling families!!! He makes the comment there that the ladies in Fuling are known to be some of the most beautiful in China! You see as you are going down the highway the farmers use every bit of land to grow crops. We saw corn growing on the side of the highway, in the mountain sides...everywhere. It was rich fertile soil. The grass was a beautiful rich dark green! The closer we got to Fuling, I started to recognize things from pictures that I had seen on a website for Fuling familes. I saw the bridge that took us into Fuling. By then...I sitting and staring out the window because I didn't want to miss a sight of Hope's beautiful homeland!!!

We then drove through town to head for the orphanage. Joan and Lina told us that we would have to walk down the hill because the bus driver would have to back the bus down the hill and he didn't think that we wanted to be on the bus when he did that. So off we go..unloading the bus! All of us toting gift bags for the caregivers in the orphange, things for our sweet babies, cameras, etc... Everyone that lives on that road knows what is going on when the bus pulls up!!! So we started to see the people that lived right near the orphange come outside to take a look at the people who have gotten off of the bus. We happen to see some children playing nearby so I snapped a few quick pictures. One of the adults that happen to be with them saw me take the picture and looked at me and held out her hand as if she wanted me to give her money for the picture. I didn't... Down the hill we went...not a long walk...to the gate of the Fuling Social Welfare Institute.

On to Chongqing!!!!! We're getting closer!!!

Well today we leave for Chongqing! It is formerly a part of the Sichuan provice of China. This is also where Fuling is!!!! And Fuling is where our daughter is!!!!! So this will be a wonderful trip!!! Our Chongqing group is the first of the 52 CHI familes to leave for their provice!!! We were excited about that!!

Off we head to the airport!! And wouldn't you know...poor Fred...they searched his carry on bag. Try to explain with our limited Chinese what an aeresol can of deodorant is. I just about am convinced that the people at the airports are convinced that it is hairspray!!! Because they asked him in broken English...this for you hair??? I had to walk off again and let my poor husband handle that question because my answer would have been...in a manner of speaking yes!!!

Off we all go....our 9 families off through the airport!!!! We get to our gate and wait!!! I sent Fred on a hunt for an Olympics baseball cap for Phillip while we were at the airport!!! He did good, he found one!!! We all talked and waited and laughed and walked around a little bit waiting for our flight. We were finally able to board the plane for Chongqing!!! It wasn't a really particular long flight, but oh my goodness...it almost felt like there was no air conditioning on that plane!!! It was WARM!!! It was also a bumpy flight which made for a lovely time on the plane, but thank goodness we had our friends with us to make up for it!!! We finally arrived in Chongqing!!!! We would be here for the next 10 days!! And needless to say I was thrilled to be off of that plane. I always do very well on a plane...but that one was a little rough!!!

We gathered our luggage, met up with Joan, who would be our tour guide for the next 10 days! She is a fiesty girl!!!! But such a wonderful friend she became!!!! Off we headed to the Chongqing Hilton. On our way to the hotel, we were told that they were trying to improve the city conditions by upgrading buildings and getting ready for a summit of sorts and also getting ready for the Olympics coming to China in 2008!!! All of China is excited that the Olympics are coming!!!! We saw what seemed to be the oddest sight that I had seen.....Orange and Yellow fake palm trees in the center of this area in the road. That left me scratching my head a little!!!

We pulled up to the Hilton!!! What a beautiful hotel it was!!!! We walked in and saw the beautiful marble floors, the marble staircase and the fountain. We all got our room assignments and away we went to take our rooms! We got upstairs to our room and walk in...we look over at the window and waiting by the window is a little bed with blankets and waiting on the blankets was a little panda bear!!!! That was a gift from the hotel for Hope. It was the sweetest thing. It really made me realize that she was finally coming!!!!

Went into the bathroom and there they already had a baby bathtub, and a wide variety of baby bath soap, shampoo, lotion and things for us to use. It was very sweet!!!

We decided to meet Dave and Ruthie, from KY, and Matt and Lisa from Kansas City for dinner. We asked Joan where was some place that had really good food from the Chongqing area! So off we went following Joan!!! We went into this place called CSC-Chongqing Style Chicken ( I think is the name of it!!). Joan said that she would help us order. Well Fred and I were first. I'm not quite sure what we ordered and then they told us the amount. Well Joan told us to step aside. We thought that she was going to jump over the counter!!! She gave them what for and then some I do believe! Then she told us ok...we could pay now. She was upset because they were going to over charge us and she told them no! So then we get our food and go to look for a table. Well try to not look so obvious in a place full of Chinese here come 6 American people, on of them is over 6 feet tall. We were not wanting to be on display...but that didn't happen. One of the people that worked there said that he had a table for us! Guess where????? He put us right in front of the main window!!! So there we sat eating our dinner. It was good, but then it happened...my lips started to go numb!!! That stuff had some HEAT in it!!! I started to look at what I was eating...it had some of the darkest, deep red chili peppers that I had ever seen in my life!!!!! So I tried to stay away from the peppers and just eat the chicken and rice. Then I just ate the rice!!! I then noticed that they had put a pack of additional chili powder stuff on my plate just in case it wasn't hot enough for me!!! Needless to say I put that stuff in my bag and was going to hold on to the next chili cookoff that I ever did that had a prize for the hottest chili!!! I do believe we would take it!!! Then the fun started.....we kept seeing people as they walked by and when they noticed the group of us sitting in front of the window...you would start to see people back up and just stand there and stare. I told Lisa we could try to make some extra spending money....just advertise...picture with an American for only $1!!! We laughed. That went on for quite a while!!!! We then all finally finished with what we could eat and decided to go for a walk around.

It was fun to go walking around just to see the people, the shops...it was fun! The lights in Chongqing at night are beautiful! The people there are sooo friendly. They are just as interested in Americans when they come as we are when we see them. After awhile, we walked back to the hotel and looked around and went up to the top of the hotel to look around. Then the hardest part...trying to go to sleep when we knew that tomorrow would be the day that would change our families forever!!! GOTCHA DAY!!!!

Beijing!!!!!

Good Morning....China!!!!

Well the first morning was wonderful!!! We got up after having slept great and went down and had a wonderful breakfast!!! It was beautiful in the hotel! We sat looking to see, trying to figure out who all was in our group that we would recognize!!! That would be fun considering we had only emailed and shared a few pictures. So Lina had told us the night before that we were to meet in the Lobby.

Once we all started gathering in the lobby...the friendships through emails were turned into friendships that would last a lifetime!!!! We finally got with our friends from Kansas City!!! We were excited about it. We were all looking forward to our sightseeing!!!

Out the door we headed!! Now to say it was warm was putting it lightly!!! We lived near the ocean for 6 years and that feeling of when you walk outside and you start to sweat and you want to go take another shower!!! But off we went!! Glad I wore my walking shoes!!! Off we went to the Forbidden City and Tianimen Square! Judy must be training for Olympic Speed walking!!! We saw a lot of things!!! Simply beautiful!!! It was a good thing that I had gotten LOTS of film!!!!

After we did the jog through Forbidden City and Tianimen Square, we went to lunch! It was wonderful!!! It was Peking Duck and lots of other things to eat. We laughed because we all loved the table!!! It had a huge lazy susan and you could keep spinning until you found something you liked!!! Kind of like the big wheel on the Price is Right!! LOL... WE didn't know what some of it was, but most of it we did, so we had one guy in our group keep asking Fred what it was. Fred will tell him "dim sum". Every time it would always be dim sum! Poor Dave finally asked Fred, is everything on this table dim sum??? Fred looked at him and said...everything that you have asked about...is dim sum!! It was fun!!! We have such a wonderful group of people!!!

After lunch we went to CHI's Beijing office and had a little orientation, watched a video went to a western bathroom!!! Then it was off to the great wall!!!!!

Fred, Matt, Lisa, and Dave made it to the top!!! It was funny though. I asked them why the kept going. They all said well...when a man smoking passed us up, we kept going, but we really decided to finish when a lady in high heel shoes passed us up!!! WE HAD TO KEEP GOING!! They did great!!!

The Great Wall is an amazing thing to see!!! You can see pictures, but until you see the actual wall and climb on it...it will make you speechless!!!!!

After the great wall...we were all tired!!! So it was back to the hotel for a rest!!! After our rest, we met up with Matt and Lisa and went to Pizza Hut!!!! It was very good!!!!! We enjoyed walking around the streets a little bit! Needless to say, we slept well that night too!!!!!

Going to China....

We left for the Beautiful China on June 15,2005. We left from Springfield, MO and flew to DFW. We were excited to know that one of our dear friends from our church was flying that first leg of our trip with us. All be it that was the shortest leg of the trip!!! It was nice to have one of our friends with us! It was hard leaving our two boys at home with the grandparents, but we knew that it would be a LONG journey especially with Stephen. But knew they would have a great time with grandparents.

We were excited to finally board our flight to Tokyo from Dallas. It was exciting to finally be on that plane! There were also a group of high school age people on the plane going on a missions trip! Two of the girls had never been on a plane! I thought to myself what a first trip to take!!! I had to laugh, I have flown most of my grown up years, but this trip was a little more exciting than most :o)! So after you are in the air for a while and after you have had your meal, they tell you to close your window shade!!!! I'm like "WHAT!!!" I'm flying over places I have never been before and you want me to close my window! So I did!!! But I'm telling you...curiosity was getting the best of me!!! So I waited as long as I could!! I inched up the blind just a bit, just to be able to see Alaska!!!! I didn't have it up toooo much and I noticed that the people around us were sleeping!! But that was going smoother than I thought. Up comes the flight attendant. She said "You are going to have to keep your blind closed! Other people on this flight are trying to sleep and you are disturbing them! So I closed the window once again!!! Didn't look like I had disturbed anyone....soooooo a little while later as I was watching the monitor of where we were flying....I opened it again. This time every time I saw her coming, I just closed the widow! It was getting close to the end of the flight and I noticed more people were stirring and I happend to see one of the girls whose first time it was on the plane with her window up and several of the other students around the window. So I couldn't help it!!! LOL...so I opened up my window as well!

We finally landed in Tokyo after dancing with the international date line for awhile!!! That little monitor on those seats can be frustrating to adoptive parents :o)...It makes you just want to go up and tell that captain for the love of pete man, cross this date line...there are babies waiting!!!!

We were thrilled beyond belief to finally be going from Tokyo to Beijing!!! This is it...we were finally headed to China!!! I would finally get to meet some of my email buddies and most of all get to meet my daughter!!!

We got there late!!! So we were the last ones to get to the airport in Beijing! We made it through customs and found our luggage!!! After finding our luggage and making it through customs, we then had to make it through the taxi drivers and sky caps (as we call them here in the US!!) They don't like the word no in China. When they see Americans coming, it means they can make some money!!! So we finally made it out to where we saw her!!! LINA!!!! Our beautiful, sweet CHI coordinator there to pick us up at the airport to take us to our hotel!!!! She quickly pointed out that our plane was late so we were the last ones in from our group! We had missed seeing our friends from Kansas City!!!! So we drug ourselves into the Raddison SAS hotel, got our room key, talked to Lina for a minute and then went and fell into bed!!!! We had left the Springfield airport around 8:30am on June 15th and it was now 10:30 PM on June 16th!!! I don't think I had a problem sleeping at all!!!!

Tomorrow we would be able to meet up with our friends and see Beijing!!!

2 Years AGO!!

I wanted to start a blog for our friends and family that may consider adoption! Although we are done with the process, I still want to document these things and keep going from where we are now! So here goes:

A little over 2 years ago, we recieved a call from CHI, our adoption agency. It was close to 4:00 pm, the boys had just come in from school and Fred was on his way home! I knew that referrals were coming because I had seen them start to post on the email from our group. The phone rang and it was Dianne Atteberry, the KC office director. She said "Crystal, it's a girl!!!" I was trying to find a pen that worked, the boys were excited and making all kinds of noise. I had my paper and pen and started taking down the information that I was given. She was in Fuling a city in the Chongqing region of China. She was in the Fuling SWI. She has the chubbiest cheeks I was told. Her name: Fu Ai Yu! Her name means: Fu -the name that all children are given from Fuling. It means-blessed,lucky. Ai- the generational name given-means Love. Yu- there are several different meanings for Yu depending on the tone given, Yu= canopy of Heaven! She is 10 months old and she weighs 18 pounds. She wasn't sure if that was with all 6 layers of clothes on or not.
All of her information would be overnight UPS! That will turn any good natured parent into a stalker of UPS trucks!!!! OVERNIGHT UPS....that's Fred's birthday!!! What a gift that will be!!! April 19,2005, we wait and wait and wait...people come over to help us wait and wait. Let me add in..that was a Tuesday...trash day in our neighborhood!!! LOL...Everytime a truck was heard in the area, out everyone would go to the front yard! I bet we were a sight!!! No UPS truck came. We soon found out why! On our referral day, there were 51 families that got referrals!!! They didn't get them all finished in time to make the deadline for UPS! So Dianne faxed a copy of her picture!!! That was as good as gold to me!!! You could still see her face!!!!

April 20-Usually our UPS man comes around 1:00. So Fred said that he would go and work a 1/2 day and be home before the UPS man came. Well Fred came home, the boys came home and still no UPS truck. I just cried....finally...what is that we hear...UPS trucks running in the neighborhood! We look and look...they are spotted!!!! Up the street...there sits TWO of them!!! I almost walked up the road to see if they would please hurry to my house. So we sat on the swing on the porch. Finally they decided to stop talking and come to the house!!!! Fred didn't even give the guy a chance to get out of the truck!!!! He handed Fred our precious package. Fred told him that we had been waiting all day on this package! He said that he had too! That was his last package and now he could go home! We came in the house and opened up the package together with the boys! There she was!!! The cutest little girl we had ever seen!!!! WE hurried and filled out the agreement paper and got in the car and drove over to the FED-EX store and over nighted our agreement paper!!!! We went to church and showed everyone the pictures!!!!

I had trouble sleeping...I was ready to go to CHINA!!!!