Thursday, September 09, 2010

Day 6

Today is our last day in Fuzhou...we will be heading to Guangzhou tonight to finish the American paperwork so we can bring our little man home. It's always an emotional time when leaving your child's province. While we are super excited to be one step closer to home, the realization that our boy is leaving his birth home is definitely a tough one.

We did upload a some new pics. and videos from yesterday here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9350232@N08/?saved=1

We are loving all of your comments!! Your support and love for us is amazing!!!! I can't wait to print out all of the comments and put them in Solomon's journal...what a treasure!!!

Everyday we wake up so excited to see what we are going to learn about our son. He is an amazing gift from the Lord. I am still having such a hard time processing all that God has done to bring Solomon to us...it is so incredible that is hard for me to wrap my brain around it. When and if I do, watch out for a really long blog post...LOL!! I think about the day we first learned about him and how his photo literally took my breath away & had my heart racing a million miles a minute and how God clearly told us this was our son and that He would provide EVERYTHING to bring him home AND then to watch God provide all the way up until we were boarding the plane..AMAZING...UNBELIEVABLE...sooo BEAUTIFUL and sooo totally our Lord!!!!!!! Oh, how this mama feels so undeserving but sooo completely blessed and definitely filled to overflowing!!

Will post more once we are in Guangzhou :o)

Random thoughts from China (Paul):

- Giant Panda's and fast trains are cool. They should put Giant Panda's on the fast trains.

- Stacy thinks all the Chinese girls are staring because we are two white people with a Chinese baby, I think that they are all checking me out.

- It's raining at home, bummer, we can't go to the park. It's raining in Fuzhou, a Typhoon is coming!

- Solomon really doesn't like to go to bed. First night he was very compliant and slept in his crib, second night he started in his crib but was very nervous about it, next couple of nights refused to lay down and we had to hold his head while he passed out sitting up.

- Solomon has flushed the toilet about 98 times so far today. Hey, where's my toothbrush?

- Solomon likes to throw things, he throws everything.

- Was Houdini Chinese?

- I learned how to tear the head off of a fresh shrimp, peal off the body and legs. I'm not 100% sure, but I think it twitched.

- Playing video games from China with a 300+ ms ping time isn't as much fun as my sub-30ms pings from home.

- Jinjiang is a large exporter of shoes. I wonder if Solomon had stayed if he would have ended up working at one of the shoe factories. Jinjiang is called the "China Shoes Capital" and makes almost a billion pairs of shoes each year. http://www.cn-jif.com/main.asp

- Ham? That's NOT ham. Pig blood soup, stir fried bamboo shoot, grilled goose breast with pepper, fried fungus with celery. Do they eat this stuff?


Random thoughts from China (Stacy):

- It's fun seeing him mimic what we say and pick up new English words. Very early on he started saying "Paul" and we kept correcting him to say "Daddy" instead. But we learned that "Paul" actually meant up!

- He is really enjoying going all over the place and is always saying "let's go!"

- He has the best smile!

- I was very excited to get my wonton soup until I saw the baby shrimp floating in it :(

- It's interesting to me how they preserve things that they display in various places. At the museum, they had a couple that were over 700 years old laying in a glass coffin full of formaldehyde. All of their skin was still intact! At the Panda display they had all of the different stages of baby growth compared to Panda growth. It looked like actual babies in formaldehyde jars.

Day 5

4am: There are only 2 reasons to get out of bed this early... 1) cops at the door tryin' to chisel me out of my case-dough wantin' to cut me down and slam me in a chicago overcoat, or 2) the whole world is new and you can't wait to see what this day holds for you. (don't worry, Stacy isn't on the giggle juice, this is Paul posting :P)

For Solomon, I'm guessing it's more likely to be #2 (but we're still keeping our eyes out, we don't want to end up in a Chinese clubhouse). They told us that his schedule was to wake up at 6, nap at 2, bed time at 8. But he's waking up at 4am, nap, what's that... and going to bed at 9. I know it can't last (he has to sleep sometime, right?), but he sure never seems to run out of energy! It's exciting to see Solomon so happy! While having lunch with the orphanage director, there were a couple of things that Solomon says frequently that we wanted to understand what they meant. The most common 2 phrases that he says to us is asking us to hold him and then saying "Let's go!"

So somehow Stacy managed to talk about day 4 without ever mentioning that we got on a fast train going 250 km/h. How can you forget to mention that?! I didn't believe them so I clocked the speed with my gps and sure enough, it went 250 km/h, cool stuff!


I'm going to post a couple of videos of Solomon. In case anyone wasn't sure yet if he belonged in this family or not, there's no doubt after watching these silly videos of him having fun :D Oh yeah, we went to a museum of some old dead guy, saw some lady make some tea, and took a walk thru the park. Solomon was so tired he kept dozing off all day long and we ended the day with him finally letting Stacy hold him while he fell asleep. It was a good day!

VIDEOS AND PICTURES HERE: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9350232@N08/?saved=1

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Day 4 - Trip to the orphanage

We received the most amazing gift today...the gift of being able to visit Solomon's orphanage. He has lived with these children and nannies since he was found shortly after birth. For whatever reason, we were given permission to visit...not many families are given this gift. The entire staff was WONDERFUL! They were so friendly and welcoming!! The director has an amazing heart for these kiddos and was soooo kind to us. She showed us where he slept, introduced us to his room mates, allowed us to take as many pictures as we wanted, AND specifically allowed us to meet our friends precious little girl, Emma. They should be traveling soon to bring her home.

It was an emotional trip for all of us!!! We had our guide tell Solomon several times that he was not going to stay there and that we were just visiting. He was nervous but did okay until his room nanny took him out of my arms and took his to his bedroom. As his little buddies were hugging him, he began to cry and reach for me...of course I swooped him up and held onto him tightly...made this mama cry, too!! They kept asking him if he wanted to stay and take a nap..let's just say that did NOT make him happy.

Solomon had 3 best friends...with Zhu being his very best friend (the little guy that we've been trying to find a family for). As soon as we walked into the room, Zhu was squealing and hugging Solomon...it was so precious. Broke my heart at the same time!! His 2 other buddies followed us all through the orphanage saying they wanted a mama, too. UUGGHH, talk about heart wrenching!!!!!!!!!! They are all precious, precious, precious!!!

We had a sweet time with the orphanage director at lunch. She wanted to take us to lunch and spend time getting to know us...it was a very special time!! She is a very neat lady! She took us to see the outside of the old orphanage and showed us a store where a former orphan now owns the store. The orphanage gave him his store and money to start his shop...amazing!! We also learned that one of Solomon's teachers that we met at the orphanage was actually the director's daughter that she adopted many years ago. How cool is that!!!

They kept asking Solomon several questions..."Do you want to take a nap in your bed?" "Do you want to stay here?" "Do you want to eat here with us?" and he would shake his head very seriously NOOOO. They would all giggle and say, "He was with us for 4 years and only with you for 4 days and he chooses you..."

It was a very long day but we believe it was a wonderful day for closure and a wonderful opportunity for us to see where our boy has lived his entire life and meet the people who have cared for him.

We are still in awe and blessed at all the Lord is doing and has already done...it is very hard to articulate how full our hearts are...all Glory to our amazing God!!! Our sweet boy is truly a miracle and gift from our Father!!!

PICTURE HERE: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9350232@N08/?saved=1

Monday, September 06, 2010

Day 3...I think :)

LOL...I'm not sure what day we are on...I'm slightly jetlagged :)

Few things first...PLEASE, please be praying for our kiddos at home.  I guess our 2 babies are having a really hard time!!  We were very worried about leaving Cana and she is struggling greatly!!!

Yes, we did take gotcha video but are unable to load it from the camcorder so that will have to wait until we are home...sorry :)

Oh..we are getting all of your precious comments on facebook but we can't access fb to comment back so know we are reading them and cherishing them!!!  So, feel free to comment here on the blog...we just love reading all of your comments!!!

Solomon continues to amaze us with how well he is doing!  He is such a happy little guy.  He is also a very busy little guy.  He loves to see how EVERYTHING works...it's a whole new world to him and he is enjoying exploring!!!  They tell us that he takes a 2 hour nap everyday but we don't believe it...LOL...he doesn't have time to slow down and rest :)  He is sleeping great at night.  Ohhhh, his precious little voice..it's so sweet.  He talks non-stop

And boy oh boy is he a daddy's boy.  He absolutely LOVES Paul.  Mom's pretty coo but he adores his daddy...it is so beautiful to watch him interact with daddy.  We are so blessed that he is attaching to both of us and I am so excited to see my prayers being answered...I prayed specifically that he would latch on to his daddy :)

He LOVES playing ball...looks like we have another baseball player Papa Jim :) Get you mitt ready!!


We are off to do some sightseeing today.  Here's some more pictures and a little video of our giggly guy..he was watching this video this morning and he couldn't stop laughing and talking...it was hilarious! The first picture is my favorite...we just discovered he sucks his thumb when he sleeps :)

Pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9350232@N08/?saved=1
Video here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9350232@N08/4965141771/

Sunday, September 05, 2010

Gotcha...

It's been almost 24 hours since Gotcha and Solomon is doing amazing.

So, here's how yesterday went....

We weren't really sure what day we'd be getting Solomon so once we landed and met our guide, she told us we'd be meeting our son 6 hours.  We were so excited.  After freshening up, we received a phone call telling us that our son was here and ready for us to come and get him.  We scooped all our goodies and headed to the 3rd floor of our hotel where our little guy was waiting.

We walked into a conference room and there was a little child standing there and I kept thinking, "that's not him...they brought us the wrong baby".  Trying to stay calm, I started looking all over the room and there wasn't any other children but then, this precious little boy...the sweet little one that we've been longing for for so long came running in with a huge smile, pulling the orphanage director into the room.  He came straight up to Paul and I & was all smiles until they told us to pick him up :)

He did cry for a little bit but once daddy busted out the toys, he was good to go :)  He hasn't cried since.  He is very much the smiley, giggly little guy that he was in all of the pictures we received while waiting for him.

We were told today that Solomon was very excited to have a mommy and daddy.  He told them he didn't want to nap because he wanted to meet his mommy and daddy.

Today, we finalized the adoption...YAY!!! The orphanage director and assistant asked him if he wanted to go back to the orphanage with them and he said NO & kept shaking his NO...they kept asking him and he wouldn't stop shaking his head NO!!!  He wants to stay with his mama & daddy!!! :)

To see pictures from Gotcha Day, you will have to go here...we can't get them to upload onto the blog right now.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/9350232@N08/?saved=1

Pictures...

I promise they are coming...we having a few difficulties but Paul is on it :)

The JOY has come!!!

Our little guy is doing amazing!!!  We are absolutely exhausted and need to head to bed but we just wanted to touch base really quick.

Solomon is doing phenomenal!!  He is sooo precious..he is so giggly and all smiles!  We will post more in the morning, including pictures.  We wanted our kiddos to see him through Skype first :)

Thank you for your prayers.  There is no doubt God is hearing them and answering them!!

I promise we'll post asap!