Guangzhao Day 1

I'm too tired to be clever, so this post is going to be pretty boring.  I can't even begin to explain how sick we are of traveling.  24 hours of straight travel (car and plane) on Thursday, only 4 hours of sleep on Friday, full day of agency orientation and then sightseeing at the Great Wall, 5 hours of sleep becasue Turlte woke up at 3:30am this morning and was ready for breakfast, and now 10 straight hours of travel today.  We left our hotel at 8:00am this morning and went to the Beijing airport for our flight to Guanzhao and we just got to our hotel (The Victory). 

 

Here's the highlights (or actually low-lights). 

- Great Wall was beautiful, but jet lag really hit us when we got there and me and Turtle both ended up having meltdowns on the Wall.  No sleep really messes with a person and when you combine a pretty grueling hike on the wall, you get two very emotionally and physically exhausted people and one bewildered Cale (who has yet to feel any jet lag). 

 

- Food in Beijing was not great and make us pretty queasy.  The highlight of our trip so far was finding a McDonalds in Beijing....yes we came all the way to China and the best part so far has been McDonald's.  As an added perk, we were quite the rock stars in Beijing (I think because of Turtle's red hair) and when we couldn't find a place to sit in McDonalds, the staff actually made other customers get up and move and gave us a big table.  The manager also came out and gave Turtle a free ice cream cone.  And everywhere we go people stop and give him candy????   :)

 

- I shouldn't have bragged about how wonderful Turtle was on the flight because now the universe has decided we need to be humbled.  He has been a absolute BEAR the last 24 hours.  Whiny, crying, llama-drama, tantrums...like nothing we've ever dealt with him before.  We know it's the jet-lag, but man he has been a handful.  He's sleeping now so hopefully a good nights sleep will help.

 

- Living out of a hotel is very challenging, especially one with no drawers and only 5 hangers.  I have 2 weeks of clothes for 4 people and no where to put it all.

 

 

Now for the good stuff. 

 

- We get Livvie tomorrow at 2:00pm....which will make all of this completely worth it.  At the airport we saw a handful of little girls that looked to be about her age and it made us grin....looking at them and realizing we get our ladybug tomorrow is unreal.

 

- We will post pictures as soon as we can.  :)

 

 

Signing off for now....

We Made It!

After being fogged in at Central Wisconsin Airport and then driving like maniacs to Chicago to catch our connecting flight (we made it to Chicago with 10 minutes to spare!).  We arrived at our hotel in Beijing at around 1:00am this morning.

 

We're a bit tired, but not as bad as we thought.  Taking a overnight flight was definitely the way to go.  Lucky was a CHAMP on the plane....24 hours of total travel time in the car and in a plane and he was an angel the whole way.  Not one tantrum or fit.....I swear, the kid is so good it's unreal!  He told me this morning: "I had a really fun time traveling with you last morning mama"   :)

 

I'll try to post more when we get to our province on Monday.  TTFN.....

34 Pounds!!!

Can I get a woot-woot!! I finished packing our largest suitcase today and on a whim decided to weigh it (fully expecting I was going to be way overweight and need to do some rearranging). We weighed it by itself on the scale and then with each of us holding it (just to make sure we got a somewhat accurate weight). All three times it came out to 34 pounds on the dot (for those of you who have heard me stressing for the last month know that the weight limit to stay under is 44 pounds. Yeah, oh yeah, I made that luggage my..... (you can fill in the blank since this is a family blog). :)



On a sadder note, my little turtle made me cry on Friday night. He's been very clingy and overly affectionate the last month. I hear "I love you mama" and "I need to give you hugs mama" about 200 times a day lately (not that I'm complaining, I've been loving it). But we knew that on a subconscious level it had to do with the adoption. We talk to him all the time about how much we love him and how bringing home Livvie won't change that and we hype up all the positives about being a Big Brother. He always seemed satisfied with our talks and we've been asking him over and over again if he's sad about anything (he always says no).

Well Friday night he said he had a "tummy ache" again (another reoccurring ailment in the last month that magically goes away with some cuddling and attention). So we were snuggling in the chair and I asked him if he was sad and he said no. So I took another approach and asked him if he was scared of anything? He sad yes. I asked him what he was scared of and he said in the saddest little voice "Livvie coming to live with us". I asked him why and he said "because you won't take any more pictures of me then". (which makes perfect sense when you consider that the main topic of conversation with family lately is "did you get any more pictures of Livvie?" and also considering I started adding pictures of Livvie to all our family pictures in the kitchen, living room and bedroom, which meant some of his older baby pictures got taken down). So we had a talk about that and I assured him I would always take lots of pictures of him and we talked more about how our love for him will never change. Then I asked if he was scared of anything else and he said "Livvie taking all my toys". :) I figured that wasn't the time for a talk about sharing, so I promised him that for now, his toys are off-limits to Livvie unless he decides he wants to share them with her (we'll cross that bridge when we get to it).

It's just amazing how their little minds work and I feel terrible I didn't get to the root of it earlier. And funny thing is, we had a tummy-ache free day yesterday for the first time in a month. :)

Bad Blogger - No Biscuit!

I apologize to all my faithful followers - I've been a terrible blogger lately!! I know how disappointing it is when you find a smart, witty, funny, interesting blog but the blogger doesn't post for days and days. Each day you check it in the hopes of finding a new wonderful and interesting post to brighten your day, but see nothing except a old post about Christmas, Hanukkah, or National Arbor Day. Disapointment, sadness, frustration....I feel your pain! But I'm back and I promise I will try to do better to keep you all updated!

I do have a good excuse for not blogging lately, we got our travel dates last week and I've been in a whirlwind of booking flights, packing, and trying to tie up loose ends at work before we leave. We'll be leaving on 2/17 and "Livvie Day" will be 2/21. I'm excited we're finally getting to the end of this process, but also incredibly nervous too. The "what the heck have we gotten ourselves into" is creeping in.

For those of you who know (and love me), you know that I could be the love child of Martha Stewart and Ikea. Organizing is my passion...I LOVE it. Eveything in my life is organized to the 100th degree. But even Martha would struggle with trying to pack for 4 people, 16 days, with a luggage weight limit of 44 lbs each. I am using every packing trick in the book and I am still overweight (luggage people...well okay, luggage and me. Note to self, stop eating ho-ho's while packing). Bottom line, I have too much stuff and not enough space. It's like a giant jigsaw puzzle! I sit on the floor in Livvie's room every night and stare at the chaos around me. I move stuff around, fold it smaller, pack it tighter and still not enough space. So I get frustrated, give up and go eat more ho-ho's. My friend Annie has told me to give up, wear sweatpants, and call it good (I'm starting to wonder if she's talking about the packing or my diet issues????).

On to a happier subject....we requested one last update on Livvie from the adoption agency. Since Chinese New Year is this week, everything is closed, so we may not get one before we leave. But we figured it couldn't hurt to ask. They were going to submit our request on Friday and with any luck, we'll get some new pictures and measurments before we go. If we get new pics, I'll make sure to post them.