WE MADE IT!!!!

Sunday... May 9th... we made it home safely and all in ONE piece. We are so very happy to be home and back in America. We had a great time, but so happy to be home.

We love you all and appreciate your prayers while we are gone. This will be an interesting next few weeks, but so far so good.

Love,
Stephanie

Josiah #11

hey we rode the subway a lot today. went to the best circus i've ever seen! Had a lil McDonalds for dinner and now we are playing some cards and are gonna hit the sack. Please pray for our safety and for the girls to follow instructions God bless you all and don't forget I LOVE YOU!!!!

Josiah #10

hey all got a few pictures for you. Zoe is starting to warm up to us yay!!!! she started teaching me some chinese. Im so thankful the Lord has blessed me with two new sisters and i pray they will come to accept Christ as their savior. Anyways about the pictures. They are some foods we tried today that looked lets just say too much chinese for what we are used to. Thankyou all for following us once again i love you all!!

2 Days til Hong Kong

Today was another good day. Our guide, Anne, took our papers to the consolate today and all cleared just fine. Seems we're in line for our 'swear in' appointment tomorrow at 3:30, then we're gonna go to the circus at 7:30pm and then on Friday afternoon we will pick up the girl's US visas and catch the train at 5pm..... Then we will spend Friday night, and Saturday with the Chungs and then head home on the plane on Sunday around noon.. Funny thing... we get home at 3:30pm in Portland on Sunday, gaining 15 hours. :)

All are welcome to come welcome us at the airport with our new daughters. Please do not be insulted if they seem quiet and overwhelmed, but they are looking forward to it. Just might not show it. :) Trust us... all of us will appreciate seeing you familiar faces after 3 weeks of being gone and not recognized by anyone. :)

Had a nice time meeting another Christian man here in Guangzhou we were told about. He took us out to Chinese lunch. I am posting one picture from our lunch including a chicken head mixed into our chicken pot. Believe it or not.... it was still in the pot when we left the table. Zoe ate enough shrimp for our whole family. She had to peel each one... but let's just say... she's done it before.

We have quite a walk established up to the local "walmart" type store that has some little strip type stores around it. Tonight Josiah wanted KFC, so we made our way up there. Zig and zag around bikes and cars. We're getting quite good at it, especially Josiah.. Be aware... Josiah's driving may be horrible when we get back cause he's learning a lot of BAD HABITS from the cab drivers. :(

Lots of love to all of you,

Stephanie

Amberlee #8

Hey guys!,

Okay guys so you're all gonna flip by the time I finish this post.

Lets start out calm. :) We went to the mall today, did tons of walking around and took the Subway! :D Um yeah I've had tons of fun today! I did Anna's hair like mine (braided headband).

We did a lot of Boo Shei Shei (No thank you) to the guys trying to give us things to buy. :-o But that was okay. The streets/malls we were walking in were really busy!

Here's where you guys are gonna flip!:
So our family is walking by the stores, right? I'm holding moms hand, and Anna's holding moms other hand. Dad, Josiah, Jonathan, and Zoe are walking a little ways behind us. Okay so this guy with a trash bag with cans in it, is walking along and trys to kiss me! TRYS TO KISS ME! I'm like, What! What's your problem! Of course he didn't succeed, and mom turned around and yelled at the guy. Then he ran off. Dad didn't even know what happened. But it happened so fast! I'm glad that he didn't kiss me. Ugh what a creep right??!?!?!?!?!?!


Anyways guys I better go. Hope you are all doing well! LOVE AND MISS YOU ALL!!!!


:)

Am

Josiah #9

hey again all!!! got some more pics for you all :D kinda of what we were doing today, just chillin' again :P. the first one is of the construction that is all over the island about 15 minutes away. The next two are of some flowers that look really nice i think. They are making the island look nice for a festival kind of like our olympics, but chinese and not the same. The last picture is of my wonderful and newest sister Zoe sporting and goofing off with my awesome glasses :D love you all!!!!! thanks for following us!!!

Boring Day turns to Great afternoon and Evening

When we woke up this morning, we all were discouraged thinking "Oh man, we've got another 5 days before we see our friends in Hong Kong and then get to go home." BUT this afternoon we decided to make a trip to the island and hang out there for a while and then go to Lucys, an American restaurant on the island that is pretty good. We went to Lucys during both of our previous trips and enjoyed it. SO.... first of all... I had been told about a store here on the island that sold Bibles in English and Chinese. They're about $17 us dollars. The couple who owns the store are Christians and very very sweet people. We enjoyed very much our visit with them and being able to shop in their store with no haggling. They even gave each of us a free gift when we left.

After we ate at Lucy's we spent a good hour or more playing the equivalence of hacky-sack. We all enjoyed playing off and on.. The girls were so happy tonight and entered in on family affairs. Joking and laughing. It was SUCH a nice day..

Thanks for all your prayers. The Lord helped us through another day and we are so very thankful for His goodness.

Love you all very much. Enjoy the happy pictures!!

Steph

The Lord's Day

Hello and hope all is well with all of you. We're not doing too well updating all of you, but wanted to just sit down a minute and let you know how much we love you all and miss you. We are SOOO ready to come home now. Mom will remember how hard it was last time to get through the last week since there is literally nothing happening. You just go out and shop for a little bit and then come back to the hotel and then run to McDonalds and then back to the hotel.

While we're bored... we're looking for a few things to keep us busy. We may try to walk along the pearl river tomorrow or the next day. There is also a nightly circus. We MAY do this, but it is kinda expensive for all of us 7 to go, so we haven't decided yet.

Steve, you will appreciate the one picture as it is of Jonathan and I doing "zing, zing, zing"... He's pretty good, but not as good as you and I were in grade school. :)

Just posting a few pictures of our room and the happenings here.. We're eating a lot of cup-of-noodles. I skipped dinner tonight cause I think my tummy is tired of McDonalds and cup-o-noodles. Need a break. :(

Please pray for the upcoming week. A few more government things to still happen. Monday is a holiday, so that is why we have to stay until Friday to complete things, but it will happen and before you know it we'll be in Hong Kong with Thompson and then on our way back home.

The girls are doing ok. I think #2 is having a little more trouble than #1, but it will just take some time. A lot of water has gone under the bridge already and trust needs to be built. :)

Love to all,

Steph

Amberlee#7

Well mom says I need to post. Been lazy. Today's kinda a boring day. We went to McDonald's and ate, walked around, and have been sitting in our hotel. I guess mom saw some chicken feet, here's a picture.


We listened to a sermon today on sermon audio, and mom says that now we're all really bored of sitting in the hotel room. Since its like 110 degrees or something outside we can't go walking.

There's nothing else really to say. So I'm gonna go. If something interesting happens I'll post.

Josiah #8

hey again all! just wanted to tell you what we did today :D so today we slept in til 9 which was absolutely amazing! i vote that all families should do that atleast 3 times a week! and the pictures are of starbucks and Mcdonalds food... which what my point is in those pictures is we passed up STARBUCKS for MCDONALDS! :D not much to say but we are only half way through the day so thanks again for following me and keep watching our blog!!! LOVE YOU ALL

Josiah #7

helooooooo all no pics this time i've been lazy to post them but no worries i will be posting regularly again! thankyou all who have been following our blog we much appreciate it and love you all. today is kinda our hang out day we don't have much planned probably do some shopping and we have to pick up laundry. I will try and put more pictures up love you all and thanks again!

Various Pictures & TB test results read

Hello again,

We miss you all so very much!!! Sure wish we could come home now!! BUT we can't..

We had the girl's TB tests read today. Zoe's passed with flying colors, but Anna's had spread out a little, so we had to have a chest Xray done. The Xray showed NO concern for coming back to the states and no TB active, so we're very happy about this. This process has held up many families and THAT"S NOT US... and we're happy. And of course we're quite happy that Anna doesn't have TB cause there's NO way any of us could leave her now. She's already quite a part of our family.

We did a little shopping on the island here in Guangzhou today. There is a ton of construction on the island and everything is such a mess. Doug and Kris would have a fit if they could see what we walk under and by without any safety measures. It's really quite unbelievable. Yesterday we were walking under a bamboo scaffoldine where men worked about banging bricks off of the sides of building and pillars. Some would fall every once in a while and thankfully no one was hit by any.

Lots of junky little shopping here and there. I mean a lot of the things aren't worth carrying home, but it's kinda fun to find things for $2 and $3. :)

The girls continue to make progress. They try to listen to words in English and repeat them. Have had some attitude here and there.. but we're working through the things that come up and with prayer and much God-guided patience, we will continue to instruct where needed.

We love you all very much and can't wait to come home. We're almost to 1 week from leaving and we're anxious to get these girls on our turf!!

By the way... a few of these pictures are random shots Anna took... She takes some strange pictures and we have TONS... but they're kinda fun and she's having a blast.

Love you all,
Stephanie

Wildlife Safari Day

Today we visited the Wildlife Safari. We saw so many different animals that we do not have in the Portland Zoo. Great to see the pandas and the tigers behind glass was all. Amazing!! At the end of the zoo trip we were able to ride through on a train and see some animals walking around. Tasha will remember the wildlife safari we visited in Roseburg a few years ago with the kids. The second part on the train was much like the one in Roseburg. Great Fun!!

We're having a nice time. The kids are starting to get on each other's nerves some as you can imagine in a 200 square foot room, eating, sleeping and vegging.. :( BUT we're hanging in there and working for having better attitudes that will please our Lord.

I'm posting a few pictures from the zoo, but have so many more to share with you when we get back. We plan to bring our digital photo frame to church and let them just do a slideshow of all the pictures so far. Both Zoe and Anna are taking TONS of pictures and I mean TONS... I'm not sure they've ever had cameras and when they get ahold of one they will take about 50 in no time. Have to monitor these things. :)

Lots of love to all of you,

Stephanie

Amberlee #6

I know I know, you guys are all flustered for me not posting in a while, just calm down! ;) lol! Alright so I didn't have the chip in my camera and I realized that when we were almost to the place. :( I got a video but...I didn't get a very good one because I used Josiah's device for it. I don't think I'm going to upload it cause it's 33 seconds long and not very good. :/ Sorry.


Okay so Rebecka I have gotten one of your requests! :) I got a picture of a squat-pot! Here it is...
Oh! Also the style for the teenager girls right now, or what I'm seeing a lot of, is just a t-shirt, really short shorts with tights underneath. I don't have a picture of that. :/ I almost did, but it was a little weird. :p not that I'm not! lol!

Okay...so I think I have some other pictures too:
Okay the first one here there is a guy on a bike hauling all this stuff!
This one I saw in the park with Hellen, I don't know what kind of flower it is. But it's pretty!!!! :D
Um yeah, this one I'm just goofing around. He's attractive okay?! lol jkjk!!
"This is beast!" as Josiah would say.
Okay this is not okay! This guy it hanging on this bar fixing it. No harness or anything! :O
McDonald's ice cream! :D Chocolate, grape, lime, and strawberry I think? :)

Alright well that's pretty much all for now. OH! I bartered!!!! :D :D :D That was fun! Came down on a price from 78 to 60. ^_^ boo ya!

Oh and Rebecka the squat-pot, the cleanest one I've ever seen! :)

Okay guys I better go. DONT FORGET TO COMMENT!!!

Miss you allllllllllllllllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bartering!,

Am

Random Pictures and just some Notes

Hello once again.

We are thrilled to have the worst of our adoption details sealed up. As well as doing the adoption registration today, we also met another adoption family here in Guangzhou from Ohio. We enjoyed visiting with them and meeting their new 14 year old daughter. They were all very sweet. They introduced us to a few restaurants and sites on the island here in Guangzhou. We went to Subway (yes... just like ours), and also did some shopping for Zoe.

We are so very thankful for all of your prayers. We are all feeling very worn down and only about 1/2 way into our trip, but would like to finish hard and honor our Lord who has brought us this far!!

Zoe is realllllllly skinny. She will wear no bigger than a junior size 0. She is the tallest of all three girls. We can't get over how Natalia takes after Zoe and Jenna after Anna. Zoe seems to prefer her Chinese name at this point (Gui Yuan - said.... gwa yuon), but also responds to Zoe and we shall see over the next few days. As I stated earlier, her favorite color is pink.

In the picture you will see that Jonathan is playing hacky sack in the square with some of the people there. There were people kicking them over their backs and were somewhere in their 50's in age. Way better shape than I probably ever will be. :( Anyway... Jonathan is quite good at it!!!

Tomorrow is "shot day". Any shots they feel they need... they will give them. I understand that sometimes it is important that they get like 7. Please pray this is NOT the case and we can just skate out of there easily. Zoe looks very complete with here records, while Anna's seem sketchy. We shall see what they "inject" them with. :( I hate it.. but it's part of the adoption process and so we will proceed.

Thursday we will visit a wildlife safari park. It is an outdoor park that you ride an uncovered bus through. We look forward to seeing what different animals they will have there that we are not used to seeing.

Ok... this is pretty long and I should sign off.

Much love to all and coveted prayers over the next few days.

Many prayer for Walt and also Heika. I know that today is when Heika will have her surgery and we love you much and are praying for you. Trust the Lord and he will give you the strength needed.

A Second Daughter added to our Family

Hello all.... Just wanted to let you know we made it through our registration and "signing" appointment with Zoe Gui Yuan. I'm in a huge rush.. but wanted to get this on to all of you. We are so happy for God's grace providing this important step to become accomplished.

Zoe's (Gui Yuan which is what she seems to like) favorite color is pink.

Love to all and more later,

Steph

Zoe's Arrival

Hello all and once again we're adding another child to our blog. :)

Finally we are completed with getting our new daughters. Zoe Gui Yuan was added at about 3pm this afternoon.. She was a few minutes late, but finally she did arrive with her nanny.

She, too, is very shy. We are told that she has been in a foster home and was somewhat attached to her family there. Please pray all details continue to work out well and that we get through the next couple of days well.

Please enjoy the photos. Unfortunately, Zoe's eyes are closed in the main picture, but shows the room and all the event.

Please pray for us. The next couple of days will be interesting as we try to "mold" all this love together.

Amberlee #5

Hello guys! Been a while! We are now in Guangzhou and trying to fix the air conditioning. :) I haven't posted in a while, been tired. :/ Jet lag is catching up with me. :-/ Oh well.

Anna keeps asking if mom and dad are going to get Zoey! :)

So I have some pictures of what I ate this morning before we left on the plane. :) Mom and dad say they give me a lot of credit for being so adventurous with my eating. I already ate cow stomache so I was pretty much thinking, "Hey if I ate that I can try anything!" :D Here are the pictures:

YUM??? Not my exact words.

I have some other pictures of when we went shopping. People cross the street in front of moving cars! NOT SAFE! But I guess they don't seem to care much. People wont hit you, they'll just honk. :)

We bought a few outfits. The lady was so close to us! And I have a picture of what I THINK is Hannah Montana? And a picture of a Lakers jersy.

So also I wanted to say I saw some bamboo work. On hotels or any building that they build, they build a bamboo frame around it. They climb on the frame to work! :O It's crazy! In my previous post I have a picture of Me, Nathan, Josiah, and Jonathan standing in front of bamboo; yeah that's what I'm talking about!

Anyway I'd better go. Going to eat soon. Miss you all!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D

See ya,

Am

PS: We are getting Zoey tomorrow, please pray for us! :)