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! :)

Now in Guangzhou

We landed in Guangzhou and are now getting settled in to our hotel room. It's a bit tighter than what we expected, but we are making due. We pushed the two double beds together and plan to have all the girls sleep on them. The boys get the floor.

Anna was pretty nervous on her first plane ride, and shut the window for the entire trip. On takeoff it was very clear that she wasn't overly excited about the ground sinking away from her. But, she did well and we arrived safely.

Tomorrow we will meet our guide at 2:00pm to go and get Zoe. Anna has already asked about her and seems excited to meet her.

Anna has continued to adjust well. I believe that the other kids make all the difference. She really has taken to them and seems to really enjoy them. We are praying that the same will be true of Zoe.

Our guide, Anne, is very nice and most helpful. She has really helped to get us settled in and rolling.

Tonight we will probably eat at the hotel resturaunt, though we still need to do a little reconissance on it.

Josiah #6

hey all first thing i would like to talk about the video the beginning is just to listen to the music. we finally noticed a song that we recognized, but after that everyone says hello it was nice we were eating :D!!! Next i want you to notice the picture of the water that they gave us, we were very nervous to drink!!! dont get sick! i would like to thank you all again for following me and my view of this whole trip I LOVE YOU ALL FAMILY & FRIENDS!!!!!!! :D

Josiah #5

hellooooooooooooo again! sorry i've been gone just been lazy to post and have been meeting the new member to my family, darling Anna. My AWESOME MOM has just informed me that she has made a mistake in Anna's clothes size. It is NOT 7, it is 1-3. Anyways enough about other people's veiw, lets get to the exciting stuff. In the picture to le left you will see this tastey looking cake, Don't let it fool you though it is nasty stuff! Am tried it and said she almost threw up as soon as it was in her mouth! now we are questioning is the stuff on the top sawdust? well i guess we are going to go on a walk so i have to take a shower... LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH AND I MISS YOU!!!!!

Saturday.... Last day in Nanning

Hello all.. I'd like to say a special thanks to all of you posting comments. Some of you are commenting every time and this is so very special. We love you all and are anxious for you to share in our joy of bringing these dear girls home to Oregon. Keep up the good work of reading our blog and commenting. It helps pass the time here and also makes us feel as if you are involved here with us. God has been so very good to all of us. Continue to pray that Zoe's heart will be prepared for such a BIG change.

Anna decided to go swimming with Jonathan and Amberlee. I was really surprised that she felt so comfortable, but thrilled. She didn't care for the swimsuit, but she managed. She also played ping pong with Amberlee. We were a little worried that she'd show all of us UP in ping pong... but she is about on our par and that was great. :) She certainly knows the rules and was able to keep up with us.

Also went shopping and to McDonalds for dinner. McDonalds was kinda different and the burgers have a little more spice... and squat pots in the bathrooms. :(

Anna loves to shop. If she sees something she likes... she says "ooooooooo" Amberlee said, "just follow her mom, she knows what she likes." Kinda scary. Gonna have to introduce her to garage saling right away or we'll be having to starve cause she'd like to buy it all.

Love to all... Enjoy the pictures. Pray for us. And COMMENT. :)

Sorry... Something new just happened and wanted to share

I'm sorry... I know that I just posted, but Anna just opened up her bag and pulled out a photo album of her whole stay while in the orphanage plus all the gifts we sent her. All of the gifts are un-used and almost seem as if she's never seen them before. She has the letters and was just smiling huge when she showed them to us. She was so proud!!! I'm so very happy and can't even tell you how happy this made Shawn and I. :)

Love to all....
Stephanie

Finalized adoption today... SHE'S OURS

I didn't realize this was the day that Anna Yang Qing would need to say she "would" come with us and give an evaluation of whether she liked our family... but they took her into a room alone and interviewed her. We all stood outside really nervous. We knew that if she said "no" we'd be so very sad.. She of course did not know we were so nervous and when she walked out she had the biggest smile on her face... and was so happy to join us. We are relieved and happy. :)

Thank you all for your prayers. We can tell you are all praying. All is going so well. She's really shy... and this makes us a little nervous since our whole family is NOT shy, but she will probably help to mellow us all out. :)

Love to all...
Stephanie

PS... Hey mom... do you remember seeing any apartments like this when we were here before? NOT ME!!!

Amberlee #4

Hello all! I am sitting in our hotel room watching Anna and Jonathan kick the balloon back and forth. She laughs at a lot of things! :D I love her very much! She's so funny! She's still shy, but she's getting better! :) She called me Am today! :D That's exciting!

We went to Walmart today! We got some snacks for Anna. She chose dry seaweed, and peanuts. Mrs. Rule, is seaweed healthy for you?? :)

Well that's pretty much all I have to say right now. Sorry I don't have any pictures right now to add. :/

Hope that all of you are doing well!!! :D


Blogging,
Am

The day after getting Anna

This is Stephanie writing this time. We are SOOOOO very happy today. I went to bed last night for the first time and went to sleep right away resting and knowing that our dear Anna (which is what she has chosen for us to call her by the way) was resting right alongside us finally. :)

Amberlee is connecting so well with her and it is so exciting to see. Anna will repeat any english word that you ask her to say. Yesterday I gave her a necklace that I had bought for her in the US and she is TOTALLY attached to it. Another family had told me about sharing jewelry with them and how much they liked it. I'm so happy to have made a connection like this with her. We also found out she is quite the little shopper. We took her into a stationary store yesterday and asked her if there was anything she would like. She filled almost an entire basket. :( Gonna have to work on curbing this desire a little I think.

As for her size... some of you were wanting to know the girls' sizes when we knew. She is a little bigger than Amberlee. I would guess her to wear about a 7 in juniors and maybe an adult small with like sweat type running type pants, which seems to be what she likes. She is only 5' tall though, so if they were really long... this could not work too well. Her shirts are just small juniors. She is really pretty little overall. She has a new pair of shoes (knockoff converse I believe). Very very cute. Her favorite color is yellow.

We love you all very much and please rejoice with us as we thank our Lord for bringing us to this point finally. She is absolutely sweet!!!

Love,
Stephanie

Amberlee #3

Okay Blogger is officially not cool. It's been exiting my posts! ugh! lol. I am completely thrilled to have Anna with me! :D She's learning to say words, and how to use the Translator.
I have taken some more pictures for you all! Of the crazy traffic and all. It's kinda crazy.

I have found out that Anna's favorite color is yellow. She is learning to say some of the words, and is super funny on the translator. She likes to listen to the English lessons. Her favorite subject is English! :D We went to the market place and got some amazing things!! :D

Here are some pictures I have taken:





I captured a once in a life time glip of life! It was our first moments with Anna! She's a one of a kind girl!

I would have more pictures to put up...but blogger is being stupid. :/ Sorry. I will upload them later. LOVE YOU ALL AND MISS YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Tired,

Am

We Got Anna!

Finally after months and months of waiting we finally got our daughter Anna. We had to drive to another hotel where we were taking to a meeting room. On our way up we were all VERY nervous. Josiah had me put my hand on his heart that felt like it was about to beat out of his chest.

We thought we were going to walk into the room and she would be there. Instead they took us in and told us to wait for a bit. That's like telling a pregnant woman to stop pushing! Arrrrrgh! We sat in there for about 10 minutes which felt like an eternity.

It was probably rather comical to watch. We were so nervous we kept standing up, sitting down, pacing the room, etc. It was like a bunch of teenagers about to go on their first date. I can only imagine how she felt.

Finally she came in with our guide accompanied by an official and her two caregivers. She was obviously very nervous and shy. The caregivers encouraged her to hug us, and she did.

We are starting to get settled in a bit now and are going to go to a shop and get dinner. It seems like she is now calming down a bit.

Amberlee is communicating with her on a translator, and she seems to really appreciate that. I think Amberlee is having fun too.

Josiah #4

hey no wifi at the hotel only slowwww internet with a chord! coming back to the dial-up days... anyways yeah my last posting was like really gross sounding but trust me it was amazing. Mr. chung said just try it and i will tell you soon! i was like sure whatever and ate it and then he told me and i liked it and just finished it ;) so yeah i guess im more adventerous than you all thought. because the internet is so slow i cant ost any pictures for a few days. oh and check the comments on the last post i told you what it was :D thanks for guessing i appreciate your activity on that. umm i have to go. headed to the market :D. love you alllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!!!!!!!!!

Josiah #3

Hey All try and guess what I'm eating tell me in the comments what you think it is ;). I'm in the hong kong airport I <3 hong kong!! I'm just about to fly to nanning. Listening to a lady on the loud speaker that sounds halarious :D love you all tell me what you think it is!!

Visit with Thompson and Nathan + Ready for flight to Nanning

Here we are again. This time it's Stephanie. Our kids are really taking over our blog. I guess at least you hear ALL of the details. A nice surprise was to get to see Thompson and his son Nathan today. We didn't think we'd get to see them until our return trip, but they caught a cab and came and took us out to lunch and for ice cream too. Nathan is quite the helpful guy. He's full of info and very "Americanized" I'd have to say. :)

Notice we're on our flight now for Nanning. Tomorrow morning we meet Anna Yang Qing. Nervous and excited and still very tired, but overjoyed!! We're all having a great time.

Lots of love to all of you, especially our dear little Natalia and Jenna and their grandparents overseeing them. Give them a big hug and a kiss for us and let them know we miss them and love them.

Will post more when we get Anna tomorrow. Of course, Amberlee and Josiah will probably post 30 times before then. :)