Beijing!

Blogger is acting funny, and won't let me move my pictures around, so they are all here at the top. You can read about our day below the last picture.

Garden at the Great Wall

Yeah, it's steep!

The Jade Factory

Rush finds a friend

The Forbidden City

Wow....what a day. We are tired to say the least! Beijing is a very cool city. In a lot of ways, it seems just like any other big city....lots of traffic, lots of people, lots of buildings. But there is definitely a different vibe here than any other place we've ever been.

We started the day with a great breakfast at our hotel and most importantly, coffee! Then we headed with our group to do our day of sightseeing. First, we hit Tiananmen square and the Forbidden City. It was chilly and rainy this morning, so we did a lot of umbrella dodging, but it was better than being 100 degrees! The Forbidden City was beautiful and HUGE. They are restoring a lot of it. It was interesting to see the contrast of the restored and unrestored areas. The history and age of the entire place was incredible. I believe our guide told us it was built in the 1400's.

Our guide, Michelle is great. She's done a great job getting us around and filling us in on a ton of information. She cracked us up earlier by telling us that when she first started working as a guide and was still improving her English, with her first tour group, she replaced the word "concubine" with "cucumber." The group couldn't understand why the Emperor thought China had the world's most beautiful cucumbers! :)

Apparently, Beijing, as a city, has 5 "rings." The inner most rings to the center of the city are more expensive and housing gets less expensive as you move to the outer rings and beyond. Younger couples or people who cannot afford otherwise, live in the outer rings, which causes their daily commutes to be 2-3 hours in each direction! In fact, because of this, often when couples have children, the children are sent to live with the grandparents. The grandparents essentially raise them until they are schoolage when they go back and live with their parents, because then childcare is not as much of an issue.

We also learned that the southern provinces of China are generally more traditional than the northern areas. This is why a lot of adoptions are done in the southern provinces. The cultural preference for boys still dominates there more than in the north. Rylie's province of Jiangxi is considered southern.

After lunch at a restaurant/jade factory (i.e. a seemingly transparent attempt to get people to spend money at the gift shop) we headed to the Great Wall. That thing is no joke! I have no idea how it was built. It is massive and STEEP!!!! However, it was beautiful to see it crossing over the mountains outside of the city. Fortunately, it had stopped raining by the time we got there. Otherwise I am not sure we would have climbed it at all considering we probably would have fallen to our deaths on the slippery steps!

We grabbed dinner with another couple from our group who is also adopting a child with cleft lip and palate...a boy. We hate to leave them tomorrow as they head to a different province, because we had a blast with them at dinner. But we will meet back up with them next week.

TOMORROW we have to meet our group at the crack of dawn to head to the airport and fly to Rylie's province. We are supposed to head to the Civil Affairs Office at about 3:30 pm (3:30 am eastern time) to get our girl. We will post as soon as we can!

Thank you all for your thoughts, prayers, and messages you have been sending us! It is hard to believe we are on the other side of the world...thank God for the internet! Please be praying for Rylie. As much as we appreciate the prayers for us, she is about to experience the biggest transition anyone could ever imagine as in the next days and weeks she is losing every single thing she is used to....her name, the sights, sounds and smells she is used to, her home, her culture, her citizenship...everything. It has to be terrifying for a 21 month old little girl who cannot understand what is going on. Please pray for her to have peace and for a smooth transition.

We can hardly believe the day is almost here! It truly is surreal.

Special Munchkin Message Below:

J-man and Crazy Cakes: Boy do we miss you guys!!! We hope you are having fun at Mawmaw's house and behaving yourselves!! Today when we were driving back to our hotel we passed by the Bird's Nest and Water Cube from the Olympics! They were so cool! We will show you pictures when we get home. Jonah....guess how many rooms were in the Forbidden City! 9,999!!!! That's a few more than we have at home, huh? Reagan, at the Jade Factory, we saw a bunch of little animals carved out of jade.....there were elephants, snakes, tigers, mice, even a monkey! You would have loved them! There were also some HUGE lions and dragons that were bigger than you! Tomorrow, you get to become a big sister! And Jonah, you get to be a big brother again! We can't wait for Rylie to meet you both! Love you guys so, so much! We hope to Skype again soon...sorry it wasn't working well tonight. At least we got to hear your voices! Hugs and smoochy kisses! XOXOXO

Hello China!!!!!!

Well, finally after about 28 hours, we are in Beijing! Wow, that was a long flight! Everything has been pretty uneventful up to this point, which we are thankful for! We were able to sleep some on the flight from Seattle to Beijing which was good since that was the longest portion of our trip. We had to laugh that the "Western" choice for dinner on the plane was Asian Soy Chicken. Really?

Saying goodbye to the kids was much harder than I anticipated! I think I cried until I got on the plane. I didn't expect that....but I know they are in good hands!

We met up with our guide, Michelle, at the airport as well as another family adopting with our group, from Houston. Michelle said there will be about 6 families total in our group. One other family will be with us the whole time, as they are adopting from the same province as us. She also said we are the only ones to get our child on Sunday!! Woo Hoo!!!

Tomorrow, we will see Tiananmen square, the Forbidden City and visit the Great Wall. It is chilly and rainy here but that's ok!

That's all for now! We'll update as much as we can!

Here we go!!!!!!!!

We're leaving for the airport in about 2 hours....it feels so surreal after so much waiting! China, here we come!

Quick update in pictures....

...because I'm busy with a few other things!

Good-bye summer fun...

Hello first grade!

Back to the ball field...

Reagan transitions some ponies to the world of outside toys.

Getting ready for preschool....she starts in 2 days!

And a few other pics just 'cause I like them...

Oh yeah....one more thing....

We leave in 3 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A debt of gratitude

I suppose any time you have a major life change and people surround you in support, your blessings become more evident than usual. As we embark on probably the biggest venture we have ever experienced, I am feeling overwhelming gratitude towards so many people, and I wanted to take a minute (or a little longer) to say thanks.

-First, of course, to God, for leading us to this path for expanding our family. His faithfulness and perfect timing is evident to us in so many ways, great and small and we will be forever grateful that he chose to bless us with Rylie.

-Also, of course, for our families....the excitement and support they have shown us has been outstanding from the outset of this process, nearly 3 years ago. They have helped us emotionally and financially, and are watching over our other 2 precious treasures who will be here as we travel.

-Jonah and Reagan- for their patience and already evident love for their sister. They have endured countless hours of appointments and paperwork and have sacrificed material things so that their sister could join our family. They are graciously giving up Mommy and Daddy for a few weeks, which is tough for little kids!

-Rachel- You have no idea how indebted I will always feel to you for opening my eyes to the world's orphan crisis. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Also, for your support throughout this journey...I don't know how I would have made it through without you!

-Everyone at Great Wall China Adoption (especially Deidre, Beth, Stephanie, and Jenny) and Forever Families Adoption Services for their hard work on our behalf through the mountains of paperwork and for their patience as we navigated this crazy world of international adoption!

-All of my co-workers who patiently put up with my emotional craziness over the last few months and let me come to work even when I should have been cancelled! :)

-So many friends, far too numerous to list, who have offered to help in any way possible. Your prayers, well-wishes, offers to watch the kids or run errands have not gone unnoticed! Thank you all for being invested in our family!

-Everyone who entered our raffle or who have donated money towards our trip...WOW! You have no idea how much we were touched by your generosity. You have allowed us a little "wiggle room" in terms of expenses, which are so vast...every single dollar is helping bring Rylie home, which is the best gift ever! Thank you all so much!

-Ramsey- You are insane....but, thank you.

-Kevin and Michele- for all of your "been there, done that" insight, tips, and support!

-SuAnne- for letting me join in the consignment sale! :) It has been a big help!

There are still more of you that I could thank....I could go on all day. We have been so blessed already. Our hearts are overflowing with the goodness of the people in our lives! We can't wait for Rylie to experience the love and support we have already experienced through you all!

We Have A Winner!!!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who participated in our raffle fundraiser!!! You have no idea how much you have blessed our family through your contributions. It has helped ease the financial burden in a big way! Thank you!!


Now....for the news!


We used a random number generator over at random.org to choose our winner.

So without further ado......

The Winning Number was.....

# 123.....George and Karla Ott!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations Guys!!!

We will be in touch about your prize!

Love, Love, Love this video...

Let me just say, we come to our adoption with a Christian perspective...something we make no apologies for. God called us to this path, and it is by His grace alone that we have been able to move forward on this journey. I think this video demonstrates it well. Please watch....