can't resist.....

another favorite!!!

Pictures!!!

We had fun Wednesday afternoon! We had some official "just came home" pictures of Meili taken. We had a traditional Chinese dress and some silk slippers from when we were in China. Meili looks SO cute in them. Wednesday afternoon Melissa Diekema came over to take pictures. She sent a few to us already and I just love them! I can't wait to see more!!! Here are two for you all to enjoy. (Check out Melissa's website here!)

pictures from China

A care package we sent to Meili in December included 2 disposable cameras. When Meili caretakers brought her to us in China, they gave us the two cameras, one used and one still new. Tonight we got the pictures back from the camera that was used. It has many pictures of Meili with other kids in the orphanage. Some of the most fun pictures to see are the ones of her and other kids sitting around the birthday cake we sent for her first birthday. After they lit the candles, the pictures are pretty dark and hard to see. What special pictures for her to look at someday!

Meili (center) with her birthday cake (Dec. 9).

Congrats!

Congrats to Ray (Henry's brother) and Junco on their wedding February 11 in Japan. Sorry we could not be there. We are so proud of you guys! Can't wait to see you when you get back!

sweet, tiny baby!

The pediatrician confirmed it - she's tiny (and cute!). At 15 months, Meili weighs 18 pounds and is 28.5 inches tall. That puts her in the 7th percentile for height and 5th percentile for weight compared with other kids her age. Had fun today - playing and taking more pictures!

a little bit crabby before her afternoon nap...

Here's what happens when it's Daddy's turn to play.

more pictures

SO BIG!!!!

Meili with one of our dogs (Otis)

A favorite book: Brown Bear, Brown Bear

Meili's Arrival in GR!

WOW! What a blessing!

Hey, we're home!!! We are SO thankful to report that our trip was wonderful! (well, as wonderful as flying halfway around the world can be). Meili did SO well! She slept for a few hours on the 4.5 hour flight to Tokyo, slept several hours of the 10.5 hour flight from Tokyo to Minneapolis, and slept completely through the Minneapolis to GR flight. When she wasn't sleeping, she was playful, happy, and befriending the people around her. What a BLESSING! Thanks for all of your prayers. We are just so thankful that things went so well and that Meili was such a good traveler. We purchased a seat just for her thinking that she would sleep on it. That didn't happen.... but, when she was awake, she sat there, climbed all over, and played with toys on the seat. It was totally worth it!

Now we're working on adjusting to the 13 hour time difference. We did pretty well last night, keeping Meili up until about 7:00PM. She went right to sleep when we put her in the crib. I think it was around 3AM when she woke up. I took her into bed with us and after talking and playing with me for about 15 minutes, she went back to sleep until about 6:00AM. Then we got up. I can't believe we got up before 7AM on a Saturday! Now Henry and Meili are both taking naps. Looks good but I'm trying to stay awake so that I can sleep tonight.

I'm moving pictures onto our main computer. I hope to post some later today. See ya!

high point, low point

We're in Guangzhou and no longer have free internet in our hotel room. That was a nice perk in Hangzhou. So we're at a coffee bar where we get free access since we bought something. Things are going really well here. We're getting ready to come home. All the paperwork is done and tomorrow we go take some kind of oath and pick up Meili's passport and U.S. visa. We leave early Friday morning. And now, we bring you "High Point, Low Point".

High Point - We're having a great stay. The temperature has been in the mid 70s here and it's just WONDERFUL! Our hotel is nice and we've had a pretty open week so lots of time for relaxing, playing and some shopping. It's a nice way to wind down before the long trip home.

Low Point - Meili screamed for 40 minutes on the plane on the way here. She was really tired and would NOT let herself go to sleep. She threw an absolute fit no matter what we tried. We passed her back and forth hoping that she would finally go to sleep. Finally, this really nice flight attendant came over and asked if we would like her to take Meili for a bit. We were happy to! Three flight attendants played with her and rocked her for about half an hour until she fell asleep. We're not looking forward to all the flying we have to do Friday. Once Meili falls asleep, she's a really good sleeper. It's getting to sleep that is hard for her.

This will probably be our last post before we get home. We'll post more pictures then! We enjoy reading the comments - thanks for checking in on us!

Liz, Henry & Meili

Guangzhou

Tomorrow morning we check out of our hotel, pick up Meili's passport, get some papers notarized, and fly to Guangzhou. We have some final paperwork to complete there - including applying for Meili's visa to travel to the U.S. I just checked the weather forecast for Guangzhou. LOOK!!!

Guangzhou Forecast
Monday: low 55, high 76
Tuesday: low 56, high 75
Wednesday: low 57, high 78
Thursday: low 57, high 79

We're hoping that Meili does well with the taxi rides and airplane travel tomorrow. She doesn't like sitting around much so we're hoping that she takes a nap or something. We took the last two days off - just relaxing and hanging around. It was good for Meili to have some days to get into a routine. She's had some good naps in the morning and afternoon. She is just such a delight to be around - exploring and learning new things all day. It will be good to get home so our family and friends meet her!

Farewell from Hangzhou!
Liz & Henry

Sleeping!

Meili was SO tired tonight but it's been hard getting her to sleep here. We don't want to leave her crying in the crib very long since there are people in the rooms next door. So we paced with her and played with for a while and then, finally, set her in the crib. She cried for about three minutes and then fell completely asleep sitting up. Here's a picture before we sort of pushed her over so she was laying down. CUTE!


Taking a morning nap in her daddy's arms! CUTE!


One more cute picture - I couldn't resist!

Video!

the weekend!

One week left.... it's hard to believe but we're already coming to the end of our second week in China. We have Saturday and Sunday completely free which will be really nice. So far, our days have been filled or partly filled with scheduled sightseeing events, paperwork, and official government appointments. It will be really good to relax and not constantly be shuffling Meili from place to place. She does really well except when we get in a taxi. She has meltdowns (sometimes) when we get in cars for some reason. Hope it isn't a sign of what it's going to be like in the airplane with her.

Early Monday morning we go pick up Meili's passport, get some forms notarized, and fly to Guangzhou, our last stop on this journey. We'll have more appointments there. We'll also be back together with the other families that are in this Bethany group. It will be interesting to be together again because now we all have new kids.

For now, we're going to enjoy this relaxing time with each other and our daughter! Good evening from China!

a funny story for today

Today I have a funny story for you all. It's about Meili and eating. Because Meili still has a large cleft through her hard and soft palate, we were advised to feed her only soft things like porridge, pudding, jello, applesauce, etc. Well, we were eating lunch in the room today and Meili got really excited when she saw my rice so I decided I'd give her just a little of it. I fed her a few small pieces at a time. She was LOVING it so I gave her some more. Well, a little while later, pieces of rice started coming out of her nose. It wasn't bothering her at all, in fact it was kind of funny. She would laugh or something and suddenly, some pieces of rice would squeeze out one side of her nose. We laughed about it and also learned our lesson, no more rice! (at least not until that hole is repaired) How cute though! We're having such a great time getting to know her and all her fun facial expressions and moods. What a blessing she is!

Pictures!!!

Meili

Well, the day finally came! We met our beautiful daughter this afternoon at the civil affairs office here in Hangzhou. We left Beijing very early this morning, checked into our hotel and then had lunch and a short nap. At 2:30 we hopped in a cab to go meet Meili.

It's almost impossible to explain what the day was like after that and exactly how we were feeling. It was just unbelievable to finally have her in our arms! She seemed a little shy at first but didn't cry at all when we were first holding her... almost seemed more curious about who we were. By the time we finished some initial paperwork and left to go back to the hotel we were getting smiles and giggles from her. She did NOT like getting into the cab - it was the only time she almost cried. (Maybe that's because she took a 4-5 hour car ride here this morning.) We walked to a grocery store to get stuff for supper and we attracted a lot of attention on the way.

When we got back we fed Meili and then tried putting her to bed. That's when she seemed to get a little bit scared. She didn't like the crib at all, in fact, didn't like being put down anywhere. We let her cry for a while but it didn't think it was so nice for our neighbors. So Henry built towers with stacking cups over and over, knocking them down until Meili finally tipped over in exhaustion. She and Henry are sleeping on the bed right now. It's SO cute.

I'll try to have my sister post pictures on here. The first picture is in the taxi, heading back to the hotel and the second is Meili spacing out while Henry was building stacking towers. We'll post more soon!

Tomorrow!

We leave for the airport tomorrow at 5:15 AM. Our flight to Hangzhou is from 7:55-9:55 AM. Someone from Bethany will meet us at the airport and bring us to our hotel. We get Meili sometime in the afternoon - someone is bringing her to our hotel. We can't wait! We hope to be able to post pictures soon! See ya, we're off to enjoy our last night together in Beijing!

Flipping and Climbing

Yesterday we went to the Beijing Zoo and to a Chinese Acrobat show. We already saw the zoo this summer but they have dogs so I REALLY wanted to go back. There were lots of really nice dogs but the best ones were the two Pekingese dogs that looked like Simon and Otis. We also saw the pandas and lots of hilarious monkeys.

The acrobat show was AMAZING! We saw people flipping each other, others jumping through hoops, many spinning plates, and one lady contorted her body while balancing various objects on her feet, head, and hands.

Today we went to the Great Wall at Badaling. It was cool and really COLD!!! We're guessing that the temperature was between 5-10 degrees Fahrenheit plus some really cold wind. We did a lot of climbing which warmed us up a bit We also toured a cloisonné (enamelware) factory today which is where all kinds of cool vases, plates, etc. are made. Expensive stuff to buy!

Tomorrow is our last day in Beijing. We'll be visiting Tian'anmen Square, the Forbidden City, and doing a hutong tour by rickshaw. Half of the Bethany families are leaving tomorrow morning to get their kids and the other half leave Tuesday with us. It's hard to believe that our time here in Beijing is almost over but we're excited to go get Meili! Don't know when we'll post
again… perhaps from our next destination, Hangzhou. We leave Tuesday morning and get Meili that afternoon. Hopefully we can figure out how to post pictures by then!

duck brain...

Hello everyone! Today's update includes more food and more sightseeing notes. Yesterday afternoon we did some shopping at the Silk Market and the Pearl Market. One of the best finds was a tiger hat for Meili. It's SO cute! "In Chinese folklore, babies wear this hat on their first birthday in order to catch, between the tiger's ears, all the heavenly goodness falling from the sky." We're a few months late for Meili's birthday but we got it anyway!

After the Pearl Market we went to what's considered one of Beijing's best roast duck restaurants. The duck was DELICIOUS! Our China friends will remember making the pancakes with the duck, sweet sauce, and green onions. Our server last night also showed up two other ways of eating duck. It was so good! Most interesting part... at the end of the meal they brought the duck's cooked head out to the table. Apparently it's one of the best parts. Henry didn't want to try it so I went for it. (He ate duck feet this past summer and I didn't so it was my turn to try something new.) It was... interesting. Not slimy like I thought it would be, but not my favorite Chinese food item. It is good to try new things!

Today we walked to Jing Shan Park. It's located just behind the Forbidden City. It's way up on a hill - built with the dirt taken out when the moat around the Forbidden City was dug. From the park we had a bird's eye view of the Forbidden City and Beijing in general. We could also see the mountains off in the distance. It's sunny and somewhat clear today and the view was just stunning. We walked to Tian'anmen Square next, hoping to go into Mao Xedong's mausoleum. His body is on display at certain times but it was already closed for the day. We'll probably go back tomorrow morning.

The other Bethany families arrived last night. This is their free day. I wonder what time they all woke up this morning. Tomorrow we start our group sightseeing and events by going to a Chinese acrobat show.

I guess that's it for now. We're having a WONDERFUL time! We'll post again when we can. Internet access is somewhat inconsistent - we've not been able to post pictures on here and Henry can't get into his email at all. Apparently an earthquake near Taiwan last month made some internet sites really difficult to get into.