So I'm feeling human again. I thought I would update all of you. Our trip home went remarkably well. 15:30 hours from Hong Kong to Newark. Lydia took a 45 min nap and then she slept about 6-7 hours as well. Rosanne was holding her on the flight from Newark to Pittsburgh. They were both sleeping and Rosannes hand slipped and thunk went Lydia's head. She was not a happy camper the rest of that flight, but as soon as we got off the jet she was fine. Lydia went right to Kim at first then changed her mind. Nana and Papa Sam as well as Papa Dave were all waiting along with Big Sister Addison. We stayed in the airport at least an hour. After about 20 mins Lydia Addison and mommy were walking hand and hand back and forth in the airport. Laughing and having a good time. I have to say it went better than any of us expected. I think the fact that we Skyped twice a day helped. Lydia feel asleep on her Mommys lap on the Way home. She has been great with both Kim and Addison since we have been home. Today they were playing ring around the Rosie. So funny giggling as they fell and rolled around the family room. Addison is struggling at times with sharing Mommy and Daddy as well as her toys. But we are seeing her progress more and more every day. It is hard as a parent to see her go through it, but we know that not to long from now she will figure it all out and love having a sister. Lydia is doing well considering all the changes in her life as well as adjusting to the time change.. Lets just say we are all sleep deprived. She did better last night. Kim rocked her from 1-2 am then she fell back asleep. The night before we partied all night. Daddy got 2 hrs of sleep that night. Ouch. Oh well, it will be short lived, and if she was a newborn it might have been months before we slept! Overall everything is going great as all of us adjust to the changes. I Will put pics up tomorrow, they are on the other computer so I can't do it from here. Russ

Next stop USA!!! Ok we are in Hong Kong now. 3:20 car ride here. The van was nice and so was the driver. Lydia was a cranky butt. She doesn't know what is going on so I am patient. I pray for it. She was all over the van from me to Mimi and back and forth and back and forth. How are we gonna do 15 hours!! I will survive hey hey. We will do it because we HAVE to! And because she is so worth it. We had room service for dinner because we got here at 8 pm and had no other choice. Split a club sandwich a double order of fries a diet Pepsi and a Heinikin. (For those of you that don't know me that well I rarely drink anymore but on this trip I have had about 1 beer every other day). The bill was $330 HKD. I have no idea what that is in US CURRENCY and its probably best that I don't. Well this is the end of this part of our journey. Just the beginning of the next part. I hope you enjoyed following this life changing adventure. If anyone ever thinks they may be interested in adopting from china we would be glad to help you on the path. There were couples in their 40's and 50's adopting little ones. It's never to late to change a parent less child's life for the better, and yours too, of course Russ, Mimi, and Lydia. PS I will post pics as soon as I can!

I was thinking of getting a night job writing a column in our local paper the Derrick. But I see that my viewership is dwindling so maybe not! No offense taken as the days become boring in the end. Anyway we slept in today. Lydia woke around 3 am and after trying to get her back to sleep in her crib she ended up in my bed and then rosannes. She fell back asleep at 4. I woke at 8:21. That is sleeping in for me! We went to breakfast and then started packing. What a job. It's a good thing we have most of the day. Then we counted all of our china money and went shopping at the local mall. Might as well spend it here. Rosanne keeps buying even though her suitcase is full. She told me not to worry she would "fit it in". We shall see! Lydia is doing great. She just stumbles around the room babbling and gets into everything. She is a smarty for sure. She's not a fan of anyone talking much to her besides us. Of course everyone wants to talk to her, so out of the stroller she comes to me, over and over again! Oh well, at least she's a little bugger. It's very nice out today. We took a stroll out probably about 80 out. I can't imagine being here in the summer. Everyone says its melting hot. Glad we missed that. It is perfect out. We soaked it in as we won't see that again until maybe May. Anyway we are excited to get home of course, at times it seemed like this trip would never end, but now it seems like it went fast. Lets hope the flight goes fast. We have over 600 pictures taken. I am going to make Kim develop them in sections. 100 at a time :). Not sure how much video we have. Rosanne has been doing most of that. I'm sure we have lots of screaming on there from gotcha day. Seems silly how much I worried before that day on how I would know how to take care of her. It has all fallen into place. Should have known it would. Signing off for now. Russ.

This is our last night in Guangzhou. Today we went to apply for Lydia's visa. We left about 9:10 and returned about 11:30. It was pretty uneventful. I got my way at breakfast just in case anyone was wondering. They tried to direct us that way and I said nope we are sitting out there. So we did. Lydia like to eat rice congee for breakfast. She is also fond of French toast. I have found that she is getting pickier at what she will eat. Hopefully once we get home she will continue to eat a wide variety. Lunch for her was a banana and muffin as well as Cheerios and puffs along the way. We leave a trail wherever we are. Rosanne went shopping at the pearl market and we took a nap. She bought lots, she is using the excuse that she has to spend all this china money before she leaves. Sure. Around four we went to the lobby for family, group, and children pictures. The line all the kids up on the couch and attempt to take a picture of all of them. Sure, that worked out. As soon as I sat Lydia down she started the silent bawling. Needles to say the top of my head is in all the just kid photos. Anyway after that some of us decided to get taxis to Lucy's restaurant. It is all American food. The taxi took forever. I thought he was taking us in a joy ride. Everyone said it would cost about 20 yuan. I kept watching the meter and pulling out more money. It was 29 yuan (which is about 5bucks). I had the "all American fried chicken" c Hickey, onion rings, French fries and a Heineken. Now that Is American. It was really good. Lydia had.........chicken rice congee. She are the entire bowl. We sat outside and it was really nice. Took the cab back, wasn't sure if we would make it back but we did. Crazy drivers around here. MiMi gave Lydia a bath and then we Skyped with the girls. Now Lydia and MiMi are out for the night and I am watching Armagedon on Starz. The only English speaking stations are HBO Starz and news channels. I watched some really stupid movies this week! Tomorrow we leave for Hong Kong. We will get there about 8 pm and then Friday. Fly at 11 am which is about Thursday night at 10pm EST. 15:30 to Newark. 3 Hour layover. 1:40 hr to the Burgh. 1:50 to Flockerzi Rd. that's just crazy but its amazing as well that you can fly to the other side of the world in about 12 hrs. I will try to blog one more time before we leave Hong Kong. When I get home I will post some pics over the weekend. We have over 600. signing off for now Russ

We got out of the Zoo! Today was Zoo day. Before that was breakfast. They have gotten on to us so today they put all the adoption families in a separate room. I am rebelling tomorrow. They are going to try and nicely direct us again to that dark dreary room. I'm not going in so wish me luck. The regular breakfast area is very nice the entire outside wall is all windows so it is very nice. I need light to wake up. Anyway I stole two bananas as well as a muffin for Lydia. The trip to the zoo was good, the only differences were they let u closer to the animals than at home and they have rats. They just mingle within the exhibits. With the monkeys. They don't seem to mind them and they are confined but we found it a little gross. The zoo was nice and clean besides that. We got back to the room about 12:30. Lydia took a 3 hr nap and I got about an hour. I never really felt awake most of the day. Rosanne went out and found a few good shopping spots. We went to dinner at 5:45. McDonalds. It was good. Then shopping. Bought the girls China dresses. A girl working there tried to file Lydia's shoes. They are the ones that she had on her when we got her and the soles are coming off. Go figure they say made in the USA on them. Anyway they started falling apart about 10 mins after. Hopefully we can hot glue them at home. Want to keep them for sure. We got back and sat in the lobby for about an hour and people watched. Lydia is a crackup. She rambles non stop. She walked all around. She is not as afraid of other people as she had been. Tomorrow is a busy day. We have our visa appt at the US Consulate. After that the group goes shopping at 11:30 then we have group picture at 4:30. Thursday we leave for Hong Kong and Friday we are OUTTA HERE. I am sure I will have funny stuff to report tomorrow. I am just tired and ready to come home so not feeling very funny tonight. Signing off till tomorrow. Russ

Medical exam day. Well we got our Visa picture today. Lydia got up at 6 am this morning an hour before normal. Lets just say that by 10 I was ready for a nap. She fell asleep on the bus ride to get her visa photo. Anyway we had to wake her up and she was not a happy camper. We shoved he in a chair and snap snap. Of course those weren't any good so they had to get the squeaky toy out and shove that it her face. For some reason the one with her bawling was perfect. She is a very sensitive girl and for some reason the officials are always loud and in a hurry so needless to say she doesn't respond well to them. Next was her medical exam. Nurses station was weight height and temp. She cried as soon as they looked at her. 18.7 lbs. anyway next was the ENT then the general exam. The nice part was that she cried at every doctor so they got her in and out faster than any of the other kids. ( I mean cries the kind where no sound comes out). The funny thing is she turns it off lickity split. I keep looking for a switch. We returned about 12:30 and she took a 3 hour nap (I got about 30 min). Rosanne read for a while and then she went for a walk. Didn't get lost so that was good, I never know if she will return. We went on the Pearl River Cruise tonight. We got good pics. It was very nice. The food was lousy. It was buffet. I was getting something out of a pan until I realized there were about a dozen chicken heads staring at me. No thanks. Ended up eating ice cream and cake. That's the American way. Lydia had agood time. We stood on the top floor outside and looked at all the pretty building. She is daddy's little girl an I am soaking it up as much as I can because I know her mom ans sister will steal her away when I get home. She now says bye and is waving to everyone ( I have a feeling that someone before us was working on bye-bye). She is smiling at other people as well. This is all great progress as she used to cry if anyone but myself or rosanne looked at her. That's about it. Tomorrow is the Zoo. Hopefully they let us out. I'll update everyone if they do Russ.

Get us out of here. We are spending to much money!

Today we had a good day. The breakfast buffet is crazy huge. They have about 5 islands that are probably 30 feet long each. Anything you can imagine is there. Today I had a fried egg, bacon, French toast, pancakes, dried banana, oj, coffee and I stole an orange, banana and muffin. I've also lost 2 lbs since we have been here. Rosanne won't get on the scale so I can tell you anything about that. Our room is very modern, a little to much. The shower us glass into the bedroom and when u push a button the metal curtain comes down. For some reason it will randomly come up on its own exposing the shower and entire bathroom. Rosanne is taking short showers because I told her I would take pictures if it comes up when she is in there. So funny. Also the door slides closed and us very heavy. We have to keep in closed otherwise little miss busy body goes in and plays on the toilet or randomly puts things in the garbage. Lydia is getting very comfortable around us. She trusts me more each day. She has a temper which is funny. You have to laugh at her even when she is mad because she is so darn cute. If she doesn't want something then she just throws it on the floor. Food toys whatever. On the floor. Today we went to a Buddhist temple which was smelly. They burn insense all over. People were bowing down to all these statues and praying. Seems so silly to me. Then we went to the home of the last dynasty of china. The Cheng Dynasty. Very beautiful with lots of detail. Last stop was shopping. Spent to much money. Got the girls little china outfits. Also we bought Lydia Jade earrings. Jade is a very valuable stone in china. I would compare it to gold in the US. Tradition is that on a brides wedding day her parents give her a gift of something made of Jade. Done. After that we roamed the hotel. Went to Starbucks and the China Fair Trade Center which is like a HUGE mall. Then a group dinner at a Chinese restaurant. I tried everything and it was excellent. Got back to the room and played for a while and Lydia collapsed. Ten we Skyped with the girls (such an awesome thing). I watched some intense Nicholas Cage movie and now it's off to bed. Tomorrow is the Visa photo and Medical exam for Lydia and then The Pearl River Cruise. Talk to you then. 5 more days!!

84 degrees here! We made it to Guangzhou. Today i am thankful for Subway. There is one right down the street from our hotel. We are staying in The China Hotel owned by Marriot. It is very nice and large. We have a Starbucks on the first floor a covenience store and McDonalds right beside us. I think I like it here. I am also thankful for the pants I put on Lydia today. The legs stayed down the entire day. I have been pulling the legs on her pants down all week when I carry her. It drives me nuts. Well the flight was ok. She had a meltdown for the first 20 mins or so, which almost caused me to start asking someone for a cigarette. They all smoke over here. But then she fell asleep before we even got off the ground. I feel so bad for her. She has no idea what is going on, she is with these crazy strange people who don't let her nap because they run all over the place, and then we put her on a plane which she has never seen. Overall she did good. She was so tired tonight. It was like Jekyll and Hyde. She was laughing and carrying on one minute and then trowing herself on the floor crying the next. I took away the instruction card from the remote from her because she was putting it in her mouth and she lay beside me and cried a river. I rubbed her head and she fell asleep after about 15 min. I can't wait to get her home so she can get on a schedule. This is brutal even for a young guy like me, cough, cough. Tomorrow we are doing a tour of a Buddhist temple, another place that is 1400 years old and Rosanne's favorite an arts and crafts show (yawn). We will be back at 12:30 and then dinner with the entire group at 5:45. 17 families in our group. That should be fun. 17 families lives changed for the greater, 17 parent less children welcomed into a loving (and from what I have observed) mostly Christian home. How awesome is that? What else can I tell u? I ate dried peas today and they were good. I know Kim will like that because I am not a fan of peas. The lunch on the plane was either chicken and rice or fish and rice. I obviously had the chicken. Never did find any chicken in there. My hip needs replaced I am pretty sure (so does Rosanne's). If I don't loose any weight on this trip I will never excersise again cuz if you don't loose weight with all this walking, you never will. One more thing, I love this little girl Signing off for now! Russ

We are winding down our time in zhengzhou . It is 9 pm here and Lydia is crashed on the bed. I lay next to her with her blanket until she falls asleep. It takes her about 3 minutes. I shouldn't do it but I can't help it. Plus I like to look at her when she is sleeping. Such a beauty queen. Now I have two (u two Kim!). This afternoon we took a walk in the park. A very big park. We walked a little over an hour. I am not in my early thirties anymore as my legs and hip hurts from carrying her the entire time. We got lots of stares and smiles from the locals. We saw a McDonalds but we weren't hungry yet so we didn't go. The doctor is our group came and looked at Lydia tonight. Bronchitis. He wasn't concerned said she will get better and probably didn't need the antibiotic but to finish it anyway. Thanks Doc! She is getting better PTL. Nose has stopped running and she isn't coughing as much. She's getting her tude back. She's a drama queen, but we are used to that. If you take something away from her you would think you cut her foot off. Tonight I went in the bathroom and she stood outside the door and screamed for about 2 mins then threw herself on the floor. So funny. Again, she will fit in just fine. She has a funny/sweet personality and she seems to be into everything but not destructive. Rosanne packed one suitcase then moved onto the next. When she turned around Lydia had unpacked the first one. She was picked for us long before we ever decided to adopt, I have no doubt about this. Well we have to depart here at 8:00 am or 7 pm Friday night for you Pennsylvania folks. Pray that she does well on the flight. About 2 hrs. I hope so. She does good riding on the bus for long periods of time. We are looking forward to the temp of around 80 at our next stop. I will try to bring it back with me; don't get your hopes up! Till next time, Russ

So today we went to the zhengzhou city children's orphanage (I think that's close to the right name). This is where Lydia was brought when she was found. We visited a part of the orphanage that is sponsored by our agency. We saw about 12 babies. One premature, some with special needs, and some just fine. It is hard to see so many parent less children. They are well taken care of but it's never optimal without a mom and dad. Lets just say it is a good thing we couldn't just take one more because I am positive I would have. Kim just would have had to accept it! Lol. Anyway we got some nice picture and got to see several rooms and meet the Ayis. The BEST PART was they let us take what they found Lydia in when she was a baby. We didn't know they had it but they asked us toward the end of the tour if we wanted it. YES. We got her outfit but not the hat she was in (we took a picture of it). Their policy is to keep one item on record. Very thankful for what we got as I know this will be cherished by us and her for sure. This is our last day in Zhengzhou and while I am so ready to leave it is a little sad as this might be the only time I am ever in the area that she was born. Somebody is this city gave us a precious gift and while I may never be able to comprehend giving up your child I am grateful, we are greatful. We will take great care of this little girl. Tomorrow is time to move to Guangzhou flight time is around two hours so it will be a good test for the 15:30 flight to Newark.m we are UNDER A WEEK TILL HOMEWARD BOUND. Again forgive any grammatical errors! I don't have patience when typing on this iPad Signing off for now Russ

Today was Foster Care visit. Eagles wings. Google it, they do great things. Anyway it was about 1 hour 45 min drive but took about 215 due to traffic. I figured the pollution would get better as we got out of zhengzhou. Wrong. It's sad because so many beautiful building but you can see anything. I feel bad for the people that have to live in this. Anyway passed a truck full of pigs; as well as a motorcycle with mom,dad, and baby in the middle(and I do mean baby). Eagles wings Is located on the fifth floor of an apartment building. Pretty much everyone lives in apartments here. You can buy and sell them but when you de they go back to the government. The outside is pretty grim but when you enter the apartment everything is new. I would say about 1200 square ft max. Small kitchen, baby bedroom with probably 8 cribs, guest room for volunteers, a main living area and a bathroom. Nice hardwood floors and very clean (I knew it would be). We got to meet Donna the director as well as her daughter and all the ayis (nannys). Lydia was running around and playing with her friends. Many cute kids there for sure. This place is supported completely through donations, so if your interested google it. Lydia cried just for a minute when her Ayi handed her back to me, then she was fine. On the way back I played music from my iPad and she sang and danced. Never fused, she is a good baby. She really isn't a baby anymore ur she wears 9-12 month clothes so she looks like on. She babbles a lot to which I like. We got back and then I walked with a few other people to Pizza Hut ! It's past the Walmart--I'm getting sick of walking and of dodging scooters! We are all ready yo come home. Miss my girls. Anyway the pizza was ok but not as good as USA Pizza Hut! Lydia seems to be getting better during the day, but at night she coughs a lot. I just had to take her in the bathroom and run the shower to get her out of a coughing spell. We have a doctor in our group and he said he would listen to her lungs for me so we will do that tomorrow. I pray that this antibiotic will show major progress tomorrow. I don't want to have to take her to a doctor here. Tomorrow we will go to the orphanage that she was first brought to when she was found and stayed the first month of her life Stay tuned Russ

These are some pics of Lydia and my Mom

Today is Wednesday here. We have nothing scheduled today. I went to Walmart by myself. It is about a 2 miles walk that is a little intimidating but I MADE IT. Got your bowls Carrie and picked up afew for us. Spoons too. Lydia got an antibiotic so hopefully that will improve things. They come in a packet and dissolve in water. She was not happy with me but I had to use a syringe to get it in. I'm sure this will be the first of many times she is not happy with me! We are getting bored in the room so we are going to go to dinner after this. Island cafe. We shall see! Last night was good. Chinese food, we really enjoyed it. Lydia is not drinking as much as I would like, maybe a sore throat as well. I am looking at the translation book and asked her in Chinese if she was hungry. Must if done good because she shook her head yes! Wish I would have learned more. It is nice to communicate with her. I will just keep reading the book and see what she responds to! Also looks like we are going to get to go to Eagles Wings tomorrow. This is where Lydia has been since she was 1 month old. We are excited about it, but I am worried that she will get upset all over again. We will see but I want to get lots of pics for her in the future. Signing off for now, if we get to go tomorrow check the blog,I will update it Signing off for now Daddy, MiMi, and Lydia.

We are official! Adoption paperwork was signed this AM. Left at 9. Got back at 12. Mimi put her to sleep on the bed about 12:30. She is so tired but has been great the entire time. She eats lots for sure and is not picky. Still has rattling in her chest and runny nose. So pray it will go away. She sneezed this morning at breakfast and let's just say lots came out her nose. Poor little thing, but she manages to eat lots with the open palate. She has just adapted to it. Drinking is also fun. Lots of napkins for sure. Last nite we got room service. Cheesburgers and fries. It probably cost $100. I have no idea because everything is in RMB. Oh well, it was sub par but filled our bellies. The breakfast buffet is good. Lots to choose from. They make eggs to order so that is good. Their bacon is questionable but at this point you just eat and don't think to hard about it! We will survive. That song keeps playing in my head. Just kidding. It has not been all that bad and the time has gone pretty fast. They keep us busy. But the thought of another 10 days does get a little daunting. I will survive hey hey. She is so worth it. Bye bye for now.

GOT HER!!!! We walked into the registration office at 9:30 AM and there she sat with her Ayi(nanny). What a beautiful little girl she is. We had a scream session for about an hour. I think when her Ayi left and we got out the gerber banana puffs everything calmed down! Her Ayi stuck around a long time, I know it was very hard for her to leave. She loves Lydia very much. We are so thankful that she took such great care of her. We promise to love her lots. She is soooo tiny. Has 9month pants on and she is 20 months old. She does not want to be put down at all so either myself or Mimi holds her all the time. We got a few smiles and laughs out of her, she said mama and dada when looking at our picture (though I missed it). She has eaten Cheerios, rice (bowl and a half) and 3/4 of a banana. The only thing she hasn't liked is gold fish. She finally just feel asleep on me about 10 mins ago 5:20 or so. I slid her off of me onto the bed. She has a cough and her chest is rattling so pray that it goes away. For anyone ever wandering how you feel about an adopted child--no different. Unconditional love as soon as I saw her. She is ours, whether she looks like us or not, it is an awesome blessing. Signing off for now Russ.

Good morning from China. It is 6 am here Monday which would make it 5 PM Sunday there. Can't sleep over here. I am sure I will get used to the time change just before we come home. Slept the best last night which was from about 12:30 until 5:15. I expect that tonight will be even less as Lydia might not sleep much. We are 3.5 to 7 hours away from Gotcha!! Bought supplies from Walmart but have no idea how to prepare them because all the directions are all Chinese. I am going to go by memory for the formula. 1 scoop per 2 oz...right? It will all work out for sure. We have 10 families on this journey and several of them are here for the second and third time. I am sure they will be helpful. Rosanne is being a trooper. This trip can be grueling, not much down time. She is doing great though. I let her sneak a nap yesterday, then dragged her to Walmart after that! We are popular in china. A lot of stares in Zhengzhou. It's my looks I'm sure --haha. We are in Avery nice hotel as well, but the room is cold (even for me). We tried to get the hotel to fix that. Not so much. The communication gap doesn't help. They tried to tell me they would have the engineer turn the heat up in our room specifically. I'm thing they are full of it, but I let it go because they can't understand me anymore than I can them. Signing off for now, will try and update everyone tonight which is tomorrow morning for all of you Russ

Hello from china!  I have finally figured out how to get on this blog over here. Anyway it has been a very busy first couple of days. We have walked almost the entire way up the Great Wall of china.  No easy task but well worth it.  We visited a Jade factory and purchased a couple of things for the girls.  We visited the birds nest from the 08 Olympics and went to an acrobatic show as well. Today we flew to Zhengzhou. Went to the bank and exchanged $1000 US for $6718 RMB. Feel rich!  To bad it is not worth as much as it sounds!  Also went to Walmart to stock up on supplies. We will be here for 6 days.
China is a very interesting place. I would never drive here, the traffic is nuts and no one obeys anything. Worse than LA traffic for sure. Beijing is huge and people are all over. I think the population in 15-20 million. Nuts. The smog was heavy and while we were there it rained and snowed therefore we were not able to "see" a whole lot!
Zhengzhou has less pollution so you are able to see better. It is also a large city but not as big as Beijing. The weather is in the 30's and was clear today. Food is interesting. The breakfast buffet has salad as well as French fries. I had a hard boiled egg,bacon,oj,rice crispes, and French fries for breakfast! I figured if its there then it can't be wrong to eat it!
One thing that I have noticed is how professional the workers are in the service industry. They are very polite and still dress in the historical ways. I.E.  the bell men wear caps and the airline stewardess wear the hat and uniform. Seems that the U.S. has lost this and I find it neat that China has not.
We are feeling very filled with excitement and anxiety for tomorrow. In about 12 hours we will have her! Just praying that all will go well and Lydia will trust us. Praying The Lord will give her comfort
This will be traumatic for her as she will be taken from all she has known since she was 1 month old.  I know that this is the plan and that God will see us through.  Just praying that her transition will go smoothly.

Signing off for know, forgive any grammatical errors as I am typing from and iPad!

Russ

It's Saturday morning here in the U.S. ....it's  Saturday night in China we talked to them this morning via skype and they are having a great trip so far!!

However Russ CANNOT get onto this blog site to blog and and some pictures!! It's very frustrating for him because he said he wants to share this with everyone so I guess for now there will be NO pictures from him and no writing from him You have to settle for me!!!hahaha!! I am not the best typer in the world so please bare with me and i will keep you updated with everything I know until we can get this issue resolved!!

I want to say a HUGE HUGE THANK YOU to MIKE  for helping get the sound working so they could hear us!! Wow that made everyone HAPPY last evening!! Thank you so much for coming over so fast and taking our time from your "busy" schedule to help us!! The O'brien's are always there to help us out with computer issues what a blessing they have been to us during this journey for us!! God Bless you all!!

Well here is what they have did for there Saturday the got up at 6am had breakfast and were on a bus to the Great Wall by like 7:30 I believe. The said that as a wonderful experience and great to take that all in!! Then they toured the JADE factory and of course I asked them if they purchased any jade??? They did!!! YEAH  /....... They said its alittle pricey but that was something we wanted .... as you know Lydia's middle name is JADE.....  Jade is the jewel in China!! so then they went to a theater show last night and said that was fantastic!! LOVED THAT!!! They are eating OK!! said there was pork, chicken.beef, and of course RICE.... to eat and russ said there was some squid to eat but they both passed on that and some other things that didn't look to good to eat!! Their hotel room was very very nice!! In Cjina the do spoil you at the hotels They gave them WHITE Robes and Slippers to wear!! geez the United States doesn't even do this!!

They were getting ready for bed as it's night time there and at 6 am there time (6pm tonight our time) they are getting up and flying at 7am there time to Lydia's Province..."Henan" !!! Wow they have completed one part of the journey They will be leaving Beijing!!! So that means for them they get to see Lydia and have her in like 36-40 hours!!!! They will have our precious baby girl Forever!!! wow what a day this will be!!! I just pray that he will be able to post pictures and blog by this time!!!

Well hope this helps everyone follow i didn't expect that I would be the one writing in the blog I do aplogize hopefully we can get this figured out soon!! Tanks for all your prayers for them and please say a prayer at 6-9pm tonight as they will be flying on another airplane to the HENAN Province!!

13 days till Lydia is Home!!!            God Bless you all........ Kim And Addison
      

It's Friday afternoon and I thought I would update you all !!
RUSS AND MY MOM  made the long LONG LONG flight to China!! They said they had a great flight watched alot of movies (so I think they got all caught up on that anyway), played some games and said that they did good until the last couple hours then they were tired of sitting!! I think Russ told me ablout 6,600 miles they went from chicago!! WOW PRAISE GOD YOU BOTH ARE THERE!!!!

I guess you just never realize how long that flight is until YOU ARE THE ONE SITTING ON IT!!!! or on the waiting end ~~ waiting to hear they made it!!!

I know that they are 12 hours ahead of us so right now they are getting some much needed sleep !! They said they didn't sleep on the plane ride at all!! GOD BLESS YOU BOTH!!! I know that they are going to go see the Great Wall when they wake up which will be like 6-7:00pm our time tonight.... I pray that they have great weather and it's not SNOWING like it is here!!! YES it was snowing some small flakes today and it's like 38 degrees here at home,....Hope its warmer there??!!??

We tried to skype with them this morning but they couldn't hear us they could see us and we could see and hear them but hopefully we can get that part worked out!! That's all I know for now I know they are going to be pretty busy so I will try to keep updated if they can't !!

If you are reading this THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND PRAYERS (14 more days) !! Gotcha Day is only about 57 or so hours away for them!!! WOW so excited for them to wrap there arms around her!! I just hope she will let them at least hug her alittle!!
                        ~~~~~  SENDING LOVE HUGS AND KISSES FROM ADDISON AND I ~~~!!!!!!

14 days till LYDIA is home!!!!