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!!