Lesley !

Hello from Changsha!

The past few days have been a whirlwind of activity and excitement! We left Beijing at 8:00am on Sunday, September 17. It was a 2 hour flight to Changsha. They lost one of our bags. Well, actually it wasn't "lost", just got left back in Beijing! I do have to say though, with the help of Air China and our WONDERFUL, PRICELESS, WORTH A MILLION DOLLARS guide from Great Wall, it was on the way to us on the next flight, and we had it delivered to our hotel room by 2:30 pm! Our hotel is the Dolton, and it is 5-star fabulous! Beautiful!

Sunday night, no one slept very well. Too much anticipation and excitement! We were off to the Civil Affairs office at 9:30am!
Getting the babies took about 30 minutes and was complete bedlam! But in a good way! There were 2 groups leaving just as we arrived. I guess on some days they do this all day! They were from England and Spain.

We all just were milling about in this incredibly hot room, when they just started to bring out babies one by one! No one knew who was next, so we were all passing around cameras and camcorders as quickly as we could! It was absolutely wonderful chaos!

All of a sudden it was our turn, and there she was, our precious baby Lesley! She took one look at us and started to cry, it just about broke my heart to see her so upset. They handed her to me, and handed Jim some pictures, the disposable camera we sent and a bag of baby formula. It all goes SO fast!

We have 12 families in our group, and my sweet little one fell asleep in my arms after crying for about 5 minutes. She slept almost all the way back to the hotel (about 15 minutes away). She is a miracle. Just precious. Sweet, beautiful, there are not enough words to describe how we feel about her. I felt completely attached to her right away. Honestly, we both did!

She slept well Monday night, and took a bottle and some water, but no food. Tuesday at breakfast she couldn't get enough of the ground pork filling in the dumplings! A meat eater! That's our girl! We went as a group out to dinner, and the restaurant made all the babies "steamed egg". She LOVED it! She ate almost 2 small bowls! She also discoved the wonders of Cheerios!

She is a little peanut, and although she is neaarly 13 months old, all the 12 month clothes are HUGE on her! Time to go shopping! Looking forward to Guangzhou and all the baby shops there!

Today (Wednesday) we went to Walmart and got her a stoller and a few smaller clothes and diapers. We have been borrowing a stroller from the hotel, and she LOVES it! Loves to ride and go outside. She can't walk on her own, but can tippy-toe a little if you hold her arms.

China is amazing, and we really like it here. All the babies are doing better each day, our travel group is great, and as I said before our guide is FABULOUS!

I will try and post a few pictures! Time to go nap with my daughter and husband!

Beijing in one really BIG day!

We went to the Great Wall, Forbidden City etc. today. All I can say is WOW. What an unbelievable experience. Wonderful. Sorry no pictures yet, but our camera battery finally pooped out right at the end of the Great Wall, and we left the extra in the hotel, so it is charging right now. We were out and about from 8:30am until 6:30 pm! I will post some pictures tomorrow.

We had a wonderful lunch at the Friendship Store before the Great Wall in the afternoon. We also got to see a Cloisonne' factory and then buy something (which I did!). Cloisonne' is the specialty of the Beijing area.

Our guide is so wonderful I can't even describe it! We found out today that we will meet our babies on Monday morning instead of Monday afternoon! Yea!

Tomorrow we rise at 5:00am for breakfast at 5:40am, and depart for the airport at 6:20 am for our flight to Changsha. We will be able to do some shopping for water, snacks etc. in the afternoon and get settled in at the Dolton Hotel.

China so far is a wonderful mix of old and new, "those who have" and "those who have not". Everyone is incredibly friendly and tries to be helpful even if they don't understand what you are saying!

We do get many curious stares, but nothing at all rude. The tourists in Beijing that are Chinese arte mostly from the country, and as our guide explained it, have only seen "western/english" people on TV! I had several people wnat to take a picture with me! Madonna had better watch out! LOL.

Having a wonderful time, very tired but happy, and looking forward to baby day!

I will catch you all tomorrow!

We're here!

Hello to everyone!

I am finally able to connect to Blogger (just had to re-start the computer), so I thought I would post while I could!
Our flight from Chicago was delayed on Wednesday for 1.5 hours, so we got a little nervous, but all was fine. We arrived in LA with 2 hours to spare. The China Southern Premium Economy to Guangzhou was pure heaven!
Somehow we managed to find our connecting flight to Beijing, even though finding someone who could speak English was difficult! We arrived at our hotel and went with our guide to the grocery store for water, juice etc. Then out to dinner with 2 other couples. We had a great time.

Now off to bed for the Great Wall, Forbidden City etc. tomorrow.
No pictures today, will post tomorrow if I can!