Another day on the Island

Sorry about the pictures but they loaded backwards and I don't have the time to reload them so we are going backwards in time.

Anyway, things have been going well. We are continuing with the bonding experience with Finley and she is doing amazingly well. As you all know, she is a daddy's girl and has had absolutely no problem attaching and bonding with him. As you all also know, it has not been as smooth with me. I have had all kinds of advice and I appreciate it all and even Ethan and Owen have told me to talk softer and maybe she will like you-- thanks boys but didn't help much, but with all that said, she has taken major leaps over the last few days and today being the most. I am actually thinking that by the time we fly home that she might think of me as a mom-- not sure but maybe. She now lets me take her to the potty and will let me hold her some of the time. She reaches for my hand often and will be left in the room with me while Kevin is in the other room or in the bathroom-- sounds like no big deal but it is huge!!! She also gives me hugs and kisses all the time which just makes my day. I am loving finally getting to know our little Finley and she is amazing in every way. She is a bit mischievous and we have had to crack down on her and she has not liked it much, but overall she is a sweetheart who is just a joy!!!

Kev was on the computer and I was sitting on the couch and she let me hold her and she snuggled with me. Luckily Kev had the camera close and we were able to get a pic of this monumental moment!!!

This girl would spend every waking moment at the park if possible. She love to play with other kids and we are actually thinking that maybe we should consider preschool earlier than we had thought. We were going to keep her out until fall but she is so social and so smart that we are thinking maybe start her for the last few months of the school year-- hmmm.....

Mastering the wrong way up the slide trick-- she is really good!

A better view

We went to church today. It was great seeing all the believers in one place and how much their relationships with the Lord means to them. We enjoyed most of the service until one young unnamed girl decided she had to pee and we had to leave. It was almost over but we were happy we got to be there!

Kevin Skyping with the kids at home. She loves seeing herself on the computer. It is so great to hear the kids. We miss them so much and cant wait to get home!

She will wear the earphones and talk to Gu gu and jie jie but she got them off before I could get the picture.

This is Jenny and we did a lot of shopping in her shop. She is a wonderful Christian woman and her husband is too. They were great people so we gave them a lot of our business!!

More play time with mommy-- love it!!!!

Saying goodbye to our guide Eva. She has been our guide until yesterday and we now have Ike until the last day when we get Judy. It is all screwed up because of Chinese New Year but we appreciated all Eva did for us!!

More play ground time yesterday

Daddy catching Finley

Love that look on her face-- she loves being outside and loves playing.

Caught her in the tunnel

Too cute!!

Tomorrow we have our consulate appointment which we actually don't go to but just have to stay around the hotel in case they need us. Then we have our swearing in ceremony at 3pm so I will make sure to take pictures of that event. It is very cool!

Kids, we love you and it was great talking to you today. We miss you and will see you soon.

RUBY, I wanted to answer your question. We knew the children in the orphanage and their names and ages because we have become friends with a couple that volunteer at Fushun each year. They send gift and had a list of the names. They also are the only reason we were able to visit the orphanage before we got Finley. They love and respect Bob and Pat so much that they allowed us to visit the day before Gotcha which is unheard of. We were so thankful. So, my BFF Laila decided she wanted to buy gifts for each kid and she and I shopped and were able to make it work. It was a wonderful experience and Laila's generosity made a lot of kids very happy :)

Last but not least Kevin wanted me to post this picture for the purpose of showing Steve, his partner at work, that he has world domination in Spider Solitaire---- that's right, that says "you won" in Chinese-- beat that Sid!!!!!

Oh ya-- WORLD DOMINATION!!!!

BTW-- most of you have no clue what this means-- and neither do I -- but Kevin is currently laughing his head off in the hopes that Steve will look at the blog. Apparently, this is really cool-- OK, I guess I will take your word on that one. Hmmmm.....

A Free Day in Guangzhou

Here is another video from the orphanage. This is when we were giving the little kids their gifts and Finley was the first to receive. It is cute-- enjoy!!!

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This is a picture of my good cyber pal Myra. We became very close online through Rumor Queen as we both had very similar dates throughout the adoption process and we both were adopting spina Bifida kids. We hit it off in person just like we did online and I know we will see each other again in the future. She and her husband Mike and Will left today and I am very sad but again, I know we will see them again!!!

Finley loves the remotes to the TV and she and daddy were sharing some remote time-- she doesn't care about what is on the TV - she just likes to play with the remote.

We had a free day in Guangzhou today and all seems to be going well. We woke up and had breakfast and then met our guide and she took us shopping in the busy part of Guangzhou off the island. It was a very interesting area selling all kinds of freaky things for medicinal purposes and for food. The pictures above are of lizards on a stick-- yummmmm.......

Yes-- dried snakes.. to eat???

The pet part of the shopping area

Looking at the birds

A look down the shopping area-- it is FILLED with people-- tons of people!!!

Finley's new favorite spot

Since she will only let daddy carry her and she is not the lightest thing and with Kevin's hip being all screwed up, we found her new spot that does not bother daddy's hip and she gets a cool view!!

Funny thing about Kevin. He wore shorts and put a sweatshirt just to not seem odd but part of the day he only wore his short sleeve shirt. People just stared at him and thought he was crazy and that he must be cold. A young man approached Kevin today and asked if he was cold-- Kevin said no and he said that Kevin must be very strong. We laughed. The people here bundle like crazy. The weather here is like what we have at home. Maybe low to mid 60's but people act as if it were in the 20's. They are bundled and everyone wears long underwear under their clothes. They really think this is cold. They think Kevin is crazy for wearing shorts. We just laugh as we wear our lightweight clothes and sweat in those.

We made more progress today as well. She is tolerating me better but is still not totally loving me. She is still 100% a baba girl. She will take my hand here and there and she will smile at me but if she is at all upset or worried-- it is all about daddy. She will not let me hold her yet but at this point the small progress we have made has been ok so I'm just glad it is trending towards the positive. She and I painted nails today-- she still wanted to paint daddy's nails-- and we did beads which she likes.

Doing nails-- she concentrates so much and holds your finger correctly for nail painting-- it was sooo cute!!

The kids in China seem to be totally cool about picking your teeth. She knew what a toothpick was and uses them appropriately.

She was also very tired and almost fell asleep at dinner.

Pick away!!!

Sucking her fingers-- she only does it when she wants to go to bed.


Tomorrow we have to have Finley's TB test read and I think that is all. We are really wanting to get home but still have like 5 more days-- uggg!! Trying to enjoy my time but know it would be a lot better if a certain 3 year old liked her mama-- one can only wish....

Kids, we love and miss you. We will call you tomorrow morning which will be about 6pm your time. We wish we were home but soon-- very soon--- Big kiss!!

Vicky,

Astill.com is the best VPN here in China-- so I have been told by expats who know.

Finley is average for her age on American charts but wears a 3T and her foot is smaller than we thought. We brought her about a size 8 and they are too big and gave her a blister so we have just kept her in the ugg boots becuase they are comfy and she likes them. I would guess Jillian is smaller than Finley but I bet she still could wear a size 3T and maybe a 7 in shoes. If you have anyother questions, let me know.

Hugs

Sorry for the Delay-- but we are in Guangzhou!!! Also I got the video uploaded!!!

Spell check is not working-- sorry-- Im not going back and editing-- this post has taken me hours. Sorry for the misspelling


Sorry for the delay in posting but we were traveling all day yesterday to Guangzhou and our flight was over an hour late into GZ and then a 40 min drive to hotel and when we got there they did not have the room we paid for available so we had to go to a room and then get transfered today-- uggg!!! Needless to say, we were exhausted by the time we finally got in our room and literllay dropped the bags and left for dinner.

Anyway, first things first. I was able to get the video to upload since we are now in Guangzhou. It takes forever so I will add a few each day, but for now here is the first couple video's when we were in the orphanage. This first one is adorable when she came to me so quickly and willingly-- that was the last time she willingly came to me. We are still working on that but for now she is not fond of moma-- in any way shape or form-- totally sucks but Im ok for now-- uggg!! So I like to look back on this video of happy times when Finley didnt hate her momma-- awwww!!!

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This second video is of us at lunch at the orphanage. Volunteers had made dumplings and we got to share a meal with the staff and volunteers. Here we are just talking about Finley.


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This video is of a severe CP girl who is older getting her gift. As far as I can tell, she is cognitivly there but her body just doesnt comply. She can not walk but she speaks and took each item out of her gift and examined each thing and then put it back. IT was very sweet and she is such a beautiful girl!!


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Before we left Shangyang, we said goodbye to our great new friends Ferell, Davida, Morgan and Chrsitian. They are Expats who work for Michellin Tires and they are relocated in Shenyang for 3 to 5 years. They were amazing people and we feel blessed to have gotten to know them.




A picture with them before we left. They actually got to move into their apartment the day we left so they were very happy in light of their 2.5 week hotel stay.




Just a random picture of Finley getting a blow dry after a bath.

So then we left for the airport and our wonderful day of travel-- uggg!!! Just a long day.

Finley did great on the flight and it was nice to have the seat between Kevin and I to move around a bit. Finley did not want to sit in her seat--- rather in an attempt to stay away from evil mom, she sat in Kevin's lap.

And a pitiful attempt to sit by mom for a picture. She was not happy as you can see-- she actually cried when forced to be around me.

When we finally got to Guangzhou and made it to our room, we dropped our bags and headed to dinner and guess who we saw walking down our hall to visit us in our room-- Myra-- my wonderful RQ friend who is here adopting her son Will who is also a Spina Bifida kid. We always joked that we had to have our SB kids play in GZ together-- well that came to fruition last night. Myra joined us for dinner then we went to their hotel room with another family who adopted their son Luke who is deaf and sat and talked for a couple hours. Guess what--- beer in China is cheaper than water-- so guess what the men decided to drink last night-- your guessed it beer!!!

All the kids hanging out playing-- Finley actually ventured away from Kevin for short periods of time to play with the kids. We were so pleased!!!

Handsome Will!!!

Finley and Will -- our two SB kids playing on the floor together. We never thought we would see that day.

We went to bed late-- about 11pm which for us was very later since we have been going to bed really early. We woke up and had a long breakfast meeting a ton of adoptive family at our hotel-- The Victory. We then had to meet our guide to go to Finley's medical appoitment and TB test.

Before we went to the exam we walked the island (we stay on Shamin Island and it is a very Western Island that caters to adoptive families) and Finley was on cloud 9!! She loves being outside and was thrilled to be able to run around and play. We were thrilled as well becuase she actually did not shun me and even held my hand at one point while we were walking. I think I even got a few smiles which is huge!!!!

She loves walking the walls which are everywhere so our little girl is a happy camper and has great coordination.

Happy girl!!!

They have amazing fountains and Finley loved the water sooo very much. She would have gone in if we would have let her.

Just thrilled!!!! She is loving this place!!!

All of the kids and the locals are off school on holiday so they are out and about dancing and even doing gymnastics!!



We then went to the medical exam and first had to stop for a picture for something-- I have just stopped asking what we are doing things for. I just smile and follow like a little lamb.

We have the same picture of Mia sitting in this same seat almost 4 years ago!!!!

Before going into the physical exam -- which by the way was a joke. It seems so official with all the white coats and all the "exams" that are done-- but really they do nothing more than squeek a toy duck next to Finley's head and if she turns to look at it she is "healthy" with good hearing. Totally a joke-- and an expensive one as well!!!

The room where you wait is normally fill of adoptive families but since they are doing our trip a bit different becuase of Chinese New Year, we were the only ones there.

Weight and height-- height was 36.5 and weight was 33 pounds. They say they take off the height of her shoes but im not so sure they did that or not.

About to have the duck thing to make sure she hears correctly-- so lame!

Walking through Guangzhou after the medical. This is a statue of the old grandma, mom and young lady. The grandma has bound feet-- cool statue.

Playing at the playground. She loved playing and even let me play with her a bit. We are making baby steps towards her attempting to tolerate me-- not there yet-- but we are moving in the right direction. Interestingly enough, most of the moms I have met have daughters or sons who are shunning them the same way Finley is with me. Makes me feel not so alone. It is hard building up to love this little one and then her wanting literally nothing to do with you. Makes me very sad but I know she will eventually like me-- hopefully!! Glad to see I am not alone in this.

She plays very well with other kids as well.

She actually let me go down the slide with her-- shocking but true!! Mom aint so bad after all!!!

So that is where we are. Going well and Finley is in absolute love with her daddy. It is absolutly beautiful the way they get along and how much she loves her baba and gets comfort from him. It is precious and KEvin is doing amazingly. He is not sick of the cling on rather he knows she needs this and is accepting is with grace. I am so impressed with my amazing husband. Again, I know she will warm to me in time. We have 7 more days to get to know eachother and I am praying by the end she will like me better-- we will see. Tomorrow we are going to shop in Guangzhou. Other than that, sorry for the delay in posting but we are doing great.

Kids, we miss you so much and will call tomorrow. I wish I would hug and kiss each of you. Be good for Cass and we will talk soon!!!!