Pictures of the Week 8/5-11

I'm determined to catch up on my pictures of the week. Back to August but we'll get there.

Mighty Warrior

218 / 365

Joshua, who was the smallest physically, got to play David in the play. 

He conquered the giant Goliath with his faith in God.

Garden Bounty

219 / 365

Reduced to vegetables when the end of the day 

arrives and a picture has not yet been snapped! 

  Sunny Summer Day

220 / 365

Don't you just wish that was you? 

  Chopsticks Anyone?

221 / 365

You know you have an Asian child when chopsticks 

show up in your plastic silverware picnic bag.

Grammy Lou

222 / 365

We got to visit with our sweet Grammy Lou this summer. 

Wing Span

223 / 365

Erik has quite the wing span. 

What a great kid to let me take his picture!

Personality Plus

224 / 365

Love her!

The First Week

We hit the ground running this first week home.

Two of the hardest things for me after coming home are 1) driving and 2) going to the grocery store. 

I am so tired that I am afraid that I cannot stay focused enough to drive and the grocery store with its bright lights and the trillion choices is JUST.TOO.MUCH. 

Monday, I had to buck up, take the bull by the horns and drive to Joy's doctor appointment 90 minutes away. We did fine except for the one time that I drove forward up onto the curb. Fortunately, my car forgave me. And the kids that were with me had a good laugh. 

The grocery store I managed to avoid until Thursday when no milk forced me to take the plunge. I went in with both feet, fully clothed by taking all four little kids into the store at dinner time. I may not do that again anytime soon but the distraction of keeping them moving in the same direction certainly helped my oversensitivity to American grocery stores.

It takes a couple of weeks to re-acclimate and we are making progress. What fun adopting an older child is! We get to discover what Joy does know and help her experience what she doesn't!

On Tuesday, we went to watch Coach Jerrod. The kids love him.

Joy was brave and decided to try the slide. It takes her a bit to navigate the play equipment but she is willing to try every thing at least once!

She is always smiling!

The threesome is a force to be reckoned with.

When you tell me I have my hands full, I won't argue....

But I sure will let you know that my heart is even fuller!!!!

Joshua is proud of his accomplishments, as he should be.

She is a good eater and has taken to American food like a champ. Hopefully we can get some weight on that 12 month size waist.

The girls are playing for the recreation department field hockey team.

All team huddles need....

a bubble blowing cheering section. Don't you think?

THEY

CRACK

ME UP!

Rugged Admiration

Well, there is no denying that re-entry is rugged. At best. A twelve hour time switch is tough when all of the sudden night is day and day is night. Today was the first day that I stayed up all day without a nap and was pretty proud of myself. Hopefully, we are rounding the corner and will get a little more sleep tonight.

Joy is adapting marvelously and took the continent leap like the champ that she is. 

Can you imagine going to bed one night in Cowbell, USA and waking up the next day in Siberia? I choked up as we got on the plane in Guangzhou, China, taking a daughter from everything she has ever known, her culture and language, the smells, and sounds.

We have demanded so much of her. And she has done everything we asked with grace.

My admiration for her strength and courage is overwhelming.

Yes, she is this happy most of the time.

Every night, I ask her if she enjoyed all the new things she experienced that day. She proceeds to jabber at me in her own language. She must think I am the most wonderful and permissive mother because I nod and say yes to everything she says. Now pointing (definitely a universal language), that's another story. Some of those get a no.

She doesn't miss much, always observing and watching what is going on around her. She has been a little overwhelmed but seems to enjoy meeting new people and has learned to shake hands. Sometimes, she even flashes a smile!

Like most traumatized children, Joy has her moments when the shadow of abandonment crosses her face and we see her alone-ness, her fear, the ache of newness. 

Thankfully, these moments are fleeting and few. We have our teary moments and she definitely has some triggers but for the most part, Joy is handling the changes in her life beautifully and we are letting her set her own pace.

Today, Monday, we hit the ground running and began our doctor appointments beginning with the pediatric cardiologist. She was a wonderful patient and sat quietly for her echo which clearly showed her heart defect, a PDA. Her doctor has scheduled a heart catheterization and feels fairly "positive" about his ability to possibly do a repair should her pulmonary pressures allow. Apparently in this day of new technology and medications, the window of pressures is wider than it used to be which allows our almost six year old a chance. There are no guarantees that this can be done but we trust our doctor and the Great Physician. 

Taking it one day at a time. 

Good-bye China

We loved our time here in China, the birthplace of two of our children. When we visit Arizona, I always appreciate that the landscape is as different as it could be from where we live on the East coast. The same goes for China where the people and the culture are unique and incomparable to anything we are familiar with.

We have witnessed an amazing transformation in the eleven days of togetherness. Joy has blossomed like a flower.

Every day we see more personality. We are incredibly blessed by a little girl who has been waiting almost six years for a mommy and a daddy.

Joy was cooperative at the medical clinic. Her height and weight were confirmed to be about what we thought.

She has had a few episodes of purple lips and we are anxious to see what our cardiologist has to say next Monday.



We have learned a lot of our girl over the past two weeks. Joy knows how to scrub laundry, rinse, and wring.

Her smile lights up a room and completely convinces us that her name is exactly right for her. Pure Joy!

We learned that maybe Joy might need to practice her picture taking skills

We rode the metro and felt safer than when we took taxis. Of course, the metro provided lots of opportunities for people to "check us foreigners out". We had our picture taken on the street and were often the only foreigners at the places we went on our own.

Our last night in China found us celebrating with new friends who shared our adoption experience with their own.

I don't think we will be back any time soon but we will always treasure our time in this country, soaking up the culture and loving the people for who they are.

Good-bye, China. Hello, United States of America.

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Pure Joy

Jean said she wanted to know more about Joy and what Jean wants, Jean gets. After all, I like to say that this is all her fault, our China connections. Jean was obedient in caring for widows and orphans when she put up a certain little boy's picture on the sidebar of her blog. I will never forget the moment I saw his picture. How many times this past year I have remarked that I am a better person for knowing our Joshua. I cannot imagine life without his precious smile. Jean, I am sure, would covet your prayers for her family as they work to bring three new daughters home from China.



One of the things Jean had posted awhile ago was how she started at the beginning with each of her children (newly adopted and learning English as a second language) no matter their age. We took that to heart when we realized that Joy hasn't had any exposure to simple problem solving skills. We went to the local stuffmart store and bought a classic toddler toy which can be used in all sorts of learning like size, shape, colors, and toss.

Joy has begun to let us know her needs and wants. She decided that she wanted to conquer the escalator. And she did!



When we went to the safari park, she seemed to enjoy it. She wasn't particularly scared nor was she overly excited about seeing all the animals.

One of our first appointments after the cardiologist and the pediatrician will be the eye doctor. We are wondering if she has some depth perception issues. She has a hard time with stairs and when the texture, color, or type of flooring/street changes. She hesitates at the curb and asks to be carried down stairs.



We celebrate that she has begun to point and letting us know her needs.

Did I mention that Joy is tri-lingual? She understands Mandarin, Cantonese, and her own native dialect. I think that is making communication difficult for her. It is hard to know what she understands when she is asked to do something (even by our guide for instance).

Hopefully learning English will level out the playing field and allow Joy to reach her own potential.



She enjoys FaceTime with the kids. About the third day she connected the talking faces on the IPAD with the pictures in the photo album we had sent her. We practice all the names a lot. I don't think she realizes people, specifically adults, have their own individual names. It has been a struggle to get her to call us Mommy and Daddy. That will change quickly when she has serious competition for my attention.

What pure joy it has been to spend this time win our daughter.

As my friend Anya said, "Have fun introducing Joy to the world!"

I love that! I really do!

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Front Row Seat - Clash At The Garden

Since we arrived in Guangzhou, we have noticed a police presence milling around the hotel and on the streets. Finally someone asked and we learned that the Japanese Embassy is housed in our hotel complex. Some Chinese are unhappy about Japan's acquisition of the Diaoyu islands.

We found out that there would probably be a protest on Sunday when people were off work. Saturday night, the police were lining the streets and putting up metal barricades.

It is a mass of humanity here in China and with so many people going somewhere, nowhere, and everywhere, even we foreigners feel like we blend in as long as we keep moving. A group of us went out to dinner and in spite of the activity, we never felt unsafe.

Sunday morning, we looked out our window at the back of the hotel to see police everywhere. We went down to breakfast as usual and got ready to go to Christ Church on Shamian Island where they have an English translation service. By 10:10, when we went down to catch a taxi, the front of the hotel had been closed off and the protest was amassing in front of the hotel.

We climbed through a barricade on the side of the hotel and walked to the overpass to grab a taxi.

There only seemd to be a small crowd of protesters and other than the inconvenience of hailing a taxi, the environment seemed peaceable.

Because of the traffic and the cab issue, we were a little late to the service. The ushers found us a seat and we enjoyed listening to God's word spoken in Chinese and English. Many people came and went in the back. Curious maybe?

We strolled around Shamian Island and found the statues where we had taken pictures with Joshua.

We went to the Victory Hotel to grab a cab and after waiting quite a while, we got in a cab without a meter. Oops. He told us 40 yuan for less than a two mile trip. I knew we weren't far and we were being taken but oh well. Then he pulled over and told us to wait in the running car while he went to the bathroom. That was bizarre. Thankfully he returned and we continued on to the end of the block which was our destination.

After our shopping, we again had trouble getting a cab. Some random guy in a van tried to engage us and we waved him on. Another cab driver looked at our hotel card and said no. Finally a nice guy who spoke a teeny bit of English took us back towards our hotel.

As we got closer, more and more roads were closed and finally the cab stopped and the driver apologized profusely for not being able to get us closer. We got out, walked about five blocks, and managed to get through the police barricade by being pushy and showing our room key.

Quite a few people were congregating at 4:00 pm.

We estimated that protesters numbered in the hundreds and police were in force by thousands.

Apparently while we were gone during the day, the event escalated when they broke through the police line and got into the lobby of our hotel. Windows were smashed and sculptures destroyed. At one point they shut down the elevators and sent everyone to their rooms. We came back a few hours after that happened.

Ten deep and no weapons that we could see.

There was a show of force across the front of the hotel. We went down to the pool on the fourth floor to get a good view and to hear the chanting, yelling, and speakers. It was loud because the sound was bouncing off the tall buildings all around us.

.

Army, riot police, regular gendarmes, many were defending and protecting.

Bob bravely went back downstairs to take a few pictures. All for the blog, right honey?

While he was there, the blue shirts went marching out.

Bob later went out for fast food because we couldn't bear the thought of paying forty bucks for some rice from room service. He found a place where police were letting people in and out. As he was coming back, the protesters were marching back around the block and he crossed the street in front of them. He said the energy on the street was palpable.

Quite an experience. We never felt unsafe but a little unsettled. It would have been great fun to go on the other side of the street to observe but it wasn't the place for Joy to be. Today we asked our guide if she would move us if it wasn't safe and she said the hotel already had alternative plans for their guests if anything got out of hand. That was reassuring and we carry on with our US Consulate Appointment tomorrow to finalize Joy's adoption and Visa application on the US side.

Hip, hip, hooray! We have a new daughter AND a good story to tell.

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