Our First Day in Nanjing

Today we left Beijing at 12 o'clock and landed in Nanjing at 1:30. When we got to Nanjing we met our guide at the ariport and then she took us to the bus. We took the bus to the hotel we are staying at. It is a nice hotel. The lobby is very pretty and there is a piano sitting in a fountian. It is very cool. (Oh and by the way, there are little cute goldfish in the fountian.)

Once we got to Nanjing and settled into the hotel, our tour guide showed us around a little outdoor mall right outside our hotel. There where various types of stores and there was a McDonald's. YAY!! Anyway, after that we went back to the hotel and hung out for a while. My aunt found an indoor pool so she went swimming for a while. Since there are two other familes traveling with us, they came down to our room and we went out to eat at a Chinese restaurant in the outdoor mall. We had a little trouble eating there because no one there spoke English! One lady in our group only speaks a little Cantonese and the people in the restaurant speak Mandarin so that didn't help us. So we had to use our hands to try to tell them what we wanted to order. The lady's husband brought a little book with Chinese words and when the lady couldn't figure out what we were trying to tell her he would use the book. What was very funny was the fact that we either ordered more food than we thought we did or they misunderstood us because by the end of the night we had a ton of food that we didn't even eat! It was so funny. The food just kept coming out and they would keep bringing it to us. It was never ending! : )

After dinner, Mommy, Daddy, and I walked to a nearby mall (not the outdoor mall) to look for a Pizza Hut or something along those lines. We eventually found a Papa John's and took out take out for Julia and I. It was very good. I never knew I would be so happy to have Papa John's! : )

Tomorrow is the big day! We are excited, but it still doesn't feel real. It feels like it's just a story. Everyone has probably felt the feeling before. We will video tape when we get him and post it on the blog tomorrow. We can't wait! : )

Beijing Photos

Beijing Sightseeing: Day 1 and 2

Hi everyone! Sorry I have not blogged for a while, but this part of the trip consists of very busy days. When we arrived in China on Friday the 30th, we went to the hotel after waiting for some other families. After we got to the hotel we ate dinner and went to bed.

Yesterday we went to Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City. Tian'anmen Square is the center of Beijing. There is a monument to all the soldiers that have died in war. There is also a building to honor Chairman Mao, who the Chinese people respect very much. After that we visited the Forbidden City. This is where the emperors lived for about 500 years. To get there we had to cross a street. This was another adventure because we had to go through a tunnel under the street. It was wall to wall people. I've never been so crowded in my life! Inside the Forbidden City we looked at all the beautiful buldings and the beautiful garden.In the Forbidden City there were bathrooms and when we were about to walk in ladies from our group were standing outside looking disgusted. They said there were trenches and it wasn't a flush system! It was just a hole in the ground. And on top of that there were no stalls! Ew! So we didn't go into that bathroom and Titi Lu found a bathroom with toilets. Then we went to lunch. After that we went to the pearl factory where they showed us how to make pearls and how to tell if they are real or fake.

Today is the best part of the trip so far. It is very exciting and funny and full of adventure and gross things........WARNING: PREPARE YOURSELF. So this morning we went to a church (it was in English) and after that we went to the Jade factory where they told us how to determine which piece of jade is better and the different types of jade. After the jade factory we went to lunch and we didn't eat much! : ) After lunch we went to the Great Wall and this is where the adventure begins..........

The first thing that happened while traveling to the Great Wall was the traffic. There must be no driving laws here in China because people just drive wherever they want! I am surprised there was no car accidents! There was so much traffic because in China it is a national holiday (the Chinese Labor Day) where they get the weekend off. The Spring has been a cold one and this weekend the weather is warm so it seemed like everyone wanted to go to the Great Wall. So, instead of it taking us an hour to get to our destination it took us 3 hours. It doesn't sound that bad, but some of us had to pee. : ) So, (this is funny) a guy in our group had to pee really, really badly. The bus was traveling really slow so he got out of the bus and went out on the side of the road to pee. As he got out of the bus and went further out, the bus started going faster and the guy was being left behind. Soon enough the whole bus was looking out of the back window of the bus laughing hysterically and video taping it. Meanwhile his wife is having a panic attack. So, he eventually caught up and when he went into the bus everyone clapped. It was so funny!

Then before that I think Julia had been saying she had to go to the bathroom for a while. After he came in she was already saying she had to go, but there was no where for her to stop and pee. So soon enough she was crying and crossing her legs that she had to pee so badly. I also was starting to feel the urge and I was like "Oh no!" Eventually after 3 hours of sitting in the bus we saw the Great Wall in the distance. When we got a little closer, Maggie, the tour guide, told the bus driver to stop and we all got out. As she led everyone to the Great Wall, we found a police station and went in to find a bathroom. Daddy was carrying Julia. Maggie asked for the bathroom and the guy pointed and we ran there. When we got to the bathroom, it was the potties that you have to just squat (it is basically a hole in the ground with a flushing system) so I was like "oh no", but Julia had to go so we went into the stall. I told her to take off her pants so she would not get herself wet so she did that and then I went too. Surprisingly it was not that bad, but I prefer a toilet. So after we went, that problem was solved and everyone was happy again. A couple in our group was supposed to fly out tonight at 8 but because of the traffic they had to make it tomorrow.

The wall was awesome! It was so huge. We climbed up as high as we could before we had to return to the bus. There were so many people there. The views were great and it was really cool to actually be on the Great Wall of China.

After we climbed the Great Wall, which was amazing, we were going to go to the bathroom before we went on the bus and experienced that whole fiasco again. Problem was that the bathrooms where disgusting! The floor was wet with like an inch of pee, water, and whatever other disgusting things. The toilet paper was everywhere and the trenches where overflowing. In the actual toilet it looked like diarrhea was on the toilet and even the Chinese ladies were disgusted by it. It was so gross! It looked like it hadn't been cleaned for a month! Yuck!!

In China this week everyone is like a super star. People come up to you and ask you to take a picture. It's so funny! They are so happy when they take a picture with you. It's like they think your so special! Haha....

Tomorrow we will fly to Nanjing and on Tuesday we will get Jeremy. I will post more tomorrow. : )
Jenna

China!

We arrived yesterday, Friday, and today is Saturday, May 1st, I think. The flight on Thursday went well and went relatively quickly. It was 14 hours and we lost 12 hours to the time difference so it felt like a really really long day. Everyone seemed peppy when we got off the plane but all that energy quickly waned as we waited for the bus to take our group to the hotel.

Today we are going after breakfast to Tian'anmen Square, The Forbidden City, the pearl factory, and the Summer Palace.We will update inmore details and pictures later today or tonight hopefully.

Our Itinerary

FRIDAY, April 30th- Arrive in Beijing

SATURDAY, May 1st- Beijing Sightseeing: Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Summer Palace

SUNDAY, May 2nd- Beijing Sightseeing: Church Service, Great Wall

MONDAY, May 3rd- Flight to Nanjing, Jiangsu Province

TUESDAY, May 4th- GOTCHA DAY!
Meet Jeremy Shao Tang Seacott
Civil Affairs Appointment

WEDNESDAY, May 5th- Sightseeing & Shopping

THURSDAY, May 6th- Sightseeing & Shopping

FRIDAY, May 7th- Flight to Guangzhou

SATURDAY, May 8th- Child’s Medical Exam

SUNDAY, May 9th- Free Day in Guangzhou

MONDAY, May 10th- Consulate Appointment

TUESDAY, May 11th- Consulate Oath-Taking Ceremony

WEDNESDAY, May 12th- Pick-up Child’s visa

THURSDAY, May 13th- Flight from Guangzhou to Shanghai
Depart from Shanghai

Plane Tickets!!

See this plane? Well that's going to be what we are in on Thursday the 29th! Ok.....maybe it won't be the same exact plane, but you get the idea. We got the plane tickets for China this past Thursday. At first the lady from AWAA asked if we would want to travel on Wednesday instead of Thursday, but my sister and I have NYS ELA testing so we can't. A couple of the people we are traveling with are going on Wednesday, but leaving the same day as us. There are at least 20 families traveling with us. We found out that one other couple is traveling with us to the same province as us. They are adopting a girl from the same orphanage as Jeremy. Isn't that cool. What's even cuter is that they are the same age! Isn't that adorable! : ) I am so excited!

We will be leaving on April 29th and coming back on May 13th. We are so excited that we get to finally bring our little Jeremy home! We hope to be updating the blog from China and will try to post all the pictures on it too.

:D

HERE WE COME CHINA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday we got word from AWAA that our TA (travel acceptance) should arrive at the adoption agency any day now. So that only means.......................................................................WE'RE GOING TO CHINA! They said we are going April 29th. We are so excited! My mom got a call yesterday morning a little after 10:00. My dad had just put the last nail into wall for the last picture in Jeremy's room and "voila!" the phone rang. Who was it? None other that AWAA (American World Adoption Agency)!

When I got out of school, my mom was late so I went into Ellie, my best friend's, car. We were waiting there and then I see my mom come up to the car. She opens the door, gets in, and says, "We're going to China!!!!!!" We were so excited! Ellie and I were screaming our heads off and I had to close the van door because it was so loud! Then all of a sudden Ellie started crying and then I started crying. I don't know if Camille was crying or not, but my mom started crying again. Happy tears!!!



When we get more info I will blog again. Now that Jeremy's room is done we can put his clothes away and then hopefully start packing really soon so we don't leave it for last minute! (His room is really cute!)

: )

A long overdue update

Since Jenna has been doing most of the posting and I've been super busy, it's been a while since I've posted anything. A lot has gone on since my last post in February - mostly just work on the house. We needed to move our girls upstairs to make room for Jeremy so we did a little remodeling work upstairs. We had started planning a lot more work but decided to scale it down in order to complete before our expected (or should I say "hoped for") travel dates. We had thought (hoped) we'd travel by the end of March. We were told we'd travel by the beginning of April.

Uh, nope. Still waiting. And waiting and waiting.

Anyway, we added some doors upstairs to be able to access some crawl spaces for storage, added insulation, electric outlets, made a new closet, improved an old closet and painted the whole thing. Then Jeremy's room was painted and a border put up. And when I say "we" I really mean a whole crew of friends and family. Wisdom tells me not to name everyone as I will definitely forget someone. Friends and family just simply jumped in and volunteered their time to do all we needed to get done. It was a seemingly simple job but became almost overwhelming in combination with working and helping the kids with all their schoolwork and all the other elements of life as we know it.

We are so deeply appreciative for all of the people who helped and advised us every step of the way. Thank you so much!

We could not have done it without you all. Much more sleep and sanity would have certainly been lost had we tried. Thank you all so much! It really came out beautifully.

More thanks also go out to all those involved with giving a shower to Janet for Jeremy. Several of our friends at church wanted to bless Jeremy and us and did so through the shower. So many people showed up and Janet was totally surprised! The night before the shower there was a tremendous storm that knocked out power to almost 4500 people here on Staten Island. Of course, the hall had no power either! That morning there was some talk of moving the location but to where? We had no idea of a place we could move to on such short notice that could fit all those people and the food. Should we postpone it? Many thanks go out to our friends who stepped in and provided generators for the party to go on as scheduled. It was a huge help after all the planning that had gone into the shower.

It is truly a blessing to see how many people are already loving Jeremy and anxiously waiting for him to come home. There was even one friend who was trying to search over the internet to find a phone number to someone in charge in China to ask what was taking so long! Some of the teenagers and young kids we know are also anxious for him to come home so they could hold him and take care of him and play with him and be his big brother.

Yesterday we went to the airport and welcomed some friends back from China with their newly adopted beautiful daughter Hanna! It was such a joy to see them home again with their third daughter. It was so nice to see Hanna's older sisters, Samantha and Courtnie, totally loving on her and so happy to be home. We went out to dinner with their family and friends at Fuddruckers. It was a good time. We hope to speak to them very soon to get all the details of all of their travels!

So here we are waiting for the call that will let us know that our Travel Approval (TA) has arrived and that travel arrangements can be made. We will hopefully be travelling with Suzette and her family when they travel to get their Lia. Janet and I have said that we feel like we are in limbo as we wait to travel. All of us here are nearly bursting out of our skins waiting for that call. We know God is fully in control and His timing is perfect (no matter what we may think of it) so we are waiting patiently (most of the time) for that call.

Kevin Laue: One-Armed Basketball Player

This kid is awesome!!! He is so determined. This just goes to show that if you set your mind to something you can do it! You have to be determined. Kevin only has one arm, but he is playing basketball and is an awesome player too. This video sends a great message!!!

Itty Bitty Update

Hello everyone, sorry I have not updated anything for a while. I have been loaded with projects and reports and don't have time to have a life, let alone write on the blog! Haha. Anyways we got an email from the adoption agency and they said we should be getting a call any day now. They also said that when we do get a call they will give us a shorter notice for when we are going to travel than they usually would give. (Which is less that 2 weeks). Because of Chinese New Year, all the offices were closed so that slowed things down a lot. On top of that there is a new director of the CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) so that slowed things down even more because they had to change some things around. So now we are still just waiting. The agency said that things are picking up and will be moving along faster now so that should be good.

We just got word that the next group of people got there TA and are leaving on April 15! When we heard that we were really disappointed. Doesn't that stink?!? Oh well. Whatever God wants is fine with us. We continue to pray we will go soon and that Jeremy will be safe.

I will continue to keep up the updates. You have my word! Haha