Sorry I'm a little tardy with the updates, but we'll try and keep them coming daily. Right now we are waiting for Lucy's passport and visa and our consulate appointment. Lucy's personality is really coming out, she is an amazing little girl. She loves to make you laugh. She is starting to learn some English words and is already calling us mama and baba, the Chinese way of saying mommy and daddy.

She loves to sing along with us. When I sing Ittsy Bittsy Spider to her she does the hand gestures and sings along with me, it's so cute. And when James and I sing Silent Night to her to go to bed she now sings it with us.

Guangzhou is an amazing place. Very old English colonial villiage with sweet people. Beautiful old architecture with the old canopy trees that offer shade everywhere. We've been going out with our friends shopping and out to dinner almost every night. Our favorite place to eat is called Lucy's. Today has been our best day yet with Lucy, she is interacting really well with other kids, was very gentle with a baby offering her toys. She took her first nap, sleeps through the night and we're getting into a routine with her.

She loves to say goodbye and blow kisses and gives the high-five, everyone gets a big kick out of it.

We're all doing great, can't wait for everyone to meet her back home. Check out the new pics on the gallery.

Love ya all!

Smiles are starting to come!
See gallery, more updates tomorrow.
Love you all back home.

We are now offically Lucy's parents!

Today we officially adopted Lucy from the Chinese government. It took about 3 hours. The first day, Gotcha day lucy cried a lot. When we got her back to the hotel room I started singing lullabyes to her and she stoppped crying and sucked her thumb. She was pretty good after that with intermittent grieving and crying. She slept through the whole night between James and me. The next day, adoption day, just a little bit of crying. And now back at the hotel she has been playing with her toys, no more crying until we gave her a bath which she didn't like and cried, but she recovered quickly and is happily playing with us and her toys. She loves playing with her small soccer ball and she loves her books and is already repeating words after me, amazing. She also speaks Cantonese, I think she's saying "what's that" in Cantonese.

She hasn't taken a nap yet, and is rather active, but she can entertain herself at times. She is very bright.

Lucy is pretty healthy, she has some congestion in her chest which we are closely watching, we brought antibiotics if it gets worse. She also has a deep scratch on her cheek that is a little infected and is disconcerting. She also has some scars on her face from scratches and on her body. I don't think things were all that great at the orphanage. I'm so grateful that we were able to adopt her and not have her grow up there. She's a very sweet and loving baby girl and James and I just love her dearly.

We have a couple day's off then we start working on getting her visa and passport. It's 6:15 pm, China time 1/26. Got to go and get something to eat with Lucy. Zai Jian!

Gotcha Day!
We made it. We are here at the beautiful White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou. We have the executive suite overlooking the Pearl river. The staff here are amazing. It's 11:45 am, 1/25 China time and 8 pm, 1/24 yesterday in the US. We are really feeling the jetlag, big time. We are going to meet Lucy in 3 hours. I can't believe it's finally here! We are getting very excited. It all seems a little surreal. Got to get some coffee. Bye for now. Zai Jian!

Travel Dates

We waited forever for the referral of our daughter, over two years, and now we are finally leaving for China to bring Lucy home. We have been in a huge whirlwind of activity since the referral trying to get everything done before we leave. When you are waiting time moves so slowly and then when it happens, when you get your referral, time moves at supersonic speed. We are leaving Jan 21, 11:40 at night, departing LAX, arriving in Hong Kong Jan 23, 10am. We fly the next day, Jan 24th, from Hong Kong to Guangzhou. Gotcha day, where we finally meet Lucy is Jan 25th. So, we'll have Lucy the whole time we're there. We start home Feb 9th. We'll be in China 19 days. We are so excited to finally meet Lucy.

Happy New Year!

2007