Journey to Luke

Monday, January 17, 2011

Our newest news !!!!

Tom and I just minutes before we head downstairs to meet our son!

Our first few minutes with Luke!

Signing the paperwork to start to make him officilly ours, he was SOOO curious!!

At Civil affairs office siging his name saying he officially "agrees" to be our son!

practicing writing his name in English and learning the differecne between Chinese and American alphabets

Our first picture together as mother and son!

Daddy and his new guy!!!

Learning the alphabet in English and ASL- the boy is a QUICK learner!

all tucked in and ready for bed and checking out his book and practicing his signs!

Wow where to start!! We met our son on Monday at about 10:00am. He looks exactly like his pictures! he was afraid to be with us in the beginning but quickly adjusted. He is very very curious and wants to know what everything is. At first it seemed he was not going to be able to communicate with us, but within a few hours we were communicating amazingly well! Yesterday he started writing his name in English letters and went through the whole entire sign language packet I brought for him (it was huge) and practiced writing every letter in English, he probably knows about 50 signs in ASL already, it is crazy how bright he is!!! We show him an ASL sign once and he uses it from then on and uses it appropraitely! He is such a fast learner and is like a sponge, and wants to know what everything is, he seems unable to beleive that we are able to communicate with him.

Luke went to bed last night like he has been with us forever and slept as peaceful as one possibly could. He woke up this morning sooooo happy and has been laughing with us for hours. Our guide cannot beleive how happy he is. She said it is amazing to see him this happy and just laughing and laughing with us and he seems pretty comfortable with us. Yesterday when we went somewhere he wanted to hold on to our guide, today he held on to both of us (hey our guide is a pretty young girl about 24 years old, this boy is no dummy heheh) and yesterday when we left our guide he was upset she wasnt coming with us, today he told her goodbye and asked her to leave hahah.

This boy can eat.. WHOA Tommy better watch out as his brother has a huge appetite and seems to eat just about anything and not care what it is. Today he ate a huge breakfast and then was ready for lunch just a few hours later... we might need to get a second refrigerator!

Today we took him shopping to get some things (the games we brought with us to play seem to be the only thing that "disappeared" from our luggage during the flights here :( Bummer as we bought good stuff that we cant seem to find here! So today we bought him a remote control car (oh man does he love that) and some coloring books (connect the numbers then color) and he knows his numbers in English up to 50 already which Tom just taught him about an hour ago and he is whizzing through the book like he has known how to count in English for years!!! I am telling you this boy is smart!

Tom and I are so blessed and SOOO happy, we are truly in love with our new son! He could not be more of a joy and a blessing to us. We have been able to skype with some of our family back home (Mom you seem to not be answering yours when I call so keep an eye out tomorrow your time about 6 at night) and he is so excited to see our family. He loves seeing Tommy and Paige on Skype and asks for them constantly. He bought a book for Paige today while we were shopping, Tommy he wasnt sure what to get you yet and said he will keep looking hehe. he is a very thoughtful boy and seems to want to please us as well. He is also not afraid to tell us if he doesnt want to do something (which makes me happy as I would be afraid if he is too much of a people pleaser).

Tom and him are sitting on the bed working on his coloring and his numbers. We are thinking of trying the pool later but showed it to him yesterday and he was not thrilled so we shall see how that goes. It is more then obvious he has never swam before. I will update you later and let you know if we try. We are enjoying our time here and loving getting to know Luke, he is truly a joy. The boy has an amazing sense of humor and him and Tommy should hit it off well.

Ok I am off so I can spend some more time with him and Tom. I will try and update later after he sleeps but Tom and I are normally exhausted early as we are not on Chinese time yet, even though we are trying. Keep praying for us as all of the prayers are truly being felt and we cannot beleive how amazing our God is!!!!

Please pray for Luke tomorrow as we will visit his orphange and I am afraid this is going to be tough for him as he gets nervous everytime we go somewhere and gets very nervous if he cannot find Tom. I pray he understands this is just a visit and doesnt think we are sending him back there. Pray for peace and protection for our son as we go. Pray for the children that are still there and yet to have a mamma and a babba! I pray for Daleea's baby girl Isabella as she is still in the orphange and her momma will be there in February to bring her home, I pray they let me see her to give her some love and to let her know her momma is coming soon!

Signing off for now, A very happy and in love momma in China!

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Hours away from a life changing day!

We SLEPT!!! I think I fell asleep at 5pm China time and I woke up at 5am China time! WAHOOO I wont be the walking dead like I was yesterday, Thank you Lord for allowing Tom and I the opportunity to sleep so we can focus on the joy of the day! We are just hours away from meeting our precious boy for the first time. I cant even begin to describe how I feel, but it is going to be hard to not cry all day, that is for sure. The tears come every time I think abou finally seeing that precious little face. Tom and I cant wait to meet him and we keep praying for the Lord to touch his heart so he wont be so scared ( I cant imagine he isnt scared, everything he has known for the last 10 years of his life, be it good or bad, is about to change in just a few short hours for him)

We sure are the sight to see in this town, a tall blonde woman with blue eyes ( and left handed as our guide was blown away by) with a shorter handsome white guy that has brown hair and blue eyes and is deaf. If we dont shock them by being Amercian we sure as heck do the minute we start signing. They cant stop starring. But I can see how we would be fascinating, now add Luke to the mix and I am sure we are quite the story. We truly like it here as different as it is! What a culture shock for us (Tom was having a wee bit of that yesterday when he kept asking me to interpret what people are saying and I would say "I have no idea as they are speaking in Chinese!") It is odd to be the one that knows nothing and if it wasnt for our guide yesterday we could have never ordered lunch. I laughed sooooo hard as we sat down and the lady gave us menu's and Tom picked on up to look and the 2 goreous young Chinese girls sitting across from us almost lost their lunch as they watched Tom look at the menu and his eyes popped out when there was ONLY Chinese on it and no pictures hahah. The girls giggled for about 5 minutes. It made my day to see that. China is surely full of different sights and sounds and some ummm interesteing smells for sure. The street we went down had one of the grossest smells ever and our guide said " Do you smell that bad smell?" I am thinking well umm yea my nose does work! hahah and she says "As bad as it smells it is one of the best things to eat!" Umm no thanks!

ok we are off to breakfast and try and get something to eat, then we meet our guide at 9am our time ( we are 13 hours ahead of NJ time, for those of you following) and then we head to the bank to exchange our money to Chinese RMB and then we head off to take a walk to another hotel to meet Luke at 9:30. We are filled with all sorts of emotions, we shall update as soon as we get the chance. Sending you all Love and thank you to everyone for the loved and prayers you are sending our way, we totally can feel all of the prayers, love and support being sent by everyone!

With Love again from China,
Goodbye from a mother of father of 3 kids soon to be the mother and father of 4 kids!
our family of 5 becomes a family of 6 today!
LUKE WE ARE ON OUR WAY! HANG ON OUR SWEET SON!
Aaron, Tommy and Paige we miss you and send sweet love to our babies back at home and know that we are praying for the 3 of you as we add your new brother to our family!

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Hello from China!

We managed to fit all this and MUCH MUCH more in our 2 suitcases and 2 carry ons - quite impressive!

Of course we found Coke in China

Umm this was my large coffee? I am going to have to find bigger cups for sure!!

Beijing Airport.. we spent about 11 hours hanging out in here!

Not hard to spot my hubby the only Pittsburgh fan around!

Also isnt hard to spot me, just find the only tall blond in Jinan today ahahh

Just moments before we took off for Jinan to land in our sons hometown!

We are here in China, it was surely quite a travel experiance and I am not sure I know what the word SLEEP means, but we are here safe and sound. Our flights were all great and smooth no problems at all. We were met in the Jinan airport by our guide Missy and she is adorable and sweeetttt! She got us checked into our hotel.. (after a scary as heck car ride.. I might have to apologize to my hubby for picking on his driving as WOW, there is some scary driving going on here and it isnt exactly safe being a pedestrian either! ) we are checked into our hotel, ate some authentic Chinese lunch. Our guide took us out to lunch and it was one of those places where if you didnt live here, you would never find it. There were all kinds of neat food to see and some that didnt smell to pretty, but our lunch was great! We hit Walmart (whew it is croweded here, not used to seas of people) and got a few snacks for our room. We are going to chill for the rest of the day as it is almost 4pm here and we havent slept in days. We meet Luke tomorrow at 9:30am. We are so excited we dont know what to do with ourselves! We promise to update you when we can! Pray for us and our son tomorrow!

Friday, January 14, 2011

At JFK leaving in a few hours for Chicago and then to Beijing!!!

Hi all!

We are safely in JFK airport and are now waiting for our flight to Chicago. My father-in –law took us to a hotel last night in Newark and we had a great night sleep and then woke this morning, showered, ate and made our way to JFK. Smooth sailing!! My mother in law has the kids, they did pretty good saying good-bye to us. Tommy gave me a little bit of heart ache when saying good-bye but he made me proud and it is good to feel his strong hug when I was leaving. I know he sad we are leaving but he is so excited to soon meet his new brother. Paige did pretty good, she just expects us back tomorrow as she is too young to understand the time concept. I cant believe our journey is underway and we are actually on our way to China in just a few short hours!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Tonight we head out!!! China here we come!

Today we are in New Jersey.. Tonight we drive to New York to get a hotel and tomorrow we will fly out of JFK to head to Chicago and then we fly out of Chicago to Beijing and hit Beijing at 11:30pm Saturday China time. We get a hotel and then wake up the next morning to fly to Jinan to get to our sons Province!

So we will soon be found here:

I cant believe we are going to be in China and on Monday we will get our son! It seems so surreal right now! We are all packed (that took quite awhile but we had some expert help! :) We are doing last minute things today and left a million notes, called all the schools, doctors etc... I believe we are prepared (as prepared as we can be!)... Our kids are beyond excited! We are beyond excited!!!! Thank you Lord for paving the way. We KNOW many of you have been praying for us for this journey and we truly want to let you know we FEEL the prayer and we are truly blessed! Please pray for my children here (all 3 of them) and for my in-laws who will be taking care of Tommy and Paige for the next 17 days! We are grateful for all of the love and support we have received and we promise to try and blog, add pictures as often as we can. I believe I should be able to blog from China with the software I loaded! We send love to all of you and ask for continued prayers please! OK... HERE WE GOOOOO!!!!! China here we come! LUKE .. WE ARE SO CLOSE WE CANT WAIT TO SHOW YOU OUR LOVE!! PRAY FOR PEACE FOR OUR SON AS HE HAS A LOT TO DEAL WITH AND A LOT OF ADJUSTMENT AND CHANGES!!!!!

CHIIINNNNNNAAAAAA!!!!!!!

our plan while we are there!

Following is the schedule for Family:

Jan.16: Arrive in Jinan on flight___ guide will meet you at the airport and transfer to Crown Plaza Hotel Jinan.

Jan.17: Go to the orphanage to meet the child and sign the adoption agreement. (LUKE is officially our son on this day!)

Jan.18: Go to the Civil Affairs for adoption registration, notarization and child’s

passport.

Jan.19: Guide will go with the family to the local department store to buy some daily necessities for the child.

Jan.20: Visit Baotu Spouting Spring.

Jan.21: Pick up passport. Jinan to Guangzhou on Flight____, transfer to Victory Hotel.

Jan.22: Take visa photo for the child first, then do medical and TB test for the child.

Jan.23: Visit the Safari park.

Jan.24: Pick up TB test result.

Jan.25: Visit the Six Banyan Temple.

Jan.26: 09:30am visa appointment at the Consulate, Oath-taking ceremony.

Jan.27: Rest on this day.

Jan.28: Pick up the visa in the afternoon.

Jan.29: Leave Guangzhou for Beijing on flight __, transfer to airport. Family will stay overnight in Beijing,

Jan.30: Family leave Beijing for home(When we land in Chicago Luke is Officially an American Citizen!!!

This is the last few days he will have to hold a picture of his mommy and daddy, from now on he can HOLD his mommy and daddy!!!!!!

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Update on how we are doing... T minus 2 and counting!

Things are starting to line up for us! Praise the Lord! My in-laws are here!!!!!! They got out a day earlier so they could be sure to get here! Amazing! I have a laptop for the journey thanks to Will! We set it up with everything needed so I can keep in touch during the journey! We have our flights all fixed, hotels set up in Beijing for each time we hit there for our very long lay overs there (hmm great opportunity for me to stretch my 5'10" frame is a good thing I am thinking! ) My work just called and I have a snow day tomorrow so tomorrow is officially now going to be called " PACKING DAY!!!" We have things all laid out but need to physically get it all in suitcases and then get them weighing less then 44lbs. NO easy feat considering it is VERY cold in Luke's province! But it shall be done!!! I am officially done work now until March 7th so that feels good to know that I am going to be able to take this journey and then have the time I need to be at home with my kids where I cant wait to be! I think we have just about everything we need, we are getting there. I got contacted today for another grant but I dont think it will happen as this organization will not give you a grant if you have already traveled and travel is in 2 days.....

I want to leave you with a note I posted on my adoption yahoo group as it is how I am feeling for sure!

The time is almost here and our sweet son is just about ready to meet his mommy and daddy! We first saw Luke (called Boyd when we first saw him)10 months,3 weeks and 3 days ago.. Not that this momma was counting or anything!! We are getting ready to fly out to Jinan and go get our son! We cant believe the time has finally come. It was starting to seem like it never would. We were told we would travel in October and the months just kept clicking by. I am glad I did not have to pack a shaving kit for Luke. I do love when we tell people that we are adopting for the first time, the first question is always "How old is the baby?" and I love the eye popping response when I say. "10 years old!" He is still my baby and always will be in my heart. No, I never had the chance to rock him to sleep as a baby, comfort him when he was crying for his momma as an infant or toddler. Change his diapers, read him bedtime stories, watch him walk for the first time, run for the first time or any of those other precious moments we cherish.. all the firsts of a child's life have been missed, BUT you can rest assured that there are going to be a MILLION firsts in our sons life from now on and they are all mine and his and our families to cherish and hold onto!!! I will be the first momma to tell him I love you and I will ALWAYS be here for you and truly mean it! For that I am so grateful! The Lord our God has blessed me immensely! I am in awe of how this handsome young man in just a few days is actually going to be my precious son and I am ready for whenever he is ready for me to lavish him with a million hugs, kisses, raspberries, laughs, tears of joy, sadness and laughter to share with him! He may be 10 and not be a baby, but he will always be MY BABY!!!!

I will get to hold you for the first time ever on Monday January 17th, 2011... Pretty good day and already a special day in my family as it is my sister, Heathers, Birthday! So Heath I hope you dont mind but your Birthday is officially Luke's Gotcha day too!!!!!