Grandma Elizabeth Passes On

Two days before we left China, after I had went to sleep already, Ric was called by one of his buddies at work with a message that his brothers were trying to get a hold of him. Ric's mother had passed away. Needless to say Ric did not sleep that night, and not very good for a good while after that. After I found out in the morning we began trying to make arrangements for him to beable to attend the funeral. All 'fun' things to do while in China and completely out of our element and timezone. Needless to say with the help of the Internet and United Air Lines (and this may be the ONLY time I thank United!) Ric was able to find a online only last minute money saving flight better than the bereivement fare they quoted him 30 minutes prio on the phone. Ric did not want me to tell anyone. He didn't want to have to 'deal' with it until he felt he was able. This makes sense. He had one more day in China, plus a major 14 hour flight home plus other flights, the kids were en route home with Grandparents on a 12 hour drive, etc., etc., etc. So I kept it mum. We finally arrived home 4 am on Thursday. Ric had a early am flight on Saturday to head to his home town for the services. Not fun. I know the time spent with his family there helped him tremendously. Yes, they had expected this but it is always hard when a loved one, especially your mother passes away. And to be dealing with a newly adopted daughter and jetlag at the same time just kicked it up a few notches. I think the time alone helped him on all accounts. Late Tuesday night I picked him up. We are so thankful to his boss and work place for being understanding. It certainly wasn't something we planned, to have this added on to being out for the adoption.

In both of our minds, Elizabeth is in a much better place. She had lost most of her friends and family her age. She was suffering with depression from that to what later became Alzheimers. Ric is so glad to have had a chance to see her before we left for China. At one point he feels she truly recognized him for who he was and for that he is grateful. He was her baby, the youngest of seven children.

He is doing better with each day, getting caught up on sleep, getting caught up with his family (all five kids), back to work with those crazy guys at SEFL!, etc. Thank you for your prayers, for those who knew at the time. It dawned on me last time when talking with a friend who I hadn't spoke with since before China that I still hadn't told anyone. For that I'm sorry. Just got caught up with things.

-Angi

We are home!!!

We are home! We are home! We are home!!!!

Yay! Yay! We are home after several delays, and one flight cancelation, then stressing standby status, we are home! We arrived at our airport about 4 am, greeted by our boys and grandma & grandpa. Glad we arrived but unfortunately our luggage DID NOT! As the boys said... Hey, didn't this happen last time???? Yep, it did. They are suppose to drop off our luggage at our house this morning, since it was still in Chicago.

So good to be in our home, which seems huge compared to the many hotel rooms we have been in for the past two weeks. Autumn did great in the car and seems to love her new home. She especially loved her and Anna Lin's room. She has only been here one hour and is already singing, smiling, and laughing.

Now we are off to bed for at least a few hours of sleep. :-) More later...

Angi

Wai

Papa Ray asked me this question. Something along the lines of does Autumn say "wai" or does she understand when we say "wai", (pronounced "way")? I hadn't heard that before but now I hear it a lot. It's amazing what you don't hear until someone points it out to you. I found out it's what some Chinese say when they answer the phone and can be used as a greeting. Especially when speaking Cantonese. Could be wrong about some of that so don't quote me. But Autumn seemed to know what it was. She looked amused when she was playing with her toy cell phone and I picked up mine and pretended to answer and said "wai." She then too said "wai." And then we went back and forth like we were talking and it was pretty funny. Now I often hear wai when I hear some people answer the phone. Kudos to Papa Ray! Last night we went to a restaurant that I heard served Italian food. It did indeed serve that and more like steak and some Chinese dishes. It was very nice inside but pretty pricey compared to the other food we have eaten here at restaurants. The service was good and it was interesting because you always had someone standing close by to attend to you. I know there were at least six people that attended to our table of seven. I had some spaghetti and it was very good. As good as I've had actually. Other people had lasagna and Angi had Milan Pizza. She said hers was very good also. Even though it was pricey for what we've gotten accustomed to it was not bad compared to what it would have been at home. At Olive Garden we would have paid a good deal more. Of course we didn't get all you can eat salad and bread either. I finally had my first beer and decided to go with the Chinese beer, (cheers Uncle Dave!), since I received much ribbing for drinking Corona last time we were here. Tonight we had a group dinner at the Thai restaurant called Cow and Bridge. It was good even though I don't care for Thai food. I just had a rice dish which suited me fine and sampled a little bit of what Angi ordered. It's a little crazy there though because they charge you for everything. There seems to be a napkin shortage here or something because we were charged for four packs of little moist towelettes. They also charge for napkins. It's in the menu... Not my thing. We also got some ice cream at McDonalds today while out shopping and it was good. To get into this McDonald's you had to go up an escalator. Not in a mall but it was in the second floor of this building. The McDonald's took up a couple of floors and we sat on the second floor. Autumn had a Happy Meal and ate it all up. Well tomorrow is the consulate appointment and we get a "red couch" picture taken of the kids and another one of the group so I need to get some rest.

Goodnight...

- Ric

Foreigners Caught in Torrential Rains and Electrifying Lightning at Safari Park...

Yes, if an article was done on yesterday's event that would be the title. We started off the 'dry' morning with the sun peaking out at us. Great day for a trip to the Safari Zoo! …Or so it seemed. Little did we know Old Man Thunder had big plans for us. The Safari Zoo is owned by a wealthy man in Guangzhou and it is very nice, reminds me of our zoos. The kids were fascinated. We saw several pandas in exhibits like you would find at the Atlanta Zoo. Very nice, a definite step up from our previous zoo experience in Anhui a couple of years ago. We went on a safari train ride, seeing deer, yak, wilde beast (sp?), elephants, giraffe, goats and other antelope type critters, plus lions, tigers, and bears…Oh my! As we were driving through it started raining, then pouring. We were lucky the shelter was free o f crowds when they dropped us off. Then it really started getting wet. Then two other trains dropped off and everyone tried to squeeze into the shelter area. Connie was upset with the young people. She said they should leave since we have children and babies, but they pushed right into us and even tried to get passed us. After several minutes this rain storm passed. During the rainy season they come on and off. While this one was now finished, the rains were far from over. Connie, our guide, sends us on our way to see the pandas on our own so families could take their time and see what they want. We just had to meet back at set place in say 1 hour.
While on our way back, I decided we should buy one more umbrella (that way we had two: one for AL and one for Autumn). Mistake. Mistake. Mistake. This is what separated us from the others. We did meet up with Connie, who pointed in a direction and said go back to the bus. She didn’t come with us since she was waiting for other families. My first thought was “and how do we get back???” then my second thought was “she is pointing in this direction maybe it’s just straight ahead.” So I didn’t ask and we just went. Soon we realized we were catching up to no one and Connie was not coming up behind us. By this time, it was really raining once again. Thank goodness for our many umbrellas now, and soon we found a small shelter with at least 4 other people huddled under it. Then the bottom fell out. Wow! Serious rain flying at us in sheets. Crashing, bone chilling lightning zapping something nearby. We were soaked. By the time we were able to get out of there my sandals were so wet they were stretching out, so I had to take them off and run in the rain with Autumn bare foot. We never found Connie, but some nice young man who spoke some English talked us into walking through a store to the exit on the other side. I kept telling him I didn’t remember seeing the store when we came in, but in the end we tried it. Ta’ Da’! We made it. She had said go to the blue bus. Well now I had to laugh because there were 5 blue buses. But soon the driver was out waving us over. Once on board we had to wait for one other family, then it was a not so fun water soaked 40 minute drive back to the hotel. Where once there we stripped the girl of their wet clothes, dried them off and put clean dry clothes on, then threw them on the bed with a thick blanket on top to warm them up. They were quite happy with this. :-)
Angi

There's No Place Like Guangzhou...

Say it with me. "There's no place like Guangzhou..." Yes, not quite home but getting closer. The location that we are staying is very quiet and not very crowded. Compared to the places we've been so far. And since we are staying at the same location and hotel we were at with Anna Lin our surroundings are very familiar and feel like an old friend. We know where everything is at that we need and don't feel handicapped when getting around. The trip here did not start off so good though. We got to the airport in Hangzhou ready to move on and it was very rainy. We checked our luggage and waited at the gate we were supposed to be at. Then the bottom dropped out and it was a torrential downpour. We were thinking that's it, our flight will be delayed. It still looked like a go until the last minute when we heard an announcement that said "flight xxxx has been delayed due to aircraft delay, please see the customer service desk for meal box." Uh oh, that doesn't sound promising. So I went up to the desk to find out what the deal was and sure enough, they handed me some food and a bottle of water. No information about the flight though. So everyone sat down to eat white rice, some pork looking thing, shrimp (whole), and lettuce? Oh, and something that Angi said were potatoes. Finally they posted our new departure time as 9:50 PM and that's what it ended up being. It was initially supposed to leave at 6:40 PM. We waited for about 5 hours total in the airport, with the kids. Not fun. Luckily Alex, Michelle, and Lei were there too so we were able to comiserate together. The flight was successful,(obviously), and we got into Gaungzhou and checked into our hotel around 1:00 AM. Needless to say we were VERY TIRED! We have a nice big suite though so we can't complain now. The kids have some room to get around on rainy days, which is probably going to be everyday, and we are comfortable. Autumn had her medical examination this morning which was crazy with a lot of families doing the same thing but it went well. As I sit here typing this Anna Lin and Aumn are eating ice cream cones. And life is good. We had lunch at Lucy's which serves some western style food like burgers, fries, and quesadillas. I had a cheesburger and fries which although not quite a Steak N Shake burger it was good. Everyday with Autumn is better. The language barrier is nto a problem and she is very easy going but very sneaky. The boys (ZSN) will have to be fast to keep up with her. She is very shy and quiet when out and about with strangers but in the room she will get animated. I have some video of her and Anna Lin chasing each other around acting like monsters giggling like mad the whole time. Oh, interesting thing with the plane ride. This was a domestic flight in China and the movie they showed was "Alvin and the Chipmunks." It was in English with Chinese subtitles. I thought that was an interseting choice. Well, that's your news update for now...

zài jiàn ！


- Ric

Duck Feet

What Ric didn't tell you was that he didn't try the duck feet! Claws and all. But none of us did. It was from the feet that I knew what the meat was, since they were webbed. :-) The experience was a fun one and for the most part the food was good. I especially enjoyed the tomato soup, which was a broth with tomato pieces. There were fried pumpkin sticks which the girls loved too. Some small barely smashed fried potatoes, that I'm sure Ric, the meat & potato man enjoyed. We think we ordered some ribs, but not sure that is what it was. Most everyone enjoyed that, but I passed after trying some of it. I can't explain the taste of the sauce but it was too strong for me. There was some gelatinous small dumplings if you were skilled enough with the chopsticks to grab one. Slippery little devils. I was able to get a few at first, but in the end maybe my hands were getting tired and I just couldn't get anymore. The duck was good. Not sure how it was cooked, but it was fried. It didn't seem roasted but who knows. Definately marinated in some sauce, very brown. Anna Lin and Lei really enjoyed the legs. There was a lemon soup, like a warm liquid lemon jello. I passed after a taste. Too sweet for me. The potato noodles were very good. We had these in Jinhua too as Ric said. They served these last. But we all wished they would have been first. They looked clear which is interesting when you think of potatoes. But I wonder if they are really their sweet potatoes, since the noodles are almost a clear gold color. I saw and tried some sweet potatoes at our breakfast buffet. The color seems similar, but who knows. Tien, go any ideas????

Fun time. We have enjoyed being able to visit and spend time with the Hanna's. They are very nice people. It is nice not to be alone here.

Angi

Eat Where the Locals Eat

OK, Ric here. I'm finally going to break down and post something here. Everyone who knows me is aware that I didn't start eating Chinese food until a few years ago. I'm a meat and potatoes kind of guy and that's not going to change. However I must say I have been challenged on our trips to China to "eat where the locals eat." I have been told that's the best food. I must say that the best rice I have ever eaten is right here in China. That said, eating rice is not really branching out much when it comes to food. Although on our last trip to China I really did eat what the locals eat especially when our driver brought some food that he had bought at a street market. I wouldn't have tasted it except that my lovely wife gave me that, "do not embarrass us in front of the guide", look. So I tried and although I was not pleased I did try. Sooo, when we went to visit Autumn's orphanage on Tuesday I told my wife before we left, "If they take us to lunch at a local restaurant I will do my best to not embarrass us." We indeed went to lunch at a local eatery after the tour and visit with our guide Wendy and our driver along with two people from the orphanage. This place I was told by Wendy only serves food from the local farmers. So there you go! I was definitely going to eat where the locals eat. Have I said that enough? Man, they brought out the food. At least 10 dishes or more. All served in bowls put out on a lazy susan for us to spin around to the one we wanted to eat. We had chicken, beef and potatoes, Chinese potato noodles (not making that up it's what our guide told us), and stuff I have never seen before but it was all very tasty. I even ate the whole meal with chopsticks. We enjoyed it very much. So tonight we went out to eat with another couple staying here at the hotel, (Alex and Michelle), and their newly adopted son (Lei). I told Alex on the way there that I didn't branch out much on eating so don't feel insulted if I don't eat everything put in front of me. Well again I was surprised. It was a similar type of restaurant to the one in Jinhua by the orphanage and it was very nice. Other than Alex almost getting us involved in an International incident it was a good evening out. Actually, when trying to order the food there was much confusion and we had no less than 6 of the wait staff hanging out around Alex trying to figure out what we were trying to order. A nice man who spoke very good English came to our rescue and the International incident was averted. We had about 8 different dishes served to us and most were very good. Although we didn't have a clue what some of them were we tried them anyway, well most of them, and we went away with full stomachs. I know a couple of guys at work who would have enjoyed this meal very much! Not a bad deal either when it came to paying the check. Well, time to go to bed and get some zzzzz's. By the way, my new daughter is smiling at me now and today I got her to smile for some pictures and now she is posing. We're in trouble I can see it now... Tomorrow off to Guangzhou!

- Ric