Journey 2 Grace

One Year!!!

2008-02-25T12:01:00.000-08:00

It's our one year anniversary of our Gotcha Day!!!! It's hard to believe it has already been a year. Grace has changed so much. She is fabulous. We have had a lot of fun reminiscing about our trip to China and the amazing day we got Grace. Everyday is a new adventure and I am loving being a mommy. I looked at the pictures from my last post and can't believe how fast the time has gone. Everyone says that the time goes by fast but I never knew they meant this fast. Grace will celebrate her 2nd birthday in just over a month. And she might actually eat her birthday cake. For her first birthday she just stared at it not quite knowing what to do.

Until next time... here are some updated photos.

Crazy Face

cooking up something yummy

An update at last!!!

2007-07-05T22:19:00.001-07:00

We just celebrated our 4 month anniversary with Grace at the end of June. The time has gone by so quickly. Grace is changing so much. She is now 15 months old. She is very close to walking and is quite the chatterbox. She says a few recognizable words, most of it is just jibberish. She is learning new stuff everyday. I am now a full time stay at home mom and that has been a true blessing. I love being with Grace all day. She is so funny and laid back.
There are many theories as to how the CCAA matches children to families. All I can say is somebody is doing an amazing job. We couldn't have been more perfectly matched.
I will try to be better at updating our blog. :0)
Gen
Now for some updated pictures:

Playing with Dad's shoes.

Mom & Grace at swim lessons

Playing in the pool!

Daddy's first Father's day!
Playing around!

Almost Time to Leave

2007-03-08T05:06:00.000-08:00

We have been very busy. All 3 of us had to go to the Doctor. Jeff and I had ear infections in both ears and throat infections and Grace had a slight ear infection in one ear. We are all feeling much better now. We have been doing lots of shopping and have figured out how to barter very well. We have been spending lots of time with our new friends the Bakers and the Vansells. Grace is totally crawling everywhere. She is definitely keeping us busy. She has been sleeping really good. And actually slept through the night on Tuesday(from 9:30pm to 7:30am-Mom kept waking up though just to check on her ) Tuesday we went to Biayun Mountain, it was so cold there!! It was beautiful though. We actually took a enclosed cablecar up the mountain(similar to a gondala). The view was spectacular. It was a little smoggy but still a good view of Guangzhou. They still had up decorations from New Years-so those were neat to see. Up on this mountain they also have the largest bird cage. It is this huge enclosed area, all covered by this netting on top. They also have a tamed bird show which was pretty cool. After that we had a noodle lunch a the resturant at the bottom of the hill. Yesterday we took the group picture and the picture of the girls on the famous White Swan Red Couch(very popular with Chinese adoption groups). It was hysterical. All the girls start out happy and then they all start crying. As anyone who has ever tried to take a picture of any kid knows you have a limited amount of time to get the shot. Try that with 10 plus kids and what a mess :0) We also got to watch the video of our Gotcha Day and a power point with pictures of all the kids and their new families. It was really special. I can't wait to share it everyone. I went our shopping with all the other mothers today-Thursday, for extra suitcases. It was the first time we have been away from our babies for any length of time. We had a great time. We wheeled and dealed and got some great deals. Julie and Michelle did a great job getting us a good deal on our suitcases 120 yuan for a big suitcase- which is about 16 US dollars. The starting price was 380 yuan about 50 US dollars. Way to go girls! We had our farewell dinner tonight and then went out for Banana Splits at Lucy's.
We have had such an amazing time here in China. And we have met some great people. We have definitely made some wonderful memories. I can't wait to bring Grace back to China when she is older. It is so beautiful here and such a rich history. This will be our last post from China. We have loved reading all the wonderful comments everyone has left and we hope you have enjoyed following our journey. Stay tuned, I will try and update it soon after we get home and get settled.

Love Gen, Jeff and Grace

Gen,Grace,Michelle,Emma,Jaree and Isabella

Grace with Beijing Bear

Grace and Emma

I know how to rasberry!

Red Couch Photos

Grace, Isabella and Emma on the red couch

The Whole Group
Can you believe my mom made me wear this hat!
Farewell From China- See you all real soon!

Medical Exam and More Pictures

2007-03-02T23:18:00.000-08:00

We are all doing well. Grace had her medical exam today,Saturday. Grace is in great health. She weighs 19.5 lbs and is just over 29 inches long. She finally broke that tooth through. She is still drooling a ton. It's hard to believe it has been 7 days since we became Grace's Mama and Baba. It seems hard to remember what are lives were like before we got this sweet angel. We love watching her explore all the new things in her world. She is starting to try and stand up. She goes from lying down to sitting her self up. She scooches around and I am sure she will be crawling any day now. And before we know it she will be running. Fisther Price and the White Swan have set up a whole kids play area here. So we took Grace down there to play one day. She really liked it. We went to the zoo yesterday and the Chen Clan Temple the day before. The Chen Clan Temple was amazing, the arcitecture is incredible. They also have a whole room of Irovy carvings. It is so beautiful. Here are some more pictures. We will try to post again soon.

Love

Gen, Jeff and Grace

Grace Playing at the Swan Room

Out Shopping

Chen Clan Temple

Ivory piece at Chen Clan Temple

Hanging with Dad at the Zoo

Sleeping at the Zoo

Just being cute!!

Medical Exam

Loving Parenthood!

2007-02-27T21:23:00.000-08:00

We are all doing well and feeling blessed beyond belief. Grace is keeping us on our toes. She is such a happy baby. However she does like to wake us up in the middle of the night :0) Her Baba does a great job of getting her back to sleep, though. She loves to snuggle up with him. I never thought we would be glad to go to sleep at 9 pm. On Monday we officially became Grace's Mama and Baba. YEAH!!! We applied for her passport yesterday and went to Yuexiu park, it was beautiful. Guangzhou is so nice the weather has been great and it is so lush and green here. We went to the grocery store on Monday. That was quite the experience. It was 3 stories and had a little bit of everything. We found the Starbuck's!! Which is a good thing cause mama needed Java bad!! We have been a couple times. It's is a little different then the Starbucks back home. They have much better deserts! We have done a little shopping and we are going to do some more this afternoon. Tomorrow we are going to the Chen Clan Temple and Friday we are going to the zoo. Grace is breaking another tooth. So hopefully it will pop thru before we head home. Hope everyone is well. We will post again soon. Here are some more pictures. Stay tuned.....

Presenting Grace Bao Qin Henry

2007-02-25T13:58:00.000-08:00

After waiting for what seemed like an eternity Grace is finally in our arms. She is beautiful and amazing and her smile lights up the world. Here a few pictures of our sweet angel. Enjoy! We will post some more later. I know everyone is anxious to see her. She has 3 teeth and is about 20lbs. She seems to be pretty healthy, a little congested but doing well.

Stay tuned...

Love Gen, Jeff and Grace

Greetings from Beijing

2007-02-24T05:18:00.000-08:00

On our way!

2007-02-22T09:56:00.000-08:00

So we are on our way!! We will spend the next 24 hours traveling to Beijing. We are in Portland right now, waiting for our next flight. It seems so surreal. It's finally happening. Thanks to everyone for their help and encouragement. We can't wait to have Grace meet all our wonderful family and friends. We will try and post pictures of Grace as soon as possible. I know everyone is anxious to see her.
Stay Tuned...
Love
Gen and Jeff

Leaving in 1 week!!!!

2007-02-15T16:22:00.000-08:00

Things are moving along quickly. Stephanie threw me a wonderful baby shower. Thanks to all who came and made the day so very special. I can't wait to dress Grace in all her cute new clothes. We just found out today that we will actually get Grace on the 25th instead of the 26th so that is very exciting. It's hard to believe in 10 days we will be holding our sweet girl. And in 23 days we will be home with her forever. It's so awesome! Stay tuned....

China or Bust!!!

2007-02-07T20:53:00.000-08:00

We got our travel approvel last Friday and now have our travel dates!!! Yeah!! We leave 2 weeks from tomorrow for China. So Thursday the 22nd we begin the final piece of our journey to Grace. We will fly to Beijing arriving on Friday night the 23rd and do some sight seeing there on Saturday. Then on Sunday we are on our way to Guangzhou. Monday the 26th we will meet our beautiful daughter and after 23 months of paperwork and waiting we will finally be a forever family.
So now it's really crunch time! Hopefully the next 2 weeks go by fast. Stay tuned for more updates.

Busy Bees

2007-01-22T20:53:00.000-08:00

We have been so busy since we got our referral. We are still flying high from our referral news. We are so in love with our sweet faced angel. We are almost finished painting Grace's room. It's looking so good, I will post pictures when we're done. I am also almost done with Grace's 100 Good Wishes Quilt, I will also post pictures of that when i get it done.
We hope to get our Travel Approval in the next couple of weeks. Our Agency thinks we will probably travel to China around the 23rd of February. We sent off all the paperwork for our Visas. I have started buying stuff for our trip as well. We are definitely staying busy and the time has been going by pretty quickly. Jeff has been very busy with work and actually has to go to Atlanta for a week, crazy timing!
Stay Tuned for more updates.

New pictures of the cutest girl in the world!!!!

2007-01-04T20:09:00.000-08:00

Here are the other pictures we recieved with our referral. The UPS man finally showed up at 8:27 pm. Of course we think she is the cutest, sweetest, most fabulous girl in the whole world.

Referral!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-01-03T11:57:00.001-08:00

We are over the moon and thrilled to announce the referral of our beautiful daughter Grace.
We have waited over 15 months for this day and we are still in shock that it is finally here. We received the call at 10:45am.
Name: Lian(last name based off orphange name) Bao(treasure-middle name) Qin(musical instrument-first name)
We will call her Grace; we haven't decided yet what part of her Chinese name we will keep as her middle name.
Location: Lianjiang Welfare Institue in Guangdong Province
Born: April 3, 2006-9 months old today!!
At 7 months she was 15.8 lbs, 27 inches and had no teeth.
I have posted the only picture we have right now. We will receive more tomorrow. So check back then.

On Pins and Needles

2007-01-03T06:24:00.000-08:00

Will today be our day?? Agencies in Europe and on the west coast started receiving referrals yesterday. Our agency thinks they will be here today or tomorrow. I don't know if I can wait another day without knowing. Though once we get our referral we will have to wait 6-8 weeks to hold our little angel. I can only imagine how hard that will be. The last 15+ months have been a killer; but once we know who she is and that she is waiting for us to bring her home, all I can say is a least we will be very busy getting ready for her and our trip to China.
Hopefully we will know in a few short hours.

New Year's Eve Party

2007-01-01T17:48:00.000-08:00

Here is our picture from the Moore's New Year's eve costume party. The theme was movie characters, I chose Fiona from Shrek and Jeff was Indiana Jones. I won first place in the costume contest and Jeff won 2nd. It was a lot of fun. We had a fabulous new years and would like to thank the Moores for being such great hosts. Looking forward to next year's party.

A New Year

2006-12-31T08:27:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe we are about to celebrate another new year and we still don't have our sweet baby. When we started this process we thought we would have Grace home by May 2006. The wait times slowly started to grow right after we had our paperwork log in by the CCAA-China Center for Adoption Affairs . When we started the wait between log in date (LID) to referral was 7 months; now the wait from LID to referral is up to 15 months. So it has more than doubled :0( We hope to receive our referral any time. But with each day that passes it pushes our travel to China out even further. We were hoping to get to China before Chinese New Year,February 18th marks the 1st day of Chinese New Year-the Year of the Pig. If we don't get to China before CNY it will be closer to March when we go. The end of March marks 2 years since we started the adoption process. But enough of that.
The coming new year also brings the exciting reality that we will finally bring our daughter home. We can't wait to share our referral news with everyone.