Trying Snakes and Flying Home!

Well, we have just spent the last full day here in Guangzhou. We ended it with a meal at a Cantonese restaurant. I am including a picture of Kendal and Jordan eating water snake. All three of us gave it a try and it was actually the best thing on the table! On the way into the restaurant, you could actually pick out your meal, while it is still alive!!! That's right. So, we walked by 3 cages of snakes on the way in and I thought I would chicken out of trying it. But, we all did it.....Anna, meanwhile, enjoyed the rice.
We are super excited that tomorrow at 5pm we are getting on a bus for Hong Kong and then flying out early Thursday morning. We are ready to get Anna home, get her checked out by our pediatrician and give lots of hugs and kisses to Lydia, whom we have dearly missed!!!

Pray for our travel and that we won't have delays. We have known that so many have prayed for us along this journey here; thank you so much. Well, gonna cut this short because the computer battery is running low.

Blessings,
Jennifer D

Ready to Be Home!

So, today has come and gone. We had our first appointment at the US consolate's office. Basically, this was just for them to look at our paperwork and we didn't even have to go, our guides went for us and things went well. No issues to report, so tomorrow we will have to go in person and do the interview and whatever else comes with that. This will take place about 3 tomorrow afternoon. The rest of our day was spent doing some shopping and hanging out at Shaman island. We did visit the White Swan hotel and try to take a picture on their famous red couches where so many adopted families have come through. But, Anna was not in the mood for that, so we did the best we could. The girls were wearing their new Chinese clothes that we bought. Don't worry, Lydia has a couple of outfits too. Going to have to do a photo shoot sometime when we get back.

Jordan wants me to make sure that I tell everyone about her new friend, Melanie. She's a sweet girl (who was adopted several years ago, and her family is now on their 3rd adoption from China). Jennifer wants me to remind everyone to pray for Anna's issues with the boils and her transitions to living with us and in America.

Just so you know, Anna is a handful. Once she came out of her shell, she came all the way out. She is rough around the edges, so I think her and Lydia are in for some battles. Jordan thinks we might need to get a wrestling mat for the basement. We are trying to teach her how to play not so rough and not to bite/scratch/etc. Jordan keeps calling her little tiger - the nickname might stick. Hopefully, with time she will learn to channel some of that aggression.

Have I mentioned that we are ready to come home? Well, we are. China is nice but I like the USA a little better. We have been trying to save some money by eating PB and J in the hotel room for lunch the past several days and eating McDonalds at night. It's much cheaper than the hotels buffet every meal. We have a chance to go to a restaurant tomorrow night that where you can get all kinds of live things killed for you to eat. This includes snake, eel, and lots of sea food things. Don't know if we are going or not, going to have to check the funds before we make that decision.

I guess that's about it for tonight, we will be heading for Hong Kong on a bus Wednesday night. We will stay in a hotel there for a few hours and then it's off to the airport for an early morning flight to Tokyo, then to Atlanta, then to Columbia. Thanks for all your sweet messages of encouragement, we really appreciate each one of them. Have a great week - we are.

- Kendal

All Smiles!

Becoming Part of the Family

Hey guys. Sorry it has been a few days since we last updated the blog. Here goes..... we arrived in our last city and things have gone pretty well. We had 'medical exam' and did a little site seeing. The internet is hit and miss at best (and costs $15 a day). Anyway, Anna has a couple of boils on her head due to the bad condition of the place where she has been living before we got her. One of those boils ruptured during the night and we had to go see a "Doctor" this morning. They cleaned it and told us to go to the hospital, but that is always their advice. The experience was not pleasant. A couple of nurses on our trip with us said that it should be good until we get home. But it has stressed Mom and Dad (and big sister out). I can't lie, it makes me angry that the orpahange did not take care of our little girl like she deserved to be. But, we will just have to make up for that.
Anna had only been letting Jennifer hold her until yesterday. Now she only wants Kendal and Jordan to hold her. Don't know what that is about, but at least we have all had a turn now. She is up running around and wrestling with Jordan and Kendal. She is quite a little rascal, should fit in with our family well. We are all ready to go home, but we still have work to do. Tomorrow is our first appointment with the US consilate. The we have a couple other things to do there after that in order to get her visa. Hopefully, that all goes well.
Sorry this is brief and no pics, but my battery is running out and the charger is up in the room. Gotta go for now, but we will try to do better with the blog updates from this point out. Thanks for all your prayers.

Jiangxi Porcelain

So, today we went to do a village tour and saw how the majority of people in China actually live. The people live on very little money and survive by living together and growing much of their food. It was humbling to think of how much we have in America compared to these people. After the village tour we went to a porcelain shop to check out what was there. Jiangxi is known to have the best porcelain in the entire nation. In fact, it's shipped all over the world. So naturally we wanted to get a few things from Anna's home region to remember our journey. I also learned a few things about porcelain. First, it takes a long time to get all the raw materials to make pieces with. The have to be combined in a special way and are often hand painted and fired at very high temperatures. While porcelain is obviously breakable it is very strong because of the process by which it is made. In fact, the owner of the shop took two of the bowls that we eventually bought and knocked them together pretty hard - no cracks. It was pretty impressive.

As I thought about that it made me think of our little Anna. Just like the porcelain pieces we got today, she was made with precious materials. She was put together in such a way and crafted by the hand of God. She has been through more trials by fire than most adults I know, and in such a short amount of time. Just by looking closely at her body we can tell that she has not been treated like the precious gift of God that she is. The trials will make her strong and determined, but she's still very delicate and breakable. Our job as parents and siblings is to strengthen her and help her to be everything that God desires her to be. Thanks for all of your prayers and the way you have already invested in her life.

- Kendal

Small Breakthroughs

Today we visited a famous Pavillion in Nanchang. We took a tour, got to see a short show (music, singing, and dancing), and toured the gardens around the Pavillion. It was great to get out and walk around. We also had decided on our own to get out into the city. We walked to a place called the RT Mart to do some window shopping. Yesterday we went to Walmart and it was super crazy. The sights, sounds, and smells were overwhelming. It made me thankful for our Florence Walmart - now that's scary. But the RT Mart was more like Super Target. It was a little calmer, not as trashy, and not as noisey. But it did have live fish/crawdads/turtles/frogs/

eels and more to buy and eat. And yes, we did take pictures. Jordan thought this was crazy.

All that stuff aside, Anna had some small breakthroughs today. When she woke up this morning I got her out of her crib. She cried some, but them let me hold her for a little while without crying. She interacted with Jordan more than she has with smiles, laughs, and even reached for her some. The best part of my day was our trip to the RT Mart because Anna let me carry her the whole way (15 minute walk) and didn't seem stressed or cry at all. I'm so thankful for all of your prayers as Anna continues to transition into our family. We pray that she grows more confident and trusts us more and more each day. She also had her first stroller ride today. She cried a lot when Jennifer first put her in, but warmed up to the idea and actually stayed in it while eating supper. That may not sound like a bid deal, but for Jennifer to have some time where she didn't have to carry her constantly was a huge blessing.

Tomorrow we go check out some places that sell pottery that Jiangxi is famous for and we will be taking a village tour. Have a great day. More to come soon.....

- Kendal

Anna on Gotcha Day

She's so precious! Sorry for only having on picture to share with you all for now, there have been a few complications with the internet connection! Hopefully we'll get all the little things worked out and have more to share with you later!