Fuzhou

As crazy as it seems, I feel like our days are so filled that I hardly have time to post anything. First of all, let me update you on Mya. Words that come to mind to describe what we know of her so far: sweet, playful, smiley, strong-willed, independent, hungry (all the time), cuddly, laugher, cute, funny, impatient, and smart. She has figured out how to control us in less than 4 days since we met her on Sunday. Shannon and I feel so bad that we are letting her do so many things that we wouldn't let our boys do at this age, but we are in a place where people constantly stare at us even when our Chinese baby isn't screaming at the top of her lungs, so you can imagine the looks when she is! Whenever we take her out in public, we joke that she can sense that we are on edge and she knows exactly what to do and when to do it in order to get exactly what she wants...usually something sweet to eat. She has mastered digging into her backpack to find the one thing that we were holding onto as the "ace-in-the-hole" that will save us when she's on the brink of a melt down. All of that said, she is definitely already attaching to us and we are falling deeper in love with her every day!

Even though we can't speak a word of mandarin and she can't speak a word of English, we seem to understand each other pretty well...it really is amazing. She loves to be in our hotel room, which has become her playroom, bounce house and wrestling ring all in one. The one thing she doesn't like to do in our room is sleep. Getting her to fall asleep is definitely the hardest part so far. She'll cry for over a half an hour as we hold her, pat her on the back, rub her belly to try to console her, but she just yells as if saying, "I can easily outlast you". In fact, she has outlasted us every time we've tried to get her to take a nap, which is why you'll see pictures of her sleeping in the sling and in the stroller we rented from the hotel. She is sleeping in her crib at night, which is huge given that she cried just watching the guy bring the crib into our room in the middle of the day. All-in-all, things are going way better than we expected, especially given our first 30 minutes with her. We don't have any doubt that's a result of all of our friends and family back home that are praying for us....so thank you!

I'm sure most of you have already scrolled down to the bottom to just look at the pictures by this point (I'm not judging, I would do the exact same thing). For those that are still reading, below is a recap of what we've been up to:

Monday: we went to the provincial adoption office to file the official adoption papers. Our guide, Penny, took us there with another family from the US that is also staying at our hotel. From there, we went to the notary's office to make the adoption official. Mya was not a big fan of either of these stops, and again, could easily see how on edge we were with all of these officials around. Needless to say, we were relieved to make it back to the hotel! But this was important because it made our adoption official in China and they were then able to apply for Mya's passport. We have to wait for that to come through which is why we have to stay in Fuzhou until the end of the week. Once we get her passport, which will be Friday, we will fly to Guangzhou. As a side note, I can't tell you how thankful I am that we have a driver for the whole trip. I am an aggressive driver, but I would look like a 16-year old girl taking her driving exam compared to the people over here... I would never try to drive here!

Tuesday: Penny took us, the other US family and a family from Italy that was trying to adopt but ran into problems (very sad story for a later time) to Panda world. They are very proud of their pandas here. The pandas were cool, but the actual exhibit left a little to be desired. Either way, it got us out of the hotel room for a bit. From there, we went to an old-style Chinese house, which was pretty cool, in the middle of the city, surrounded by high-rise apartment buildings. We also went to a tea-tasting there, which isn't really my thing, but was a very impressive presentation.

As I'm typing this, Papa Johns was just delivered to our hotel room and I'm drinking a $2 Heineken from my hotel fridge....as close to home as we can get! Kevin Pong, if you read this, you need to get Marco's over here - it would be a hit!

Wednesday (today): we went to a famous old shopping street. It is pedestrian-only street full of cool little gift shops, jewelry shops, clothing stores, and restaurants (including one of the coolest Starbucks I've ever seen). Shannon loaded up on stuff for Mya. Watching Mya and Shannon hold hands while they walk has been one of my favorite things to do here. She is definitely loving her "Mama" and all of the attention she gets from her.

One of the best things about our hotel is this huge lake with a boardwalk that goes all the way around it right out our front door. It is also connected to this great park that has some beautiful scenery, tons of open space and even a bunch of rides like you'd see at a fair or catholic festival. All of our activities have been done by noon so we've spent every afternoon walking around the lake or in the park (thankfully, the weather has been awesome -70 degrees and dry for the most part). Mya even rode her first rides this afternoon. I'm thinking she might be disappointed when we get home with everything this place has to offer!

We are definitely missing home, especially the boys! Skype and face time have been awesome, but it's just not the same. Thanks for your continued prayers!

That's way too much writing, so here are some pictures from the last couple of days...I had to add the one of her crying to give the whole picture of Mya. This is what she does when she doesn't get her way. She closes her eyes and cries so that even though we're trying to give her the thing she's crying about, she won't open her eyes to take it. It really is funny....at least when we're not in public! You'll also notice one of our tricks to try to get her in her crib...