Home Sweet Home

It's 12:40 AM in Cincinnati as I type this on our home computer in our kitchen - we're finally home!  It was so great to be greeted by family and friends at the airport tonight....so refreshing to see familiar faces and especially to hug and kiss our boys!  It was so fun to watch the boys interact with Mya as we clogged up the walkway so that no one else could get out of the airport.  They were so full of joy and Mya, while I'm sure overwhelmed, warmed right up to them.  They had so much fun showing her around the house and playing with her before everyone finally went to bed at Midnight.  While we are exhausted, I have to thank you guys for praying for our travel.  It was actually amazing.  Over the entire 24 hours of travel time, I don't think Mya cried more than 30 minutes.  I am so excited to see what the next few days bring back at home (well, maybe the next few days after the first few days once the three of us kick the jet lag and get back to life in the eastern time zone)!  There were a bunch of pictures taken at the airport, but unfortunately none by me or Shannon so I don't have any to post.  We'll get a few on here of Mya interacting with the boys here at home.  Thanks again for all of the love, support and prayers....it is so good to have Mya home where she belongs!!

We're Coming Home!!

We got Mya's visa at 4:15 this afternoon...the last thing we need before we can come home!! So, the bell boy will be at our door at 7:45 tomorrow morning to get our bags and we'll be on our way to the Guangzhou airport for an 11:00 flight to Beijing. After a 3.5 hour layover in Beijing, we're on a 5:50 flight to Detroit, which is estimated to take 13 hours. Please pray that Mya will sleep for the majority of this flight! While we know this will be draining, the thought of being back on US soil and getting back to everyday life with our family and friends will make it worth the agony. When we clear customs in Detroit, Xiufan Li will officially become Mya Catherine Wik and have US Citizenship! Then a 1.5 hour layover in Detroit and an 8:30 flight to Dayton, which is scheduled to land at 9:30 Saturday night. Davis, Brady, and Sam - we can't wait to see you guys...be prepared for some long hugs and tears of joy from your mom and me when we get to see your smiling faces in person. We've missed you guys so much and can't wait to get back to spending time with you!!

Today was a really nice last day here in China. Mya slept a little later than normal so we lazily made our way down to breakfast around 10:00. After breakfast, we went to the park with a family from Montana that is here adopting a 13-year old girl...great people. Despite a forecast that called for rain all day today, we had a beautiful day the whole time we were at the park. In fact, it was the first time in guangzhou that we could've actually used sunglasses. Usually, there's a layer of smog that manages to choke out the sun if it's not raining. The park was huge with beautiful landscaping and some cool amenities. We took a boat ride on the lake, strolled along some nice walking paths, and, of course, rode some amusement park rides. I convinced Shannon that I didn't want to rent a paddle boat because its too much work. I can't understand Chinese, but I swear there was more than one Chinese family pointing and laughing at the lazy American family that rented the electric boat. It's a good thing we did though, because I was plenty sweaty after playing with a couple of the older Chinese kids that are being adopted....it was great to interact with someone on my intellectual level for a change! We ended up staying at the park well past Mya's nap time, as evidenced in the picture in the stroller below.

We ended up at the Italian restaurant for a nice dinner with the family from Indiana (they cancelled on us last night after a long day with their kids). After that, we headed to the mall for a few more last gifts, one more stop at McDonald's for a milk shake, and had Mya in bed by 9:00. It was a good day with Mya despite the fact that she really didn't get a nap. I'm getting a little sad for Mya to leave the only country that she's known. I know it's God's plan, and I'm obviously very excited, but I also know how I've felt for just two weeks being a minority. I'm just praying she knows and can feel in the depths of her heart that our home has always been her home. I know having such good family and friends to love her will make that so much easier for her.

We really appreciate all of the love, support and prayers from home during this journey. I truly believe that we couldn't have done this without all of you guys! Thanks for all of the encouraging comments and thanks for following along. It's an experience that has changed my life and I'll forever be grateful for that. I'm looking forward to watching Mya integrate into our family and our circle of friends. We know there will be challenges, but seeing Mya's sweet smile, her funny facial expressions, hearing her laugh, accepting her hugs and kisses, and even wiping away her tears make it all worth it. We can't wait for you guys to experience all of those things!

Here are a few pictures from last night (at the hagendaas restaurant, which Mya is obviously a fan of) and from the park today. Finally, a picture of our bags packed by the hotel room door ready to head back to the US! We can't wait to see you guys!

One more day in Guangzhou!

The consulate appointment was a success this morning! In fact, it was so easy, we were able to make it back to the hotel before the breakfast buffet closes at 10:00. That's important because that's the meal highlight of the day. Assuming everything goes as planned, we should get Mya's visa at 4:15 tomorrow! It's been a pretty rainy day, so we just played in the room with Mya until she took a nap around 1:00. I was getting pretty stir crazy so I ventured out to try to find some souvenirs for the boys. After wandering around the city for an hour or so, I found my way to a local soccer stadium. The hard part was finding my way back! It's amazing how many McDonald's, Pizza Huts, KFCs an Starbucks you pass over a mile or two in this city! I was trying to use them as landmarks, but gave up on that after passing my fourth or fifth of each. I know we also think we have a lot of cell phone stores in the US, but I walked down one street where there were literally 17 of them in a row! I guess that's the benefit of being a business owner when there are 17 million potential customers in your city.

We're headed to dinner with a couple from Columbus, Indiana tonight that we've gotten to know over the week. Back to the Italian place...should be a good time. We've downloaded a couple of episodes of Survivor, so we plan to catch up on those tonight after Mya is asleep. As you can guess, we're running out of things to do to keep entertained. If the weather clears up, we're planning to go to the "Central Park" of Guangzhou tomorrow morning with a couple of other families as we try to kill the last 24 hours here before we get on a flight to Beijing Saturday morning (your Friday night).

Here are a few pictures from the dinner cruise last night and the hotel yesterday and today:

Consulate Tomorrow!

The good news is that the abandonment certificate made it today so we're good to go for our consulate appointment tomorrow! The bad news is we just want to be home and we don't get to leave for three more days. Assuming everything goes well tomorrow (8:30 am appointment) we'll get Mya's visa Friday afternoon and we'll be on our way home Saturday morning. I'll be honest, the days are getting pretty long here and are definitely starting to wear on us...so much so that I'm obviously not updating the blog as much. We are establishing so many bad habits with Mya by letting her do whatever she wants that we're all going to be in for a rude awakening when we get home! It's also making it harder to take her out in public because she knows exactly what to do and is taking full advantage of us. All that said, she's so stinking cute that even when she's mad at us, it's hard not to smile.

Since the last post, we took a dinner cruise on the Pearl River last night, which really was cool. The skyline here is incredible and the rain broke for us just in time to spend a lot of the cruise on the outside deck taking in the scenery and awesome (non-humid for a change) weather! Mya was really good...we discovered she likes corn on the cob, so she basically had a piece of that in her hands for the entire cruise. Unfortunately, all of our pictures from the cruise are on our camera and I don't have the energy to transfer those to my iPad tonight...sorry! It was a late night for Mya, so everyone was tired when we got home.

This morning, we headed over to Shamian Island, which is a quaint little shopping island on the Pearl river. It had a very southern feel to it (almost Charleston, SC-like) and was not crowded at all...very refreshing! Unfortunately, it rained on us quite a bit, but it was still a good time and we found some good gifts. We also ate at a western restaurant there where Shannon was able to get some grilled cheese and I had some fish and chips....so nice! After a nap that afternoon, Shannon went and got a pedicure with a couple of the other adoptive moms which gave me a chance to spend some quality time with Mya. We fed the fish on the hotel grounds (actually, Mya ate most of the Cheez-its that we brought for the fish) and had a good time playing in the hotel room.

Unfortunately, that's all of the pre-arranged sight-seeing that our agency set up for us. Now, we have two full days to try to keep Mya occupied here at the hotel. There are four families that are stuck here until Saturday so I'm sure we'll find something to do with them. I'll upload some pictures from our camera tomorrow, but here's what I have on my iPhone for now. The first few are from Shamian Island and the rest are from the hotel garden:

Faces of Mya

We had a good time at the zoo today, although Mya wasn't all that interested in anything other than what we brought in her backpack for her to eat. That said, it was a good day with great weather. I was able to take a nap with Mya this afternoon, which was awesome. Especially knowing that I won't be able to do that often once we're home. I think this may have been our first meltdown-free day....very encouraging! We went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner with about 15 other families that are here to adopt. How crazy is that...a bunch of white people with Chinese babies at a Mexican restaurant in china?! When they told us it would be an hour wait for food for that many people, me, Shannon and Mya quickly made our way to the exit. We ended up finding a nice, quiet Italian restaurant down the street and had a great meal with Mya. We have a free day tomorrow until a dinner cruise on the Pearl river at 5:30, which is supposed to be really cool. As I'm writing this from the tavern in the hotel, I just heard "we are the world"....I think it's a new release here in china.....

That's all for now, but I wanted to post some pictures of the many faces of Mya that we've grown to love over the week that we've known her. I hope you guys are enjoying the spring break snow in Cincinnati! Enjoy!

Update from Guangzhou

It's Sunday night here in china, and I feel like I just need to acknowledge that God is good! We've known Mya a little over a week now, and it feels like she has been our daughter forever and we get the sense from her constant hugs and smiles that she knows we're her mom and dad. We know this wouldn't be possible if it hadn't been planned by God a long time ago! So, as much as we are into Mya right now, we just want to acknowledge God's goodness, faithfulness, and love. I don't know why I'm always amazed at what happens when we step out in obedience to do something that God is calling us to. Every single time, God shows up and life is more fulfilling! Those who know me know that one of my favorite verses in the bible is John 10:10 (look it up if you don't know it). We are experiencing that promise with Mya here in Guangzhou as much as we long to get this trip over with and get back home to be with our friends and family!

It's been a bit of a whirlwind since we arrived in Guangzhou on Friday night around midnight. Saturday morning at 9:30, we took Mya to the medical clinic with the 8 other families from the US that are here through our adoption agency. The clinic was absolute chaos. Mya basically had to get a physical, which isn't that big of a deal, but so did the 100 other kids who were there as well. Trying to keep any kid happy for over three hours in a hot/crowded doctor's office is nearly impossible.....as it was for all of the adoptive families that morning. The good news is she passed, and has been medically cleared to leave china! This is a huge blessing, as there is one family with us who found out their son has TB, so they have to wait six weeks before they can bring him home. It's been so sad to watch them try to figure this out. They don't want to send him back to the orphanage, so they're trying to figure out how to stay here for the next six weeks. Please pray for them.

We stopped at the grocery store on our way back to stock up for the week and made it back to the Garden Hotel by about 2:00. At 3:00 that afternoon, we had a meeting to get all of the paperwork together for the consulate appointment on Thursday, which took about two hours. We basically went straight from there to dinner with the other families at a Chinese restaurant down the street. As you can imagine, Mya was not happy about sitting in a high chair, and Shannon and I weren't all that happy about the food. Needless to say, Mya slept great that night!

We were feeling a bit like heathens as all of the other families went to church this morning while we slept in and made it down to the breakfast buffet just before it closed at 10:00. I got a call from one of our guides in the morning saying I needed to meet her before everyone leaves for church at 9:30 to go over some paperwork. As it turns out, Mya's Abandonment Certificate from Fuzhou showed that she was abandoned on a date before she was born. Now they have to have that document re-done in Fuzhou, so we need it to arrive here before our consulate appointment on Thursday morning. Please pray that happens so our trip isn't delayed!! After breakfast and a walk with Mya to the grocery store, we made it back to our room to play with her for a bit before naps for her and Shannon. I ventured out for a jog, which mostly turned into a walk as a tried to find my way back to the hotel in this huge city where I can only read a few signs and I don't have my gps activated!

We went with the rest of the families at 3:00 to a famous shopping street here in Guangzhou that was probably more stressful than the medical clinic! I have never seen so many people in one place at one time moving around so quickly and frantically. The bus dropped us off at 3:45 and said they would pick us back up at 6:00. By 4:00, I was ready to take a cab back to the hotel. That said, Shan found some good gifts and Mya was really good, so it was a successful trip. There were plans for another dinner, but we were all so tired, I walked over to Pizza Hut to get a pizza with a couple of the other guys and brought it back to the room. I was offered a few illegal items on the street on my way back to the hotel that probably would've made me a little more hungry for that pizza had I taken him up on his offer!

All-in-all, it has been hectic here, but good. It's been awesome to meet other families that are in the exact same stage of adoption as us, to share stories, wins, and struggles. It is amazing how quickly we've made bonds with some of these families just because of what we're all going through together. We're off to the zoo at 9:30 tomorrow morning so I need to join Mya and Shannon in bed (actually Mya is falling asleep in our bed, but she stays asleep as I transfer her to her crib, which is nice)!

So, here are the pics so far from Guangzhou. A couple from the lobby of the hotel (including the impressive staircase) one from the pool area, and a few of Mya in the room. One from the medical clinic and a couple from the shopping area today (you'll see that Mya is already into jewelry as she digs through some beads). The last one is actually from Fuzhou and shows all three of my chins, but it's so cute of Mya that Shannon insisted that I post it! I'll post some additional pictures in the morning....too tired now:

Guangzhou!!

We made it....finally! After getting to the airport at 5:30 for a 7:30 flight, our hour and a half flight was delayed until 9:00, which happens to be Mya's bedtime and the time she generally cries and can't be consoled. She cried/screamed for a good 30 minutes of the flight. If that math holds true, we'll have about 8 hours of no crying on our 12 hour flight from Beijing to Detroit next Saturday...should be awesome. Regardless, we made it and this hotel is pretty freakin sweet! We've got a great two-room suite with so much more space. I've also already seen more Americans in the 30 minutes we've been here than we saw all of last week. It just makes it feel a little closer to home, which we desperately need right now! Shan and Mya are in the other room sleeping, and its 1:00 am so I'm going to go join them.

Here are a couple pictures from today. One from the airport with our guide, penny. One is from the beach near the airport, we had a few minutes to spare so our driver let us stop for a few minutes. A picture of Mya's passport - nice! And, a picture of our new living room where I can post on the blog while the girls sleep (that's so weird for me to say):