We have a daughter!

Hi everyone!

I will try to update the blog in a minute, but just in case, I wanted to email you first to say we made it safe and sound! My back is MUCH better now, thank goodness! We somehow lost an entire day... our flight left Ottawa on Fri at 9:00am and we got into Beijing at 5:30pm Saturday.... we were EXHAUSTED! Our Agency Director met us at the hotel (her brother picked us up from the airport) and she showed us a grocery store down the street. We picked up some snacks to eat, but it was hard! Barely any english on any packages and everything is very different! We were also so tired and overwhelmed. We went back to our room, ate a little and crashed. Then Josh woke us up at midnight hungry, poor guy. We gave him a snack and tried to sleep but woke up again at 1:30am Sunday morning, and finally got up then. Showered, ate, watched TV and went exploring the hotel at 3:45 am... of course everything was closed, even the guard was asleep! But we were WIDE AWAKE!

We went back and napped until 5:30, then got up again and waited until breakfast started at 6:30. We were the first there... the breakfast was great! Lots of "western" food, most of which was not quite the same as at home and not really hot (the bacon was like the microwave McCain's bacon, and it was likewarm). They also had lots of Chinese things too like dim sum dumplings and rice. Robin was very excited to eat rice from breakfast. Josh ate a lot of french toast and I ate a little bit of everything.

Sunday we visited the bank to convert our $$ to yuan. We had 38,000 rmb, which was a HUGE STACK and didn't fit into our money belt! Went straight back to the hotel to put it in the safe! I wanted to take a police man from the bank with us to be sure no one would rob us! (there are police everyhwere). Then we went to a beautiful Lama Temple from the Qing Dynasty that was 450 yrs old. We also found a Confucion (sp?) temple from the 1300s but by then we were so cold, tired and hungry we just peeked in. It was very cold, we wore our long underwear, hat, mittens, winter coats etc. Of course we've lost Josh's hat and mittens, luckily we have a second pair of mits and he wore my hat.

OK now for the part you are WAITING FOR!!

We got up Monday at 2 or 3:00am (I forget now, it's all melding together in my brain) got ready, and met the bus with the other families for 5:00am. They gave us boxed breakfasts of banana bread, boiled egg, sliced ham, yogurt and an orange. I could only eat the banana bread, I was SO NERVOUS and EXCITED! We got to the airport (BEAUTIFUL AND NEW!!! and VERY EFFICIENT!) and our flight left for Nanning at 7:40am. We arrived in Nanning at 11:00am. Our guide Michael met us, (his english is perfect and he's great with Josh and XingJuan). and took us to the hotel. We had lunch, tried to rest and then he picked us up at 2:45 to go meet XingJuan at another government hotel. We were so nervous and excited!!

We got to the 3rd floor and right in the hallway she was standing there with another little boy, the nannies and the director!! OMG!! She was so brave. The nannies said something and she came over and gave each of us a candy! We weren't supposed to meet in the hallway though! Michael took us to a room with toys and a few minutes later the director brought her in. There were 2 other familes meeting their babies as well. She was so shy, but didnt cry at all. It was quite awkward because you just wanted to give her a BIG HUG and talk to her and explain everything, but couldn't! We showed her the backpack with all the little thinngs in it. The stickers first were good, we put them on our hands. Then we did bubbles. But it wasn't until we blewup the beachball and Josh started goofing off that we got a smile! Melt my heart!! I wanted to cry, but didn't! Michael told me NOT TO CRY or it will scare her! That was hard though!! We had lots of fun palying with the ball, mostly we kicked it to Josh, he fell over (very dramatic like) and she would smile. We also gave her the Wawa from Grandma and Grandpa, which she REALLY likes. She took it to bed with her last night.

Then we went back to the hotel and hung out in the room. Michael helped translate more phrases for us. She really likes the Dora video in Mandarin and this morning she asked me to watch it, and I UNDERSTOOD!! I remembered the word for Chicken (ji) and the first Dora video is about a big red chicken.

We had some tears before bed, but it wasn't too bad. This morning she wanted to be by herself a bit, so we didn't bother her too much. Woke up at 4:00am, GREAT!! We all went to bed between 6:30 and 8:00pm, so that was a better sleep. I brought out some toy cars and we all played cars, she really liked that. Then her and Josh goofed off with the ball. She let out quite a big laugh with him!! He can get her to smile quite easily! I took a picture of her and Josh after they'd made some bead necklaces and she was beaming. I said, "Meimei JuanJuan he Gege Josh!" and she kept repeating Gege Josh! (that means, "little sister JuanJuan and Big brother Josh"!)

She also LOVES to play with our old digital camera we brought along. Right away she basically figured out how to use it and has taken tons of photos!

We will be leaving soon for a day of appointments and to finalise the adoption. She is SO BEAUTIFUL and she is exactly like we thought she's be. She's very independent and confident and very bright!! OMG, I am going to cry... I'm so proud to be her mommy!!

OK gotta go. Pass this on to anyone else I've missed. Mom, I forgot to input Paul's address into my yahoo account, so please pass this on to him.

oh - I forgot, the foster family sent photos of JuanJuan from when she was just a baby until now! There's a photo of her with her Foster Baba and another of her and her foster mama too! The SWI also gave us all her progress reports, which included photos and sometimes her drawings!! We are so lucky!!! (of course they are all in Mandarin so we need to have them translated)

Will try to download some photos later and put all this onto the blog too.
Take care
Love US!!