Almost done!

We are really looking forward to heading home.  12 days in a hotel with a 1 year old that you don't really know and doesn't really know you is not how we suggest starting things off. 

Last night we went on a cruise on the Pearl River.  The lights are amazing and some incredibly tall buildings.  The Canton Tower was stunning.  Probably not the best for our colds, but how often do we get to Canton Guangzhou! The pictures below aren't as good as the the ones in the link, but not bad for standing on a moving boat with a hand held camera and Vivian in the front pack.

Canton Tower

Most of the lights were put in for the Asian Games

Today was mostly a free day.  We had the infamous "red couch" photo for those of you that know about such things.  We also had a nice group dinner at the Thai place that is on the island.  As far as health, Trinda is the worst off right now.  Both Vivian and I (Todd) are on the mend, but we still have a pretty bad hack.  It's even money if I will keep my voice or not.  Doctors all around on Monday once we are home.  Below are some pics from the red couch photo shoot.

The group.  The adults are 2 of the Holt staff.

I'm not gonna cry!  I'm not gonna cry!

Yes I am!

 

Some models just get tired after a photo shoot.

Tomorrow we will receive the US Visa and then Friday we are off to Hong Kong and then cross the ditch on Saturday.  We are so looking forward to getting home and settling in to a routine in our own space.  Thank you all for all of the thoughts are prayers.  We are almost home.

It's official with the US government!

Vivian Hua Bolton  Brenneman was sworn in this afternoon at the US Consulate in Guangzhou.  We now wait until Thursday when we get the US Visa and then we are off to Hong Kong on Friday and home on Saturday.

Now we are off for a dinner cruise of Papa John's Pizza on the Pearl River! 

It's been quite a week...

In some ways it's hard to believe she's only been with us for a week yet other times its so apparent she wasn't getting the attention she needed during her 1st year of life.  If only we could get a peek at what life was like for her in the orphanage.  At least she appears to have been well cared for, and for that we are very thankful.  We hope someday we can visit her hometown and the orphanage that took care of her.  Unfortunately, we don't have the opportunity to do that on this trip since we're told the Maogang orphanage, outside of Maoming city, is about a 6 hour drive from here. 

The last two days have been somewhat challenging for us because we've all come down with terrible colds.  Viv had a cold when we received her and I was just getting over one at the time, but it's obvious our immune systems aren't used to 1 yr old runny noses and head colds because Todd and I both have terrible colds, while Viv is on definitely on the mend!  That girl constantly needs to be on the move.  We believe she's making up for lost time.  She now loves to be on the floor and crawls everywhere.  Of course, she really likes the marble floor we have by the desk.  We're not sure which she enjoys more, the power cord for the laptop or seeing how badly she can scare us when she attempts to stand and take a few steps on the marble.  So far she has taken a handful of steps on her own and we're amazed how she can go from a squat to a full stand and back to a squat without holding onto anything.  The girl has some power thighs!   We also believe she's having so much fun now that she never wants to nap or go to sleep for Fear Of Missing Out on something (we call this FOMO).  She will do everything she can to entertain herself when we try to put her to sleep.  It can be challenging when we're both not feeling well!  This afternoon we went out for a 2 hour walk, thinking she would nap in the carrier, but she stayed awake and looked around for almost the entire time.  Todd had to take every distraction away from her, including his coat zipper, before she would fall asleep and then it was short lived because we stopped walking for a few minutes... Of course we keep telling ourselves she needs to be alert because she's so incredibly intelligent and has a very inquisitive mind ;-)

She already enjoys reading the China Daily

And of course, she turns right to the business section.

Since we're not feeling well and we need to sleep when she does, this post is going to be very short.  Today was a free day and we had hoped to go to the animal Safari in Guangzhou, but when we woke up feeling so sick we opted not to go.  It was very cold and overcast, so we stayed in for most of the day and then went out for a nice afternoon walk in the city.  After 7 days in a hotel room, we are starting to go a bit crazy.  Thankfully it's a very nice room in a beautiful hotel. 

Below are some pics of the city that we took on our walk.

Walking along the Pearl river.  This river runs along our hotel.

One of the many bridges along the Pearl river.

Still some signs of old China.

Getting ready for the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year).

Shops all around the city sell red lanterns and flowers for the festival.

Street food - chicken on a stick.

Somehow we stumbled into the garment district. 

 

 

 

 

 

Selling kumquats - Another symbol for the Spring Festival.

Yesterday we went to the jade and pearl wholesale market.  That was a bit overwhelming!  There were floors and floors of little booths with people selling pearls and all sorts of jade; bracelets, pendants and carvings.

The Wholesale Pearl market and its many floors

 

 

 

Another free ride at the Pearl market

Tomorrow morning we have our visa appointment and in the afternoon we have our appointment at the US Consulate where we have an Oath-taking ceremony.  Then tomorrow night we have the option to go on a river cruise around the city.  We hope we're feeling well enough to do the cruise because the lights around this city are amazing.  They're even more amazing now because everything is being decorated for the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) which starts on February 2nd.  It would be fun to stay and see the celebration, but we're far more eager to get home. 

We'll post more as we have time and start to feel better. Pray that we are well for our flight home or it could really be a rough ride.

Below are a few pics we need to share because they are just too cute.

Sucking her favorite two fingers.

She's already learned to ham it up when the camera comes out.

She loves paddy cake!

It's so much fun to see her smile and laugh.

Day 5 and so many changes...

It's hard to believe she's the same girl who wouldn't let go of us during the first 24 hours we were together.  She's doing amazingly well for just having her world turned upside down.  Plus she was placed with 2 people who don't have much experience parenting a 1 yr old, so she's taking it fairly easy on us so far.  We're taking things slowly with her too since we're still trying to figure out her sleeping and eating schedule.  It really would be helpful if she would have come with an instruction manual!

Her first night with us and all tuckered out.

Day 2.  Still not so sure about us after her good night's sleep.

Day 3.  It takes her a while to wake up.  She fits right in to our family!

Day 4.  Feeling a bit more comfortable with us and starting to play.

Yesterday was our first free day and instead of going out exploring the town, we settled for a leisurely morning in the room and a nice walk to the spice market.

It was really interesting to see all of the spices, both cooking and medicinal, that were being sold on the street.  We could only identify a handful of them; saffron, ginger, cinnamon and chili peppers, but the smells were amazing and little Viv was fascinated by all the sights and sounds around her.  She's so alert when she hears Chinese being spoken, and that's all we heard in the market!  We would have loved to buy some of the fresh spices if we were cooking dinner, but staying in a hotel our options are somewhat limited to whatever we can warm up using our hot water pot.  We are ready for a home cooked meal.  Going out to dinner every night with a 1 yr old creates all new challenges for us!  Last night we went out for Thai food and before our food even arrived, Viv was ready to go home.  It's amazing how fast the food service is now that we have a child!  Luckily they boxed it up for us so we went back to the room and ate cold Thai food after Viv went to sleep.  We haven't quite worked out the afternoon nap or eating schedule yet...

Today we went to the medical center for Vivi's visa medical check.  She weighed in at a healthy 22 lbs (no wonder my arms and back are so sore!) and 28 inches long.  She didn't do so well during the rest of the check so we breezed through it fairly quickly.  She needed to be undressed and that's still fairly traumatic for her, so the medical staff, and everyone else who was there, found out that she has a pretty good set of lungs on her.   They did note that she has a chest cold, but the doctor doing the hearing and vision tests basically passed her through with flying colors!  It also didn't help that she fell asleep on our way to the exam so we needed to wake her up after only about 20 minutes of sleep.  We're still not doing so well with that nap schedule.  

This afternoon we walked beyond the spice market to the pet market and walking street.  Again the sights, smells and sounds were amazing.  The pet market was definitely not something we would see in the states!  We did find a couple of puppies we'd like to bring home for Feste, but decided they'd be too tough to pack and bringing a 1 yr old home for her is probably traumatic enough.  The only time I was fairly disturbed was when I heard a cat meowing and only saw a man carrying a moving flour sack.  Viv took it all in, with her eyes wide open for the couple hours we were walking around, so again we didn't do so well with the afternoon nap.  At least we realized it this time and ordered take away Chinese food for dinner.

Ready for an afternoon on the town.

 Today was a huge day for Vivi. It's hard to believe it was only 2 days ago that I was barely able to sit her on the floor.  This evening we were on the floor playing with her (it's crazy how she really does like the stacking cups and beach ball!) and she eventually started to crawl.  I think it was a first for her because she's tried several times before and she really seemed to surprise herself when she finally did it this time.  It was so neat to see, but we may wish she would have saved that trick till after our flight home!  After she crawled a couple times she actually pulled herself up and seemed far more interested in trying to take a few steps.  She didn't walk on her own, but I doubt it will be long before she does.  And then our world is really going to change!  We're quickly finding out that she is one determined little girl.

Tonight the rest of the Holt families arrive from the other provinces so tomorrow we are all meeting up to do more paperwork.  It will be nice to see the other families again, swap stories and meet their little ones.  We'll try to post more as time allows.  Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers.

Below are some pictures from the "island" where we're staying.  There are a lot of statues here and we've had fun photographing all of them....

Her favorite way to travel.

Sometimes you just need a latte....

Beautiful orchids.  I wanted to buy one to bring home.

It's a hoedown

It's official with one government!

Today we received the Adoption Decree from the Chinese government.  It's official.  She is ours in the eye's of the Chinese.  Now a US visa and we will head home.  Tomorrow is a free day, so depending on how the night goes we may take a cab to a park with another adoptive family.  Otherwise we will stay close to the hotel and walk over to the dry market.

This is really the first chance we have had to write much.  Vivian is of course wonderful.  It's really amazing that she is starting to relax around us already and it's only been just over 48 hours.  She does like to be held and carried and does not like when we try to sit down, so there has been a lot of standing and dancing.  I think she is realizing that she is stuck with us, that we aren't going anywhere and she might as well let us in.

We are trying to figure each other out.  When we received her, we received no information other than what we got in September.  It seems that someone about a year ago felt that they were not receiving enough information from the orphanage that Vivian is from.  So they called their senator and their agency pestered and now there is no information that comes from the orphanage.  We did get about 20 minutes of questions with the orphanage director and a care taker that brought her to Guangzhou.  The did say that she liked to be held and the director said she was smart.  We are finding that to be the case and she certainly can let us know when she is not happy.

The first night we had her, she was so very tired after a 7 hour trip and being handed to some strangers.  It took about three hours of crying and holding and rocking.  She then slept through the night.

Tuesday we went and got some groceries at a local market.  There's a couple of pages to write about the market, but will save that for another time.  We were then off to the Civil Affairs office for our adoption interview;  Why adopt from China?  How long have you been married?  How much do you make?  Do you promise not to abuse or abandon?  Then back to the hotel.

Tuesday night was a different night.  Vivian slept for an hour, then was up for an hour, then down.  Finally about 1 AM she went down and slept until 6 AM.  The poor girl is just wiped out.

Today was a good day.  We were able to be slow and take it at her pace.  Since we received no information we are guessing at sleep and food.  We got her passport photo taken today and then went to the police station where we were photographed and handed the adoption decree. 

Tonight we stayed in and ordered a pizza.  Go figure.  Last night we tried to go out to eat, but about the time the food arrived, Vivian was ready to go and right now we are on her schedule except when we have appointments.  There were huge strides today.  Right now she is on the floor with Trinda, smiling and laughing and eating.  Up until this evening we could barely sit with her and the floor was definitely not an option.  It's good to see the girl that is behind those eyes come to life.

We will have a bit more time over the next few days before we start the US immigration portion of this journey now that the provincial portion is complete.  We hope that we can have a few more updates on the blog and see more and more of the personality of the girl that is in that body.

Let's be honest, you really just want to see pictures of the girl

Introducing Vivian Hua Bolton Brenneman