Twas The Night Before Departure

'Twas the night before departure and all through the room not a creature was stirring, not even a… ‘baboon’ (come on work with me here)… The luggage was stack by the dresser with care, In hopes that tomorrow we will get out of here. The children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of plane rides danced in their heads; And mamma in her night shirt, and I at the desk, Had just settled down looking for rest. But then in my head there arose such a clatter, and I sprung from my desk because this poem couldn’t get ‘badder’…

Sorry

Hey this is it, tomorrow we head HOME! It’s 9:00 pm China time. Mei-Leigh, Jin Tao and Laurie are in bed. I’ll be there very soon. Our wake up call is for 5:30 am. And just a mere 31 hours after we get up our plane will land in Orlando! It should be fun… not. But we are coming home. And yeah, Dorothy was right there really is no place like home.

Today we made the one hour trip to the American Consulate and took the oath for Jin Tao to be a US Citizen. Pretty cool. On the way back we passed the train station in Guangzhou where 600,000 people were stranded because of the snow up north. There were tents and people everywhere. It was a CRAZY scene.

HEY keep us in your prayers for the last leg of this journey. We will spend about 20 hours in the air and another 9 hours waiting in 3 different airports. PRAY the kids SLEEP! PRAY that there will be no delays. PRAY the kids sleep.

How cool we will make our next blog update in America!

See you soon

Yesterday...just waiting to come home!

Hello everyone,

Sorry for missing the post yesterday. There is just not alot going on here in China. We did have our "red coach" pics which are below, but besides that we just hung at the hotel. Today is the final day here in China. It's 1:45 p.m. and in less than an hour, we are heading to the American Consulate for Jin Tao to TAKE THE OATH!!! Yes, that's right, by 5:00p.m., Jin Tao Malone with be a US citizen, HOORAY!!! This is what we've all been waiting for. We are almost all packed, so after the Consulate appointment, we'll go out and purchase a couple more gifts, than back to the room for a bath and early bedtime.

In the morning, we have to be up and ready to leave by 7:45 a.m., which means a early wake-up call for the kids...and a long day travel...but this time, the end is worth it. We'll take some more pics at the Consulate and post one last time before we go to bed, then...the next time you all will hear from us is...WELL...YOU'LL SEE US IN PERSON!!! YEA GOD!

Sleeping/Eating/Playing

Hello Everyone,

Well, Today we were suppose to go to the Zoo, but it is freezing cold, and raining and it was cancelled...so we just hung out at the hotel. We got up at about 7:00 a.m. and headed down to breakfeast, then off to the playroom. It was nice though, cause we got to hang out there for a couple of hours with alot of other people who are adopting and talk. The kids really did good playing with other little ones and by the time we knew it, it was already 12:00. So...we got some to-go lunch from Lucy's and ate in the room then the kids laid down to take a nap. Below are some pics from them sleeping together. Jin Tao is on animal when it comes to sleeping with him, and Mei got the brunt of it!!! I do love his hair though! He looks like Steve and John when they wake up. After nap time, we walked around the hotel and as you can see, Jin Tao and Mei love to walk alone together having a good time. Mei-Leigh is really doing great taking care of him. She makes sure that he's ok and takes her time when walking with him. After some walking, we headed to Lucy's (AGAIN) for dinner and as you can see...Jin Tao loves to eat.

Tomorrow we really do not have much to do. Just our Red Couch pics at 11:45 a.m. then that's it. I'm gonna get on the phone to verify our flights for friday to make sure that they are still ok. Just to let you all know, there are 600,000 people stuck in GZ last weekend....but we should be ok. All we need to do is get to Beijing, then it's HOME FREE!!! I'll post tomorrow with our two little ones in their Traditional Chinese clothes. By the way, we bought Mei-Leigh a beutiful white dress and Jin Tao the COOLEST, TOUGHEST black silk outfit with a dragon on the front. (Steve picked out Jin Tao's). Love and miss you guys so much. Can't wait to get home on friday night!