Finally!

I'm so sorry that it's taken so long for me to post pictures on the site. The past week and a half has been, for the most part, a sleepless blur :-) We're getting settled in now, and well, here they are..........

We (Loren, Beth and I) flew into Beijing on the 22nd of May. Our flight left 4-1/2 hours late out of Chicago (something about a broken engine part), and we landed in Beijing much later on Friday night than we'd hoped. Our AWAA guide was waiting for us at the airport & took us to our hotel. Over that weekend we visited the great wall (above), the Forbidden City (below), the Summer Palace, and did other fun sight-seeing in Beijing.

On Monday morning, we flew from Beijing to Nanchang and were taken to our hotel. We had a few hours to get some things together and catch a nap before we walked across the street to the Civil Affairs Office to get Lucy. The photos below are a few snap shots of what adoptive families lovingly refer to as "Gotcha Day".

She's such a peanut. She's was almost 8 months old and only 14 lbs. She's got the most beautiful face and great big brown eyes. She's amazing! She loves faces and spent most of the time in the civil affairs office studying our faces and trying to figure us out. The transition from her caregiver to us was very quick; it took only seconds. They verified they had the right baby and the right parents, handed her to me, and called for the next family. That was it. (I'll spare you the details of all the paperwork prior to that moment.)

We spent the next few days in Nanchang doing other official paperwork stuff and applying for her passport and visa. The picture below was taken at the notary office the day after "gotcha". At this point it's official, she's ours!

This is a photo of Lucy and I, Margaret, John and their baby Zoe Aiko, Scott with his baby Lauren and Dave with his baby Lauren. This was taken at the police station, right after Loren got arrested (just kidding), we had to go there to apply for the babies passports.

It was fun getting all the necessary paperwork and chasing around done while at the same time getting to know our new daughter. Auntie Beth was such a blessing!

While in Nanchang, our guides (Amy, Lineker, and their beautiful daughter Beth - next photo) took us to a village in the countryside outside Nanchang. This village gave us a close-up view at the type of village Lucy may have come from. There are a few hundred people living in this small village where they live very closely together. They share things like a community outhouse and a few kitchens. Walking thru this village I heard myself say that I'd never complain about my house again. It was a very eye-opening experience. We are so very blessed and take so much for granted.


A woman with a small boy came to say hello to Lucy and posed for a picture with us. Notice the split pants on the baby. Potty training is done at a very early age in China. (In fact, one of the babies in our group-just a year old-is potty trained already-for the most part.)




After all the paperwork had been completed, we flew from Nanchang to Guangzhou (which is about 100 miles-ish North of Hong Kong. Lucy had to undergo a physical to gain entry into the US and all people immigrating from China to the US must go thru Guangzhou before they're allowed to immigrate. The photo below is of a few families from our travel group at the "clinic" where the babies physicals were done. (In the front of the photo is my dear friend Margaret (her hubby John is right behind her) and their very sweet daughter Zoe Aiko.

While in Guangzhou we did a little shopping and took a group photo of all the families we'd traveled with.

It's amazing just how close you grow to people you've never met before when sharing this kind of experience. All the families in our group were absolutely wonderful, and a few we met on this trip will be forever near and dear to our hearts.

This last photo is a snap shot Loren took while on the bus right before we came home. We had a wonderful time in China but REALLY wanted to bring Lucy home.

Now that we're home and life is starting to settle down things are going very well. Lucy has been sleeping thru the night the past 4 nights & started taking a bottle 3 days after we got home (she'd refused the entire time we were in China). We've got a bunch of photos we still need to go thru and once we've done that I'll post more. There's a great one of her and the dogs! (She ABSOLUTELY LOVES her dogs, and the feeling is quite mutual!)

Thank you everyone for all your prayers and support during the past few years. And yes, she's worth every single minute of the wait!