Day 6 - Gracie Day!

Waiting our turn at the orphanage


Here she is with one of her nannies


The moment we have been waiting a very long time for


We are now a family of four!


She started getting a bit upset


Daddy walked her up and down the hallway whispering "don't cry" in Chinese


Gracie was one of the babies without any illness but she has a bit of a cough. She's just kind of checking us out for now...


Will try to post more later... We have an appointment to have the adoption finalized with the government later this afternoon and we'll see what Miss Gracie thinks we should do... : ) We are thrilled beyond words and we love reading all the e-mails... you make our day!!!

Day 5 - Chongqing



We are in Gracie's hometown! Weird saying "town" because Chongqing is anything but a town. We drove in at night and WOW! There are so many unique sky-scrapers....all of them are lit up and it just looks amazing! The plane ride was very nice... only 2.5 hours and we were given a movie, a full meal and the beverage cart came by 3 times! Now, on our domestic flight which was 3 hours we did not get a movie, beverage cart came by only one time and we got a mini bag of pretzels... what's wrong with this picture? LOL

We arrived at our hotel and WOW! Yeah... I'm using that word a lot! But we are in a brand new hotel that has been open for only 2 weeks. It's a five star (thank you Bethany!!) and we have a marble foyer (and a doorbell)

and a huge, I mean HUGE bathroom with marble floors and counters.

There is a separate shower (the water comes form the ceiling) and a huge garden tub! Honestly, we could probably fit 10 people in that bathroom!

We were welcomed with cute stuffed pandas on the beds and have a great desk/work area. We are on the 25th floor and have a pretty nice view of the city!



But by far the best thing about the room is this:



We were given updated pictures of the babies on the way to the hotel and well..... we have a little baldie! : ) Because the weather has been unbelievabley hot this summer, the staff shaved the girl's heads to help keep them cool. Apparently the orphanage does not have AC. She looks soooo big! And soooo cute! But they have her in a shirt that was meant for a boy... glad I also brought hats and headbands.... She is still taking a bottle as well.... I packed up her diaper bag... by far one of the best things I have done today : ). I can't believe it's finally time.....

COUNTDOWN TO GRACIE DAY HAS BEGUN!! In about 8 hours we will finally hold the little girl we have been praying our hearts out for! We will try to update the blog as soon as we can but that all depends on Miss Gracie! We will spend the morning with her and then head back out to complete the adoption on the China side of things... more paperwork..... ugh!

G'night and sweet dreams from Chongqing (pronounced Chong-Ching)! : )

Day 5 - Beijing

I climbed the Great Wall and used a squatty potty! Just when I thought things couldn't get more interesting!!



The Great Wall is absolutely amazing. Unfortunately the smog/fog/haze or whatever you want to call this stuff, followed us from Beijing and almost all of the pictures had that fuzzy kind of look to them.

This wall is sooooo steep! It was funny watching everyone climb up because it was so steep everyone was hunched over!



When we got to the top we had our picture taken and placed on a laminated certificate. What a cool way to remember the trip. I think the thing that amazed me the most was how the mountains looked. I knew there would be mountains but I wasn't prepared for the beauty and how similar they are to the Rocky Mountains.

Josh was also in awe of the wall.... It's truly an amazing site to see!



On our way to the airport guess what we passed? Yep... the Olympic Village and the stadium that is being built for the 2008 Olympics! It's massive and very modern looking. The majority of the site is covered up with massive billboards but we found this hole and got this shot!!