Just wanted to remind everyone that there are some video’s posted in the gallery.  I’ll be using the pre-fix of J2J so they are grouped together.  Love the Break Through Day video.  We’ll be heading to the either the Wild Goose Pagoda or the Terra Cotta Warriors site this morning.  Then lunch and a nap.  After the nap we are heading back to Muslim street for more shopping.  Yesterday we picked up a beautiful scroll.  A shop keeper gave us a private viewing of Xi’an university professors and students work.  Melissa and I debated over two different scrolls.  I’ll post a video of the scroll we opted not to get.  The quality is simply amazing.

Please pray for another good day of bonding with Jade.  We are also getting her on a regimen of expectorant which should help with the runny nose and cough.

Gotta run to breakfast now.

Hugs and kisses from Mark, Melissa, Savannah and Baby Jade in Xi’an

Well, you may have noticed that we didn’t post on the 12th.  It has been a pretty rough ride with Jade grieving for her caretakers, fighting a cold, teething, and bonding primarily to me (Mark).

Today we did some shopping, first at Walmart (I’m sorry Ruben, if Meijer had a store in Xi’an you know I’d be all over it) and then onto a department store for shoes for the kids (there is one other family with us from Great Wall).   So at Walmart we got some essentials like diaper wipes, a new Barbie for Savannah (these are essentials, people) and some expectorant for Jade.  We gave her the first dose around noon.  At 3pm we toured the Muslim district which was fabulous.  Guess who came out of her shell?  Ok, that was  pretty lame rhetorical question.  Jade surprised us all with laughs and giggles. Of course, earlier in the day (when we were planning to take a nap–but Jade had other plans) Melissa was able to be with Jade for a bit without her crying. So then she took it a little further a little later by playing with her and her toys and doing zerberts on Jade’s feet (which she smiled about). So, I guess you could say the stage had already been set by the time it was time to go to the Muslim district (which was right after this play time with Melissa).

I resorted to carrying Jade in the sling as my right arm was about ready to fall off.  So, as we shopped on Muslim street in Xi’an I began dipping her up and down, HUGE smiles and then some giggles.  As the afternoon wore on more and more giggles, and not just from me interacting with her.  Melissa and Savannah broke through and were giving her zerberts on the feet (no, that’s not gross, her feet have never touched the ground since we received her!)  Anyway, I’m posting some pictures of our time shopping and playing with the stacking cups on the bed when we got back.  Can you say 180?

Jade’s improvement has been remarkable to watch today. We are thanking God for his work through all of your prayers. Today was a good day and we feel so blessed!

Blessings,

Mark and family

Yesterday, June 11th, we got our little baby, Jade Choujia Elenbaas.  We haven’t been able to post until now because Jade has had a hard transition and she has been so sad. This, of course, takes the energy out of you trying to help a little baby through a transition that, really, there is not much you can do to help their grief. We knew in our hearts that the transition for Jade would be difficult as her report indicated that she was very close to her caretakers and that she was a quiet girl. So as you’ll see (or may already have seen in the photos) she had a hard time with coming to us. We took our time and let her warm up to us for a while as her caretaker held her and we gave her Cherrios–which she loved! When I (Melissa) did take her she just cried and cried for about 15 or so minutes until she finally cried herself to sleep. Every time she woke up she would cry again until she was asleep. After a photo session (that did not really go well, but we had to do it for the adoption paperwork) we figured out that she liked Mark better than me, so we let Mark hold her and she stopped crying. Savannah also could make her stop crying as she did little things to entertain and cheer up our little baby. Savannah is very good at playing with Jade and getting her things that she needs. She is such an awesome big sister! She is really helping out in so many ways.

Jade is getting more used to us, but today we had to go back to the registrars office and finalize the paperwork and the nannies were there too. She became sad and upset again after a while of being there and seeing them. So, we feel this set us back a day with Jade, but she is getting much more used to us. She still will cry sadly all of a sudden at times. We do not know if this is her grief of her loss, or her hurting teeth (she’s a drool baby right now and we know she much be teething). She only wants Mark to hold her and clings to him the whole day, but she does not cry when she looks at me anymore (like yesterday for a while), and sometimes she doesn’t mind if I touch her little hand. But if Mark puts her down (especially when she is tired) she will cry–not always, but very, often. If she is set down with Savannah on the floor and some toys to play with she likes that and Savannah loves to play with her this way. I myself am just biding my time, as I know that worst case scenario is that it takes until we get home for her to bond with me. When we get home Mark will be going back to work, so she will have no other choice but to begin the bonding process. I hope, and pray that she will begin before that. ;o)

Okay, this is all I can think of for right now (I’m sure there are a ton more things to say, but my mind can only do so much at 9:20 at night–not that this is late, but with all the emotional strain, it’s just all I can muster for now). We love all of you and can’t wait until we come home to see you all.

Oh, and for Faith–the weather today was nice…not too hot at all and even pleasant for walking! Thanks for your prayers! ;o)

Love you all so much…Oh, hope you are having a good anniversary, Mom and Dad, in Macinaw!

Melissa and family

Qinzhou is known for their Nixing pottery, in fact 8 or so models are being featured at the Shanghai expo this year. So, we definately wanted to pick some up as a reminder of our visit to Qinzhou. Our guide CiCi scored bigtime and we visited the factory which translates to a personal tour and dramatically lower prices. We picked out two nice pieces. Check our gallery for pictures of some of the great art pieces that have been created over the years.

After the pottery warehouse we went to the Sanniang Bay which is a favorite summer spot for locals. Savannah had a ball and met a few friends. Of course, since I’m fluent in Mandarin I managed to introduce Savannah by saying “Wo jiao Savannah” which is really saying that my name is Savannah, the girls looked at me strangely. Anyway, we were all tired when we checked into our hotel in Nanning. I’m glad we were able to stay at the Majestic Hotel which was the same hotel we stayed at when we became a family with Savannah 6 years ago. I thought about requesting the same room number but then I remember that we spilled a lot of formula on the floor and that it might be stained. So, we’re on the 9th floor instead of the 5th, ha ha.

The main disappointment today was that our lunch request with the SWI director was declined, apparently he was away on business. When our guide inquired about meeting the Nannies for lunch she was told they had to work. Not exactly the warm homecoming welcome that we had hoped for but we were able to visit some other important parts of Qinzhou and Savannah was able to experience Qinzhou and build some memories.

Well, it’s 9pm and we have to check out at 6am in order to make our 8am flight tomorrow. Our return to China has been wonderful thus far and has been great with just the 3 of us. Tomorrow we will become a family of 4 and are all excited to meet Jade for the first time. Please pray for Jade’s mourning of her caretakers, and also her adjustment to her new forever family.

Bye for now,

Mark, Melissa and Savannah

Well, I am proud to say that we DID NOT eat at this place in the photo (but thought you might like to see the spread of the Colonel anyway–he reaches even to Qinzhou these days…which is now 3.1 million people–when we were here six years ago it was only 990,000!). After I sent Mark and Savannah out for food last night, and tried to post, (although Mark had to do some wrestling with Wordpress when he got back because it was up to its usual antics of not letting us log in–the usual shenanigans–but my tech-wizard husband prevailed against the misbehaving Wordpress) they came back with some AWESOME beef noodles and some dumpling soup. Man! we sure do love the food in China–you just can’t get it like this in the US (except maybe at a couple of places in Chinatown)!

So they went to this place across the street that Mark thought looked good (not sure what the name is) and Mark said he knew the word for dumplings. But noodles was another story. Apparently he was trying to describe them (I can just imagine the flailing and gesturing that was going on to try to describe these noodles, since he told me before he went that he would pantomime if need be!). Then he had to let them know that he wanted them to go–which became another round go Charades. But in the end they got him what he needed and he said they were so nice and it was FAR less than we would have paid for food in the hotel, and it was awesome. I love my husband!

After we ate, Savannah said she was going to just “rest” after which she put her head between two pillows (which was a little strange because it looked like a Savannah head sandwich) and promptly fell asleep. So we all got to bed around 7:30–not really a problem since I’m sure our bodies could use a little extra sleep fending of the inevitable onslaught it faced while flying for so many hours. We’re up now at 5:00 a.m. and ready to go. Not really that bad for jet lag considering I usually wake up at that time everyday anyway (I promptly go back to bed, but I do wake up at that time nevertheless! LOL!)

Well, that’s all for now, but I’m sure we will have many stories to tell after our day today. We will be traveling back to stay at a hotel in Nanning (the Majestic–for those of you who would want to know) so that when we get up tomorrow morning we will be close to the airport and our early flight, which leaves at 8:10–not that early, but we have to get there a couple of hours early).

I think that Mark is going to post some photos to the photo section too. He has a great one of some of the city of Qinzhou and an early morning one showing a little of the mild lightning clouds we saw this morning. Also some videos maybe (I know he took some, not sure which ones he’ll post though).

Love you all,
Tomorrow we get Jade!
Melissa and family