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

Well, after 26 hours of travel (22 of them actually flying…although, my mind is a little bit blurry right now and I can’t actually figure of this number is right…it could actually be longer) we arrived in Nanning, Guangxi three hours ago at 12:00 noon (midnight your time). Dude, I think we just totally skipped over Thursday completely! I guess we didn’t need that day! We then drove a 2 hour drive south to Qinzhou. So now we are finally in Qinzhou! Thank goodness! I think Savannah is excited to be here and see the city where she was born. I just sent Mark and Savannah out to get some dinner for us because I can’t muster up the fortitude to do it (our guide left us at 3:00 and we are pretty much on our own to figure out how to get dinner in a city where we don’t speak the language–Cantonese– and we have no idea where to go or even what to point to on the menu since it’s all in Chinese Script). But thank God for Mark and Savannah’s “blaze a trail” spirit…I sent them out to find something for dinner while I stayed in the hotel to write you all….which I am much more happy doing. ;o)

We’re adjusting to the time difference okay, maybe it was the slow progression westward, and I do mean slow. Although, I’m looking at the clock and it’s 5:22 pm and what I really want to do is just collapse into bed for the night. Okay, so maybe we have a little jetlag. Anyway, here’s a few notes for you all…

First off for all you Facebookers, we are out of commission for the duration of our stay so please check the blog for our updates. Secondly, there may be a delay in posts, most likely toward the end of our days. The reason being is that, at least for our hotel in Qinzhou, they don’t have Wi-Fi and instead have a hard wired connection.

Tomorrow we will do some shopping for some Qinzhou Nixing Pottery–which Qinzhou is supposed to be known for. We will also be maybe eating lunch with the caretakers from Savannah’s SWI (maybe–not sure yet), as well as seeing the Bay (on the South China Sea) and other random things, all before driving back to Nanning to stay the night before we fly out the next morning to Guiyang and then Xi’an.

We love you all and hope to write again very soon!

Love you, Melissa and family (soon to be family of four!)

We arrived around 6:30 am in Guangzhou this morning and had a 4 hour layover before our next flight to Nanning so we were hungry and looking for a place to eat.  Oh wait, they don’t take US currency.  So, we found the money exchange booth but no one was home.  We figured they would open around 8am so we hit the iPhones for games to pass the time.  Around 8am Savannah and I ventured out to get the money exchanged and to pickup something to eat.

In the Guangzhou airport they have these golf carts that will ferry people around, for a fee of course.  They must work on commission because they kept asking if we needed a ride.  So I asked him how much and he said 5 yuan(that’s like .75) so Savannah and I hopped on board and before long we were dodging in an out, narrowly missing common pedestrians trying to make their flight.  The golf cart guy must have misunderstood because he brought me to a counter to buy a plane ticket (hilarious) I’m like exchange USD for RMB and finally the lights went on.  We finally arrived at the final destination only to find the place still closed.  Of course, the man wants to get paid and now he says 50 yuan.  We argued back and forth and he finally pointed the the sign on the outside of the vehicle that clearly stated 50 yuan (about 7.50) and I paid the man.  Shortly after the money exchange counter opened and we had cash in hand to buy some breakfast.

On our way back to Melissa we stopped by the Swatch store (you know that 80′s iconic watch)  Anyway, I’m explaining to Savannah how old I am and how these were really cool at one time.  Up comes a man that say “iPhone” and opens up a newspaper with an iPhone in it.  Being friendly like I am, I think I’ve found a fellow Apple comrade and I whip our my shiny new iPhone 4.  He keeps saying “iPhone, you want” and I’m like “I already have the iPhone 4.  Finally, the Swatch shop owner told they guy to take a hike in Mandarin of course and he disappeared quickly.

Mark

Were gonna get Jade on July 12th. We’ll be leaving on a jet plane July 7th

Still have a lot of details to wrap up before we leave.

Please pray that we will all have enough energy in these last couple weeks before travel. The good news is we’ve all been vaccinated for H1n1 the bad news is we’re all suffering from cold symptoms now.

Mark

Melissa sent updated paperwork to the USCIS office on May 27 and received our travel approval from China on June 9th….so at this point China had expedited their process and we were simply waiting on USCIS to update our paperwork.

We decided to get our Congressman’s office involved on 6/9 and after a lot of back and forth we discovered that USCIS had no record of our paperwork, despite the fact we had a Fed Ex tracking document with signature.

Jenny, from Verne Ehler’s office had been advocating on our behalf. She worked with the Special Liason to USCIS and they requested we send a new copy. So Melissa brought a copy to the office and it was Fed Ex’d with a note from Verne Ehlers to the Special Liason. Later that day, we received some good news. USCIS had found the original paperwork and our paperwork had been approved.

Lots of drama but we are thankful to have this behind us. Now we can move forward with setting the appointment with the US Consulate in China and back into our travel dates. We are tentatively set to leave for China on July 8th and expect to be united with Jade on the 12th.