A Relaxing Day

What a great day today was…We didn’t have to get up at any certain time, so we had a leisurely morning. We all slept pretty well last night. MeiMei fell out of bed, but she was still sleeping. Brian brought her into our bed – which, by the way in China, happens to be a double bed! We couldn’t sleep with so many people in a double bed, so Brian put her back in her bed and we slept until after 7am. We enjoyed a breakfast that wasn’t rushed this morning.

After breakfast we decided to explore the hotel a little. We went back out to the garden and watched the fish. We walked all the way around and found a little pagoda and a cat that didn’t want to be petted. We also decided to check out the pool area. It was so beautiful around the pool. It’s not really very hot here, so I’m not wanting to get in the water. The pool water felt really cold to me, but Lydia and MeiMei took their shoes off and waded on the steps. Lydia said that it was starting to feel warm, but I’m pretty sure it was just numbness setting in. 😊

We had to be back in the room between 11am and 12pm for the results of the TB test. I’m not really sure what was going on, since no one came to look at MeiMei’s arm. Maybe it was some other kind of TB test, but our guide said that if we didn’t hear from her, everything was good. “No news is good news”, she told us about a dozen times yesterday.

I discovered that one of my friends from elementary/middle school lives not too far from here because her husband owns a translation business in China. She found out we were close by and took a bus to meet us here at our hotel. It had been over 20 years since we had seen each other! It was so fun to catch up.

We hung out in the hotel room for a while, and then decided to go get something to eat. I have really been craving some Chinese food like sweet and sour, rice, etc. We weren’t sure where to get that around here. My friend said that kind of food is more common in Beijing, so since she knows Mandarin, she started asking around where we might be able to get something like that. We found a restaurant and ate sweet and sour pork, spicy green beans, eggplant, and shredded pork with Chinese tortillas. It was so yummy! It hit the spot. I didn’t want to leave China without having the kind of Chinese food I really enjoy.

After lunch, we walked around a bit and found a bubble tea shop. She and her husband LOVE the bubble milk tea. She helped us order. Brian got bubble milk tea, I got a passionfruit bubble tea with coconut, and Lydia got kumquat lemonade. Everything was delicious. MeiMei really liked the bubble milk tea. I’m definitely going back to get more. It was soooooo good.

We came back and enjoyed that in the Garden’s garden. She took some pictures of all four of us in front of the waterfall and other picturesque places. It’s not quite the “red couch” of the White Swan days, but the picture in front of the Garden’s waterfall might take its place. (If you’re not a China family, you probably don’t understand the last reference, but it’s kind of a long story. If you’re really interested, ask me and I’ll tell you sometime.)

Back in our room, we discovered that MeiMei is quite fond of taking pictures. She had my phone and kept snapping pictures of me, Brian, and Lydia. She counted and had over 70 pictures that she took. By the way, she’s really good at counting, writing numbers, and she could even read a few characters that my friend pointed out to her. Pretty impressive for five years old!

We decided to try out a place called the Happy Monk for dinner. They have American food. Lydia had mac and cheese, Brian had a burger, and I had a quesadilla. MeiMei just kept pointing to the French fries pictured on the menu, so we ordered her fish and chips. She ate all the fries, but she wasn’t so sure about the fish. It was actually pretty good fish fry. I’m not sure what she’s going to do back in Wisconsin on Friday nights! I guess maybe she’ll just eat mac and cheese like her big sister! 😊

By the time we got done with dinner it was pretty late, so we headed home for a bath and a little snuggle time. Baba and MeiMei are in bed already and Lydia is listening to an audio book. I’m not so tired yet, but I’m sure I will be soon. It was a fun, but tiring day.

Tomorrow we don’t have any appointments, but our guide is going to take us shopping. It’s going to be nice having another day where we can relax. Until tomorrow…

Lydia enjoying her noodles and cocoa krispies for breakfast. Only in China!

V for something Chinese! It's popular to do this when getting your picture taken in China. :)

On the bridge in the garden.

First Day in Guangzhou

This is what we did today in Lydia’s version:

          First, we woke up and ate breakfast for breakfast I had noodles and cereal. Then we went to a hospital and Ruthie got a shot and her eyes checked. Also, the doctor asked my dad if Ruthie was smart and my dad said the people in the orphanage were saying she was smart plus she has been very smart. So, the doctor asked her 2 questions and said she was smart. Then we got Subway and sat outside for a picnic then Me and Ruthie fed some fishes. After that wet took a nap but I did not take a nap instead I listen to a book and wrote part of the blog.

When the alarm went off at 8am this morning, I really didn’t know what hit me! We had arrived at the hotel, checked in and found jammies and were in bed around 3am this morning. I really wasn’t feeling it this morning when we had to get up, but I pulled myself out of bed and took a shower and got dressed.

We headed down to breakfast, which was another buffet of endless choices. Lydia ate noodles with TONS of garlic on them. I could smell her across the elevator when we came back up to the room! There were plenty of other choices to eat that the rest of us got. There wasn’t a lot of time to spend eating, so we made our choices quick, ate and came back up to the room to finish getting ready.

At 10am, we met our guide in the lobby to take us to the medical appointment. I was pretty nervous that MeiMei would be sick on the way there, since it was the same time of day that it first and second happened the past few days. Brian was ready with a bag, just in case, but we made it the 20 minutes to the appointment without incident. 😊 Yeah! Thank you, Lord. This van has seats that ride a little higher, and I also gave her half a Bonine. I’m still a little nervous, but hopefully it doesn’t happen again! (She was fine on the plane – she slept the whole time.)

The medical appointment went pretty quickly. We only had to wait a few minutes for everything to start. Lydia, Brian, and MeiMei went in to the different exam rooms. In one of the rooms, the doctor asked Brian if she was smart. Brian said that her teachers at the orphanage said she was. The doctor said she would check, asked her 2 questions, and confirmed with Brian that she is, in actuality, smart! If only the people in America knew it only takes 2 questions…My job as a teacher would be much easier. 😊 One of the things that MeiMei had to have was a TB test. They wouldn’t let us go into the room for that. They give her a shot and depending on how that area looks tomorrow, we’ll know if there needs to be further testing. After that, she came out and I had to put pressure on the injection area for 5 minutes. I’m not sure what that is all about, but she did sit on my lap for a whole 5 minutes. I was feeding her candy, so that probably made me bearable too!

After the TB test, we headed back to the hotel. Our guide checked our paperwork and made sure we had everything, got copies of MeiMei’s passport for us, so we’re all set for our appointment at the consulate on Monday.

We decided to take a walk and find lunch. When we came back from the medical appointment, our guide pointed out where we could get some food, shop, etc. There was a Subway and Lydia thought that sounded good. So off we went to find Subway. Because of where the hotel is located, and the main clientele, this area caters to Westerners. There are many people who work in the stores and restaurants who know English and the menus are available in English too. I was surprised when I ordered the subs that I could do it in English. It was nice to be able to communicate a little more than was possible in Huhhot. Since we aren’t eating raw vegetables, the subs were a little sparse. Lydia enjoyed her favorite tuna, while the rest of us had meat and cheese with pickles and olives. We also stopped at 7 Eleven to get some drinks, chips, and of course, a little chocolate.

It’s so nice here in Guangzhou. It was in the 70s today, which feels like heaven to me. We decided to make a picnic of our lunch today. We’re staying at the Garden Hotel that is aptly named because of the garden in the back. There’s a huge koi pond, flowers, trees, waterfalls, and just a wonderful relaxing place. That’s where we ate our lunch. The girls loved watching the fish and they fed them a little extra of the bread from the sandwiches. The fish were piling on top of each other to get to the food. MeiMei LOVED watching them. We’re excited to take her to the safari park here, since she is so interested in the few animals we’ve seen.

After lunch, we thought a nap was in order since we had such a short night. I fell asleep right away, but I guess it took MeiMei a while to fall asleep. By the time the two of us woke up, it was after 5pm. Whoops!

MeiMei came to us wearing fashion boots, which look cute, but aren’t so great for walking in. We had seen an H&M across the street, so we thought we’d check and see if they had any shoes that might work better. They did have some clearance shoes for 20 RMB (about $3), so we got some shoes that will hopefully be a little more comfortable for her. She also wanted some hair clips with Hello Kitty. Lydia LOVED Hello Kitty when she came home. I just couldn’t resist, plus they were on clearance for about $1, so she has some new, cute barrettes to wear. We headed down the street to find some place for supper (even though it felt like we had just eaten lunch!). There was a place advertising noodles and rice. Of course, there aren’t any restaurants in China that serve noodles and rice, so we HAD to try it. I didn’t really care because I figured I wouldn’t eat anything anyway. It was a great little place with cheap eats that the girls liked a lot. Upon looking at the menu, I discovered that they had broccoli. You know I’ve been really wanting vegetables, so I order the broccoli. It was so good – and it’s not just me. Brian ate some and said it was the best broccoli that he’d tasted. I’m not sure what they did to it, but it was really good. I’m totally in favor of eating there again!

We also met another adoptive family that was eating there and staying in our hotel. In the lobby of the hotel, we ran into a few other families and found out where some good restaurants are, where the play room is and other good tips. We ended up going up to the play room to burn off a little energy. Another adoptive family was there with their 5 kids and Lydia and MeiMei played for a while.

We came back to the room and played hide-and-seek. This room is ridiculously big – 2 bathrooms, a bedroom, living room, office/workout room, and walk in closet, so it’s a little better place to find hiding places. They had fun doing that. MeiMei sat on the couch and counted before she went to find Lydia and me. She counted all the way to 100 in Chinese. I was so impressed, I almost came out of my hiding spot to tell her what a great job she did. We’ll definitely have to get that on video!

It was late, so we got the girls in bed and now it’s almost midnight and I’m typing this blog. We don’t have anything to do, except have the TB test checked tomorrow. If everything is good, that’s all that we need to do for that. We’re looking forward to sleeping in, if Lydia cooperates. 😊

Our Family

Subway in the Garden

Watching the fish

Who doesn't love noodles?

Mama would rather have broccoli!

More noodles!

MeiMei loves her Baba

Playroom

View from our 25th floor hotel room

Baotou

So…we didn’t think we’d get a chance to blog tonight, but thanks to getting to the airport 2 hours early, and a 1 hour and 45-minute delay, we are sitting here with nothing to do!

We left early this morning to make the trip to Baotou, Xuan Xuan’s hometown. We had to have all our stuff packed up and ready to go. Because of our shopping trip, we weren’t packing as light as we were thinking we might be! We took 2 trips from our room down to the lobby to get everything down. We had the suitcases, plus we also had the gifts and sleepers that we had for the orphanage. The mini-vans here are a little smaller than the ones we have in the states, so it was a tight squeeze! Lydia and I sat in the back with some of the suitcases. We thought we better have MeiMei sit in the middle to try to eliminate some of the carsickness.

I gave her some “natural” motion sickness medicine because I only had full strength Bonine and I wasn’t sure how much of that I should give her. Well, we made it a little while, but sure enough – puke! Of course, we didn’t have any bags handy, so it went all over the floor again. (Lydia said we better give the driver a really good tip, since he’d have to clean up 2 puke messes in 2 days!) We got it cleaned up and I made an SOS call to my sister-in-law, Jaime, who deals with motion sickness herself and with her kids. I ended up giving MeiMei Bonine, but she puked about 10 minutes later. ☹ So I don’t think that any of it got into her system. By that time, her stomach was pretty much empty. She fell asleep for a little bit and we got to the orphanage without any more incidents.

When we got to the Baotou orphanage, we were welcomed by Ms. Xue, the dean who had brought MeiMei to Huhhot for our Family Day. They didn’t say I couldn’t take pictures, so I started snapping them left and right. We were hoping to meet the director of the orphanage, but he was in meetings or something, so we didn’t meet him.

We found out that MeiMei had been in some sort of foster family for the past month or so within the orphanage, but they were in Beijing for winter camp, so we didn’t get to meet them. They did show us a work room where children and adults with disabilities work making bead crafts. They sell the crafts for donations to the orphanage, so we bought a TON to bring home as gifts.

Then they took us up to see the kids who were in the same room as MeiMei. She was like a celebrity when she walked into the room. They were all hugging her and they wanted to meet her JieJie (Big Sister). They were all impressed with Lydia. I asked about taking pictures and they said it was ok. I couldn’t believe it. When we first walked in there was a sign that there were no picture allowed, but they didn’t mind when I asked.

We headed downstairs where we went to the sleeping room. The kids all crawled into their beds and started taking off the layers that the Chinese feel is healthy for everyone to wear. I guess since they were going to sleep under covers, they could take their coats off! I always thought that it was only children that they bundled up, but being here in the winter, I see that the adults stay bundled up too. They wear their coats inside over layers and layers of clothes. They keep the buildings to warm too. Usually, I’m all about staying warm, but this is a little excessive! Rant over… We saw the bed and the room where MeiMei stayed most recently, and then met some of her teachers.

There is a school connected to the orphanage where the kids go for lessons. It looked like she had been going there for preschool and now for kindergarten. We got some of her school books when they brought her to us. We met the teachers and we could tell that some of them were very close to MeiMei. A few of them were crying and hugging her a lot. I could tell that they care about her and for her very much. It made both Brian and I very emotional seeing them and her crying.

I’m so thankful that she had as good of an experience as an orphanage can be. There was a lot of love and care for the kids there. Ms. Xue also cared so much for the children. It is nice to see that in a culture where some kids are not valued, there are people who see the great value in them. It was such and emotional visit. I’m so glad that we got to go and see where MeiMei lived for the first 5 ½ years of her life. Not very many people have been allowed to go to the orphanage in the past 5 or 6 years, so this was a great gift. We thank the Lord that He allowed the authorities to have a favorable response to our request to go.

After the orphanage, we headed to a Mongolian Hot Pot restaurant. Hot pot is a traditional Mongolian food. We had it one other time in California with my cousins whose daughter is also from Inner Mongolia. The restaurant we went to in Baotou was amazingly the same chain that they have in California!!! Hot pot is an interesting concept. You go to the restaurant, order some food that is uncooked. They bring you a pot of boiling broth, put it on a hot plate and then you choose what uncooked food you want to cook in your broth. We had beef, lamb, vegetables, and noodles. It was all sooo good. Lydia LOVED it!!! One option they had for adding to the broth was some kind of mushroom – really tall, small mushrooms. I’m not sure what they’re called, but Lydia decided to try some – without knowing they were mushrooms. I wasn’t about to tell her what they were. As many of you know, mushrooms are Lydia’s least favorite food.  Well, she really liked them! When I told her what they were, she was completely grossed out, but still said they were good! Our driver, Mr. Oo (I have know idea how it’s spelled), also ate with us. He got some of the food from the buffet for us. He brought us a bowl full of what we thought was cold soup. We tried to eat it. It was not so tasty. It had a really strong flavor. I wasn’t sure what, but I couldn’t choke down a whole bowlful! Come to find out, it was peanut sauce to dip the food in after it was cooked! No wonder it was so strong for a soup!!! Oh the things we do when we are learning a new culture!

After hot pot, I asked Aggie to stop at a Starbucks that I had seen just around the corner. One of my friends collects Starbucks mugs with the different towns in China. She didn’t have a Baotou, so I had to go find one! There wasn’t a parking lot nearby, so the driver stopped across the street and told me to hurry. I had to cross the 8 lanes of traffic to get there. Remember Frogger? That was me today. I just followed a Chinese person and hoped that I made it! I’m glad I did. The Baotou mug is really cool. It says Baotou, of course, but it also has some of the sites of the city and yurts, traditional Mongolian homes, on the back. I got the mugs and also got to experience cross the street like a real Chinese person!

There was one more puking incident after lunch. I’m not sure what we’re going to do to get this under control. Hopefully smoother roads, less jerking around, and a higher seat will help when we get home. Just pray that it’s only car sickness and not plane sickness too.

We stopped at MeiMei’s finding spot on the way out of town. It was originally at a school, but the school moved and it’s now a factory. It was kind of sad because it looked so abandoned and miserable. I’m sure 5 years ago it was a nice school with people around, but today it was just dirty and run down.

We headed back to Huhhot. MeiMei slept most of the way and there was no more puking – yeah! Aggie decided to stop at the passport office to see if by chance the passport was ready. And, yes! It was ready for us to pick up. I’m so glad. She was planning to send it to us in Guangzhou, but it feels much better knowing that we have it in our hands. 😊 We headed to the airport and here we are. We are almost ready to board the airplane now. There’s not time to add pictures, so I’ll add them tomorrow. Sorry for those of you who are dying to see us!!!

Happy Thanksgiving – our dinner was chips, coke, and Oreos – at least that’s pretty American!

Lydia's Top 10 (in her own words)

What my ten favorite things so far on this trip are:

1. Visiting my orphanage.

          I liked this one because it reminded me of what it was back when I was there.

2. Eating yummy food.

          Eating food fills me up and makes me feel good. My favorites are noodles, dumplings, doughnuts, waffles, and chocolate filled hot dog bun (for lack of a better name).

3. Seeing the Great Wall of China.

          It was very interesting. And it had a lot of history. The ride up and down was very fun.

4. Visiting the Temple of Heaven.

          It was interesting and had a lot of special artifacts.

5. Going to Tiananmen Square.

          It was very cool watching the soldiers march across the street and lower the flag.

6. Eating at restaurants.

          I liked trying all the new foods, especially the noodles.

7. Sleeping.

          I enjoyed my dreams.

8. Having a tour guide.

          They told us a lot of history of China.

9. Going to get Ruthie (MeiMei).

          It was fun to meet her, and play with her especially hide and seek.

10. Going to museums.

          I saw interesting things like dinosaur bones.

An Historical Day!

Our last full day in Huhhot was good. We started the day off early as we needed to go apply for MeiMei’s passport. We had to go to a government office where they fill out the paperwork for the passport. First, we had to stop at the notary’s office to pick up the official paperwork for the adoption. We have all those official papers in our backpack. We know from experience how luggage gets lost and it may be forever!

On the way to the office, there was a lot of stopping and starting in the car. It was close to rush hour and we were in the downtown area. Well, we found out that MeiMei gets carsick – the hard way. Puke all over the seat and the floor of the van. At least she kept it off herself and us and our bags. Fortunately, I had wipes in the backpack and we got everything mostly cleaned up. Now she has puked half as many times as Lydia has in her 6 years with us! Hopefully this is not a precursor to what is to come!!! She was fine the rest of the day, so I’m pretty sure it was carsickness. Tomorrow we’ll make sure she sits in the middle seats in the van and I also have some medicine to prevent carsickness.

When we got to the government building, Aggie led the way. She knows how to get things done. We had a bag full of candy as part of a gift we brought for the head of the passport office. She took the bag, opened it, and started handing out candy to the workers. We didn’t have to wait at all! Good things may come to those who wait in America, but good things come to those who give candy in China! They filled out the papers, took MeiMei’s fingerprints and picture and then we went up to another office. There were a bunch of people waiting, so I thought it might take a while, but Aggie just marched up to one of the workers, handed her some candy and she processed our paperwork without a wait. Aggie dropped off the lotion and the 31 bag we brought to the head of the passport department and we were off.

The next stop for us was the Inner Mongolia History Museum. The best exhibit was the dinosaur bones. They have found a bunch of fossils in Inner Mongolia. The second largest dinosaur skeleton in the world was found here and it was in the museum. I have seen dinosaur bones at the history museum in Chicago and New York, but the enormity of this skeleton was overwhelming. Our neighbors LOVE dinosaurs, so Lydia was excited to share pictures with them. We know that even if MeiMei doesn’t know much about dinosaurs yet, she will once she hangs out with Evelyn and Gabe for a while! She wasn’t so sure about the animatronic dinosaurs in the exhibit. But once she found out the were fake, she was ok with them.

There were also some exhibits about the history of the Mongol people, including Genghis Khan. Brian has been reading a book about Genghis Khan on this trip, so it was interesting to him to see some of the actual artifacts from his conquest. Inner Mongolia is also home to 34 ethnic minorities, so the museum had some information about them too. I think Aggie was surprised about how interested we were in the museum. Of course, we are history buffs and museum people, so we wanted to see everything. She told us that if we didn’t hurry, we wouldn’t have time to see it all. I’m pretty sure we didn’t see half of the museum. Oh well, we have to leave something undone for the next time we come!

We headed back to the hotel after the museum and decided to lay low this afternoon. Since we weren’t sure about the puking, we thought going all over town might not be the best thing. We ate goldfish, Lara bars, candy, cookies, and granola bars for lunch and then took a nap. Brian and I started cleaning up the room and got a lot of our stuff packed for tomorrow. Hopefully we can reduce the number of bags we have to take home, but after yesterday’s shopping trip, I’m afraid we might not be traveling as light as we had hoped!

We headed back to the restaurant we ate at yesterday afternoon. I thought of taking a picture of what we wanted so we could order that way. The people who had helped us yesterday were working today, so they helped us again. We really liked the food there and Lydia was especially happy to have her favorite noodle dish and rice dish. MeiMei liked the chicken meat a lot. We had fun eating together and MeiMei was serving us all more food from the dishes. Part way through the meal, an older guy came to our table and started talking to us in Chinese. He brought us cups and then went back and got us some tea. I’m not sure what kind of tea it was. It was a yellowish green color and it had some kind of grain floating in it. It looked kind of like millet.

After supper, Brian suggested that we go find some place for dessert. We decided if we went to McDonald’s we’d know what we were getting, so we headed there. McFlurries were enjoyed by the other three, and I had a hot fudge sundae. Yumm! It’s crazy that McDonald’s is one of the more expensive restaurants in China. We spent 75RMB on our dinner – 3 main dishes, meat skewers, 3 pops and a water, and for 3 McFlurries and a sundae, we spend 41 RMB.

We headed back to the hotel and MeiMei wanted to be carried. Brian carried her part of the way, and she figured out how to hold on. That got her a little further in his arms before he wore out. Lydia wanted to join in the fun too, so I put her on my back once we got close to the hotel.

The girls had a fun time in the bathtub again. The tub is in a separate room with the shower, so they could splash as much as they wanted and all the water would just go into the shower. Hopefully this won’t be a problem when we get home!

They are sleeping soundly now, but Brian and I need to finish packing everything up. We have an early start tomorrow as we head to the orphanage in Baotou. We go there, which is a few hour’s drive, and then head back to Huhhot where we’ll fly down to Guangzhou. We won’t arrive in Guangzhou until after 11pm, so we may not blog. On Friday, we have to be up early again for a medical appointment. Fortunately, Guangzhou has just a few things to do (even though the timing has to be spread out), so we should be able to take it easy for the next week. Hopefully we’ll catch up on the sleep we’ll miss tomorrow!

It will be MeiMei’s first flight. Hopefully she doesn’t get motion sickness in the airplane too! At least she likes Brian, so if we get split up, he’ll have to clean up the puke this time. 😊

Matching, matching again.

Tried the mobi lasted long enough for two photos

One of the best collections of dinosaurs in the world

Eating at our new favorite restaurant in China

McDonalds ice cream

Every city needs a random shrimp seat

One Less

I woke up early today (actually this is the best I’ve slept the whole trip.)  I got a solid 8 hours of sleep.  Minus the time I woke up and looked over at the girl’s bed and thought Ruthie was missing.  After waking up enough to see if she fell on the floor and rolled under the bed, I realized she was sleeping in Lydia’s spot and Lydia had moved to the end of the bed.  I was not scared, but I was wondering what happened. 

I thought I’d add my two cents to yesterday.  Yesterday I did not sleep as well as today.  I woke up about 2:30 in the morning (I have no idea what time it actually was, but that seems like a good guess) and started thinking about everything going on.  While I was doing that a song came to me that I thought summed up the day fairly well.  It is the song “One Less” by Matthew West.  (I attached the link if you do not know it).  I sometimes think songs about adoption maybe make orphanages seem worse than they are.  This may stem from the fact that both of my daughters spent significant time in one, and I want to think of that time as positively as possible.  We have not been to Ruthie’s yet, but from visiting Lydia’s it is a very nice building with very nice people that do their best to care for the children, but it is not a family.  God designed families as his plan for the world.  The way we are going to see our culture improve is to improve families.  We need strong marriages, with parents training their children to follow God’s word.  Before I get too close to preaching, I’ll get back to the point.  Yesterday officially and legally (in the eyes of the Chinese government, the only one that counts for now) Wang Xuan Yi is no longer an orphan and there is one less in the orphan world.  

Three reasons I put this into our blog.  First, I thought I should let everyone know I’m involved here. Erica is much better at the play by play.  If I typed it, it would be about half the length so I'll let her do that.  Secondly, I thought it was a nice way to sum up the importance of the day.  Sometimes a song is better than words.  Thirdly, I want to let everyone that has had a part in this process for us (there are a lot of you) know that what you have done is appreciated by us, and is bigger than us adding to our family.  We could have chosen to do that in several ways.  We could have added a dog, Lydia would have been happy, it would have been a lot less money and paperwork, and we could be done, but God chose this as the way to add to our family.  I believe after sin entered the world God knew adoption would be a big part of smoothing out some of the effects of sin.  If you look in the Bible adoption is all over it, not the least significant is that God chose Joseph to adopt Jesus (the Bible does not say how official the adoption was, but he was Jesus father here on earth.)  Sorry, getting close to preaching again, back to the point.  I want everyone reading to know we appreciate more than we can express all the way you have helped lower the number of orphans in the world by one today.

It's Official

Today it’s official…MeiMei is a Peterson. After our favorite breakfast buffet, which MeiMei liked just as much as Lydia, we went to a conference room in the hotel to meet with the dean of the orphanage, a notary, and a civil affairs worker. Together they made it official and we adopted Wang Xuan Yi. She is now Ruth Lois XuanYi Peterson.

We had to sign a bunch of papers and also stamp our fingerprint next to our signature. In China, everyone has a “chop” or stamp that they use for their signature. Since we don’t have our own chop, we have to sign and then use our fingerprint stamped in red ink. MeiMei also had to put her whole hand print on one of the papers. It was all kind of a whirlwind process with a “sign here” and “answer this” that made it all legal. We also had to be interviewed and tell what our jobs were, our income, and also tell the Chinese government that we will take care of her, give her a good education, and never abandon or abuse her.

That was done by about 9:30am and we had the rest of the day free. We came back to our room and tried to get things organized. We unpacked all the sleepers that my school collected and put them in giant gift bags. We also arranged all the rest of the gifts we have to bring to the people in Baotou. After all that we were down to one suitcase per person. Much more like us!

Lydia wanted to FaceTime a bunch of people. She is very proud of her little sister. She spent a good chunk of the morning showing her off to family. She wanted to try calling some of her friends too, but it was getting too late in the US for that.

While we were cleaning up, the girls started playing hide-and-go-seek. If you know Lydia at all, you know she loves that game. Well, we discovered MeiMei is really good at it too. She doesn’t mind small dark spaces and she has a LOT of patience. She hid inside a cupboard for a solid 5 minutes or more while Lydia searched all over for her. We’re in a hotel room, so there aren’t that many places, but Lydia didn’t think she could fit in there. They had tons of fun playing with each other. They also made a “fort” under the desk and put their blankets over it.

We headed out for lunch around noon. We decided to see what we could find a little ways from the hotel. We found another noodle restaurant, which also had rice and some other foods that looked appetizing. They had screens that had pictures that rotated, so we had to wait through a few rounds to point out all that we wanted. We ended up with some meat on skewers, fried rice, noodles that Lydia claimed tasted like her favorite meatball noodles, and some chicken and rice. I was glad for something besides noodles! Fortunately, one of the workers took pity on us and helped us figure out what we needed to do to claim our food and fortunately they had a sign that flashed the number of the receipt when our food was ready. We really enjoyed the food there and it wasn’t too far from the hotel.

When we came back, we knew that MeiMei should take a nap. She has been copying everything Lydia does and wants to be just like her. We have been using that to our advantage. We told Lydia to lay down until MeiMei fell asleep and what do you know, Lydia, who “wasn’t tired at all” fell asleep pretty quickly. We let the girls sleep for about an hour while Brian and I did a little laundry in the tub. We’re hoping that since towels seem to dry quickly and Inner Mongolia is known for it’s dryness (so dry that we have a humidifier in our hotel room), that our socks and underwear will be dry in the morning.

We woke the girls up and Lydia did not want to get up. Aggie, our guide, was coming to take us to a special shopping mall for Inner Mongolian items. Inner Mongolia is kind of like Wisconsin in that it is known for its milk production. Also, since they have so many cows, they also make a lot of leather products. There were a bunch of different items available at the mall to purchase.

We got MeiMei a life lock, which is a Mongolian tradition. Because many babies died in the past, the Mongolian people wear long life locks because they think it will keep their children from dying young. There was one that had an owl on it, and since I love owls, I thought I would get that one. Aggie was not really in favor of that. Owls are auspicious, she said. It is bad luck to wear owls. She couldn’t believe that I would like owls so much, but I explained that in America we think of them as a symbol for wisdom. She said it would be ok for me, since it’s a positive symbol to me, but I could tell she wasn’t feeling it. We ended up with a lock that had flowers and the “fu” symbol for happiness. I think Aggie approved of that one!

They also had a bunch of leather work to buy. They had some really pretty and unique paintings on leather. We purchased some of those – one of which we can put in the girls’ room. We also got a traditional Mongolian dress, hat, and boots for MeiMei. We bought one that is big so that we can give it to her later for her to wear. We also got a vest for her that fits her now. She’ll have something special to wear for Chinese New Year. We bought a few other items that are special to Inner Mongolia.

It’s really neat to learn about the history and culture that is special to this specific region here in China. There are so many things that are special about the culture here. I’m glad that we will be able to have some special things to give to MeiMei to help her appreciate not only being Chinese, but also being Inner Mongolian.

When we first arrived at the shopping mall, they treated us to a tradition of a special scarf. The girls weren’t so into shopping, but they had fun playing with each other and finding different ways to wear their scarves. 😊

On our way home, it was rush hour, so the driver took us a “back way” home. Aggie was annoyed with the traffic, but I thought it was so fun to see the way of the people. So many people were coming home – riding their bikes or motorcycles and walking. There were carts along the street with foods that people were buying on their way home from school or work. The sheer number of people continues to amaze me. And Huhhot is a “small” city in China. There are only about 2 million people here – Just to put that into perspective – that’s the same size as Chicago, and it’s the third largest city in the US. It’s just crazy to think of how many people there are in China.

When we got home, we could tell that the girls were getting really tired, so we headed out for supper right away. We had passed a restaurant on our way this afternoon that had chicken sandwiches and stuff like that. We decided to try it out tonight. They had a menu we could point to, so it was much easier than some places. They had a family pack that had 2 chicken sandwiches, a wrap, popcorn chicken, chicken nuggets, fries, and 3 drinks for less than $10. We decided to go with that and we had our fill of chicken. Just when we were almost done, they brought out a steaming rotisserie chicken that was apparently part of our meal. Since it’s rude/gross to the Chinese to eat things with your fingers, they brought us plastic gloves to pull apart and eat the chicken. Lydia wasn’t so sure about any of the chicken, since it wasn’t McDonald’s or Chik-fil-A all-white meat chicken, but MeiMei ate it all up. She’s definitely a meat girl like Lydia was when she first came home. Brian and I both enjoyed something that wasn’t noodles again!

We headed back home and since it was so busy and dark, we were walking 2 by 2 – me and MeiMei and Brian and Lydia. I could tell that MeiMei was getting tired, so I tried to carry her, but she would have none of that. Only Baba was good enough to carry her. It brought back memories of Lydia wanting to be “bobo-ed” all the time. I don’t think MeiMei will want it very often, but after being on her feet all day and trying to keep up with our big strides, I think she was happy to be carried. One thing about Chinese children that seems strange is that they don’t hold on when you carry them. It seems like it would be a natural thing to cling, but they just sit there like a sack of potatoes! Well, Lydia wanted to join in the bobo-ing fun, so I carried her piggyback for a while. She’s getting to be quite the load! She also tried giving MeiMei a piggyback ride in the hotel.

Lydia wanted to blog tonight, but she is sleeping. We told her to lay down so MeiMei could fall asleep. Brian asked if I wanted to bet on who would be asleep faster…Lydia won, by the way! Another long day in the books for the Peterson four.
Last night it took me almost two hours to get the blog written and posted, because the wifi and VPN kept going out. I decided to write on Word tonight, so I don’t end up getting the blog partway done and not getting it to save. Here’s hoping we’ll have fast internet connection! I can’t believe that tomorrow is the day before Thanksgiving. If we were home, I’d be stressing out about making pies and thawing the turkey. I hope everyone is enjoying the day!

Matching Matching

More Matching Matching

MeiMei enjoying the breakfast buffet

Our huge stack of money!

Stamping our signature

Sisters

...But I'm not tired!

Looks like Wisconsin!

The shopping mall is shaped like a Mongolian hat.

Mongolian dancer statues