Hi All!

Well, I hope this goes. I had a little trouble with getting the addresses on here and Doug, who knows much more about this sort of thing, is in the room with Eliana. It is just too hard to bring her here while we both do an email.

Today has been a nice, rather slow, day after yesterday. We met Winnie about 10:00 to go to the Hunan Provincial Museum. This place was very interesting. The only exhibit was composed of items from 3 Han tombs in Changsha. One thing was a corpse of a lady buried in the tomb. This was not really a mummy since they said when she was discovered her skin and muscles were still elastic! She was buried over 2100 years ago!

After the museum, we went to a shop that sold locally-made handicrafts. This was a good place to buy some of the embroidery that Hunan is famous for. We bought a double-embroidered �picture� for Eliana that has a cat on it. On one side, the cat is orange and white and on the other side, the cat is gray and white! You can not see any knots or tell what the cat on the other side looks like. You have to see one of these to believe it because it is very hard to describe. It was very inexpensive too. We also bought her a little tea set, a piece of jade and another embroidery piece that is just single embroidery that shows Shoayang where she is from.

Lunch was at a restaurant in Changsha. This was the first time that we had eaten outside the hotel in Changsha. The place was very nice. They took us upstairs to eat as downstairs there were lots of people smoking. This is one thing I will not be able to get used to. Lots of people in China smoke and there are not very many �no smoking� areas. People smoke everywhere, even sometimes in the elevator even though there is a sign that says �no smoking� there. One of the waiters at this restaurant was really taken with Eliana. He carried her around, talked to her and even fed her! What a good daddy he will make some day.

After lunch, we came home and crashed. Eliana took about a 3-hour nap and so did I! I really needed it since I am sort of nervous about sleeping at night. I think I wake up at every little sound she makes even though she has slept through the night both nights. Doug came down to the business center while we napped. Then when he was done, he came back to the room for a nap too.

Winnie also arranged for us to get some laundry done. She said the hotel was very expensive so she knew of a place outside the hotel that would come pick the laundry up, do it and bring it back. We decided to have the dirty clothes we had washed. This was not cheap but I know it was less than it would have been if done by the hotel.

Please pray for Eliana as she has a little cold. She is also cutting another tooth and she won�t chew on the teether I brought. In fact, she won�t put anything into her mouth unless it is food. I thought all children put everything into their mouths, food or not, but not Eliana. Amazing! The next request is going to sound odd but to the moms and dads maybe not. Eliana has not had a bowel movement since we got her and this is not a good thing. If she does not by tomorrow, we are going to call the hotel doctor so pray that she poops! (Maybe Doug will get to change this diaper). For those of you wondering, yes he has changed diapers since we got here. He even did one by himself!

Well, enough for now. Hope you all have a wonderful day. Thanks for your prayers!

Love,

Carmi (and Doug)

Hi All!

Thanks, first of all, for all the prayers I know are being lifted up on our behalf. Thanks also for all the emails you are sending! I apologize that we can�t answer them all individually but this internet connection is unbelievably slow. It will probably take 20 minutes just to send this message.

We have had a good day today although I am sure that Eliana is quite confused with all the strange things. Even with all this, however, she is really being a happy baby. We found out that she likes to eat congee which is a rice dish that lots of babies in China eat and she also likes steamed egg. She ate a lot of this at supper which was good since she has not wanted to eat a lot today. She has two top teeth that look like they are most of the way in. We also have some cereal for her as well as some Chinese formula. We will try to feed her some more formula tonight before bedtime. Last night, she slept through the night and we had to wake her up this morning. She did not even wake up when the alarm clock rang!

Today we did all the paperwork for the orphanage, paid the orphanage donation, notary, passport and registration. We also bought some winter clothes for the orphanage and gave them to the Director this afternoon. Now we will wait for her passport. Tomorrow is hopefully going to be a slower day than today.

Now I�ll send this and go rescue Dad!

Carmi

Hey Everybody!

Well, the email will be short tonight because we have a baby in the room that we’re trying to put to sleep.

Carmi and I arrived in Changsha around 7:00 pm and quickly found our new guide while here. Her name is Winnie. As we were taking our luggage outside to the bus, Winnie tells us that we’ll be seeing our baby tonight. On the one hand we were excited but on the other hand we were extremely tired and were hoping for a final night’s rest.

We got to the hotel (which is very nice, by the way - a 5-star) and checked in. By this time it was 8:30 pm. Winnie said for us to go to the restaurant at the hotel and grab a quick bite because the orphanage was bringing the baby at 9:00 pm. She would meet them and bring them up to the room.

We finish eating and as we are walking through the lobby, 2 men and a woman come in the front door and the woman is carrying a baby all wrapped up in a blanket. We look at each other like, “Is that her?!?!?” We lagged behind them and they got on an elevator so we followed them on. They pressed the 14th floor (our floor). Got off the elevator and walked to our room and these 3 folks walk right up behind us. Winnie is nowhere to be found! We walk in the room with these 3 strangers and the lady hands Carmi our little baby girl.

Didn’t have the camcorder ready. Didn’t have the camera ready. Nothing.

Ya know, we have looked that baby over for instructions and there ain’t none!! As everyone left the room but me and Carmi and Eliana, the two of us felt so completely inadequate. At least I did. The baby really started to whimper and cry and I think it’s because she is missing her caretaker right now. Hopefully in a day or two she will warm up to us more. She HAS been smiling and laughing some so that’s a great sign!

Tomorrow is an extremely busy day so we’ve GOT to try and get some sleep. The day will start very early. Probably no sightseeing for us - just business and more business as we begin the paperwork process to bring her home.

Love to you all. And any words of wisdom will be greatly appreciated.

Doug (and Carmi and Eliana)

Hello Everybody!

It is currently 8:46 pm on Monday evening and we have had a FULL day.

Doug: We got up at 6:00 am after a pretty decent night’s rest. At 7:00 am, the phone in our room started ringing. Carmi and I looked at each other like, “Who in the world would be calling US???”. Turns out it was a wake-up call that our guide, Roger, had asked for. At 7:45 am, we made our way to the restaurant in the lobby where we thoroughly enjoyed a western-style breakfast buffet. They did not have grits, however!! At 8:30 am, we met our guide and driver in the lobby and we were off to the Great Wall.

Carmi: Let me say a bit about the driving in Beijing. I feel very much at home as far as how traffic is on the road. My drive to Charlotte is a lot like traffic here. The thing that is different is that sometimes our driver will just start moving over when there is another car there! The bicycles go everywhere and don’t seem to think anyone in a car might hit them. None of the bicycle riders are wearing helmets. Several times today I just knew we would see a wreck but never did. I told Roger that the bicycle riders are very brave!

Doug: I believe it took us a little over an hour to get to the Great Wall from the hotel. Roger walked us in and then let us loose for 2 hours to make it to the top and back. Words are hard to describe the sights we saw. Hopefully the pictures we took will do a better job. I do know this…it didn’t take long before our legs started to feel like jelly. We would walk a bit…and stop to rest…and walk a bit…and stop to rest…and…well, you get the picture.

Carmi: Let me say a word about the other people we saw at the Great Wall. Doug and I were sitting down to take a little rest and some Chinese young people came up and wanted to take pictures with us. Before it was all over, I guess we took 3 or 4 pictures with different people. I gave one of the guys my camera to take a picture of us but I don’t think he did because when I look at my camera the number of pictures taken was still the same :-( Another amazing thing was that I saw several young ladies decked out in dresses and very high heeled shoes climbing this wall!!!!! I would not want to be them tomorrow after hiking the Wall in high heels. The other thing that was strange about seeing these young ladies in dresses was that today it was COLD and the wind was blowing hard and some of them did not have coats on.

Doug: On our way to meet Roger for lunch, we couldn’t help but stop at some of the little shops along the way. We bought Carmi a nice Gortex jacket…but Roger fussed at us for paying so much even though we paid much less than we would have in the US. I told Carmi we couldn’t buy anything else before checking with our guides.

Carmi: The cold was why I wanted that jacket. It is probably a fake of a “North Face” jacket. It says “North Face” but I imagine it’s a copy just like the Rolex watches they kept trying to sell us. Oh well, the coat feels great, looks good and best of all, keeps me warm! I am taking it on the plane in case they try to freeze us all the way to Changsha like they did all the way to China.

Doug: After lunch, we went to the Summer Palace. Again, hard to describe but the scenes were breathtaking. We bought 5 paintings that are absolutely beautiful. One is of an orange cat that looked very much like Sunny. Another is of a tiger. One is of the Great Wall. One is of the Yellow Mountain. The last is actually a set of 4 paintings that represent the 4 seasons. I was the one who fell in love with this one.

Carmi: The Summer Palace is gorgeous! On almost every wall of every building are beautiful paintings. While we were walking, two young people came up and invited us to see an art exhibit that they and some other students were putting on to raise money to take a trip to Germany. They are studying art and will then become art teachers after they complete their studies. Most of their work was Chinese brush painting. Some was done on rice paper, others on silk and others on cotton paper. It was one of the highlights of the day for me because we got to not only help the students out but we were able to buy some beautiful things that were made locally. We always like to try to bring some sort of art work back from any trip that we take. The work these students did was truly some of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.

Doug: After the Summer Palace, we had a little bit of time to kill before Dinner so Roger took us to a pearl factory. A girl let Carmi dig out a live oyster from an aquarium and then the girl opened it to show us the numerous (small) pearls inside. Of course, THEN she tried her best to sell us some pearls. Carmi was very weak…enough said! While Carmi was looking, Roger leaned over to me and said, “This is not a place for guys!”. We laughed because I totally agreed, of course. Unfortunately, there were no chairs or benches in this place for men to sit.

Carmi: Humm…I wasn’t that weak! I did not succumb to buying the $1,850 necklace they tried to sell me. It was way too big and gaudy for someone as short as I am. I ended up with a very nice string of pearls and a pair of earrings to match for less than $100 which I thought was a very nice deal.

Doug: Finally, Roger took us to another hotel in town where Carmi and I enjoyed another very nice Chinese meal. There were a few items on the table that we questioned. One item in particular, we asked Roger what it was. He shrugged. He called a waitress over and asked her. She looked at the dish in a very confused manner and went walking off with it and Roger laughed because he said SHE didn’t even know what it was. Needless to say…we didn’t eat THAT!

It was a very busy day. We are now back at the hotel and preparing for bed as soon as we finish the email. Our time here has already been unbelievable. Tomorrow morning we go to the Forbidden City (Imperial Palace) and hopefully we get to see Tiananmen Square before boarding China Southern late in the afternoon for a flight to Changsha where we meet our baby!! “Thank you” for the prayers. Love to you all!!

P.S. We can receive replies.

Hey Everybody!

Well…we made it to Beijing. The flight actually arrived one hour early and it was only slightly longer than 12 hours.

Right now we are in the Business Center at the Wanfujing Hotel and internet access is only $3 for 30 minutes. Not bad!

Carmi and I both got some good power naps on the flight. We thought we felt pretty good…until right now. I believe we both could lay down on the floor and sleep until the morning. But we can’t because we have a dinner date with Roger…our CWA guide…at 6:30. I’m pretty sure we’ll hit the sack as soon as dinner is done. He said we would be leaving in the morning at 8:30 for a tour of the Great Wall with LOTS of walking.

Until tomorrow…