3rd day

Finally we got to sleep in, and we all actually slept! Had a long breakfast, and hung at the hotel for a bit, and got our first glimmer of a smile out of Drew. She is still very reserved, quiet, and crys easily with any and all transitions, from moving to a different room from the elevator to the hall, even from one position in your lap to another. BUT, we found out that she LOVES to walk in open spaces. The lobby is a big, open space and she spent a while just "running" in it. She can't really run, but fast walk, and started to swing her arms, got a bit of a smile and giggle going....SO nice to see. That was it though, we put her down for a nap, broke the cardinal rule of parenting and woke her in the middle to go off for paperwork, and she cried the rest of the day. Ah well, good to know it's in there somewhere, we'll keep working at it! Tomorrow we must wake up early and go for the medical exam and some other things, so should be a busy day.

2nd day for Drew

It was a full day of paperwork, and trying to get to know one another. Drew is still very traumatized and very unsure of the situation. No smiles or words or even much movement, but getting better. She had Pizza at lunch and LOVED it. We found a great place within walking distance to the hotel and had a nice, but late lunch after formalizing the adoption. Smoothies, pizza

and beer (for me...tells you I must've needed a drink if I'm having beer) made everyone happy. We hit a typical Chinese grocery store after that. Crazy. Had most everything you might need from live turtles for dinner to stovetops. Got a few necessities like M&Ms, Chips Ahoy (oops, picked up the Coffe flavor ones...) and Pringles (NOT the shrimp flavored ones). Headed back, napped, Skypped, wandered the hotel then dinner of snacks in the Executive Lounge, where Drew ate spicey shrimp on a stick, a whole banana, and French Toast. Back to room and she slept the night through. Her cough is improving thanks to the antibiotics, and Scabies clearing, but still has a fever, but think that will improve too. She is walking now too, like Frankenstein, but walking, and shows glimmers of wanting to play, but hasn't done it yet. Watches Kelly always, and Kelly is being a GREAT big sister. All good.
Now for the pictures:

DREW!

After a few long day of "hurry up and wait" we arrived at the Civil affairs office and Drew was there waiting. She was NOT happy to see us, as we expected, cried and cried, but didn't put up too much of fight. We did a few formalities and came back to the hotel after a long ride in traffic. She is tiny (or so it seems now that Kelly is four) and came dressed in the traditional many layers, so hot and sweaty. She's got a bad cough, most likely scabies and hasn't cracked a smile or word, but is very alert, watches every thing and everyone, and enjoyed her bath. Thankfully she gulped down a bottle and crashed for (hopefully) the night. We are all exhausted and off to bed too, to be up early for a day of paperwork and offical business...now to try to post some pictures: they probably are posting before this post.

Made it

We all made it here in Guangzhou this morning. Well...all the people made it here, somehow Cory's and my luggage didn't. And as China Southern only makes one flight here a day, we wait till tomorrow morning to see if they will bring our bags. It was a good flight all in all, but we landed China time at 6am and tried hard to stay active and awake all day, but failed. Kelly did great, but crashed hard tonight before dinner. We managed to get some food down her, and off to bed, and the rest of the crew is not far behind.
Our hotel is very nice, the rooms very spacious and the girls are anxious to put the workout rooms to good use, and have already. The rooms have great tv with a DVD so Kelly got in a movie, and we are set. We travel to the Civil Affairs office tomorrow to get Drew at 1:30pm, so will spend the morning tracking our luggage and finalizing some papers and money.
Thanks for all the good wishes and thoughts, we are very excited for the coming week and hope the challenges can be met with humor and grace!
Will try to keep you posted tomorrow as soon as we can.
B

SOOOOO close!!

Yes, it's been a long time since I've posted...I am terrible at this I admit, but there always seems to be so much going on in our lives, this is usually pretty far down the list of things to do.
Enough excuses, here's what you want to know: We have finally, and successfully, conquered the mountain of International Adoption paperwork. For the most part. And right now we are set to travel to get our little girl Drew!!! Yippee! We will ALL (yes, all 5) be going to China on Dec. 16th, the day both olders get out of school for break. We'll all race to the airport (from different directions), fly direct, non-stop into Guangzhou in the the Guangdong province of China. Think Southern and very close to Hong Kong. We will only have to stay in one province this trip, one city, one hotel, which will make for a long two weeks, but much easier with no in-country flight and no changing hotels. Kelly is prepped, as much as a four year old can be, and Cory and Jamie are very excited to be going. The whole trip will take about 13 days, two of which are travel.
I am going to try to post on this blog as much as I can, but with China's "great firewall" and spotty internet service, you never know, so don't be concerned if you don't see a post for a while, it's pretty hit and miss while there.
I have no new pictures to share. It's been a really hard thing, no pictures or updates...I've tried, and still hope to hear, but it's not looking good. Heck, in 10 days I'll see her for myself! Still, I'd love to know at least an updated weight, or height, or something. Such are the joys of I.A.
For those friends of mine who are part of the I.A. community, we will be at The Garden hotel, and would love to see you. Our CA is 12/28.

More on Drew

Well, we didn't tell anyone we were adopting again untill we had a referral. This was because for Kelly, the timeline extended soooo long, and we didn't want to keep having to tell people "not yet" any more than we knew we'd have to. So, in Jan. of this year, we started the paperwork to adopt again. We changed agencies, had a better idea of what the paperwork would entail and knew that the wait time for a Special Needs adoption was shorter than it was with Kelly, but with China you never know what will come up. Our dossier would've been finished in record time, but for a big bump named Cory. Our Home study agency originally told us that with Cory in college, she didn't need to be treated as a member of the household, so no extra paperwork and approvals were needed. After we were done with all the work for the home study, our agency changed their mind....yup, had to start from scratch with Cory. Our sweet, barely 18yr. old, now has been fingerprinted by the State, had a child abuse background check and the FBI has her fingerprints on file, among other things. yikes. Can't say I was pleased to have the delay... Cory was a trooper and accomplished it all from Berkeley. So with that done, and a few more approvals with the government, we sent our dossier off to China in June and got a call on June 30th about Drew. Ron was in China at the time (yes, odd) and it was a tough time trying to connect with each other to discuss, as we had only 72 hrs. to committ to her file. We did and could finally tell everyone our great news!
These were some of her referral photos