First Day In Beijing

Really. I'm happy to be here. Seriously.

We started the day with a trip to the Hutong "Alley" District, near the Forbidden City. We took a rickshaw (a "semiautomatic BMW" in the words of our guide, George) to the home of a resident, Mrs Feng, a retired high school physics teacher. She showed us her "old school" home, which was the same type home Chinese diplomats lived in during Imperial days.






After lunch, we went to Tianenmen Square and the Forbidden City. George provided quite a bit of interesting "non textbook" information for us regarding the background of certain landmarks and rituals in China's history related to what we were seeing. So much so that he drew a crowd of locals at times. I'm not sure they understodd his English, but they seemed to enjoy his stories. At that point, it also got VERY windy...





We didn't get to see as much as originally planned, due to some foreign dignitaries showing up and military police shutting off a majority of the Forbidden City. I snapped a picture of the party poopers before they got started:


We ended up sitting around with a few thousand of our closest friends, waiting for the one exit to open up so we could leave. The crush of people trying to get out was unbelievable! No OSHA standards here!

Throughout the day, all of us in the group learned more about each other. That made the day worthwhile, regardless of any tours we took.

Early day today. Great Wall, Olympic Village and acrobat show tomorrow. Everyone was seeming to wear down in the early afternoon, so it was a good call on George's part to shuffle the original schedule around a bit. We're looking forward to the Great Wall...but looking forward to Wednesday (Gotcha Day) even more.

And they are off.....

The taxi came and picked up Bob and Tillie at 5:30 this morning to get them to the airport. Yesterday we were all running around like chickens with our heads cut off. However, when they left this morning I think that they had everything they needed.....or at least they had the important stuff. I think they both were very excited and apprehensive about the trip but I know they will both do great!!!

Almost 12 hours later according to their flight status, they are about an hour outside of Tokyo, Japan. They have a three hour layover (praying for no earthquakes) and then about a three hour flight to Beijing. They will arrive in Beijing 8:50 Saturday night or about 7:50 Saturday morning for us - there is a 13 hour difference (if I calculated it correctly). As much as I wish I was on this trip with them - I am thankful that I didn't have to be in an airplane for that long:-)

Keep checking back over the next couple of days. Bob & Tillie will be visiting The Great Wall, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City while they are trying to get used to China and the new time. Wed. will be Gotcha Day for Caden. We are praying that Caden will receive Bob's love with an open heart. It is such a difficult time for the kiddos - everything they have known is being ripped away from them. We just hope that Caden will know that his father is a safe place for him.

Mongo Posting

Mom arrived today, and it's been "Packapalooza" trying to get everything together. I'm sure we'll miss something. I've closed out everything at work, have tomorrow off to run around like chickens with our heads cut off, scrambling to make sure we don't miss that thing that we most assuredly will miss.

Then it's an oh-dark-thirty step to the taxi on Friday to catch the flight. I can't believe that in just a few days, I'm going to be holding my new son. And before that, I'm going to be walking on one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Surreal does not begin to adequately describe it.


I pray Nathan continues to grow healthier while I'm gone...


Addie's soooo looking forward to her little brother getting here.

This is mostly just to make sure I'm able to get in here and post. I'll make sure to provide more meaningful/creative information in a few days...I hope.

TA!

I can't believe it is finally happening. We received notification today that China has issued our Travel Approval and we are welcome to come and get Caden. We now have to wait for the US Consulate to make an appt and we will have our dates. Right now it looks like it can happen as soon as April 15th. Crazy!!! We have so much to do before Bob travels and before Caden gets here!! This adoption journey has been so much different than our journey was for Addison. With Addison there was a sense of urgency about the adoption, this time around has been much more laid back. It is probably because we know that eventually we would be holding Caden in our arms.

As much as I am excited for both Bob and Tillie to be able to experience the China portion of this journey, I am sad that I won't be there too. I know they will have an amazing time and the trip will change their lives in so many ways. Bob plans on keeping up on the blog - so we hope you follow along!!

Introducing Cade

Since we accepted Lui Jun Jie's referral, Bob and I couldn't agree on a name. Two weeks ago our agency needed his new name so that we could complete some of the necessary papers in order to get a visa. After much discussion we finally agreed upon a name - Caden Dean Junjie Tarwater.

Caden was born 12/10/09 and is currently 14 months old. We received these updated pics of him at the beginning of Jan.





He had his palate repaired in December. It will be nice not to have to rush around trying to get that fixed when he gets home. He is a big boy - 25lbs and 29in (as of 12/30/2010). We aren't sure what size he is now but we are estimating around 24month or 2T size.

We have decided for this trip that Bob will travel with his mom. I am disappointed that I am not able to go, but Nathan has been so sick the past couple of months and we can't risk both of us being gone for two weeks. We are estimating travel between the middle of April and the beginning of May. We hope you follow along on our journey. We can't wait to bring Caden home.

Our return to China

Ever since we had brought Addie home, we had wanted to travel back to China to bring home another child. Last spring we started seriously talking about adoption again. In July we submitted our paperwork to begin the process. We had decided we wanted another son and since boys are matched very quickly with families we told our agency to hold off on our referral until our paperwork was done and logged into China. However, I couldn't stop looking at the waiting child lists.....I knew our son had to be on it.

In Sept. I looked online and there was a post for a 9 month old boy who had a repaired cleft lip and unrepaired cleft palate. I immediately called the agency who forwarded the info they had on this little boy. After discussing it for a day we let the agency know that we wanted to adopt him. His name is Lui Jun Jie and he is in the Henan province.

Here are his referral pics -




The following are some descriptions mady by his caregivers. It looks like he is very robust and healthy and developmentally on target.

When Jun Jie had just arrived, he looked like he had big hands and feet and his stature was very tall. Everyone said that someday he would become the second Yao Ming.

Currently, Jun Jie is taller and bigger than other children his age. It’s just that his head is not considered very big, but it is round, like the big belly of the Mile Buddha

Jun Jie is a good-looking, handsome little guy. He is very cute, we all love him, and we whole-heartedly hope that he can have a happy home.


The Chinese government approved our request to adopted Lui Jun Jie while we were still in the process of getting all of our paperwork done. Finally in December we were officially logged into China.