Ella's first hurricane.

We are all sitting here waiting the arrival of hurricane Isaac. I am so glad that I am not in China right now. That would have been a mess. G cannot leave town nor can he stay home. My poor friend would have been stuck with the boys for the duration (thanks Tricia :-) ) Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We have several pine trees on our lot and hope none fall on the house. They have all survived katrina, so hopefully they are good.
 Ella is doing good. She has been with me since July 23. I am starting to notice more and more behaviors common to institutionalized children. Nothing serious or alarming, just things that I did not really pick up on in China. maybe because we were so busy and tired. Thinking I might talk to our social worker to see which of any of these thing I should try to stop. For some it is clearly not appropriate, but others are not harmful to her, but just not really normal. Hope that makes sense.
 Anyway, on to watch the weather and I will post when the storm has passed. Take care everyone!!

We are home!!

We finally made it home late Thursday night. The flight was very turbulent but Ella did a great job. She did not whine or complain a bit. She sat just fine or slept. She would wake up just a little and whine, but I think it was because she was sleeping in an uncomfortable position. When we finally made it home, G and the boys were at the airport waiting, of course. What a beautiful sight to see. I missed them sooooo much.
 Ella is doing better at home than I thought she would. She seems to do the right thing more often than not. We still have a lot of sass and attitude to deal with, but she will learn. Fast. I'll see to it :-) She might have been the big cheese where she came from, but not here. It seems like she was probably one of the more dominant kids in her orphanage.  All of the kids will be treated the same. Again, she will learn. Once she gets some English, I suspect things will get better much faster. Here are a few pics from the airport.

Hmmm, I don't know why Jordan isn't in any of these pictures. He was there, I promise.
 Haha, btw, can you tell Evan's daddy dresssed him??? Look at those shoes with shorts!!!

We are still here. Leaving to head home tomorrow. We have had a nice time in Guangzhou. Soooo much better than being in province. The hotel is great. Anyone trying to decide between the few hotels we can choose from here, you will not be disappointed if you chose the Garden. Lots of good places to eat and it is safe to get out and walk around. If I were here again, this is where I would stay. No doubt about it. We had our CA yesterday. We were there for a while, but once they got started the process went pretty fast and smooth. After that we took a quick trip to the island, It is really nice and beautiful. Picked up a few things but wish I would have spent more time there. Oh well. Ella is doing good. She has had a couple of really sad moments. She cries and says the same thing over and over. I don't know what it is but I am sure it is something like she wants to go home. Not our home. It's sad to see but it's good for her to get it out. I would be more concerned if she didn't do this. This little girl is a handful. She has a lot of behaviors that really threw me at first but the more I think about the things that I read it starts to make sense. She is really big about trying to turn on the smiles and charm when she is around other people. More specific, Chinese women. While it drives me crazy because it is sooo fake and rehearsed, I understand that this is how she probably coped in the orphanage. I really can't wait to get home and start getting into a routine. I will post more about some of these behaviors if anyone is interested later, after we get home. It is exhausting to think about. I will post some pics of the past several days, They are probably at the top, I don;t understand why, Sorry.

Hefei Aquarium

Today was a free day. A nice family that I met here asked me if we wanted to come along for the day. So glad we did. We went to the aquarium, it was fun, but hot. After that we went out to lunch at a local restaurant. Not sure they see too many non asian people. We got lots of stares on our way out. While we were eating we were in a small room, just our table, and some good ir condition. The food was great as was the company. After that we dropped the husband and their little boy back to the hotel and headed our to Walmart. That was interesting. I am so exhausted I can't even stay awake to type anymore. I will add a few pictures from the day. BTW, the pic of the frogs is from Walmart....the food section, not the pet department.

It's official!

It's official, she is ours. Today we did the adoption. We had another great day. I was up at 4 (not so great) and she got up about 6. hmmm, gonna have to work on that. We got up and had breakfast at the buffet here in the hotel. Glad some other Hefei mama's encouraged me to try it. Sooooo good. After that we met our guide in the lobby for 9 and headed to the civil affairs office to do more paperwork. Quick and painless, but HOT!!!!!! We were back at out hotel by about 10:30. We stayed around here again. It is so hot.We might go sight seeing with another family that we met here at the hotel. Not sure though. Did I mention it is hot? Add to that the way they drive around here and the ever present smell of gasoline in these vans. All of that is a migraine waiting to happen. I have been able to hold them off so far by taking my medicine as soon as i think one might be coming. If not a migraine, then car sickness for sure. The driving here is so crazy and all of the horn honking. I will not forget this. Even though we aren't getting out much, I am enjoying the visit. I'm really tired but here are a few pics from today. Not sure where these pics will show up. Top or bottom? I don't seem to have any control :-)

Today was unbelieveable. This girl is amazing. She walked in and they pointed me out to her. SHe came and gave me a hug and sat on my lap. She is so beautiful. She is also funny and very busy, Always doing something, The orphanage sent her with a back pack full of snacks and juice. Everytime I gave her something to see it had to go in the backpack. Clothes, bows, underwear, I could not have packed that much stuff into the little bag.She also has to have the bag with her all the time. Poor little thing, we went out for a walk and she had her bag on. When we got back to the room, her little back was sweating. Her shirt was all wet. I'm sure this is a security issue, so I will just go with it. If she gets too hot, she will take it off. She reminds me of Dora the Explorer with the backpack. I wanted to take a picture of all the stuff they had in there, but I didn't dare take it away from her. Now that she is sleeping, I am afraid if I unpack it that I will never get all of that stuff back in there. She loves her hairbows (yippee) She had to have 2 in her hair to go to bed. She also had to wear her new necklace to bed (thank you Jenn, she loves it). She is so precious. She loved her bath. She giggled the whole time and loved playing in the water. She is perfect in every way.

gotcha!!!