Alexa's first flight.

Hello guys. Well, Alexa was a trooper on her first flight. She drank a bottle during take off and was sleeping shortly thereafter in her daddy's arms. It was pretty cute. All of the babies in our group (9 of them ) did real well. We are now in our third and final city. YEH!! We will be here until Thursday morning. We don't have lots of paperwork to do here which will be nice. The only thing that really has to be done are some things to get Alexa's visa. Most of the paperwork was completed in Nanchang, the last city. I really pretty sad leaving Nanchang this afternoon. We have shared soooo much in that city with both of our girls coming from there. Not that this will suprise anyone, but I did shed some tears. We are just thankful to have two wonderful bundles of joy from the same place.

Well, we are pretty tired today after traveling, so I think I am going to call it a night. We miss everyone. Love, Bob, Lisa, and Alexa

Last night in Nanchang.

Well, this is officially our last night in Nanchang. Tomorrow we will be taking Alexa away from everything that she has ever known. It makes me kind of sad to leave, but she will have a great life back home in the states. We will also be leaving our guide James who was the same guy we had here in Nanchang when we got Aleia. He is so wonderful. He has played such a big part of our getting everything official with Alexa and Aleia and has shared such a wonderful experience with us. I will be sad to see him go. We asked him if he could go to Guangzhou with us. No luck. ha, ha.

We went to the police station today to get the girls passports. What fun!!! She can come to the US now. Whew. After that we shopping for porcelain. This province, Jiangxi, is famous for it so we went and got some souvenirs to take home.

This will be our last post here in this city. We fly out to Guangzhou tomorrow (sat) at 2:00 pm (which is 2:00am for you). This city is very americanized with tons of americans with asian girls. Yes you all at Ferris Chevy, they are going to take over the US. ha,ha. We take an oath there on Tuesday about bringing the girls back to the states and promising never to hurt or abandon them. Then we fly home on Thursday morning here which is Wednesday night at home. We miss you all so much. Thanks for making comments on the blog. We love to read them. Love, Lisa, Bob, and Alexa

P.S. the car that I am posting is some kind of a Chevy. Maybe an Aveo?!?

We are very tired this evening and I don't really have much to tell you since I posted this afternoon. We went to dinner this evening to a place where we have already eaten. It has very good Chinese food. Did you guys ever think you would hear me say that?

We go in the morning to the Notary office to pick up the passports for the girls. Another step done!! We are slowly but shirley getting there. Next week at this time we will be home. We really are missing Aleia at this point of the trip. We have been talking to her about everyday which has been so nice. We don't get a whole lot out of her, but atleast we get to hear her voice. That helps Bob and I to get through the day.

Everyone here is sleeping, so I think I am heading to bed too. Love ya, Lisa

A tour of the countryside.

Our group did some touring of the farming countryside today. Talk about depressing!!! It sure is amazing how some people live. Our bus trip there took us about twenty minutes and boy did we see all sorts of things. We saw big hunks of meat hanging from some string, ladies washing their clothes in a dirty pond, and some outhouses made of brick. I don't know if baby Jack could have stood up in them. Very, very stinky. Whew!!! The natives in the countryside just stared at us. Some of the ladies would bring their babies from indoors to see us. They were dressed in so many layers. We were all roasting in our shorts and tshirts.

Alexa is still a doll. She continues to amaze us everyday with something new. I really believe she is getting stronger each day too. She is so tiny and petite. She continues to chatter and is starting to smile. She loves the outdoors just like her big sister, so I can see us spending many days at Tuscora Park.

Well, that is all for now. We are going to dinner with our Phila crew. I'm sure we will have some stories after that. Love, Lisa, Bob, and Alexa

More photos

Nanchang Day #4

Hi guys. We had another fun-filled day of touring in Nanchang. We went to the TengWang Pavilion which is a major sight seeing place here in the city. It is a really beautiful place with lots of bright colors inside. There were also some souvenirs inside for sale. We bought a couple of little things for the girls, because we also visited this place when we were here with Aleia. We also went to the "new city" of Nanchang. They are building it up on the other side of the river. There wasn't really anything there when we were here in 2004. It is amazing how many new big places there are over there.

This evening we went downtown with the Mcconnell's to a department store and to eat at KFC. We took a taxi ride to get there. WOW!!! That is all I can say. You haven't been in a taxi until you have taken a ride in one here. I have never seen my life blink in front of my eyes so many times. It is definitely a crazy place to get around. We bought some shoes. Surprise, suprise. Papaw will be proud.

Alexa had another great day. She is really beginning to chatter"mama" on a regular basis. Daddy doesn't like it real well, so he keeps trying to get her to say "baba" (dad in chinese) Someone asked in an email about how much we thought she weighed. My guess would be about fifteen pounds. She's very tiny and real delicate. Very quiet when she cries. She really looks around for Bob and I now. It is absolutely so amazing that you can love someone as much as we do in such a short time. We are headed to bed now. We are taking a tour to the countryside in the morning and then having lunch at McDonalds. Love to all, Bob, Lisa, and Alexa

Touring in Nanchang

We had another good day in Nanchang. This day was a turning point for Alexa I believe. She really started to open up and smile. Her motor skills seemed so much better this afternoon and evening. It is almost like she didn't know that she could do some of the things she was doing. She still struggles to totally sit up on her own, but it is getter better. This last picture tonight is one of my new favorites of her. Don't you love that smile? We visited August 1st Park this afternoon with our group. It was very pretty and well groomed. We didn't go to this park the last time we were here. We are doing a city tour in the morning with a group lunch to follow. We sure hope everyone is doing well. Please keep sending us those comments. We love them. Love, Bob, Lisa, and Alexa

Hi everyone from China. Our New Phila crew ventured out of the hotel this afternoon for a little walk. Oh boy, did we see some sights. We needless to say also attracted lots of attention. The natives are very curious about the girls. Some of them smile at you and give you a thumbs up, while others just kind of glare. Some of the locals also come up and touch the girls. It is very interesting how they stare at them. Kari and Erich's little guy Jack is quite the attention grabber here too with the locals. They don't see many blond hair, blue eye little guys. We are going to a park later on today with our entire group, so I will try to post more photos again later. Love, Lisa

Adoption is final per China.

We had another busy day today with lots of paper work being completed. We went to the Adoption Registration Office again for filing the adoption, an interview, and some photos to be taken. We then headed off to the Notary office for some things too. After what we actually did today per China, Miss Alexa is officially ours. WHEW!! It's been a long haul, but we made it. This afternoon we went to Walmart shopping. Yes, you read this correctly, they do have Walmart here in China. However, it is very different than ours. It is two floors and about four times as many people. You all thought we had it rough at ours. ha, ha. Our guide then took us out for a group dinner to a place we had eaten at in 2004. Still very good and real cheap. I don't know if you all know this or not, but we have the same guide here in Nanchang that we had in 04 when we adopted Aleia. His name is James and he is wonderful. Darren and Suzanne, he said to tell you hello. He has to be the best around. He is so concerned about the girls and the families needs. Hope you enjoy the photos. Love, Lisa, Bob, and Alexa

A Family of Four!!!

Well, we are having difficulty posting pictures at this point. We received Alexa this afternoon at the Civil Affairs Office here in Nanchang. She didn't really even cry when they handed her over to us. She is beautiful. She has some curls around her ears. She is real tiny. She is really checking us out. She seemed to be very clean too. She was actually wearing one of the outfits that we sent her. It seems as if she hasn't had the stimulation that Aleia had. We did get her to eat alittle something and take a little bit of a bottle this evening before she fell fast asleep. The girls in the group seem to be about the same. Hopefully with a couple of days of some TLC they will bounce back quickly. We will post more soon. Love, Bob, Lisa and Alexa

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Some after dinner pics.

We had a wonderful dinner at the steak house. We then went down by the harbour and did some looking around. We got to see some of the locals dancing and singing. Some of the local children did an interview with us for a school project. We had them doing the O H I O. This is for you Kyle Miller. I have attached a photo of this. The area we were in was called the Avenue of the Stars. Darren and Suzanne, this area is much nicer than the last time we were here. Very pretty. Remember all of the construction along the walkway? Lisa

Our first day in Hong Kong.

Hello. We just finished touring with our group this afternoon. We went to Victoria Peak which is the highest point in Hong Kong. It was extremely foggy, so we didn't get many good photos over looking the city. We then went on a Sanpan boat ride in the Aberdeen fishing village. We got to see where and how some people live on the water. Definitely not something we would do well with in New Phila. After that, our guide took us to a jewelry factory and then to do some shopping. The shopping was somewhat like a flea market. Believe it or not, I did not buy a thing. Surprise, surprise. We are going to dinner tonight at Ruth Chris steak house. We want to get filled up before we head to Nanchang tomorrow. (hopefully we won't starve in Nanchang like we did the first time around). We fly out tomorrow morning for Nanchang and that is where we receive the girls!! Everyone in our group is very friendly and is extremely excited for "gotcha day." When we post the next time, we will be a family of four. We sure cannot wait to get baby Alexa in our arms. When we talked with Aleia this morning she said, "mom do you have baby Alexa yet?" I thought it was sooooo sweet. We are having a good time and everyone is feeling really good at this point. Love, Lisa and Bob

Hong Kong at last.

Hi everyone. Just wanted to let you know that we finally made it to China. We left New Phila Thursday morning at 6:00am and got to China Saturday morning at 1:00am. It was quite the experience. Our flight out of Cleveland was delayed because of our flight coming from Chicago. We left Cleveland one and a half hour late which put us in Chicago at 12:15 pm. Our flight from Chicago to Hong Kong was supposed to leave at 12:18pm. Well, you can probably bet that we did miss our flight. They had just closed the door right after we had ran right up to the gate. Needless to say we had real high anxiety. United Airlines got us on another flight leaving about two hours later, however it was heading to Tokyo, Japan. We took that twelve hour flight and then waited in Tokyo for about two hours before getting on another plane for a four hour flight to Hong Kong. Well, twenty eight hours later of airports and airplanes we made it. Our luggage was even here when we arrived. Yeah. We are touring today with our group, so we may try to post again later. We miss everyone. Love ya, Bob and Lisa

Ready to go!!!

Well, we are all packed and ready to go. We leave bright and early tomorrow at 6:00 am. We will post as soon as we get to China. When you wake up on Friday morning, we should be there. Keep us in your prayers. Love to all, Lisa

We have flights!!!

We officially have our travel dates confirmed and booked. YEH!!! We will be leaving the states via Cleveland on Thursday March 22nd. We will go to Chicago to get on the jumbo plan direct into Hong Kong. We will arrive back in the states on April 5th in the evening as a family of four. We are so excited about this journey.

For those of you who don't know, we are sharing this wonderful experience with two sets of very good friends from here in Dover and New Phila. We are going over as a group and coming home as a "bigger group". You can see their blogs by clicking on the right hand side of ours. It says Kaitlin and Annie/Jack.

I will probably post one more time before we go. Hope you all follow along and make comments on the blog during our journey. Love to all, Lisa