Kai's Shower

Liv was the photographer at Kai's shower last week. Notice the lovely picture of me,lol! We had a great time and Kai made out like a bandit! I love all of my home school girls who worked so hard to organize such a great shower!

On a totally different note, Liv was playing in the new stroller box last night and was standing in it ( it is tall and narrow). She tipped it over and feel backwards onto the tile. She had a nasty knot on her head but I really thought she was fine. This morning she woke up and immediately started vomiting. We took her to the ER and after a CAT scan they said she looked fine. Not sure why she was throwing up. Who knows. She is still a little weak, but is doing much better.VERY scary for the mama!

Princess Kai

Princess Kai had a short photo shoot in the back yard today! She is wearing a dress a very sweet friend made for her. Isn't she BEAUTIFUL!

Shannon

Fall .......

A few pics of the girls. They were taken a week or so after we returned home. Olivia and Kai are really starting to play together.

Shennong to 3 Gorges Dam

From Shennong Stream we went on to the Three Gores Dam. It is the largest dam in the world. It was huge! I actually liked the little town around the dam more than the dam itself.

Back To The Cruise

So, when I last posted about the cruise we were going from Chongqing to Fengdu, after that we cruised on down the Yangtze to a place called Shennong Stream. You take a large ferry to a small stream where you board small boats and are taken through some beautiful country. You also see the hanging coffins. They are these caves in the side of the cliff where coffins were found. They are like 2000 years old and they have no idea how the managed to get the bodies into the caves. This part of the trip was a lot of fun.

You Gotta Love The Hair!

A Few Pics Since Our Return

Chongqing to the Ghost City

The first leg of the trip was from Chongqing to the Ghost City of Fengdu ( I think that how you spell it). It was great. I was not really in to the whole ghost city thing. Kinda creeps me out, but the architecture was beautiful. You have to take a ski lift thing up to the ghost city!

yangtze river cruise pictures

Several people were interested in pictures of the cruise. I will try to post them in order so if you are thinking of doing the cruise you will know what to expect. The pictures on this post are of the ship and the room we had ( VERY TINY,LOL). If you notice the shower is connected to the sink! You turned a knob to change the water from coming from the sink to the shower head. You basically showered in the same place you washed your hands and brushed you teeth, heck, it was even the same place you used the bathroom! The toilet is just a few inches the the left out of the camera view.

Yangtze River Cruise

We decided to do the river cruise instead of the standard Beijing. Mostly because we were going to be in Wuhan and that is where the river cruise ends. We are so glad we did.
We flew from Dallas to LA and then from LA to Guangzhou. From Guangzhou we flew on to Chongqing where the cruise started. We arrived in Chongqing around 10:00am and was met by a guide. we could not board the cruise till 6:00pm so we thought we would tour the city for a couple of hours. Now for the honest part. Not sure if it was all of the travel time, the fact that I HATED our tour guide or culture shock, but I HATED Chongqing. It was rainy when we arrived and the city was very overcast and very dirty. all I could think about was thank God we were taking Kai from this horrible place. After a couple of visits to some tourist trap, high pressure sales type places we finally told our guide that we would skip dinner and board the cruise a little early. She was not very happy. She took us to the area where our boat was docked. We were greeted by men begging to help with our bags. I was horrified and told Sean to not let our bags out of our site. a good guide would have told them to leave us alone, but not our Chongqing guide. She allowed them to baggier us and follow us all the way to the boat where the staff of the cruise finally helped us with our bags. I was almost in tears and was so sad that I had this horrible feeling about my daughters birth country.
The nest 4 days were WONDERFUL! We loved the cruise. We met some great people and would not trade that experience for anything. The boat itself was supposed to be a 5 star. I would say it was more like a very nice 3+. It was very clean with very small but adequate rooms. But most of all the scenery was wonderful. The food was pretty good and the staff was always so helpful. I would recommend this cruise for anyone. Just know it is not a plush Caribbean style cruise. It is a very clean Yangtze river cruise with amazing views and wonderful people.
I will add more on this later, but by the time I left China I had fallen in love with my daughters birth country and was so very sad to leave. It is hard to explain, but I will always have such a love for the Chinese people and that beautiful country!
If any of you getting ready to travel have any questions please feel free to leave a commit or email me. I will post pictures when I can get them down loaded.

A few more random pics....

It has been a week since I posted last and I wanted to show you a few more pics from our trip. The first is of a steamed chicken head that our guide in China LOVED! The rest are just random pics of Kai on our trip. The one of her hitting the other cutie is our friend L. She is half the size of Kai and I think Kai was being a bit of a bully,lol!

And.... a few more pics.....

Ok, the first is of our bordello like sweet at the Victory hotel in Guangzhou. We had paid for a suite but were upgraded to this 80's Vegas style suite. It was so funny. I totally expected a disco ball to come down out of the ceiling! The room was complete with 2 full baths, a whirl pool tub, computer, bidet, and bar!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The second pic is so you can see how curly Kai's hair is in the back. It is soooooo cute!

Shannon

A few pics to get us started

Here are a few random pics of Miss Kai! As you can see she is a very BIG girl. She was turned one on Sept 4th and weighs 25lbs and is in the 95% for height!Her hands and feet are huge! She has very light hair and it is kind of curly! All of the Chinese thought she was a "foreign girl". We were asked by the Chinese people if she was Chinese so much we joked that we were going to have a T-shirt made that says " Yes, I am Chinese". Enjoy the pics. I will post more later.

Shannon

We are home!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As many of you know we were not able to access our blog in China. A little creepy but we seemed to make it. We just emailed our family and I will post updates and photos later. The trip was WONDERFUL and Kai is absolutely perfect! As soon as I get all of the pictures down loaded I will post pictures.


Shannon

and... I'm back

Well after I roamed around in my ambian altered sleep, I figured I might as well try to go back to bed. I mean we are about to embark on a 30hr travel adventure! So, I did what any girl would do, found the bottle in the dark ( without waking Sean) and took the other 1 /3 of the original pill, that I had taken earlier in the evening which kept me asleep for exactly4 and 1/2 hours! Now just how long do you think this 1/3 kept me asleep????? You guessed it, 4 hours and a little change!!!!!!! I would say a little prayer here for ambian by it might come ac cross flip, when I truly am as serious as a mama with 8 hours of sleep can be!!!!!!!!!! See in LA!

Hey Mom and Dad I sure have missed you guys! Hope all is well! We love ya and will be praying for you! See ya soon.


Shannon

Leaving soon baby!!!!!!!!

Well it is 2:23am....... I was sure that sleeping pill I took would at least get me to 3:00 or 4:00am...... YUKKKKKK! Know I just cruise the net and wait for everyone to get up!

We will post from LAX later today and then from Guangzhou ( ummmm that is at 6:20am on Thursday) . We are 12 hours ahead of you guys here so when you are getting ready for be we are pretty much getting up. After we board the cruise we probably will not have wireless access to it may be Monday before we are in Wuhan in a hotel where we can post again.

Please pray peace, blessings, and safety for our entire family.

Shannon

4 M.O.R.E days!!!!!!!!!!

4 DAYS! Can you believe we only have 4 days before we leave?!?! Life is VERY crazy around here. Victoria has started throwing up, Sean's work load is crazy, he is on call this weekend, the girls were exposed to whooping cough 2 weeks ago ( just found out yesterday), i woke up at 12:00am feeling like I was going to be sick, Olivia is starting to just want to sit in my lap and be rocked, we did not get to go to our homeschool classes due to Victoria throwing up............ The list goes on! Oh yah, we leave on SEPT 11th! Of all of the days in the year to travel this would be my least favorite!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BUT, after 4 short days we will be on a plane to a country I can hardly fathom. This time next week Sean and I will be on a river cruise dn the Yangtze river, and in 11 short days we will meet Miss Alexandra Kai-Li for the first time! God is good!

When Sean and I were praying about the adoption in Dec of 2004 and Jan of 2005 God gave us this scripture and it confirmed in our hearts that this was Gods will for our lives:

Isaiah 43:18-19

Stop dwelling on past events and brooding over times gone by;I am doing a new thing; it's springing up- do you not perceive it? I am making a road in the desert, and rivers in the wasteland.

Kai turns 1 year old today!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAI!

Our sweet baby Kai turns a year old today. I am sure she has no idea that in 13 short days her life will forever be changed. Please continue to pray for an easy transition for all. Now here's another picture of our sweet baby girl!