Our last 2 days of “vacation” begin.

MONDAY

We left smoggy Beijing this morning for a very hot Guilin – a record temperature in Guilin of 38 degrees! Our Beijing guide, Jenny, was able to check us in at the airport and we were able to take all of our extra luggage for no extra cost! Though the flight to Guilin was delayed by 2.5 hours, we at least had our group of 7 to wait with.

When we arrived in Guilin, we were not too late to see the Reed Flute Cave as planned (see cool cave photo below), and we saw a Chinese version of Cirque de Soleil tonight. Both were great.
In Guilin we have our own air conditioned tour bus for just the 7 of us on this 3 day tour and we have a dedicated guide, Jeff, so we are being well taken care of.

We have not ventured out too much on the food yet, but we've learned that yellow furred dog is the best dog meat to have ~ if we chose to try it:) and brown furred dog the worst. So I guess Jethro is safe then St. Pierre's! (they assured us they don't eat pet dogs anyway:)

TUESDAY
It is Tuesday morning now and we just came from an amazing breakfast buffet - all with live piano music! We are now off for the famed 4 hour Li River boat cruise, and we're negotiating a trip to the rural area to see the rice fields and a farm. Tonight is set for shopping. Today is forecasted to be cooler – just 36 degrees. Thank goodness for the invention of air conditioning!!

Only 2 more sleeps until we hold Eliana and Olivia for the very first time!!!!

We expect to post again Wednesday pm (Wed am Canada time), at the end of our time in Guilin.

We have arrived!

After a long 13 hours we finally arrived in China. We arrived at the hotel around 5pm local time, which since we are 12 hrs ahead was 5am on the internal clock. As you can imaging we are both very tired and eargerly awaiting a good nights sleep. Tomorrow is an early start having us up for breakfast at 6:30 so we can depart back to the airport at 7 for a 9:30 flight to Guilin. Didn't get to see much of Beijing however we will be back again for the last 5 days of our trip.

We had trouble getting our laptop to connect to the internet from the room so this message has me clunking away at a keyboard in the "Business Centre" of the hotel. Hopefully we will get the laptop to work in Guilin, otherwise this blog might not get updated as often as we would like.

The current weather forecasts

In case anyone is wondering - yes the current forecasts for all 3 cities we will be in in China is low to high 30s (plus humidity), with evenings still in the mid 20s. It is also calling for thunderstorms in each city we are in, while we are there, next week. Not sure what that does to the site-seeing but we'll see how accurate their forecasts are.

You can see the weather forecasts at http://weather.yahoo.com/regional/CHXX_G.html, and select any of the 3 cities we will be in (Guilin, Guangzhou, Beijing).

Well rain or shine - we'll meet our sweet daughters either way!!

(now this is REALLY the last update before we go....we think...)

The final blog posting before we leave

It is midnight Thursday night and we have managed to complete our packing for 19 days for the 4 of us (that is A LOT of stuff!) - save for a few final additions Saturday am. We are within Air Canada limits but double that of the 3 in China flights so we'll have to see about options when in China. Maybe our Canadian flag luggage tags will gain us some favour in China???

Margaret finished work Wednesday, and Andrew is done on Friday. We then fly out Saturday afternoon. The flight is 13.5 hours direct to Beijing - not the most exciting part of this journey due to its length but necessary unfortunately :)

We have updated our itinerary in the previous posting below with the latest info.

We will try and get a posting up when we settle in Guilin on Monday or Tuesday of next week, assuming the internet is accessible in our hotel there.

Until then - see us in China :)

Andrew & Margaret

4 soft friends

Meet the 4 soft friends that will greet our girls when they return home.

We get to visit their orphanage!

We have learned that we are going to be able to visit our daughter's orphanage while we are in Guangdong province. That is such good news as we can see the cribs they are sleeping in, and we will be able to meet the nannies that have cared for them for the 1st 10 months of their lives.

It is a 3 hour bus ride each way however ~ hopefully air conditioned ~ but well worth the trip! We are going to do everything we can to be able to join the trip, with our girls, to their orphanage.

There is a lot to pack for 16 days with 2 babies!

We now have all our of daughters' items laid out to pack for our trip. With only 2 days of diapers (buying the rest there) and a little bit of food (getting the rest there) - they may need more than 1 suitcase just for them! The in-China flight luggage limitations are quite small (50% of Air Canada's limit when we travel to China) so we will likely have to pay for extra luggage for our 3 in-country flight segments. We'd rather have more than too little as with 2 babies I'm not sure how much shopping time we'll actually have :)

The blessing of family

The past 2 weekends have been fun as we've spent time with family. Andrew's family had a surprise shower for us. I knew about it but Andrew didn't ~ I'm just glad I didn't blow it and let something out along the way! Our 3 year old nephew, Kieran, had a great handle on our girls names as he declared that our home was the home of Eliana and Olivia.

Last weekend our older 4 nephews were up for their last weekend with a childless Uncle Andrew and Aunt Margie. We had a great time at Bingeman's. We look forward to many more great times when our girls are here!

Only 11 more sleeps to go - oh we are trying to cherish our sleep needless to say ;)

China "Waves"

China "waves" is taking on a few different meanings to us now as we get closer to travel:

1) We hear they are quite welcoming and will wave a welcome to us
2) The heat wave is per the August heat - mid 30s with lots of humidity, and a "cool" evening at 25 degrees!!! We are praying the air conditioning is in top form!
3) ...and yes for those who watch the news, the flood waves are an issue right now in Southern China.

We're thankful to be travelling in an organized group format that can help make the trip as enjoyable as possible, but there's not much that can be done to change the weather ;)

Well - 2 ramblings in one night...we're making progress!!!

Ramblings

We haven't been very good with putting updates on our blog of our preparation days, but we have been busy preparing for the imminent travel date - August 4th. It is hard to believe that we leave in another 12 sleeps :) and we will return in one month today!

The time since our referral has just flown by, and we certainly aren't wishing away our last few days as a childless couple, and all the freedom that that entails. But we are anxious at the same time to meet our daughters - we are so curious as to what they look like now.

Today we met with some scrapbooking experts who are going to put together a lifebook for Eliana and Olivia, so I look forward to an excellent one that our girls will be able to treasure for the rest of their lives. My co-workers were very generous and gave us a gift certificate to help make this possible.

We feel like our home is getting more children-ready each day that passes - the "to-do" list is finally shrinking!!! And Andrew has put the car seats in the van so we can now bring them home.

Now if only we can manage the heat while we are in China!!!

Amazing Baby Showers!

Andrew and I have been blessed with two baby showers put on by two wonderful sisters. We are now feeling much more prepared to bring our little girls home. They now have car seats, clothes, diapers, bottles, booster seats, a safe house, toys, etc.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to these generous gifts!

Andrew & Margaret (Eliana & Olivia)

PS ~ while the planning and never ending preparation continues, we are getting more excited as our leave date is only 3 1/2 weeks away, and we meet our girls just 4 weeks from tomorrow!

Our Itinerary

Here's our itinerary for our 19 day trip:

Aug 4th: Fly out from Toronto
Aug 5th: Arrive in Beijing
Aug 6th: Fly to Guilin
Aug6-8: Tour Guilin & area with a guide (tours of caves etc, one day river cruise, tour city)
Aug 9th (am): Fly to Guangzhou (Guangdong Province in southern China)
Aug 9th 2:30pm: MEET AND RECEIVE OUR DAUGHTERS!!!
Aug 10th - 17th: paper work to finalize adoption, apply for and receive children's passports, enjoy time with our daughters, sightseeing, shopping, visit the Guangzhou Zoo, etc
Aug 14th: Travel by bus, approx. 3 hours each way, to visit the Yangxi Social Welfare Institute, our daughters' orphanage
Aug 18th: Fly back to to Beijing
Aug 19th - 23rd: sightseeing, medical appt, get daughters' visas, more shopping :), our group's special final dinner (Duck)
Aug 23rd: Fly to Toronto
Aug 23rd: Arrive in Toronto

In addition to meeting our daughters, we'll be able to see 3 unique and different cities in China while we're there, so we're looking forward to experiencing this country and the whole amazing adoption journey!