Forever Family Day

The moment we have been waiting for.

OUR FOREVER FAMILY DAY
We are holding in our arms 2 precious little girls – Eliana and Olivia Lucas. We received our daughters at 3pm today and what an exciting time it was! It actually still feels very surreal. We weren’t sure how we’d feel at this moment but just plain excitement is the best word. Eliana fell asleep right away as she is a little sick but Olivia wanted to see the world. The girls don’t like to be set down right now so the snugglies have become invaluable very quickly!!! They love music so the lullaby music we brought and the sound of our own voices seem to sooth them. They do need all of our personal attention right now so the extra days we decided to spend in Guilin turned out to have been a wise decision as our energy reserves have been topped up.

All of our hotel rooms have been great but this one is quite large – LOTS of room. The 2 little cribs they set up for us will hopefully be successful in bringing rest to Eliana and Olivia tonight J.
The restaurant had great lunch today also so so far so good. Well we’re off to the department store to buy formula. We bought strollers and diapers earlier today.

We’ve attached some pictures for you to see our new family!

P.S. Happy Birthday Jacob, Mark and Kaleb. We hope you had a special day!!!

FRIDAY AM
It is 6:00 am and after putting the girls to bed at 8pm last night – they are still fast asleep!! Hopefully this is repeated night after night J. Of course Andrew and I didn’t sleep the same as all of their small sounds while they slept made us sleep lightly. Hopefully we’ll get used to it very soon and enjoy that long rest with them.

Only 1 more sleep!!!

TUESDAY

It is now Wednesday morning for us. We just came from another amazing breakfast buffet with both Western and Asian food options. The service at this Sheraton Hotel is amazing – you won’t wait a minute for anything.

The Li River cruise yesterday was absolutely beautiful. In 4 hours we saw incredible scenery with the many and very unique Karst hills. This is the 2nd cleanest river in China and is most versatile as it is used by water buffalos, Chinese fishermen, bathers, laundry washers and one man on a meagre bamboo raft ~ while chatting on his cell phone!! They even offered snake wine on board – yep, with the snake in it. Needless to say – we declined.

Our tour to the countryside was great. It was however INCREDIBLY HOT. Seeing the rice growing and production process, visiting with a local farmer in his home and being harassed (yes – this is the best word) to buy things as we walked about were all a great learning experience. It has been a blessing being here with our group of 7 to experience all of this together. Last night we went to the local shopping strip but the heat was still somewhere around the low 30s so we packed it in early. WEDNESDAY

Today we went to see Elephant Trunk Hill and the Seven Star park where President Clinton made a famous (for the Guilin-ites anyway) speech on the environment. While at this spot, Andrew and I were asked to be in several photos with some Chinese young adults - we felt important, if not just for a moment...

We then went to the local Pearl Museum and Market, as Guilin is famous for its salt water pearls, and successfully left "lighter" than when we arrived :) We wanted to buy real pearls for the 3 females in our family as we all have the meaning "a beautiful pearl" in our names. We are taking this afternoon off to pack for tomorrow, and then we are having our final small group dinner tonight and off to see the Cormorant Fishermen show.

TOMORROW...

It is amazing to think that we only have 1 more sleep to go – and then we catch an 8am flight to Guangzhou! The next time you hear from us – we will be parents to 2 beautiful girls! Word is still that we will meet them at 2:30pm China time (2:30am Canada time). No promises on how soon we can post but we’ll do our best.

Thanks to everyone who has been posting comments - we are excited to be able to read them and "connect" with home when we log on! Hopefully the hotel's business centre in Guangzhou will work as well as the past 2 hotels for us to do quick and easy updates for you.

We can read all of your comments

Just a note to let you know we can read all of your comments that you add to our blog as they are automatically emailed to us when we check email. So feel free to comment away as we love to read them and stay "in touch". Just add your name so we know who you are:)

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!!!