Happy Halloween!

Need I say more?

Despite Austin's absence on our 2 week trip, the passed 2 days have seen a tight bond develop between Austin and his youngest sister. Truly a wonder.

The day we arrived, Austin was at school until the afternoon. I picked him up from school waiting in the parking lot with a big warm hug, but he practically blew past me, thinking that Danielle was in the car. She wasn't, he was bummed. When we got home and Austin and Danielle met, she was shy, sizing him up and only sharing a small smile and quiet giggle. But after about an hour, she discovered that her newest brother was pretty cool and liked to play with her, so out came the full blown laugh and the endless Chinese banter.

She went to Austin's championship football game on Sunday and cheered from the sidelines. She kept asking which one was "Autin" (she can't get his name exactly right, yet). They won - Austin made some TDs so she was happy to do all the clapping she could!

Then we moved on into Halloween. We weren't sure how she would react, or even understand, this ritual, but after her siblings all donned their costumes, she wanted to get into the action. Luckily I had kept a cute kitty outfit from Avery's past Halloween wardrobes. She was so happy to put the costume on and add some whiskers to her face. Delighted! So then we ventured out to see if tricks and treats were going to be OK. Of course, she was so happy to say a quiet "twick or tweet" followed by some great candy nabbing and a nice "tank you!". She did awesome! We first visited Uncle Bryan across the street - of course they poured enough candy into her small bag to almost fill it after the first house! We moved on to a few more houses and then came back to warm up and answer the door to some other costumed creatures.

The one struggle I am facing still is food. She is a good eater as we saw in China, but she can't seem to find anything here that really peaks her appetite. I am working hard, hope to find some basics that will keep weight on her petite figure!

Last Moments in China, First Moments at Home

We spent it playing, packing, posing for more pictures,

picking up Danielle's visa (more bus riding),

and eating candy to pass the time away.

We started at the airport in Guangzhou on Thursday night. The airport was crazy busy - we had to mad dash it to the gate for our flight - security took forever!

We made it to Beijing and had 6 hours to run through the halls of the hotel, eat, shower, and sleep. Once the kids finally got to sleep it was UGLY trying to get them back up again a couple hours later.

But we rallied. We had told the hotel that we would need their nifty little shuttle bus to take us to the airport at 5am (and they were fully warned about the amount of luggage), but when we came to the lobby to board the bus, there was no room for the Nowlins! Yikes! Greg's blood pressure shot up like the Indonesian volcano. The lava was flowing, so 2 cabs had to be called to accommodate the Nowlin troops and put out the flames!

Last photos in China - ready to go.......except that stupid little light in cockpit on the dashboard that seems to tell the pilots that they can't fly without a "maintanence check"....ughhhhhh... 3 hours of sitting on a plane ON THE GROUND before you know you have to sit on that same plane for 13 hours IN THE AIR is the modern form of Chinese water torture....

But we finally made it to Chicago. O'Hare was surprisingly quiet on a Friday morning.

When we met with Immigration, they stamped Danielle's paperwork and she is now an American citizen! A monumental thing for a little 4 year old!

When we arrived home, Grammie, Popper, Uncle Bryan and Aunt Sandy and the twin cousins had decorated the house with Welcome Home signs and balloons for Danielle! It was Awesome!! She is home!! We are so thankful!!

She met her older brother, Austin, in person (she figured out he isn't a cartoon on the video screen after all!). We were so happy to see him after these 2 long weeks. Today is the day we have been waiting for for a long time. To be together as a family finally. It feels so good.

Pearls and Pinching

We went to the "pedestrian street" today to shop and tour. We are escorted around town in a huge luxury bus along with our guide, Elvin, and about 5 other families from our agency. The bus is great, but it is overkill for the small amount of seats we take up on the huge machine. It is with great skill that the driver has to manuever this big bus through the very busy streets. The turning radius is amazing, and they clearly know, by the inch, when and how to turn and change lanes without causing a wreck. It is a science.

The pedestrian street was a street closed off to cars, which had stores on all sides and mini malls to shop. It was very busy, and interesting. The bargains were incredible. I could have spent a lot more time, and money, but Greg was hovering......

So, I managed to buy some pearls (they strung the necklaces right in front of me), some clothes for the girls and some t-shirts (sorry Chase, no orange chicken, you have to settle for a t-shirt....).

We then came back to the hotel to relax. We have noticed that Danielle has no grieving episodes at all now. She is pretty happy most of the time, unless we are reprimanding her for either a.) Pinching (seems to be a favorite way to get your attention right now), b.) tossing all trash on the floor, or c.) spitting (this is definately cultural). Looking at this small list of irritants makes me feel so wonderful - if this is all that she has going on for us to work on with her, we win. Game over. I'll take it.

So after we had a couple of fun wrestling matches with Danielle and then regrouped, we headed back to Shaiman Island for dinner. We ate at the Cow and the Bridge. I should take a poll to see if anyone would guess the correct cuisine of this restaurant. Not Chinese. Ok, close enough, it was Thai. We always like Thai food at home and this was no exception. The food was great. We walked a bit more around the island, took pictures at the famous White Swan hotel (a haven for adoptive families) and then made our way back to the hotel. In the cab ride back to the hotel, we were trying to correctly pronounce the name of Danielle's province, Urumqi, which we have heard pronounced 5 different ways. As we were saying Urumqi, Danielle just cracked up laughing and tried to help us say it correctly. Each time we repeated after her, she just laughed....stupid Americans.....

We felt like some dessert tonight, but the one scoop of Hagen Daaz ice cream containers at the hotel were 55 yuan each which is almost 10 dollars. Yep, that is some pricey ice cream. Greg volunteered to go to the 7-11 to pick up some ice cream (there are 7-11s everywhere here, but they are tiny - the whole store can barely fit 10 people in it at once). So we enjoyed some ice cream and chocolate cake from the local convenience store.
We are excited to pick up Danielle's visa tomorrow and head to the airport. We will be going to Beijing tomorrow night. We are going to try to stay up as late as possible tomorrow night in Beijing so that when we board our flight to come home early Friday morning, we may just sleep the whole way to Chicago!

Pizza, Coffee and Chinese Massage

Today we attended our swearing in ceremony at the Consulate office. We simply raised our hands with a group of 37 other adoptive families and promised that all the information we had provided up until then was true and accurate - and that was it! We are now officially not only her parents, but due to our paperwork drive, she will be a US citizen when we arrive home. Sorry I have no pictures from the ceremony, they ban any electronics in the building. Even small toys with any battery operation were confiscated.
We celebrated with a great Italian dinner at a new place we found around the corner from our hotel. Jack and Avery were in heaven with the pizza they ordered.
Danielle, we think, sampled her first pizza slice. She picked it up at first and really didn't know how to eat it. Jack showed her the ropes. I think it was a hit.

We hung our at Starbucks today - they have a terrific 2nd floor lounge, the kids all love the hot chocolate while Greg and I get caffinated.

Love this photo.........

Jack found his newest passion in China - Chinese massage. Ridiculous, I know. He and Greg went last night to the Health Massage center next to our hotel. He loved that it got all the "kinks" out of his back. Yes, he thinks his 11 year old body has kinks. He could not wait to do it again tonight. Greg said Jack giggled a lot, but it was inexpensive and the massage was terrific.

Exploring Guangzhou

Monday night, we went to Shaiman Island, this is where we had the medical appointment too. The island is very scenic. We walked around, shopped, had dinner at Lucy's, which has more western food. Then we found the park, which was a fun diversion. The park is right along the Pearl River. The River was very pretty at night, they have dragon boats lit up on the water that are very authentic. We woke up Tuesday to have the TB reading at the clinic. They had injected Danielle's arm with the TB liquid on Friday and then we had to go back to make sure that the injection did not indicate a possilbe TB infection. She was fine, no TB. The clinic was madness.

Then we headed to the Guangzhou zoo. Danielle loved to see all the animals up close. We especially loved seeing the pandas!

Avery was still suffering from a heavy cough, so we headed back to the hotel to hang out for the rest of the afternoon. Once we got a second wind, we headed out for a walk around the area. We met up with about 8 police just standing on the sidewalk in a busy shopping area. They stopped us and asked to see our passports. ummmm..... we forgot to bring them this time. Stupid. They were not happy, although I don't understand why they care. We quickly talked our way out of them apprehending us for lack of proper ID and headed back to the hotel to get our passports. We went to dinner at an authentic Italian restaurant nearby. Jack and Avery were not impressed with the pizza - just not Chicago enough for their palate.

Today we are heading to the Consulate for the swearing in ceremony - the last formal step before they will issue Danielle's visa to return home. We are ready to get home.... we are ready to see Austin again... we are ready for Danielle to start her new life with us!!