Guangzhou

We started the second half of our trip to China in Guangzhou. We flew here yesterday. Maria's first plane ride. She did fantastic. At first she didn't want to sit in her chair, which we kind of expected. She is not a big fan of being sat in chairs by herself, especially strapped in. We figure there were bad experiences at the orphanage relating to this. About halfway through the flight, she got comfortable enough to sit in her own chair. I think she is going to be a very good airplane kid, probably better than the two adults she will be stuck with.

There are definitely no attachment problems. She hasn't attached the same amount to everyone and sometimes it changes from hour to hour, but she hasn't ever rejected all of us at the same time. She won't let us leave the room without starting to wimper and she consistently wants to fall asleep in our arms. From what we understand, it will take her a while to become secure enough to change these habits. She is being allowed to break some of our house rules for this kind of stuff, but we figure she has suffered quite a bit her first couple of years and needs to know that she is important and special to us in ways that she has never received.

We are staying at the Victory hotel on the 'island'. There is an circular area in the center of Guangzhou that is surrounded by rivers. It is free of high rises other than a couple of hotels. There are very few cars & roads, so it is pretty pedestrian-friendly and not crowded and crazy like Chongching was. It's a nice change of pace. The pool is on the roof, so the kids think that is pretty cool.

This hotel won't let us hook up our laptops in our room. They provide one, but it doesn't have a webcam so we can't video Skype. We will probably be on tomorrow morning (tonight for you all). Talk to you then. It's bedtime now, no time for pics.

Kraig

First days with Maria Li (LiLi)

These first few days with Maria have been great.  She is very shy and quiet.  Totally opposite of what we're used to.  We haven't had any quiet babies.  The first night she slept in her crib right next to our bed.  We just laid her down and she went right to sleep.  Tuesday when Kraig tried to put her down for a nap, she arched her back and didn't want to go in her crib, so Kraig laid down with her in our bed.  She did it again for bedtime so, we've just decided to let her sleep with us.  She's a great sleeper.  She doesn't move around very much at all.  

She's getting pretty attached to Kraig and me.  She loves watching the boys play, but she doesn't really want them to hold her.  I think they're a little hurt by it, but they can sit by her and play and in time she'll come around. They are great big brothers.  They love handing her toys, and hugging and kissing her. I think sometimes it's too much for her; they come on a little too strong sometimes.  We know that they will always look out for her and take care of her.

On Tuesday we went back to the adoption center for our final paperwork and our ceremony to officially confirm that Maria Li is a Krause now! Talk about needing prayer ... whew!

On Wednesday we did some sightseeing in the morning. We went to an old temple that had some pretty cool architecture and artifacts.  Then in the afternoon our friend Karin came down from Chengdu.  We met her at Christ Community over 10 years ago and then about 8 years ago she moved to China to teach English.  It was really good to see her.  We went across the street to eat at a Hot Pot restaurant.  It's a place where they give you choice of food and then put a 'hot pot' of oil in the middle of your table and you cook it.  The oil was divided into 2 parts.  One was had very hot peppers in it.  We're in the Sichuan province and they love spicy here.  There were some really interesting things on the menu like:  pig brain, ox head and neck, chicken feet some intestines, seaweed.  The only weird thing we tried was the seaweed.

Today we hired a driver and Karin and one of her friends took us to a local shopping area and we were able to walk around and get some pretty neat souvenirs from China.  We also took a drive up a mountain, but because of the rain, we couldn't really see much. It has been overcast all week, but this is the first day of rain that we have had.

We are now back in our room.  LiLi is still pretty quiet although, we have got her to laugh a few times.  She's just the sweetest little girl.

Day 3 - Gotcha Day

We started out the day with an awesome continental breakfast at the hotel. I tell you what, I'm looking forward to that meal every morning. Good stuff.

We tried to burn some time by going out to exchange some money from USD to yuan, but we forgot our passports back at the hotel so the banks wouldn't do it for us. As we left one of the banks there was a person waiting for us outside who "told" us (gestures & calculators & funny words) that they would exchange with us. They showed us their money, but it didn't feel right. I read somewhere that if you deal with these people, you could end up with counterfeit yuan. He took us into the bank and proved that it was real, but we told him no. Our guide told us later that there is quite a black market for that sort of thing. We are just going to exchange at the hotel from now on. The exchange rate is the same as the bank can give us. Lesson learned.

Well, around 2pm it was gotcha time. We left on a bus with another family and our guide, Debra, and drove through the city for a bout 1/2 hour to get to an adoption center in town. We took the elevator up and walked into a pretty big open room with some couches. And there she was! We weren't expecting to walk into the room to see her, we expected her to walk into the room to see us. I didn't have the camera ready for the first couple seconds, but then she settled right in.

She cried for the first few seconds when she was handed to Trish, but for the rest of the day she didn't make a peep. I'd like to know what her voice sounds like, but she is just soooo shy. She loves to be held and just leans right into us. She is very overwhelmed I'm sure. She just looked around all day. She kind of looked sad, but that may be the expression that has always been on her face. She looks exactly like the pictures we have received of her.

At dinner last night, she ate some carrots and peas. She went to bed without any tears.

We used Skype in the evening to introduce her to her grandparents and her crazy aunt, uncle, and cousins in New Hampshire. Anyone else interested, you can find us under my name or our yahoo address, I think.

The videos aren't uploading nicely right now. I'll try to get some on here later in our day.

Thanks for your prayers!

Kraig

Days 1 & 2 in China

The trip to Hong Kong had its ups and downs, but mostly was very good. We flew Delta Thursday afternoon to San Francisco with a layover in Salt Lake City. We went from a small plane to a really small plane, but the ride was fine. We arrived in SFO around 6pm, but our flight to Hong Kong left at 1:30am so we had a lot of time to burn.

We decided to rent a car and check out the coast and maybe the Wharf. Big mistake. It took at least an hour to get our car and then the fog started to roll in and we had no idea where we were going. We never made it to the coast or to the Wharf. We ended up just driving across the Golden Gate Bridge over and back, and then back to the airport. Worst part of the trip by far.

The plane ride over the Pacific was good. Cathay Airlines is pretty awesome. The employees were nice and the planes were nice. Each passenger had their own video screen, so when we weren't sleeping, we were watching a tv show or movie or playing video games. We got some pretty good sleep on the plane maybe 4 hours total or so for each of us. It actually seemed to go by pretty fast for a 13 hr plane ride.

Inside the cable car

So we arrive in HK at about 6am Saturday morning and take the hotel shuttle to the hotel. At that time of the day, our room isn't ready of course. So, we can't sleep in a bed yet. We decided to take a shower at the pool/spa area and then go back (there was lots of back and forth everywhere we went) to the airport to eat breakfast and burn some time until our room is ready. We got our room around 10am and we were exhausted. We crashed until noon. We set the alarm to go off so we wouldn't sleep all afternoon. So we forced ourselves to get up. Not very pleasant.

Pic from the cable car

Andrew with a sand crab

What a stud

We ended up going to the beach and taking a gondola ride on Saturday. The beach wasn't that great, but the cable car ride was pretty cool. It took us to the top of a mountain and was a pretty sweet view. We were exhausted again after dinner and went to bed around 8pm. We all got a good night's sleep and we defeated the jet lag in one day! Woo hoo!


Sunday morning we went to HK Island and went to Victoria's Peak. This again was another scenic thing. This mountain gives you a pretty amazing view of the entire city of HK.

Hong Kong from Victoria's Peak

Then in the afternoon we flew to Chongqing. Debra (our guide) picked us up at the airport and took us to the hotel. She explained how the next few days would go while the driver was zooming in and out of an insanely disorganized mess of traffic. I thought we were going to wreck a few times. It was hard to pay attention to what she was saying. Trish and I were both just totally fixated on silently back-seat driving for this guy. It was crazy.


So we just now got back from dinner here in CQ. There is a pretty neat little pedestrian area right here by the hotel that has several blocks of shopping, but not much for restaurants. We ended up in a tiny little spot (maybe 4 tables). It was a total Dances With Wolves moment. They couldn't speak English and we couldn't speak Chinese. The menu had no pictures and no English. Trish brought some menus from Chinese restaurants in KC that had dishes written in English and Chinese. But they didn't seem like they could read it or make it or something. They ended up bringing a menu out that had dishes in English and Chinese, but none of it was anything familiar. We picked two dishes and waited to see what it was going to be.


One of them was a chicken dish that looked like brains, but tasted pretty good. I don't even know what the other one was, maybe like an almond chicken, but man it was hot. I took one bite and the two little waitress girls started giggling. Nice.


They laughed at us the whole time we ate. We had no idea how to eat this stuff. They brought a small ice bucket of rice - like a wooden bucket for old homemade ice cream makers. We each had a little bowl and a little plate, one of those weird Chinese soup spoons and chopsticks. What the heck were we supposed to do? They ended up scooping the rice and putting it into our bowls, but then where do we put the brains? On the little plate? Pile it on top of the bowl of rice? Just eat it right off of the serving plate? They had a great time watching us.

None of us can do chopsticks either. One guy tried his best to teach me, but I'm just too stupid. I don't think my fingers work right or something. Uncoordinated American.


Tomorrow is Gotcha Day! We are free in the morning and then we meet Maria around 2 or 3 pm. Big day. Big big day. Please pray that Maria won't be too shell shocked and that we would quickly figure out how to communicate with each other.


Hopefully we'll have more tomorrow night. With pictures!

Kraig

The Final Stretch

Well, here we go. The week is finally here and man is it a busy one.

Last night (Monday), we had Meet the Teacher night at school. The kids found out who their teachers are and seem to be really happy with who they got. Andrew got the teacher that Jakob had last year. He has had the same teacher as Jakob 3 out of the 4 years at this school. Weird. The teachers notice how different they are right away. Jakob is shy and reserved. Andrew is outgoing and quite a jokester. Always trying to get the ha-ha's.

Tonight was their first fall baseball game. Andrew plays up a grade on Jakob's team. They won the game, but really didn't play all that great. Pretty rusty. It was the first game with steals and kid pitch from a mound. Lots of easy steals and walks.

Tomorrow is the first day of school. I am taking the day off from work to get ready for the trip. Trish has done 99% of everything since day 1 of the adoption saga a few years ago and has done an awesome job. We are mostly packed, but have a lot of loose ends to tie up. Hopefully I can make myself useful the day before we leave and not get too much in the way. I can vaguely see a method to her madness, but it's hard to keep up because she changes it so often. She has some sort of a system and I have no desire to mess it up.

Thursday we leave KC. Layover in Salt Lake City. Land in San Francisco around 6pm. Our flight out doesn't leave until after midnight, so we are going to rent a car and sightsee to burn some time.

Friday we fly. And fly. And fly. And fly. 14 hours or so. Brutal. My legs are already getting antsy. Also, we lose like 15 hours. So strange. My brain hurts just thinking about where exactly that time goes. It like goes into some temporary storage in the sky until we fly back.

Saturday morning around 6am we land in Hong Kong. Hopefully we get some sleep on the plane so we can be awake most of the day to get used to the time change quicker. China is 13 hrs ahead of KC. Pretty much exactly the other side of the Earth. Should be some cool stuff to check out.

Sunday we fly from Hong Kong to Chongqing, like a 2 hr flight or so. This is where we stay for the week. It's one of the biggest cities in China, so we should be able to find some stuff to do.

Monday is THE day. Gotcha day! We meet Maria early in the afternoon and a new journey begins.

So there's our last week as a family of four. Gonna be a doozy. We'll keep you posted.

Kraig

2 Days, 6 Days

We leave in 2 days and meet Maria Li in 6 days!!!!  I've got 2 suitcases packed, just 2 more to go.  The rest is mostly clothes.  The 1st 2 suitcases are Maria's clothes, donations to the orphanage and gifts to the nannies and our guides in China.  I've been to Wal-Mart an Target about 20 times the past few days.

The boys have a baseball game tonight and then start school tomorrow.  Kraig is taking off work tomorrow to help get everything ready to go.  Our flight leaves Thursday at 12:30.

We can't get to blogspot in China, but we'll send my sister updates and she will post them.  We'll try to do it about everyday, but we'll see how it goes.  China is 13 hours ahead of us here in KS.

Thank you all for your support, advice and prayers.  Please  pray for us as we continue this journey in China.  Also, pray for Maria Li and her huge transition into our family.

Better get back to cleaning and packing.

Trisha

2 Weeks

We leave in 10 days and meet Maria Li in 2 weeks.  It's hard to believe.  It's actually Tuesday morning in China now so, in 2 weeks we'll have one full night with her.  I wonder if any of us will get much sleep?  I'm continuing to pack and prepare for our big trip.  I went by the boys' school today to tell them that the boys will go to 1 day of school and then will be gone for 2 weeks.  They didn't seem like it would be that big of a deal.  The first couple weeks of school are just review.

I finished my last day working as Early Childhood Coordinator at our church.  It was sad to leave because I really liked the job and loved all staff I worked with.  I've become such good friends with the Children's Ministry staff and we'll continue to be friends and Christ Community will continue to be a big part of our lives.  I just want to be able to focus on Maria Li and our family and not have the pressure of an outside job.  Those of you who know me know I can get stressed out a little :)

Now, we're on to the next chapter in our lives...  Keep checking in.

Trisha