Friday, October 31, 2008

We made it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have arrived after 16 hours up and over Greenland and Siberia down through China to Hong Kong. The kids & I did better than Paul on the flight. He didn’t sleep very much. We had our own entertainment centers; too bad just not too much leg room.

40 people in our group. We tour HK tomorrow morning and then have the afternoon/evening to explore on our own. It is 9:45 pm HK time (12 hours earlier than most of you). We are going out to explore a tiny bit and grabbing a snack. We have a 6:30 wake-up call in the morning but our guide assured us we would be awake by 4:00.

Just wanted to let everyone know we made it safely.

Love to all,
Liz, Paul, Sami & Jacob

Monday, October 27, 2008

3 days and counting...

We're down to 3 days until we leave! We are leaving Columbus at 10:30am on Thursday. We fly to Newark and then 16 hours later (!!!) we are scheduled to land in Hong Kong. On Saturday we have a tour of Hong Kong. On Sunday we fly to Nanchang and get Halle! We will stay in Nanchang until November 8th when we fly to Guangzhou for our US Consulate appointment. We stay in Guangzhou until 11/14 when we leave for our long journey home.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Introducing Halle Mae Chuan

Halle is 20 months old. Her birthday is 1/28/07, same as Grampa Ken!

Halle's Chinese name is Fu Chuan Zhi. Fu is actually her last name. All the children in her orphanage share this name. Chuan means "river" and Zhi means "place". She was placed in foster care shortly after she arrived at the orphanage. Our agency thinks she returned to the orphanage when she received her physical in August. She is in the Fuzhou City Social Welfare Institute, Jiangxi Province.

At her last physical (8/11) she weighed 23 pounds and was 32" tall. She has 16 teeth. Her primary foods are milk-based formula, rice and rice porridge. She can also eat egg, noodles, sweet potato noodles, meat soup, candy, snacks - all types of food. She especially likes to eat suan nai (a type of yogurt) and watermelon.

She can walk on her own with ease and can also scamper. She can go up and down the stairs when using the banister for support and can imitate the movement of adults. She can make the gestures for welcome, goodbye, congratulations, etc. In regards to language, she can now say phrases of one or two characters like "ba ba (dad), "ma ma" (mom), "nai nai" (grandma), and "bao bao" (hold). She can imitate the speech of adults and when she sees adults returning she takes the initiative to call to them. She likes to take the phone and make calls. She likes to go play in areas where there are a lot of people; she loves bustling places and likes to play outside. She also likes riding in cars. She plays with other children making games. She has a fairly open personality and is lively and active, however, she is shy with strangers and is a little timid. When in a familiar environment, she loves to talk and smile. She also likes to listen to music and watch TV. She is exuberantly energetic. She likes bathing and playing with toys. She has a fairly stubborn personality and is impatient and headstrong, wanting adults to follow along with her in order for everything to be okay. She is closest to the nanny and her family. She best likes to play in water and she loves to eat snacks.