Beautiful last
day in Nanchang!!!
Hello everyone!!!
Today is our last full day in Nanchang. We were
so pleased to wake up to absolutely beautiful
weather!!! Sunny and warm!!! Kiah has been
sleeping so well for the last several nights.
She goes to bed around 8 or 9 pm and doesn't
stir until 4 or 5 am. At that time we simply
change her diaper and soothe her and she will go
right back to sleep. She (we) slept until
7:15am this morning!!! We made our daily call
home and then decided to call Brandon's parents,
Chet and Carol who live in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.
They successfully weathered Hurricane Wilma.
Their yard is pretty torn up with several
uprooted tress. They didn't seem too upset as
Carol mentioned they didn't really like the
landscaping before so now it is easier to redo
the yard!!! We are so glad they are OK. They
then surprised us with another bit of news!!!
Brandon's brother
and his wife, Jon and Jen, just had their 3rd
child!!! WOO HOO!!! That makes 3 girls for
them!!! Their new daughter is named Kiersten
Alexa. She weighed in at 7 lbs, 13 ½ oz and
was 20 ½ inches long!!! WE ARE SO HAPPY FOR
THEM!!! It is kind of a little joke that we
keep having babies at the same time. Their 2nd
daughter Julianna was born 1 month after our son
Jacob. And their names both start with the
letter "J". Kiersten and Kiah are 8 months
apart and their names just happen to both start
with the letter "K". Built in playmates during
family get-togethers!!!
We also wanted to
congratulate Kevvin and Karen Kijak on their new
son Weston!!! CONGRATS!!! Kevvin is the youth
pastor at our wonderful church. He does an
awesome job with the kids. Katelyn really looks
forward to going to church and youth small
groups!!! So, congrats Kevvin, Karen and Landon
on your new addition!!!
Today was an outing
to a local park called The Peoples Park. It is
absolutely beautiful with lots of Chinese
architecture. The Chinese people like parks as
they all live in apartment buildings. No one
has a yard so the parks become very important.
We must have strolled through the park for an
hour. It was so nice outside and the scenery
was beautiful. I think if we had another day we
would definitely go back again. We then walked
to a nearby restaurant for a group lunch. MY,
the crowds we cause when we all walk down the
street together!!! When we approached the
restaurant we saw that a bride and groom were
outside greeting guests. They were having their
reception at the restaurant. We all starting
video taping them and we were surprised to see
them videoing us as well!!! When they saw us
crossing the street they ran up to us and gave
us bags of wedding candy and offered us fruit.
James told us how to say congratulations in
Chinese and we formed a receiving line and we
all shook their hands!!! They were so thrilled
to see us. We then proceeded up to our private
dining area. We had 2 separate rooms because
our group was so large. Mealtime is always
scary for me. I try to be very careful.
Several people have been sick in the past 2 days
including Kent and Rose who have the twins.
Some are eating wild foods and others have been
ordering ice in their sodas. I am trying to
stay away from both. When they started serving
the food I was happy to see them serving what I
thought was ribs. NOPE. It was mutton which I
learned was sheep. OK. NO WAY!!! I patiently
waited for the fried rice and broccoli. I know
I should be more adventurous but I am so worried
about getting sick. Brandon has been really
adventurous. He even tried the quail eggs the
other evening. We finished up at the restaurant
and headed back to the hotel. Everyone had been
talking about the DVD market so a group of
husbands headed over this afternoon. I stayed
back with Kiah so she could take a nap.
All of the babies
are doing so well. Kiah is very sensitive and
she is very reserved around people she is not
familiar with. In fact, if someone comes up to
play with her and she does not know them they
get "the lip". This is the Kiah pout which can
be seen in any of her Gotcha Day photos. She
does not like strangers or people touching her.
That is hard here in China as the Chinese people
view children as community property and it is
not uncommon for older Chinese woman to try to
re-dress your baby if they think she is not
clothed properly. That happened to us today at
the park. Perfectly fine weather but they
thought Kiah was not dressed properly. You
simply smile and move on.
We are planning to
take a short trip back to Walmart to stock up on
formula. We have been told that some formula
may not be available in different provinces of
China so we have to buy enough to get us home.
We will probably eat some sort of American food
for dinner. Sad I know. We will be spending
the evening packing as we have an early call
tomorrow morning. Our bags must be in the
hallway at 6:45am. The bellboys will actually
take them to the airport ahead of us and check
them in as a group. We then need to eat
breakfast and check out so we can all meet in
the lobby at 7:45am so we can head to the
airport. We will definitely miss James!!! He
is so awesome!!! It will be hectic for him
tomorrow as just as we board our plane, he will
be meeting the next CCAI group!!! Group 860 is
arriving tomorrow and their Gotcha Day is this
evening!!! So, the cycle starts again!!! There
are 10 families in this next group so 10 more
babies find forever families tomorrow evening.
CCAI has placed over 6,000 Chinese children
since opening their agency in 1992. James has
worked for CCAI for 10 years and he estimates he
has introduced over 1,000 babies to their new
parents. That is amazing and inspiring!!!
Tomorrow will be
Kiah's 1st plane ride. It will be
only about 1 hour from Nanchang to Guangzhou.
That is like an appetizer compared to the 15
hours we will be traveling to get from Hong Kong
to Newark!!! We are so looking forward to going
home!!! We have been looking at the weather
reports and it looks like the average daily temp
in Guangzhou is over 80 degrees. YEAH!!!! (I
am saying that now however I only brought 2
pairs of shorts and Brandon only brought 1!!!)
Thank you everyone
for following our journey. Our next update will
be from Guangzhou. We have less than 1 week
left here now. At this time next week we will
be on a plane heading HOME!!!
Love to Jake and
Katelyn!!!
Love to all,
-Nicole, Brandon and
Kiah!!!
