Charlotte's first week home.

Charlotte has something to say!

Amelia's beautiful little face.

Brady playing ball.

Camden hanging out.

The four kiddos.

Our new family photo!!

Charlotte loves our dog Sophie.

The girls playing in their kitchen.

Amelia giving Charlotte a little too much love. Ha! Ha!

Bathtime

Charlotte having fun exploring her new home.

Charlotte had a tough first three nights home. She cried a lot at night but was fine during the day. On about the fourth day we could tell that she seemed a lot happier during the daytime and she began venturing out away from Mama to explore the house. On the fourth night after we returned home she began sleeping better through the night. By the end of the week she was doing great!

We're home!

The kids and Nonnie made an awesome sign for us for our return home.

Charles, the kids and Poppie and Nonnie on our first day home.

I love this photo of Camden. His face shows how happy he was to meet his new sister.

Charlotte has two great big brothers!

This mama was happy to see her kiddos!

Amelia looks so big compared to Charlotte. I think she has grown in the three weeks we were gone!!

Poppie met us at the airport in SF and gave Charlotte a little present (which she loved).

We went to the American Consulate yesterday at 2:00 with our group, did a "swearing in" for Charlotte, and collected the documents we need for her citizenship. Our process was finalized after this visit. Woo! Hoo! for the first time on our trip, I got all teary while we were doing the swearing in, after all of the hours of classes, paperwork, waiting, waiting and more waiting we finally had a new daughter!

We were prepared for a very long day with Charlotte and were afraid that she may have a rough trip home-having to sit for so long. She totally surprised us and was absolutely perfect. We had to get up really early to catch a plane from Guangzhou to Hong Kong. We had a few hour lay-over which was perfect, and then a flight from Hong Kong to San Francisco. We've never been on such a turbulent flight before! The flight attendants had to sit down and buckle up about three or four times it got so rough. Charlotte didn't seem to notice, I guess babies get jostled around a lot anyway! :-)

Poppie met us at the airport and then the car ride home. How was she going to take to the car seat?! Great! Never cried once and didn't seem to mind being strapped in. We were so happy!

Amelia and Nonnie were waiting for us at home. Amelia had lots of fun showing Charlotte their room. Needless to say, Amelia was very excited to meet her new sister. The boys got home from school a little later and they were equally as excited. It was a really great day!

Seeing Guangzhou

Our hotel, The White Swan

We found a great Italian Restaurant on the island. Charlotte enjoys pasta! Yay!

The families in our group who adopted from Guangdong Province in the lobby of the White Swan. We finish our adoption process tomorrow!

Charlotte was the youngest child in our group. What a pretty group of kids!! ;-)

Getting tickles from Daddy.

Having fun while walking around the Guangzhou Zoo.

At the zoo here you can go down into the monkey pit and feed the animals. This monkey jumped up onto his head. We decided to pass on the fleas. Ha! Ha!

This was a beautiful park in Guangzhou with walking paths that surrounded a large lake. Lots of adults were gathered in different areas dancing, singing karaoke, exercising, playing games, doing Tai Che (sp?) etc. We saw this in every public area. The Chinese are not embarrassed to do things in front of others/in public. We don't do this as a society back in the US. It's kind of cool!

There were lots of these types of exercise machines in the parks. This small park on Shamian Island even had a running track around it. Adults and children were always out using them. Charlotte wants to give this machine a try!

This was another beautiful park we visited with our group.

That's one large sculpture!

Charlotte loved the drums!

Our guide told us that this is one of the oldest dragons in Guangzhou dating back to the Ming Dynasty (about 600 years ago).

We visited "Seven Goat Hill". We kept thinking that our guide was saying "Seven Gold Hill" and we were surprised when we climbed to the top of the hill and saw this. :-) Evidently, Guangzhou is called "The Seven Goat City" in China. I think there is some kind of legend that gods came down and gave rice to the human race and somehow goats are intertwined in the story.

Hanging out at our hotel room. Like all babies, Charlotte loves the remote control!

What a cutie!!

This day we were visiting a traditional Chinese home. This one was built during the 1920's by a wealthy family. Most of these homes were torn down during the cultural revolution so this one that survived is a museum now.

Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday were Wednesday were all sightseeing or "free" days for us. During this time paperwork was processed and then we go to the American Consulate on Thursday the 12th (tomorrow) in order to finish everything up. We can hardly wait to get home and settle back in with Charlotte and see Camden, Brady and Amelia! :-) It was fun to see the city while we were there.

Visiting Charlotte's Orphanage

Look at those comfy Chinese child car safety seats!! We wonder how she's going to like being strapped in when we get home.

A little blurry because we were driving, but this shows the rural mountainous area that Charlotte came from. It was a very pretty area.

Charlotte immediately began running around and playing with her old buddies.

This was Charlotte's crib. She was in a room with three other little girls.

We were visiting during lunch time so Charlotte got one last meal. She and this little girl stayed together the whole time we were there. They had been roommates since arriving.

Charlotte dancing in the bouncy seat. She had a fun day!

Today we hired a driver to take us from Guangzhou to the city where Charlotte was born, about three hours drive away. It absolutely poured (a repeat of yesterday but worse), and we saw several accidents, but thankfully, we arrived safely. Charlotte looked a little puzzled as we drove up to the orphanage building, but as soon as she saw her old playmates she got so excited. We could see her true personality come out which was very fun. She ran from one child to the next and was smiling from ear to ear. We could tell that she was the Alpha Dog (we had been told she was the leader of the group) and some of the kids looked like they were thinking, "Look she's back, watch out!!" Ha! Ha! We had a lovely time visiting and it was so good to meet Charlotte's orphanage director, nanny and other ladies who work there. We are so thankful that they took such good loving care of her. God was blessing us even before we knew about our daughter Charlotte. We thought she might be upset about leaving, but she did really well and was fine to come away with us.

Six Banyan Tree Temple

Like all other 14 month old's Charlotte loves to explore and dig through things. She has had lots of fun with the suitcase.

This pagoda was at the Six Banyan Tree Temple.

You could throw money into this big pot for good luck.

People burn a lot of incense at the temples we have visited so far. The air is thick with smoke.

This temple has three huge Buddhas that are gold with priests serving in front of them and people bowing down. It was a good reminder to us that there are still million of people who serve gods made out of stone and wood and metal. It is easy for us to forget this and drives home the second commandment of the One True Living God.

In this photo you can see the sky had just begun getting dark. It felt like night in the middle of the day.

This man made beautiful paintings using only his hands as tools. We bought four paintings that represent the four seasons, so we've found our souvenir to bring home.

This is actual a silk embroidery but it looks like and oil painting. There was a room full of such masterpieces.

We went to a noodle house for lunch. In this picture you can see the man pulling one continuous long noodle as he throws it into the pot of hot water to cook.

This man was cutting noodles off of a big lump of dough and it would go flying and land in the pot of hot water to cook. Very cool to watch and very tasty too! :-)

We have lots of free time as we wait for our paperwork to get processed. We will be doing sightseeing and shopping trips with our guides. On Wednesday we went to the passport office to order Charlotte's Chinese passport that we'll use to go home. Today we visited the Six Banyan Temple and the Chan Family Temple/Museum. The Chan family were wealthy rulers in this area and they established their own complex to train their boys for official office. It was turned into an arts and crafts museum during the cultural revolution. While we were at this museum the sky got incredibly dark. It was the middle of the day but it looked like the night. A few people in our group said that it looked like tornado weather. Then it started to rain and, boy, did it pour!