Last stop - Guangzhou! THEN HOME!

Guangzhou is our last stop before home! We'll be spending 7 days here. This is where the U.S. Consulate is located, and where Riley will get her visa to come home.

Nick and Riley playing in the hotel crib. They were having a blast!

Look at that mischievous smile!

Do you see the sign in the background??!! Yes, it's STARBUCKS! We had one in our hotel! Sad thing was that this was the only cup of coffee I had because the rest of the time I was sick! Bummer.

Starbucks even allowed you to bring in food from outside. Food was extremely expensive, so Micky-Dee's was in our budget. It was not fun because I REALLY dislike McDonald's!

PEARL RIVER CRUISE

Our adoption agency organized a tour of Pearl River for our travel group. I still wasn't feeling that great, but told it would be worth it once it got dark.

Riley was extremely busy this night. This a rare photo of her standing still.

View of our dock as we left.

Nick is LOVING the boat ride!

This picture cracks me up! Here is a crew member demonstrating how to put on the life vests to everyone except us Westerners!

View out of our window.

YES, the view at night was totally beautiful!!! It was so worth it.

Trip to a "department store."

It was still pretty hot and humid, so Nick brought along the umbrella for shade. Couldn't really say no when everyone else in China does it! Riley still had no interest in the stroller and needed to be held close to me. It was wonderful, but at the same time it was a challenge for me because I still was not feeling well.

View of the hotel next door! Wow!

Another beautiful hotel.

The trees were really cool! See the long string-like-leaves hanging down?

Notice how the landscaper is smack in the middle of the shrubs! That's how they do it.

Most Chinese folks walk everywhere. I was so surprised at the majority of women that wore HEELS everywhere they went!

We walked through the underground tunnel that took you across the street.

Yes, too dangerous to cross above!

Under a tunnel and over an over-pass.

The view from the over-pass.

Finally. The mall!

By now, after the long walk in the heat, I was feeling REALLY lousy. The "mall" inside was more like an indoor Green Dragon or Rutts Market, but without food. Not what we were expecting.

Nick LOVED Ronald.

Riley waiting on the big kids.

Family Photos before we leave!

 Everyone!

Our guide Grace was amazing! Nick loved her just as well.

Our flight back to Beijing was WONDERFUL! The best airplane we've been on so far...thank goodness because our  flight from Beijing to home was the WORST!

The magnificent Beijing airport!

PLANE RIDE HOME

I don't have any photos of this basically because we were so totally exhausted, and really had a our hands full...literally. The kids slept almost the entire plane ride home...BUT we did not! We sat in the very back of the plane and we had turbulence the ENTIRE flight home!!! Ted and I both felt terrible...which is an understatement. We arrive home at Dulles Airport at 8 pm, but  actually this was 8 AM China time. The kids were wide awake and ready to go, but all we wanted to do was GO TO BED! We had to wait in line for everything as usual, but all I could think is don't throw up! Yeah, that was fun. Chasing after energetic kids with my arms full of luggage, and trying not to throw up after not sleeping for over 24 hours.

Riley's first car ride in the U.S.

Our first U.S. breakfast together as a family of four.

Thank you Cracker Barrel for the best food and service ever!

Nick and Riley checking out all the rocking chairs together.

Perfect ending to a whirlwind trip.

Ahhhh, so good to be home....with our two beautiful children.

Thank you!

Soon time to leave Riley's town

There was a beautiful park about two blocks away from our hotel. It's aways an adventure walking on the sidewalks to get anywhere because it's usually jam packed full of mopeds or scooters. I don't have pictures of it because I have Riley in my front-carrier while holding Nick's hand and fearing for our lives! Half kidding. Hopefully Ted has some good shots....you just won't believe it!

 

 

The park was really beautiful! This was the first day we had some sort of breeze,

but it was still pretty humid.

We went with Aaron and Julie and their daughters. Nick is walking beside them in his green shirt.

 

 

Teddy pushing an empty (pink!) stroller. We were really hoping Riley would take a liking to it. Nope. She only wanted me to hold her.

 

Nick and his little friend Lillie.

 

The park had amusement rides!

Looks fun, doesn't it?!

 

 

I decided to take Riley on a ride along with Nick...cause it just looked like fun! It was fun for about 5 minutes, but 20 minutes later? No, thanks that was way too long! It was the longest ride I've ever been on! I actually had to tell the man to stop cause I wanted off!

 

Everyone cooled off in the park waters.

 

Beautiful city!

 

This is our good-bye photo. We're preparing to leave our children's Provence and fly to Guangzhou where the US Consulate Office is located. Here we will meet up with the other adoptive families that we started with at the beginning of the trip.

(Our new daughters from left to right: Molly-18 months old, Riley-22 months old, and Kaylee-19 months old.)

 

 

Another good-bye photo, but also with our guide Rita.

Visiting Riley's Orphanage

We were so fortunate to have the opportunity to visit Riley's Orphanage in the town of Zhengzhou. We were exhausted and weren't sure if we were all up to the emotional trip, but knew that this was a once in a lifetime chance and we better not miss it!

  

 

This probably is one of the top 10 precious photos of a lifetime! We actually met the Nanny who took care of Riley AND NAMED HER!!! Many of you know the absolutely amazing story about Riley's name, but for those of you that did not hear it. I'll tell you....

 

Riley's Nanny speaks English, very good English actually, and she's the one that nicknamed our daughter, Riley. When we met her at the orphanage I could see how emotional she was when she saw Riley. She approached me and we chatted. She asked what we decided to name her. I told her we're keeping the name Riley, and she immediately started crying. I told her "Wait. There is much more to this story."

 

I told her that we were concerned about the cost of the adoption and were pretty stressed. I prayed that I needed to know if we were on the right track, and voiced how totally dense (and did I say STRESSED!) I can be at times and begged for something obvious to know that we should continue. Three days later we received a phone call from our agency. They told us about this beautiful little girl, and gave us all her medical details, and THEN finally told us that this is odd but the Nanny gave her an American nickname, Riley. I started crying immediately! I was pregnant only once in 2004, and went into early labor and lost a little boy. We named him RILEY!

 

As I told the story and watched her, she could only control her emotions and started crying! She told me how happy she was to know this, and how much she knows Riley is where she's meant to be. We hugged...several times! She then rushed out into the hallway. I could see she was overwhelmed with emotion. Names are VERY important in the Chinese culture. I can only imagine how she must have felt knowing that she had such an important part in a child's life.

 

This was a view from the open air catwalk. Farmers were tending the fields. We could hear the sound of locusts very loudly.

 

This was the view from the other direction. You could see views of the town, which had many trees and grassy open areas.

 

Nick

 

Ted - Snapping shots EVERYWHERE!

 

Open of the Orphanage rooms. All rooms were painted with a color theme and decorated with children's cartoon characters. The rooms were all air conditioned. The man knelling is the Orphanage Officer who first brought Riley to us. He was a really sweet man.

 

 

This is a photo of our guide Rita. She was with us most of our entire trip to Zhengzhou.

 

Each room had a padded floor area for the children to roll around and play.

 

These are some of the featured children on our agency's website.

 

I liked this saying.

 

Ted holding up Nick so he could see the baby in the incubator.

 

An award from our adoption agency!

 

Beautiful artwork behind my handsome hubby. Everything in the building was handpainted. Amazing! What an experience.