Gotcha Day, June 17

Here is the big day everyone is waiting to see. Sorry it's taken so long, but with the internet problems in China and now this terrible Jet Lag, I feel very out of sorts! For example, I'm rarin' to go and it's 12:17... in the morning! On June 17, we all had to get up in Beijing and be on the bus at 5am. We each had flights to our provinces (like our states) to meet our children. Everyone was on time, imagine that!!!! We traveled with one other family that I will expound about more. Chad and Cheri Strange and their 3 girls, Taylor (9), Addison (7) and Chloe (2 1/2, adopted from China when she was 11 months). Their parents, Fran Strange and Bob and Carolyn Merrill also traveled with them. Fantastic bunch that is now family to us... I was glad to travel with another family for the company, but then thrilled because I found out that Chad Strange is a medical doctor. Not knowing what to expect, it made me feel secure about picking up our child that might have problems eating, or who knew what else. Also, they kind of new what would happen as they had adopted before. Not to mention the children they had with them were precious! Our flight was the first one of the entire group's that left. We left Beijing at 6:55 for the 1 1/2 hour flight. It was weird as we all parted that I would soon see these new friends with their brand new children. Imagine leaving 13 different families that were all expecting their babies at precisely the same time. It's almost overwhelming emotionally. We arrived at Tiayuain City ( I will fix that spelling later). We met our interpreter, Verena, a 22 year old college student at the airport. We then went to our hotel to check in. When we got to our room, there was a crib in our room and I almost cried! I was really happening! After lunch, we tried to rest before we met in the lobby to go to the Civil Affairs office to meet our children. Needless to say, I couldn't even close my eyes! We met in the hotel at 2:20 and left for the longest car ride of my life. When we arrived, we reported to this very plain, smoke-filled (thank goodness people can't smoke inside in the US, it's horrible!) office. We went up the elevator and got off in a really dim hallway and waited for the workers to return from lunch. As we were waiting, the other family saw their daughter, Jolee, a precious 9 year old emerging from the shadows, down the hallway. I think my heart completely stopped for a couple of seconds. On our way to the office we had been making our plan to meet our children. "You take our picture and video, we will try and take yours..." kind of stuff. We were prepared for a hectic hand-off of children as the Strange family had experienced before. God was great. The actual hand-offs were 15 minutes apart and we were the only families there to pick up children. We got to watch their new family unfold and it was precious. Here is their video
Then, someone said, "Here comes your baby!" I won't make you wait any longer. Here it is..