The Williamson's

We left our hotel at 5:00AM. We dropped off a few of the families who were going to another province before getting dropped off at our terminal. Our guide in Beijing traveled with us and 5 other families to Nanchang. We took a bus to the plane. We landed in Nanchang just after 12:00 Noon. We checked into the Jin Feng Hotel. Oh we forgot to mention we stayed at the Poly Plaza while in Beijing. We ventured to a restuarant down from the hotel. There was only 1 person who spoke English and it was broken English at best. The menu was all in Chinese but had pictures. We had Nanchang noodles, some kind of beef plate, and dried duck. The duck was interesting. The noodles and beef were good.

Today, a family in our group gets their baby. They received their referral in June but had lost paperwork from the US Immigration which delayed their travel. They are also from Allen and were on our flight from DFW. They are also on our flight back to DFW. Their daughter is 15 months old. We are so excited for them.

Tomorrow we go to the Civil Affairs building to pick up Danni. We are super excited and nervous at the same time. Debi has Danni’s bag packed and ready to go.

Today, we went to Tian An Men Square, Forbidden City, and the Great Wall. As we were driving to Tian An Men Square the guide told us that the buildings in Beijing were mixed between new and old buildings. He told us how there is no such thing as pedestrians have the ride of way. Drivers honk at you and you move or you get run over. It was crazy. Unless you are in a pack, they would get really close to running you over. We walked parts of Tian An Men Square and Forbidden City. The people selling stuff are really aggressive. There was one guy who walked with our group for almost a block trying to sell stuff. We ended up holding both of Nick’s hands so they couldn’t give him anything and he was sandwiched in between us. Our morning walk was our exercise for the morning according to the guide. We stopped for lunch and got a lesson on how to buy Jade. Knowing the difference between fake and real jade. Yup, you guessed it…Debi got some Jade. After lunch, we went to the Great Wall. WOW is all we can say about it. We had an hour and a half to walk the wall if we wanted. Debi’s mom and Nick walked up 1 flight of stair then stayed back. Debi made it to the first big beacon tower and hung out with a few of the ladies. Chuck and another guy from the group went to beacon tower 12 before turning back. On the way back to the hotel, we drove by the place were the Olympics were in 2008. We were going to go to this restuarant down the street from our hotel for Peking duck, but we were tired from walking the Great Wall we opted to eat at the hotel and call it an early night.

There were 30 adults and 10 kids in our group. Nick even made him a new friend. They got to carry our group flag once during the tour. We will try to post a few pictures from today, so check them out in the photo gallery.

We have to get up early to catch our flight to Nanchang, Jiangxi. Our luggage we are checking have to be in the hallway for the bellboy to pick up at 4:30AM. We have to be checked out of the hotel and in the lobby any 5:00AM. Our flight is about 2 hours to Nanchang. One more day to pick up Danni!!!

Nick is doing his homework in the mornings before we leave out and on the plane.

First, Happy 70th Birthday Dad! We know there is a separate post about it but we wanted you to know we are thinking about you and miss you!

After waking at 3:15AM on Thursday (11/18), we landed in Beijing at 4:39PM local time which is roughly 2:39AM Central Time. We had great flight attendents. Even though we didn’t request a child’s meal for Nick, they made sure he had one. If he was sleeping during the time they were passing out meals they brought it when he woke up. It was a funny going through customs because they had 2 types of lines (Chinese National and Foreigners). Because there were so many going through as Foreigners, they moved some of us to Chinese National side to get us moving. We ended up in one of those lines. They guy even tried to make a joke when he couldn’t see Nick over the counter. By the time we got through customs, got our luggage and found our guide it was 6:00pm local time. Wow are things different here. I never heard so many horns honked in a 30 minute ride from the airport to the hotel. We got checked in and ventured to the local market to get drinks.

We experienced a lot fo firsts for our first day of the trip..
1) First Trip our of USA
2) First plane ride that had 3 meals
3) We met our first family who is in our travel group. We were on the same flight from DFW too! They leave in Allen.
4) First time ride in the BACK of the plane
5) First time to see people drive on the shoulder like it was a lane
6) First time to see 4 lanes turn into 1. Seriously, this isn’t like the lane ended or anything. They made their own lanes which merged into 1.
7) First to see a bank in the hotel

There are so many more but it has been a long day. We have an early morning. Go on tours…Tinamen Square, Forbidden City, and the Great Wall. There are 6 families in our group the entire time we are in China. There are a total of 13 families here in Beijing then we split up into our children’s provinces. We merge back together as a group in Guangzhou. We leave at 5:30AM local time for Nanchang on Sunday morning. We are scheduled to pick Danni up on Monday at 9:30AM.

We are calling it a night.

Happy 70th Birthday Dad!!!

Sorry, we are missing your birthday! We will celebrate it when we get home. Love you and miss you! One of your favorite daughters is bring home a special little present from China. HINT: a chubby cheek little granddaughter (AKA MeiYing) for you to spoil!

We started out this morning at 3:00AM. Our flight left out of DFW on United at 6:30AM to San Francisco. We landed ahead of schedule which according to a frequent flyer on our flighgt from DFW to SFO that is not normal. The flights are normally late. We had lunch at 9:30AM PST and now are waiting for out flight to Beijing.

We leave in 1 day to China. Nick is super excited about it. If anyone asks him “how are you doing?”, he will answer the question then tell them “I am leaving for China on November 18th to get my baby sister.” He helped us put together her bed and pack over the weekend. We hope Danni likes pink because we let him pick out some clothes to take with us for her and they are all pink.

Danni’s room isn’t complete yet because we don’t know which clothes to unpack. Thanks to her cousins (Tori & Samantha) she will have many clothes already we just don’t know her exact size yet to put them in the dresser.

1 week from today we will be relaxing in a hotel room at the airport. Our flight leaves at 6:30am. To eliminate anyone having to get up in the middle of the night to take us to the airport, we will be at the airport hotel. Our dear friend Chrissy will be taking us to the airport and leaving us there. Our sweet neighbors and friends will be watching the house and whatnot while we are gone.

We started this adoption journey over 4 years ago. We aren’t quite sure what we have been doing for the last 4 years that we still aren’t ready to go, and we leave in less than 3 weeks. ACK! Her room became a storage room after the wait lengthen.

We made lists for what to pack, what we still needed to buy, what we had to get done before leaving, what to buy when we get there, and etc. There is a list for everything. Maybe a list for the lists we have?! HaHaHa

Our what to pack included a list for Chuck, Debi, Nick, and necessity items. It wasn’t until Debi’s dear friend, Chrissy, pointed it out what about Danni’s clothes that we realized we didn’t have that on the list. We had diapers, formula, wipes, and etc but no clothes on the list. Minor detail we guess.

We cleaned out the nursery, so we can get it ready for her arrival. It isn’t complete, but you can at least see the floor. There are stacks of boxes to unpack with clothes from her cousins, Samantha & Tori.