More pictures

Raining in Chongqing

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First airplane ride!


to
Guangzhou

Medical check up

Good eater.....

Maybe could be a bit less messy?
 

What are little boys made out of?

Snips and snails and puppy dog tails!

Love!

Looks like Momma will be doing some hemming.

Must learn how to say move back in Mandarin

 

 

 

 

Dinner Anyone?

 

 

Hotpot

Frog legs, tripe, squid, unknowns, quail egg, kidney to be cooked in the hotpot



Love, love, love

And the best for last....pig brain

Family of Five

This is the only picture I have so far but I love it!  I was able to print this from a profile picture Guy had on Skype.  We were able to talk this morning.  Our son is very charming, active and was doing quite well considering being with his new Baba and Uncle Craig.  As you can see he has a great smile.  The girls both think he is very cute!  I think he may have been more interested in seeing himself on the Skype screen than us but then we are not that good at communicating yet.  Guy said he is speaking the local dialect so our Mandarin is not much help....not that it would be if we could actually speak it.  He wants to be called Yuan Wen Wu.  He likes ice cream. He ordered their dinner last night which I believe Guy said was fried mud fish.  It was very spicy.  Guy was choking and coughing on a hot pepper.  Wen Wu was patting him on the back to make sure he was okay so I think they are bonding pretty well.  He has been waiting for his forever family to find him but is worried for his caregivers and foster family.  We cannot wait for them to get home!

A letter to our son

 In a few hours you will meet your Forever Baba and I pray that God guides you and your Baba through these next scary days when you lose everything you have known.  I am sorry I cannot be there for you.  We felt it would be too hard of a trip for your sisters and Momma needed to stay home with them.  We have all loved you from thousands of miles away but you know nothing of us so we understand how emotional and frightening these next days will be.  Your sisters have loaded a box with crayons and toys of theirs to give to you and are looking forward to having a brother.  We are all praying you will like us and it will not be too hard for you.  We understand how much you will give up this day and how heartbreaking it can be but hope and pray that soon you will feel our love and know that God has brought us all together as a family and that we will always love you. 

Some pictures

Visit to village home

Kitchen

Women's home

Appetizers anyone?

Update from the travelers

Tuesday November 26 - Wednesday the 27- Left Newark airport at 12:10.  Craig and I were lucky there was no one in the seat between us.  Long long long flight, arrived in Beijing around 3 pm local time Wednesday.

Met the guide we had for Sarah's adoption, Dion.  It was good to see him again.  The air in Beijing was no where near as bad as the news reports were reporting.  Dion said cold air and wind came through the past week and cleared everything out.

Checked in at the King Wing Hot Spring hotel, same place Linda and I stayed the first time.  Nice room, very hot in the room, we turned off the heat and have the windows open.  Dion took us to the food court in the mall for dinner.  It was actually very good we had 3 different dishes from 3 different vendors.  I had my 1st and 2nd rides on a Beijing city bus.  The ride was not too bad.  I watched the woman next to Craig throw up in a plastic bag...3 times.  She was nice enough to take the bag with her at her stop.

November 28- Thanksgiving Day.  We went to the Great Wall today.  The traffic is worse than 4 years ago.  We climbed the same section I did the 1st time but this time Craig and I went all the way to the top.  It was cold and windy, temps were in the low 30's in town so it was in the 20's at the wall.  We climbed further this time then the last time, made it to tower 13.  Also, we found a bathroom almost near the top, had to use it just to say we did. 

Headed to lunch after the Wall and had some good food.  It was Craig, Dion, myself and our driver.  We have a car this time due to the fact it is only 2 of us.  Our driver is great.  He makes a 3 lane highway in to 4, He rides the white line and no lie, he squeezes between a bus and another car, just like someone on a motorcycle would do.  We have been so close to buses in town that not only could you touch them with your hand Craig said he could probably touch them with his tongue.  We have made U turns on an 8 lane highway, passed buses on a 2 lane road coming down from the Great wall, it is like being in a video game with this guy.  We attended an acrobat show around 5, it was very good.  After the show we played a real game of "Frogger" as we walked to our car.  You have to watch the cars, buses, motorcycles, bikes etc as well as anyone making a left turn, right turn or U turn as the traffic lights don't apply to these drivers. 

November 29 - Had a new guide today, Julia a 22 year old student from Beijing.  Went to Tiananmen   Square and the Forbidden City.  Had a good time there, as soon as you leave you are approached by everyone wanting to sell you something, plus a woman trying to hand me her baby....again, this happened last time as well.  In the afternoon we went to a section of town called Hutong City.  This area has very narrow roads and small homes.  Our guide must have thought it would be funny to put us in a bicycle rickshaw, as soon as Craig and I got on the tires we almost flat, then a 75 year old man hops on the bike to pedal.  Everyone was laughing.  People were walking faster then we were riding, we wanted to switch with him and let him ride.  They took us down some back alleys and we were separated from our guide.  

We then were invited in to a woman's house with a new guide.  It had a small courtyard and a couple of rooms off of the yard.  Once in the courtyard the woman closes the double doors and bolts them shut, the courtyard has stone walls all the way around about 9 feet high.  At this point I turned to Craig and said "this is where they harvest our kidneys".  We then went in to the sitting room and told where to sit and offered tea.  Craig let me drink it first so at least 1 of us could be awake.  Then the woman comes out of an attached room rubbing lotion on her hands.  This is the point where we figure our story becomes a 48 Hours or 20/20 story of the missing American brothers. 

We toured her house, the kitchen is on the opposite side of the courtyard as is the bathroom. If you have to go in the idle of the night you have to go outside to get to the bathroom.  In the end it ended up being a great tour, very eye opening to see how some people live and we got to keep all of our organs.

Our guide then took us to a market that seemed like the Times Square of Beijing.  This is where we had fried scorpion along with "Stinky Tofu".  You would think that with a name like that we would have not wasted the $2, but our 22 year old guide said to try it.  It smells worse then my brothers feet after he hiked the Great Wall...don't ask why I know what my brothers feet smell like.  The first bite was OK, then the taste and smell take over and it is disgusting!!!!  The worst food I have ever tasted.  The rest went in the garbage.  We did not try the 5" fried black spider or the 8" worm......yet.

Craig and I decided to take a walk last night and ended up near another mall.  We watched many different street performers from young kids to senior citizens dancing and singing.  When you watch the people they are no different then you and I.  We all want the same thing in life, to care for our families, enjoy friends and family and have fun.  The cultures are different in many ways but people are people. 

November 30- New guide today again.  Dion said it would be an "old guy", it was, he is in his mid 40's.  His English was not the best but he was very nice.  We went to the Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven.  I was to both of these places before but we managed to see different parts of them.  The temple of Heaven has many buildings some date back to 1420, 50 years before Columbus set said for the Americas. 

We went for a Peking Duck lunch and had some great food.  I think they see 2 tall American men and order way too much food.  We had duck, Chinese eggplant, a pork dish, noodles with chicken, vegetables, rice and then they deep fry the bones of the duck after they carve the meat.  Lunch was great.

Tonight we will head back out to see what is going on out on the street.  Tomorrow we fly to Chongqing, the flight is at 11:30 am., have not been to this city yet.  2 more days until I meet Matthew Wen Wu.  I am getting very nervous as to how he will react, a 7 year old leaving everything he knows to become part of our family.  I cannot imagine what he will go through.

Everyone reading this, thank you for the support you have given us during this adoption.  Thank you all for looking out for Linda, Sarah and Emily while I am away, I miss them terribly.  To my sister in law Barbara, thank you for your sacrifice of having Craig away for 2 weeks.  To Linda, thank you for bring strong while I am so far away....please don't get used to being a single mom.  Sarah and Emily I miss you soooooooooo much, I could really use a few hugs and kisses right now, please have some ready for when I get home.   

Beijing

Yesterday Baba and Uncle Craig arrived safely in Beijing and met Dion at the airport.  They are 13 hours ahead of our time.   After getting checked into the King Wing Hot Spring they took a bus to a mall and had dumplings for their meal.  They are spending Thanksgiving at the Great Wall.  It is a long drive through Beijing traffic.  Hoping they are having a great time and everyone is doing well.  We will miss having them home tomorrow!!!  Happy Thanksgiving!