Shopping Day

January 7, 2004

Our 2nd night with Jaden went much more smoothly than the first. She went to sleep around 7:30 and slept until 12:30am. She had a bottle and played a little until 2:30 and then went back to sleep. She is desperately looking for whatever she used to sleep with, which makes me sad. I guess she used to suck on a blanket to sleep and the blankets we have aren't the same. I am hoping to see a blanket like she had at the orphanage when we go on Saturday and maybe we can find something like it. We went to Wal Mart today as a group and it was very interesting. In some ways it was very similar to our store (only cheaper) and in other ways it was very unusual. There were some strange food items around and that whole section smelled absolutely nasty! These people eat some weird stuff. We only got scolded once by an old lady about not having enough clothes on Jaden. She rode around with me in the Baby Bjorn and had a good time. She was a little fussy on the bus back to the hotel because she was pretty tired. We tried to get her to take a nap and at first, it looked like she was going to, but then she pooped and it was downhill from there. She had quite the little meltdown and inconsolable for a few minutes. We finally made her a bottle which helped temporarily, but then the fit was back on. Finally, we loaded her into the carrier and Derek walked her up and down the hall until she went to sleep. She has been much happier since then and is playing on the bed with Derek right now. She has the cutest smile you have ever seen and has giggled a lot today. She is starting to get more vocal and has the cutest little girly voice. She puts EVERYTHING in her mouth so we have to really watch what we give her to play with. We are going to give her a bath tonight and hope that we have another good night.
Checking Daddy out (and check out that pollution out the window, it was so dreary and foggy in Changsha)


Loves the remote, just like Daddy

Look at all those teeth!

Another cute hat (though she hated it!)

Provincial Museum

January 8, 2004

Jaden slept all night from 9:30 to 6am!!! We were so excited! She woke up in a great mood, just singing and smiling. We tried to find the cell phone this morning to call Mom and discovered that we had misplaced it somewhere. I guess we left it on the coach yesterday and someone kindly turned it in to Tracy so we got it back, whew! We left around 9:30 to go to the Hunan Provincial Museum and little miss spicy baby had one of her tantrums on the bus. She fell asleep finally, but boy, what a show on the way! The museum was very beautiful and is the pride of joy of Hunan Province. Three tombs that were about 2100 years old were discovered here and the relics from the tombs are displayed in the museum. One of the people buried was a 50 year old woman who was very well preserved and she is on display. She is the oldest and best conditioned corpse ever found. She still had her hair and was very soft looking. It was amazing, the tombs were buried very deep and there was silk, embroidery and all kinds of dishes and other treasures buried there. All of it was in excellent condition and didn't look 100 years old, let alone 2100! Very interesting. On the way back to the hotel, Jaden was tired and once again showed us that spicy side. She is now taking a really good and much-needed nap.
Only picture we got at the museum, cameras weren't allowed inside

Goofing off in the playroom at the hotel

More Shopping

January 9, 2004

Well, today we were supposed to go to the Xiang Embroidery Institute but the power was out there so we went shopping instead. We went to a department store called Apollo and a Friendship store. We really didn't see much that we wanted, but we did find some Chips Ahoy cookies and some fake cappuccino mix. We ate lunch here at the hotel at a place called Food Street where they have all kinds of Chinese including the super spicy Hunan dishes. It was OK, but I don't think we'll eat there again. We're kind of sick of Chinese food! Jaden is doing so well, her little spicy fits are getting better. I think she is starting to figure out that we aren't leaving her and she lets us comfort her more now than before. She wore the pink marshmallow outfit today and got lots of smiles from the grandmas. She seemed very comfy in the Baby Bjorn today and likes walking around looking at things. I guess she was used to getting a lot of activity and gets bored hanging in the hotel room, as do we! She has been sleeping really well.
More pretty in pink

In the granny approved marshmallow snow suit (no need for this at home, but we're glad we have it here)

Chinese New Year decorations

Pretty in red (we dressed her in this for her visa pic)

Zhuzhou City

January 10, 2004

Today we had the privilege of visiting the Zhuzhou SWI where Jaden spent the first 10 months of her life. It was an experience I will never forget. Jaden's room was on the 5th floor and we got to see where she slept and played. There were basically 3 small rooms. One was packed with cribs, literally wall-to-wall, one had walkers and a few other toys and the one in the middle was where they changed and bathed them. There was one little girl that kept staring and waving at me and looking at her just broke my heart. I cried almost the whole time we were there because all I wanted to do was bring those sweet babies home with us. The orphanage was built in 1960 and right now there are 290 babies with 90 caretakers. It was clean, but very cold and we understood why they kept so many layers on the babies. The caretakers smiled and played with Jaden and gave her a cookie. They gave us back the photo album I had sent and she recognized it right away. I was so glad to see it because I asked about it the day we met her and they just shook their heads like they didn't know about it. She really seems to like it and we think she saw it quite a bit at the orphanage because she really did seem to recognize us on Monday. Jaden handled the trip much better than we expected. We were on the bus for an hour and a half both ways and she slept through most of the trips. We got to see where she was found and that was so special to us. We went around to six of the babies' finding sites, but didn't get to see the other 3 because they were too far away. Overall, it was a good day, but a very sad one for me, as well. We didn't take the video camera because we weren't sure if they would allow it, but we did get some pictures. We've just hung out in our room since returning and my cold is really aggravated after all the crying and being out in the wet and cold weather.
Before we left to go to ZZ

The reception room at the SWI

One of her sweet caretakers

With a cookie and her photo album

Some of her little roommates

Driving back, checking out her album

Holding on tight to my sweetie

Xiang Embroidery Museum

January 11, 2004

Finally today we got to visit the famous embroidery museum. We saw some beautiful pieces and saw ladies that were working on several pieces that they said would take years to complete. One lady was working on a portrait of a man that she's been working on for 2 years! We bought a panda embroidered on light green silk for Jaden's room and a book about Hunan embroidery that has some samples of the different styles in it. On the way back from the factory, we stopped at McDonald's and were SO happy! We both got Big Macs, fries and they even had fried apple pies! It was the best meal we'd had in many days. This afternoon we have more paperwork to do and then we'll go to our last group dinner at a local restaurant. We are looking forward to changing locations tomorrow and we feel we've been here long enough and will be one step closer to home!



The one that she'd been working on for 2 years!


The picture in the back is what they're embroidering

Jaden checking it out

"W" liked the place too!

McDonald's!!! Best Big Mac I ever ate!


Last dinner in Changsha, chomping on a chopstick

On to Guangzhou

January 12, 2004

Today we slept in and then packed for Guangzhou. We flew out at 2:30pm, which is just about Jaden's worst time of day. She was pretty grumpy for the first part of the flight and wouldn't really chew on anything, so I think her ears were bothering her. She finally went to sleep on me for a while but woke up when we started to descend and screamed for several minutes. Then after we landed, we made the mistake of loading her into the Baby Bjorn too soon and she threw one of her famous spicy fits while we waited to get off the plane (which took what seemed like hours). Of course, once we started moving, she was Miss Happy Girl again. What a stinker! Luckily, after that performance, she was perfect for the rest of the day. We went exploring in the White Swan Hotel and saw that is was full of American families that are also here adopting. One of our travelmates found a local Chinese restaurant that had an English menu so we decided to go to dinner there. The food was very good and Jaden was great at dinner and ate lots of rice off chopsticks. It was very inexpensive too (only 130 rmb ~ $16 per family). Jaden slept pretty well but is SO active at night. She's driving us crazy scooting around and kicking the mattress all night!
Couple of cuties in red

Our travel peeps, Hunan 1

Medical Exam Day

January 13, 2004

This morning I had to go and check more paperwork, most of which I had already filled out. Then we headed out for our first day of shopping in Guangzhou. We borrowed a stroller from the Holt office at the Swan and Jaden did OK in it, except that she hated it when we stopped moving. She dozed for a while so we explored several shops before heading back to get ready for her medical exam. We were amazed how cheap everything was. We bought Jaden her first pair of squeaky shoes (red with a white butterfly) OH and we actually found some Dr Pepper today in a little grocery store! We bought 4 and had to pay nearly a buck each for them, but we would've paid MUCH more! On to the medical exam, the office was close so we walked there as a group. Then Jaden had to go to 3 different rooms for a very basic medical exam. They weighed and measured her in one room, looked at her ears, nose and throat in another, and then checked her temperature in the 3rd. She handled it all very well and only cried a little. They said she was 25 inches long and weighed 7.5kg or about 16.5 lbs. This was done with her fully clothed, so we figure she's actually a bit less than that. Not too sure about the length either as she was very squirmy. Derek took a cute pic of her today with a Cheerio stuck on her face. :)
Exploring in Guangzhou

Dr. Pepper!! Yee hah!!

Lots of smiles


Cheerio face

At the medical exam