Dr's Appointment

We had Alex's first ortho appointment today and it went well.  We will start casting in 2-3 weeks, both us and the dr agreed that a few more weeks won't hurt anything and it will do wonders for his bonding to us.  She said that the casting will most likely take more than the typical 6 weeks because of his age and that she will also most likely have to do a tenontomy (cutting a tendon so his heel will drop in the proper alignment).  It's a relief to finally have a plan to get him on the road to keeping up with his sister!  Who by the way started school again after being off for nearly 5 weeks.  Good to be back in a routine!

One of the little guys from our travel group had heart surgery last week and he is not doing well.  I'd like to ask for thoughts, prayers or whatever you believe in for little John Asher and his family. 

 I love spaghetti!

Spring in the Rockies

 We woke up to a little bit of snow today, Syd had fun helping daddy shovel.

Indoor concert by the Dahl Sibs!

One Week Home

Here's some new pics of Alex.  He's starting to crawl everywhere, it's so fun to watch because he's getting really zippy!  He's starting to sleep better and doesn't need us in the room constantly with him.  If he wakes up, he usually just play in his crib and babble.  He's finally letting us get some sleep!

Syd's having a hard time adjusting to not being the only child any more.  She'll go from being super helpful to acting out in different ways.  I'm finding it harder to deal with Syd's emotions and neediness than having a new baby in the house.  James starts back to work on Monday so I'll have both kids all day for the first time by myself (Syd's on spring break).  That should be fun!

It's amazing to think we've already been home for 

one week. It hardly feels like we were gone except James and I are still exhausted!  

But we are so happy and blessed to be

a complete family, finally.

Settling in

We're all slowly settling in at home and getting used to being on Colorado time again.  Except Alex REALLY likes to get up at 11:15pm on the dot to clap, sing, bounce and whatever else comes to mind for about 3 hours.  He needs an audience or he fusses so James and I take turns listening to his concert laying on his floor. 

He had his first visit with the pediatrician today and he did really well, until the 4 shots and the 2 unsuccessful attempts at drawing his blood.  So I get to go back on Monday to try the blood draw again but I will make sure he's super hydrated!  We're seeing the ortho dr on the 29th for a consult on Alex's feet and will also have a consult with PT.  So the drs appointments begin :-)

Sick at the Dahl House

So I made it through 2 1/2 weeks of food in China with no problems and as soon as I eat at a restaurant at home, food poisoning!  I won't go into detail, but I was out of commission for about 24 hours.  I owe James big time!  Now he's down with a sinus infection.  Thankfully, Alex is over his diarrhea and Syd is healthy. 

Syd is the only one who's been getting a decent nights sleep.  Alex will only sleep if James or I is holding him, he's been really fussy!  At least Syd can sleep through all the screaming :-)

Oma and Opa took Syd to Build-a-Bear yesterday, Syd got a snow leopard named Spot and Oma picked out a bear named Sunshine for Alex. 

Home at Last

I'm finally getting to post my own blog!  Thanks so much to the M's for posting for us while we were gone!  

So after traveling 28 hours, we finally landed in Colorado Springs Saturday evening.  We had friends and family waiting for us, Alex even gave them a few smiles.  It was great to see everyone and to find out we had real, cold milk in our fridge at home with home made chocolate chip cookies.  We've really missed the milk!  Anyway, our flights went really well considering we were in the air for about 17 hours!  Alex slept almost the entire time, which is why I'm posting at 4:00 am :-)  Syd is still asleep after an hour of crying from Alex.  She did really well on the flight also, she slept on and off and helped with Alex.  She really travels well, just doesn't like traveling for so long.  Does anyone?  

Hanging out during our 6 hour layover in San 

Francisco.

Shamain Island was very different than 6 years ago.  Everything was either torn up or covered in green tarps for construction.  So many of the businesses are gone.  I'd say there wasn't much more than a dozen shops left and most of them are in tiny, dingy rooms that can barely hold all the merchandise.  The quality was never great on the island but it seems to be lower than it was.  It's hard to find some of the shops because of the construction, one place didn't even have steps because the sidewalk was torn up.  Syd got 3 free necklaces there so we would tell our travel group where they were.  The food seems to have improved from what I remember, either that or I'm not as picky as I used to be.  We found a really good German restaurant called the Orient Express, and yes, it was in an old train car.  Lucy's is still there but a lot of people got sick after eating there so we didn't risk it.  The White Swan hasn't changed a bit, except they seem to charge for everything!  But the breakfast buffet was still super yummy, now I have to figure out how to make runny eggs again.

Feeding the fish at the White Swan.

The Orient Express with Jerry, Chris and Liam

Last Day!

This has been a wonderful trip, long, but wonderful! It was very much the same as our trip to bring Syd home 6 years ago, just over a week longer. We are all ready to come home and not live in hotels anymore, use bottled water to brush our teeth, smell the smells that always linger in the air, hear the construction at all hours, the really scary driving. We definitly won't miss the breakfast buffet, our new friends, someone else doing laundry and cleaning our room, the good food, McDonald's being delivered to our hotel on a bicycle, the wonder of a totally different country. I wouldn't change a thing, except the carsickness from the crazy bus rides :-)

Alex is such a joy! He's mild mannered, always babbling, has a great smile, and is such a fun little guy. He's so different than he was 10 days ago (has it only been 10 days?). He couldn't crawl, stand, hold his bottle, say "more" in ASL, go to bed or wake up without crying. Now he falls asleep and sleeps through the night (for now) without any fussing, stands with help, crawls everywhere, and is not shy about telling us he wants more food! We'll be working on the screaming for more food when we get home!

Syd has been wonderful!!! She's having frustrating moments when Alex needs more attention, but she has been such a trooper! She helps with Alex and plays with him, even changed a diaper or two. She's really enjoyed being in China and exploring the Chinese culture. She is such a great big sister. We have a rough road ahead of us with all of us adjusting to our new life and Alex's treatments, but we are ready and excited to have Alex running around and riding bikes.

This will be my last post until after we get home. Our flight leaves in the morning at 8 am and by the time we land in Colorado Springs, we'll have been traveling for 28 hours or so. Not looking forward to that, but if all else fails, we'll put Alex in the Ergo. He falls asleep immediatly when he gets in there :-)

Thoughts from Syd

I like the zoo because there was a panda and big cats and there was a elephant and there was a giraffe. At the super market there was a tub of snakes and snakes skin and we saw star fish and sea horse in bags and we saw scorpion in a boll and we saw a turtle in a boll and we saw a lot of mushrooms on the road sand the cars were driving on the road. I did not like the scorpions in the boll it scared me. To pick the scorpions you have to pick them with chopsticks. I got a tiger at the zoo his name is saber he is a nice tiger. Saber sleeps with me. I like saber because he has stripes and he is nice and he sleeps with me.I am having a good time I am seeing cool places in China. The driving is very scary in China. This is our last day for the trip. We are just hanging around the island today and we will be packing and we will be shopping. See you soon from syd.

2 More Days

We're leaving for home in 2 days and I think we're all ready. But we have a bit more to do before we fly out. Today we went exploring on and off the island. We went to the food market off the island and that is an interesting experience. Lots and lots of different kinds of mushrooms, herbs, dried starfish, dried lizards, snake skins, live turtles and live scorpions. One of our group members got a scorpion and he's going to find out from our representative how to eat it. So it's in their room, alive in a baggie!

Today was our Red Couch Photos. For those of you who don't know, it is a tradition for adoptive families to get pictures on a red couch at the White Swan Hotel. I got pics of our group so I hope I get the order right with the pictures since I can't label them myself.

First is our family, next is Jerry, Chris and Liam, next is Bob, Susanne and Ty, and last is the Beall family. Of course Alex was the one who kept crying, poor kid kept tipping over :-)

Tomorrow we're off to the zoo and we have our consulate appointment in the afternoon. Too bad the consulate isn't right next to the hotel anymore.

Sick kids

No new pics today. Alex has bronchitis and saw the hotel dr for his mystery medicine. Well, only the brown minty smelling one is a mystery. We know what the other 2 are. Syd is coughing and feels yucky, James has a cough and I've had a sore throat start tonight. So we've pretty much stayed in our room today, Syd and I ventured out for diapers and wipes, found hers and Alex's outfits for our "Red Couch Picture" tomorrow. We're going to venture over the river tomorrow to go to the market, depending on how everyone feels and the weather. A lot of our group has come down with one thing or another. All the babies are on antibiotics and half the adults are sick. The joys of being stuck in hotel rooms for most of our trip.

I'll post some pictures tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Alex!

Today is Alex's first birthday! Our CCAI rep had a cake sent to our room and most of our travel group came to our room for a party. The cake was very tasty and Alex has definitely has a sweet tooth, he ate an entire piece of cake!

We didn't have any touring or paperwork today so we just hung out. We went for a walk around the island in the drizzle, but it was nice to get out of the room. The pollution isn't noticeable here like in the other cities which is a great change. During our walk, James and Bob played the Chinese version of hacky sack with some locals. They were a big hit! Tonight we're going to another group dinner to an Italian restaurant, wonder what that will taste like. Tomorrow is the zoo. We're going to take Gracie and Madelyn with us so their parents can hang out with the grandparents before they leave for home tomorrow. That will be fun for Syd to have kids her own age to hang with. Tomorrow night is the Pearl River Cruise which we will be skipping as we don't like chicken feet :-)

Syd wants her friends to know that she is having a lot of fun in China but she misses everyone!

Guangzhou on Sunday

After the hot, sweaty weather yesterday it's now cool and as fresh feeling as a city of 13 million can feel. The Colorado families are loving it, the Georgia family, not so much :-)

Today we went to the Six Banyan's Temple where we got the kids blessed, of course Alex was asleep. As soon as he gets into the Ergo, he's out for the count. I added a picture of Syd in front of the temple where she was blessed by a Buddhist monk 6 years ago. It was so weird being there again, it was all exactly the same. Then we toured the Guangzhou Folk Museum and that changed a lot, but it is still beautiful. And of course we did some more shopping. Syd and Alex got a jade circle necklace and I got a jade Buddha to add to my "good fortune" necklace I got on our last trip to China. Syd finally got to spend her last 15 yuan from the tooth fairy on a small silk mirror.

So last time we were here I lost 7 or 8 pounds so I was excited to do that again. Not! All the food we've eaten has been good, but it wouldn't hurt my feelings if I never ate another noodle. We've had Pizza Hut, Subway, and Papa Johns and of course lots of Chinese food. They have Dominoes Pizza, McDonalds, 7-11, WalMart, Holiday Inn and lots of other places you wouldn't expect to see in China.

Tomorrow we're going to hang out around the hotel, explore the shops and try to find the playground. Most importantly it's Alex's birthday! He's doing really well with crawling and does it more and more. Especially when there's food involved! Syd is still liking being a big sister, except when Alex sleeps, cries or poops. But she and Alex love doing "This Little Piggy" with his toes. He just giggles up a storm! James and Syd are playing on her Nintendo DS, Alex is sleeping and I get to go do paperwork. Does it ever end????

Made it to GuangZhou-Finally

We had snow in Zhengzhou yesterday so it shut down the airport for a few hours but we only left an hour and half late. Got to Guangzhou around 10:00 and got checked into the White Swan around 11:30. Of course Alex slept a ton yesterday so he was up until 1:45, but we all slept until 8:00. The beds are still like sleeping on concrete but at least they have big cushioned pads to put on them. Our room has 2 twin beds so we going to try to put the pads on the floor for Syd because it's really hard to fit 2 people in a twin!

Alex had his physical exam this morning and he never cried once! He was a little trooper! Syd stayed at the hotel and played with the other kids in the Swan Room (a huge playroom hosted by Mattel) and she had fun while we were gone. Shamain Island is very different than 6 years ago. The Asian Games are going to be here in November so there's a lot of construction going on, all the pretty paths are torn up with construction equipment every where. We can hear the jack hammers up on the 10th floor because there is so much going on. There's not near as many shops as there used to be so they really try to get you into their stores by telling you they have the best deals and the most beautiful baby. We did a tiny bit of shopping, mostly because we needed somewhere to get our laundry done. It's so hot here and I didn't bring any short sleeve shirts so we had to go shirt shopping.

Alex is crawling now! He's not getting very far yet, but we've been working on getting his knees under him to move instead of pulling himself along with his arms. He gets so excited when he crawls that he gets to going so fast he scares himself and plows into the ground face first! But he's doing really well. He has trouble getting to sleep and it takes him forever to stop talking and rolling around, but once he's out, he's out. We've also been working on him standing up and he's doing that a lot now! He laughs every time he stands! He loves learning new things and just giggles and smiles!

Here's a picture of the snow, Tyler and some other shots.

Day 6 - part 2

Here is a picture of Bob, Susanne and Tyler on Gotcha day (4650 & 4651).