We have had quite a bit of snow now. Megan has mixed feelings about the snow. She knows that it is very cold. Jenna and Matt have taken her sledding in our back yard. It has a slight slope. Megan loves it. She screams all the way down. The first time she screamed, I thought she was unhappy, but she reassured us that she was having a blast. We drove around last night and looked at Christmas lights. That was a lot of fun! We sang Christmas songs in the van. She knew many of the words to the songs. We had a great time! It is hard to believe that Christmas is only a few days away. We hope that everyone will be healthy. Jenna is currently suffering from a bad sore throat. We hope that will resolve quickly and not spread to anyone. We hope that everyone is enjoying this time of year as we remember the great gift God gave us, Jesus.

Well, this week and next are very busy with visiting different doctors. We had an appointment with the dentist on Monday which went horribly. We are trying to locate a good pediatric dentist which takes our insurance. Megan had a huge fear of the dentist chair. I (Janet) sat in the chair and she sat on my lap but she was very very unhappy. We go to the Neurologist tomorrow and then the disease infectious doctor and cardiologist next week. We don't anticipate any issues to pop up however this will provide a base line on Megan. This way if anything comes up later, we have a decent idea what shape she is in. Pray that she will handle these doctor visits well. She is not a big fan of doctors.
Megan is doing well. She is busy doing school with the other kids now. She enjoys coloring, playing with playdoh and she is starting to write a few letters. She is learning to enjoy listening to stories. She can also count well. She can count to a hundred with a little bit of help. Megan is also doing well in her sunday school class. It will be interesting to see what Christmas day will be like for her. She loves the Christmas lights!

We had a nice Thanksgiving. Megan did well during the holiday. We spent part of the day with one side of the family (37 people) then the other side of the family (9 people). It was great to be with all the family. Megan enjoyed seeing everyone and meeting some family for the first time. She especially enjoyed her first time on a trampoline. Hope everyone's day went well.
Over the weekend, we put up our Christmas decorations. Megan loved the tree and all the lights. It was so much fun with her.

Well, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. We have so much to be thankful. Last year on Thanksgiving Day at Kevin's sister Donna's home we announced that we were going to adopt a child from China. We had no idea it was going to Megan at that time. We thought that God was directing us to a baby in China. Wow, God had other plans. Megan has been such a blessing to our family. Megan is doing so well. She is learning quickly! We are busy attending many different doctors at this time. It is like a "tune up". We are going to many specialists just to get a base line on her in case anything were to come up later. As I have mentioned, we have seen the ophthamologist and will be back in February. Instead of seeing pictures about 4 inches from Megan's eyes, she can see about 2 1/2 - 3 feet. We are encouraged. We have been to the orthopedic doctor for her arms. She doesn't have full rotation of her hand. It is something that she is born with and there is not much that can be done. This is just fine because Megan can do many, many things, just not everything. Our next visit will be the neurologist. This is in December to make sure there was no brain damage with the nystagmus. It is extremely unlikely that there is a problem but it is worth checking out. Later we will have a visit with the cardiologist and the disease infectious doctor. After those appointments, then hopefully the "tune up" will be complete. It takes a lot of time to do all of this but we are so grateful that we live in a country that has great medical care. We are grateful that we live close to Chicago because some of these doctors are at Children's Memorial Hospital. There is so much to be thankful. Everyone in my family is healthy and is doing well. We will be headed off to Kevin's sister Donna's home tomorrow for Thanksgiving and will be able to share it with 37 people there and then go to Janet's brother Ted's home for dessert where there will be 9 people. Isn't it funny how family sizes can be so different. Happy Thanksgiving.

Well today was an interesting day! Megan went in for her physical. She did o.k. but has such a fear of doctors. She made it through the appointment with quite a bit of crying. The doctor is going to order for some blood to be withdrawn so we can see how she is doing. We hope that will be next week sometime. We are going to the orthopedic doctor on Thursday. She seems to be having some issues with her forearms so we want the doc to check that out. The exciting news for the day was that Megan received her glasses. She was so excited. When she looked into the mirror, she was beaming from one ear to the other ear. Anyone who came into our home today was greeted by Megan with her finger pointing to her new glasses. She is very excited. She has been very good about keeping them on so far. She seems to be seeing a little bit better. We have a long way to go with her eyes but this is a great start. We are encouraged that there was some improvement.

Well we had a busy day with Megan today. Kevin was able to attend the eye doctor appointment too. We were very pleased with the doctor and the office. Everyone was very nice and encouraging. We ordered glasses for Megan today. It won't be her last prescription, but we need to start somewhere. We will be going back for another visit in February. We will then evaluate the condition of her lazy eye more closely. Hopefully some work can be done, however we are coming to the end of that window of time to help that lazy eye. Megan did very well at the doctor's office today. She did not want to cooperate with the eye drops. Hence it took three times to get her eyes somewhat dilated. She did o.k. with the machinery for her eyes but didn't really like it. You can tell based on her response that she has had this before but I question how lovingly and gentle the physicians were in China. The doctor gave her these plastic, roll up sun glasses so she could handle the light with her dilated eyes. She loved these! She wore them all the way home and couldn't wait to show her siblings. She thought that she looked pretty cool in them. It was funny! Megan's glasses will arrive next Friday so we can't wait to get her started on this journey! We hope that she will keep her glasses on and not play with them or continually take them off.

PRAY!!!! We are going to the eye specialist on Thursday for Megan. We are grateful that we were able to move it up one month from the original appointment. We are anxious to see how it goes and of course hoping for the best! Megan is doing well. She is learning the ABCs and 123s and colors. Her vocabulary is expanding quite a bit. She says many words but we are not sure how much she understands. She seems to be a clever girl so we think she knows more than she is letting on. We have checked out some nursery rhyme cds from the library and she loves them. She also enjoys Matt and Jenna's suzuki music. She listens to the suzuki music and plays an air violin. Very cute. She is a big auditory learner. She is meeting new people all the time and she handles that very well. We have attended church one time since we have been back and she did very well! She sits patiently for about 1 hour and 15 minutes for the service. We will see how that goes as time goes on. We are so glad that she doesn't grieve anymore. She hasn't grieved in over a week. She is feeling more at home all the time!

We went to church today for the first time since we have been home. It was nice to see some friends. Megan did very well for her first day. She sat through the service very well. She then joined Kevin and Janet in the 3rd and 4th grade Sunday School room. She did great with the older kids. We hope to put her in the kindergarten Sunday school soon. We just want to make sure that she has adjusted somewhat. After church, we treated Megan to McDonalds (one of her favorites). As we pulled into the parking lot, she saw the golden arches and shared a big smile with the family. We asked her if she wanted some french fries and she became very excited. When we asked her about Coca Cola, she waved her hands in the air and shouted Coca Cola. It was really cute. Most kids get that excited on a roller coaster. Wow.
Good News: Megan has not grieved in about 3 - 4 days. Yes!!! She is learning the routine around the house. She is a parrot and repeats everything that anyone says. We had to put her through the initiation process of being a George. We had to see if she likes Oberweis ice cream. We are glad to say that she passed with flying colors.!!! She enjoyed the whipping cream too. Megan and Jenna are the queens of whipping cream in our family. We are going to try to get into more of a schedule this week so we will see how it goes for everyone. It is most difficult for Kyle. He obviously has more to make up and it is currently a bit overwhelming. We are praying that he uses his time well and remembers to try his best in his work! Jenna and Matt are going to try to get back to their instruments this week. It is a good thing that Megan likes music! Between the guitar, viola, violin and the piano being practiced everyday, it is not a quiet house.

Well, Megan is doing better now from the flu. Unfortunately, the flu is running through the family. Kevin and Janet came down with the flu on the same day. That was miserable. Matt and now Jenna has it. We are waiting for Kyle's turn. It has been a difficult transition back to the States with the jet lag and the nasty flu. It was a circus in our home last night. Kyle was off hiding in hopes not to get the flu. Kevin and Janet were running from Matt to Jenna helping them with the side effects of the flu. All at the same time, Megan is grieving in bed. Her grieving is pretty bad at night time. There is not much that soothes her. It was a crazy time. We are praying that Megan's grieving will become less and less everyday.

It is late on Saturday night. We had a rough day today. Megan woke up today with the flu. The poor thing was sick all day and couldn't keep anything down until about 10pm tonight. We felt so bad for her. She was trying to communicate to us in Chinese but it was difficult. We were able to figure out some words eventually. We had a low key day as the jet lag has hit us all. We are hoping for a good day tomorrow and that Megan wakes up feeling well.

We are home! We are sorry that we didn't post anything for the last few days. When we left Nanning City and flew to Guangzhou. Megan was a hoot on the plane. When the plane took off, she threw her arms up and said, "yoo hoo!". We think that is a sign of her liking roller coasters. In Guangzhou, we stayed at a very nice hotel along a river. The river was beautiful at night. Many building along the river had different colored lights. It was beautiful. It wasn't as beautiful during the day because of the amount of smog. It is sad how much China is effected by the pollution. It is extremely popular to smoke cigarettes in China. Our country has really cleaned up the smoking issue compared to China. The traffic was much better by our hotel in Guangzhou than in Nanning City. We were excited that there was an Italian and American restaurant. There was a Starbucks too. That was a treat. We found out that Megan likes Chocolate Creme Frappacinos. During our time in Guangzhou, Megan had a doctor's appointment. That was interesting and reminded us how grateful we are to have our medical care here in the States. We also had some more appointments to make everything legal. One morning, Janet and two other moms ventured to the inner city of Guangzhou to a clothing market. First of all the taxi ride was quite interesting. The total ride both ways was a total of about six dollars. We were in the cab ride for about 15 - 20 minutes one way. The cab driver came very close to hitting a pedestrian! At the clothing market, we were able to bargain quite a bit on items. Many items were knock offs of American brands. There was a lot of begging on the street. We also witnessed a couple holding their baby that had a large abnormal growth on the back of the head. They were looking for money as well. It is amazing in that culture that if you don't fit the right mold in your looks, you will bring shame. It is quite sad. Oh, yes, we went to another temple while we were in Guangzhou. We had seen several temples by this time. It is very similar to visiting Europe and visiting many Cathedrals. After awhile, they all start looking the same. One thing that has been hard with Megan is the grieving. When we switched hotels from Nanning to Guangzhou, she was very sad. We are pretty sure that she was uncertain if we were going to stay or leave. She is such a brave little girl.
Yesterday, we traveled for about 24 hours. She was a trooper. She did very well considering everything that is going on in her life. Jenna and Janet are still her favorites. We are working on the bonding thing with the males, however it is coming very slowly. It was great to land at O'Hare yesterday! It was fun to see family meet us at the airport. That was so sweet of them to do that! We then came home to a sign out front of our house welcoming us home. Megan then went into our house and found the piano. Wow, does she love that! So we have now been home for one day and we are feeling a bit tired and out of sorts. We are grateful for the dinner that was provided tonight and are looking forward to the others that are scheduled. We just don't have the motivation or energy to tackle full life yet. We did get the dogs today and she thought they were fun. We were expecting her to be very afraid, but she handled it surprisingly well. Thank you so much for your prayers during our trip. Megan has a lot of adjustments now that she is in our home. Please continue to pray for her and for us. We want to reach this little girl's heart. She is a sweet little girl. ( I mean very little. She is 6 years old and is only 30 pounds)

Today was our last day in Nanning City. We went on a tour to a mountain with a look out tower which was 9 floors high. Then we fed Koi fish. There were hundreds of them in the water. It was a lot of fun. Then we went to a temple. Very interesting.... It is interesting watching others bow down and worship at the temple. After the tour, we bought some lunch. As you can see on the picture, we bought pig brains. Kyle, Matt and Kevin actually ate it. We girls chose to take a pass. They said it was similar to slimy tofu. Anyway.........We spent the afternoon wandering around Nanning City. We came across a market. Wow, that caught our attention. They had the live chickens ready to butcher and they had fresh pig feet. Oh my! Jenna wanted to get out there very quickly. Everyone is very nice but Jenna is tired of everyone staring at her and Matt. The highlight for the day was that Megan allowed Kevin to rub her back to help her during her grieving time today. She also allowed him to put her on his shoulders. That was a big deal. He is far from a favorite but that was a step in the right direction. Megan also allowed Kyle to put her on his shoulders. That was also a big deal. We are sure that over time, it will get better and better. Thanks again for your prayers. We are currently doing pretty well. I am at the tail end of my nasty cold (Janet) and Matt is doing okay with his. Everyone else is healthy. Well, we must go to bed, we must leave the hotel at 5:45am for the airport. Tomorrow, we head for Guangzhou. It will be nice to have a change of pace. Even though Megan doesn't understand, I am sad for her that we are leaving the only place that she has ever known. This will close a chapter in her life. We must trust and know that God has big plans for this little sweetheart.

Today is Friday. We are doing well. We have spent time at the local park that is more like a park/carnival with a big pond. It is actually very nice. We also have spent a couple of days in the pool. Their outdoor pool is huge. It is a little bit bigger than olympic size. It is funny because we go to play in the water but the Chinese are very serious about their exercise. Yesterday there were about 20 people in the pool swimming for their daily exercise. Megan is doing well. We are calling her Xiang (Shang) for right now. This little girl has gone through so much change in the last few months. We did find out that she spent 4 years with the same foster family. They were very good to her and have taught her alot. She seems to have some manners. She sits well at the table. She also interacts well with other children. Jenna is so far her favorite sibling. She has an attachment to Jenna and Janet right now. She has been a joy to our family! Everyday, we are feeling more like a family of six! Megan is a singer, dancer and a big talker! She loves looking at herself in the mirror. She is also getting used to the Western toilet too. Yeah! We have a free day today, so we are going to walk the streets and explore Nanning City. It is pretty safe here. Everyone is happy to see us. (Especially our blond hair and blue eyed kids) We are so grateful for the prayers from all of you. Thank you for remembering us. Thanks for all of you that have responded to our blog. It has been encouraging to read those. Our intention was to update our blog everyday, but with four kids here, we have been quite busy. Hope all is going well at home. Be grateful for the sunshine at home and the clean air. The pollution is horrible here and the sun rarely comes out due to the heavy layer of smog. We are so blessed to live in the country that we live in!

Megan is here! It all went well yesterday. We met her in a room with many other parents. She walked in the room and knew right away who we were. She came to Janet and called her MaMa and Kevin-BaBa and the boys - GuGu(big brother) and Jenna - TseTse. She was very excited and playful. She was playing on a rocking horse for a long time. She interacted well with everyone. Surprisingly, there were no tears for Megan. In fact, she was quite the fire cracker. She enjoyed being the center of attention and very outgoing. Wow! When the orphanage people said goodbye, Megan was completely fine with them going. After meeting Megan, we came back to the hotel room. It was a big party. We were dancing and singing and playing all kinds of games. She was so happy. She was a chatter box too. She slept well through the night.
Tuesday, Oct. 14th
Megan is officially a George. We went through all of the paperwork with the Chinese officials. They interviewed us and and we signed the papers. Today has gone well for the most part. Megan has started the grieving process for her past. So far, she has had three difficult times during the day. She would just start crying out of no where. It is hard to watch. Many times we end up crying with her. This is very normal for orphaned kids and actually healthy for them to express it. We have been calling Megan by her Chinese name for right now. We will gradually call her by her American name when the time is right. This girl has gone through so many changes. Even though she is six years old, she is probably equivalent to a 4 or 5 year old in size. We get to go shopping for her tomorrow at the Wal-Mart. That should be interesting. We are anxious to buy her a swim suit. This girl loves water! She isn't too crazy about getting shampoo out of her hair in the bathtub and have the water run down her face. Every fountain or pond we pass, she wants to get right by it. She has a healthy appetite. Last night she had 2 fairly large pieces of pizza. This morning she ate 2 bowls of congee (rice, milk, meat or vegies) and a whole plate of scrambled eggs.

We are here! We are so sorry that we haven't been able to update our blog since we have left. We were having computer problems in Beijing. We just flew to Nanning City today. This is the city that we will meet Megan. First, we will share with you about our travels. We are doing well except for some yucky colds. Our flight on Wednesday from Chicago to Shangai went well. It was about 14 hours in the plane. Everyone kept busy with movies, games and reading. Once we arrived in Shangai, we had a 7 hour lay over. We had a little snag in our plans. The airline did not have a ticket for Matt or Jenna. It was interesting watching Kevin communicate with the men there. This was our first experience of "sticking out" in a crowd. Kevin and Kyle towered over so many people. Matt and Jenna brought so much attention with their very blond hair. Jenna was becoming offended because of their pointing. It is so different here. Well, after the lay over and then a 2 hour flight to Beijing, we made it finally. Of course we couldn't find our guide at first, but we knew that she would be able to find us more quickly than us finding her. We arrived at our hotel at 1am on Friday. (China's time is 13 hours ahead of Chicago)

The next morning, we had a guide and driver waiting for us at 8:30 am to go on a tour in Beijing. It was an excellent day. We went to the dragon lady's summer palace. It was beautiful! We also visited the Giant Pandas at the Beijing zoo. How fun to watch them!


Our hotel was very nice except, there was no air conditioning in the rooms. It is the "off season" so they decided to turn off the air conditioning. It was quite warm.

On Saturday we had another tour of Beijing. This time we saw Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and we climbed on the Great Wall. There were people everywhere. Jenna and Matt were asked several times to pose for pictures with various locals. One local pumped up Kevin by asking for a photo with him.

We are all still adjusting to the time difference. We thought it would be hard to be up to leave the hotel at 5:30 am but we were up by 3:00 AM anyway. We should be well adjusted right when it is time to head back home.

We are in Nanning now and preparing to meet Megan tomorrow afternoon. What an exciting day that will be. We just arrived back to the hotel after a trip to the grocery store. It was interesting trying to cross the street with all of the motorbikes, bicycles and cars. Pedestrians do have the right away however that doesn't always appear to be true. The city of Nanning is about the population size of Chicago. It is fairly quiet here in the city. There are no sirens anywhere. You hear an occasional honk of the horn. Many people are on their bikes. Many times there would be two or more on a one person bike. It is nice here today. It is about 85 degrees and not too humid.

Prayer Requests!
So many of you have asked what you could pray for and these are some of the prayers.
1. Pray for our safety not only getting to China but also while we are there.
2. Pray for all of us to have good health for the entire trip.
3. Pray for this little brave girl, Megan that she will feel loved and accepted. We pray that she will feel very comforted and it will help ease her fears.
4. Pray for our all of our hearts and attitudes in China. We will all be very tired during the trip.
5. Pray for minimal "bumps in the road" regarding the trip and the finalizing of the adoption.
6. Pray for the communication needed while we are there with Megan.

There are so many different things to pray for especially the big ones. There are also all of the little things to pray for as well. So here is a partial list of needed prayers. We hope to be updating this in China. Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers!

Well, we have an itinerary for our trip. Here it goes.
Wed. 10/8 - Leave O'Hare at 10:35am
Arrive in Shanghai at 2:05pm on 10/9
Layover for a LONG time
Leave Shanghai at 9:15pm on 10/9
Arrive in Beijing at 11:20pm on 10/9
Fri. 10/10 - sight seeing in Beijing
Sat. 10/11 - sight seeing in Beijing
Sun 10/12 - Fly to the province of Guangxi where Megan (Fuxiang) lives
Mon. 10/13 - "Gotcha Day" That means that we meet Megan for the first time!! Now she will be with us permanently.
Tues. 10/14 - Fri. 10/17 - We stay in the province of Guangxi and bond with Megan.
Sat. 10/18 - Fly to Guangzhou
Sun. 10/19 - Mon. 10/2o - Spend time in Guangzhou
Tues. 10/21 - Appointment with the American Consulate to apply for Megan's visa
Wed. 10/22 - Back to the consulate to pick up the visa and get sworn in.
Thurs. 10/23 - Depart Guangzhou to Shanghai
Depart Shanghai to Chicago 4:24pm (China time)
Arrive in Chicago at 4:30pm (USA time)

We are going to China!!!!!! We heard yesterday that we will meet our Megan on October 12th. We are finalizing our travel plans right now. We are so excited but a bit overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done over the next 4 weeks. Keep checking our blog and we will try to put updates often as time goes on!

TA! TA! TA! TA! TA! TA! TA! TA! TA!

Yes, we received our travel approval! It was the best birthday gift that Kevin received on Friday (Aug. 29). We are waiting to find out our consulate appointment at this time. We will know that in 3 to 10 days. After the appointment is set, then the trip will be planned to exact days. It is now looking like October or November. They said that October was not an option before but things must have changed. One more step in the process and then we will be all ready to head to China to meet our daughter! Thank you for the prayers. Keep praying!

August 24, 2008

Well, the garage sale was a success! It was more than a monetary success. We felt such love and support from everyone's words that were shared. We were humbled by so many dear friends who rallied for this garage sale. We were richly blessed with money contributions and lots of items to sell at the garage sale. We were so encouraged this past weekend with the support of wonderful friends! We cannot thank you enough for your support and prayers. No TA yet so maybe this week will be the week.

August 19, 2008
First of all, we want to thank you all who have been praying for our family and our Megan. It means a great deal to us. We just know that God has great plans. Thank you so much.
We have been anxiously waiting for our TA (travel approval). We hope it will come this week or possibly next week. During this time we have applied for our Visas to China and are needing our FBI fingerprints to be redone. We just sent Megan's package the other day. We are so excited to have some form of connection with her. We sent her a mini photo album with pictures of family, pets and home. We also sent her two outfits in two sizes not knowing what size she is in. The adoption agency says that she looks small so we bought a 4 and a 5. We also sent a toy, disposable cameras and some candy that she can hand out to her friends. It is so fun!
We have amazing friends that organized a garage sale to help off set the costs of the adoption. We have that coming up on the 21st through the 23rd. We have been deeply touched by our friends' thoughtfulness and generosity. Wow! It will be exciting to see how the garage sale goes. Hopefully, the next entry in the blog will be about our TA. Keep praying!