Finally in Beijing

We finally made it to Beijing.
Our flight out of Tampa was delayed, causing us to miss our flight to Beijing. United put us up in the airport Hyatt in D.C. w/ dinner and bfast vouchers, it was nice, but we had to arrive in Beijing a day later. Right now the jet lag is definitely present
We will do some sightseeing/shopping tomorrow and a night tour that includes "The Peking Duck" (famous Chinese restaurant) and Chinese acrobat show.
Our room in Beijing is very nice, having Kristy's mother Jeanette w/ us, every time we tried to book a room we had to rent two rooms (due to the bed situation in China; either two twins or one king) We found the Marriott Executive Apartments thru Expedia, it's a 1800 sf lavishly furnished apartment w/ 2 master bedrooms, and it cost less than renting two rooms at the other hotels. It even has it's own washer and dryer so we can wash our traveling clothes from the flight, and Claire and I can swim and dry our suits before putting them back in the suitcase.
I have to conclude with how well Claire did on the 14 hour flight. Of course she was the only one who could comfortably stretch out, but she did great; no complaints the entire flight. Except when we landed and Ella wasn't there, she couldn't comprehend "we are in China, but Ella's not here".

Leaving for China!!

We're all packed!! We have manged to stay within the China weight limit of 44lbs per ticketed person. Our plane leaves tomorrow at 9am. We should arrive in Beijiing at 1:30am our time. It will actually be 1:30pm on Friday in China. We will do some sightseeing in Beijiing and leave for Chongqing (Ella's province) on Monday.
We will probably meet Ella on Tuesday and then leave Chongqing sometime that weekend and fly to Guanzhou to complete our paperwork. We should leave on the 13th to come home. We're hoping to be able to blog while we are there, so we will try to post pictures here as soon as possible. We're coming Ella!!!

We Received our Travel Approval!!!

Last week we went to visit Josh and Amanda, and see Max and his new sister, Harper. Claire and Max has such a great time together.

Buddies!

Sweet little Harper

We returned on Saturday and our church family threw us a big baby shower. We are so thankful for our church family who have prayed for us and supported us through Ella's adoption. We received everything we registered for and more.
A big thank you to our friends, Rick, Kim, Holly, and Diana who did such a great job putting the shower together. We love you guys!

Ella has everything she needs

Claire racked up with the "Big Sister gifts" too!!

Claire tuckered out in her new booster seat after a day of shopping for the trip.

On Monday, we spent the day putting away shower gifts and making our final purchases at Babies R Us. Finally, at about 10:30 pm, Ed sat down to check our e-mail and low and behold there was an e-mail from our agency saying we had travel approval. We were so excited!!
Today our consulate appointment was confirmed so we are ready to go!! We made our flight arrangements and it looks like we will be leaving on March 29th (Ed's birthday) . That's less than 2 weeks away--I can hardly stand it!! Now we have a lot to get packing!!