Last post from Beijing!

Tian An Men Square - through the mist you can see the north entrance to the Forbidden City.

Alison and Sophie in the Forbidden City.

Charlene, Brent, Jada, Alison & Sophie walking through the Forbidden City.

One more picture from the Forbidden City!!!

A little 'Crazy' Kate kung fu action at our farewell dinner!

Amelia, Mitch and Zen enjoying dinner.

Sophie can't wait for dinner!

Sophie out like a light as soon as she was finished eating.

Our last day in Beijing has been very busy!  We went to Tian An Men Square and the Forbidden city in the late morning (after the girls had their naps).  It was beautiful, incredibly large and very crowded.  This is tourist season in Beijing.  Tour buses are everywhere!  After a late lunch at the hotel we walked to the pedestrian mall near our hotel.  It was fun to people watch and use our bartering skills once more.  It has been a very overcast day today and it is finally raining.  We have been very lucky with the weather through our entire trip.  We will be enjoying the breakfast buffet for the last time tomorrow.  We have all been explaining to the girls that they will not be able to have 16 different kinds of eggs, congee and fruit every morning at home!  Our flight leaves here at 4:20 in the afternoon tomorrow.  We will all be arriving in Vancouver at around 12:20 p.m.  We can't wait to get home!!!!!!!!!

See you all soon,

Brad, Alison & Sophie  XXXOOO

Hi Jonah - this is a picture of the Chef at our favourite restaurant at the hotel.  He has sent you something from his restaurant - he says you have to wear it when you cook Chinese food!

See you on Monday!! 

Olympic Moments

Sophie enjoying her breakfast of champions - scrambled eggs, baked sweet potato, peaches and cheerios! Notice the two fisted approach.

Sophie sleeping outside the Olympic Water Cube.  It is beautiful up close.

The famous 'Bird's Nest' - it was so crowded we stayed outside of all of the Olympic buildings.  The girls were a great attraction here as well.  Thank goodness for our translation card explaining about the babies - nodding and smilling just doesn't cut it!

Sophie still sleeping and Jada enjoying the crowds with Brent.

Sophie concentrating on slurping up her noodles.  They are slippery little things and require two hands to get them in her mouth!

We had another great day in Beijing!  The tour of the Olympic venues was fantastic.  Brad loved seeing all of the places we spent so much time watching on t.v.  The size of everything does not come through properly on t.v.  It was incredibly crowded and we were not able to go inside the buildings - we would have been waiting hours for each one.  While Sophie has been a great traveller, she's not that great!  We went to another market in the afternoon and Sophie managed to sleep for almost two hours of shopping.  The carrier has been indespensable (sp?) with all of the walking we've been doing.  Tomorrow's trip is to the Forbidden City and Tien An Men Square.  We can walk there from our hotel.  We have our farewell celebration dinner tomorrow night.  Somewhere in there I have to reorganize our suitcases ( and the extra bag we had to buy). I will try to post one more time tomorrow night - I can't believe it is almost time to go home!!!!

Love to all,

Brad, Alison & Sophie XXXOOO

p.s. Hi Division 4 - loved to see your comments!!!  Sorry I can't do anything about math , I'm sure you can tough it out!  I've missed you all - tell Jonah to check tomorrow's post, I'm working on a surprise for him!

Monday in Beijing.

Waiting for our immigration medical - they had great toys!!!

Sophie found her pretty dress in her suitcase - isn't she cute.

It's been another busy day - a girl's gotta have her beauty rest!

Hi from Beijing!  We spent the morning completing immigration medical check-ups and the afternoon shopping.  What a day!  Sophie is a great traveller.  She can pretty much sleep anywhere and through anything.  Everything went very well with the check-up.  Sophie is 7.9kg (bigger than we thought) and 69cm long.  The Doctor was very pleased with her development.  We can't believe how much she has changed in the past week.  She is still quite quiet and shy but only with strangers.  You might have noticed the pink blanket in almost every photo.  It has to go everywhere with us - my Mum is trying to get us a few more for home.  We wouldn't want it to go missing!!!  We are off to see the Olympic venues tomorrow.  And we might sneak in a little more shopping.

Love,  Brad, Alison & Sophie   XXXOOO

Climbing the Great Wall!!!

Sophie and Jada waiting for our delayed flight to Beijing.

First plane ride - very successful once we were actually on the plane!

Outside the Jade Factory (Zen, Kate, Jada & Sophie).

We climbed the other side!

Half way up - not an easy climb.

Sophie and Alison at a 'lucky tree' - the red ornaments are wishes or dreams that people would like to come true.  The tree is absolutely covered in red ornaments.  Sophie was facinated with them!

It was a very long day - Sophie slept the whole way back to the hotel.

We have had a great day today.  After arriving yesterday we all went to bed early and caught up on some sleep!  Today we went on a bus tour to the Jade Factory, the Great Wall and a Silk Factory.  It was a long day but a great trip.  The Great Wall was amazing - and incredibly steep!  We choose to try the side that was not as steep but our legs were still shaking.  Going back down was much harder than going up.  Carrying Sophie gave me quite a workout.  We were quite the tourist attraction while we were there - people wanting pictures with the babies, touching the babies heads and some wanting to hold them.  Sophie took it all in stride.  She has become quite the little flirt!  But she does not care for people reaching for her - she grabs on to me for dear life.  She is still quite quiet but the babbling is pretty much non-stop.  Guess she will fit right in at home!   Tomorrow is Sophie's immigration medical check-up.  We have to be on the bus by 7:40 a.m. - we will be getting everything ready tonight.  I think we will head to one of the large markets in the afternoon.  We still have some more stuff to buy ( we might need another suitcase too!).

Love to all,

Brad, Alison & Sophie   XXXOOO

Last day in Chongqing

Sophie eating lunch with Brad - notice the death grip on the cookie in her hand!

We walked to the restaurant this evening - this is a house on the cliff by the river.

Sophie walking off the huge dinner she ate tonight!

This is the view from the restaurant - the river is a tributary of the Yangtze.

Here we all are after eating a very spicy dinner - the girls are all very tired and ready for bed.

Today was our last day in Chongqing.  We had breakfast at the hotel (as usual) and then did a little packing while Sophie had her morning nap.  After lunch we went for a walk around the city with Brent, Charlene and Jada.  The girls love to be out walking!  They were both in their carriers swinging their legs and talking up a storm - Sophie just a little quieter than Jada!!!  We had paper work to complete for the Canadian Embassy. While I did that Sophie and Brad played with all of her toys and walked around the coffee table over and over again.  We all walked to a 'very famous' restaurant by the river for dinner.  It was traditional Chongqing dining with all of the dishes being somewhere between hot and amazingly hot!  We had a couple of dishes for the girls that were a lot less spicy - I ate those!  Sophie ate her biggest meal yet.  She was even too full for her bottle before bed.  We are headed for Beijing tomorrow morning.  All of us are wondering how the flight will go - I'll let you know tomorrow night!

Love to all,

Brad, Alison & Sophie xxxxxooooo

p.s. Hi Jonah!

She's a movin!!

Today was bus tour day!  We started at the Stillwell residence.  It was a beautiful house perched on the side of a hill.

This is the view from the Stillwell residence - it has been a very foggy day today!

We then walked to the 'Flying Tiger Museum' and watched an artist at work.  This museum held artifacts from the Sino-Japanese war and local art work (amazing combination).

We then travelled to the Eling Park where Sophie promptly fell asleep in the carrier!

Alison and Anna (our guide) listening to our tour guide - after climbing up I don't know how many flights of stairs in amazing humidity!  Sophie's still sleeping.

Alison, Sophie and Charlene walking back to the bus after a tea ceremony - Sophie slept through it all!

Sophie finally waking up - for the bus ride back to the hotel!  She usually wakes up full of smiles and giggles.

And now for the title of the post - she's a movin!!  Sophie has discovered walking with Mummy or Daddy (it doesn't matter who it is as long as she's moving).  It all started around the coffee table and now it is all she wants to do.  You can see how much she loves to move!  And yes, she really is that little.  She is 66cm long and we think around 15 - 16 pounds.  Her feet are too small for the 6 month Robeez I brought, but they still stay on her feet.  She fits all of the 9 month clothing and the size 3 diapers are a little bit big.  She is tiny!  The toys we brought with us are getting a lot of use now - she will even sit by herself  for a while and play with them.  Her voice is still quite soft.  She is using it a lot more though!  So far she travels great - she slept through almost the whole bus tour today.  But she gets very fussy is we are late with a meal or bottle.  Sophie loves to eat!  She tried my icecream tonight - talk about excitement.  Her whole body was shaking trying to get at the cone! Tomorrow is a quieter day - we are going to walk to a local market and try to find the local temple as well.  Then we have paper work to do and a special dinner before we leave Chongqing on Saturday morning.  Hope all is well back home,

Brad, Alison & Sophie

xxxooo

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

Sophie smiles all the time now!  Can you see her tooth?

We walked everywhere today - this is the square just outside of our hotel.  It is usually all lit up at night and the foot traffic never seems to stop.

One of the many small shops trying to temp you to buy their delicacies - this shop was selling squid, crab, shrimp and something they couldn't translate - we didn't eat here!!

Brad and Sophie outside one of the many McDonald's - there are  McDonald signs lining the street this was taken on.  We didn't eat here either!

We took the girls swimming this afternoon.  Sophie is a true water baby - she got everyone wet!

Sophie's first taste of birthday cake - she loved the whipped cream but wasn't fussy for the cake.

Out for the night!  Sophie is a great sleeper, but an early riser.  She'll fit right in at home.

We had a 'stick around the hotel' day today.  All of the families were trying to keep to the babies schedules as much as possible today.  Sophie ate everything in sight today - even my liguini dinner.  She is smiling and laughing and starting to play with her toys.  She is still quite clingy and loves to be carried around.  When we were out on one of our walks today she started singing to herself as she watched everyone go by.  We are starting to see her true personality now - still shy with strangers but not with anyone in the group.  We had a lovely dinner at the hotel with birthday cake and all!  Tomorrow we will be going on a bus trip to see the city.  Hope everyone is doing well - we are having a terrific time.

Alison, Brad & Sophie xxxooo

What a day!

Alison, Sophie and two of the officials from Sophie's orphanage that came to the adoption ceremony today at the civil affairs office.

Alison and Sophie at the Civil Affairs Office.

We had a very busy day again today.  It started with the breakfast buffet with all of the babies enjoying scrambled eggs, noodles and fruit (we left quite a mess on the floor).  We then walked to the bank with our guide, Anna, and paid the orphanage donation.  It was nice to get that out of the way - we were always worried about that money!  After our bank deposit we all hopped in the bus for the trip to the Civil Affairs Office.  We had a family picture taken and Sophie's adoption was finalized.  We even have the red thumbs to prove it!!  It was so wonderful to know that this part is completed.  We received a beautiful gift from the city of Chongqing and we will be receiving a photo album on Friday.  If I can scan one of the photos I will.  It has been a great day - Sophie started smiling today!  She scrunches up her nose and closes her eyes - and giggles.  Charlene has a great picture of her - if it is not included in this post I will post it tomorrow. We are having a quiet day tomorrow - walking around the city and shopping!  What a great way to celebrate my birthday!!

Love to all,

Alison, Brad and Sophie

Happy Day!!

Alison and Sophie at the orphanage

Brad, Alison & Sophie

Sophie's finding place at the gate of the orphanage

Sophie's first bus ride - back to the hotel

Sophie's first bath - no crying!!

It was an amazing day today!  The bus ride to the orphanage took about two hours and they were probably the longest two hours of our lives.  When we arrived at the orphange our guide took us all to the washrooms to freshen up (squatty potties and all!) and the guys made it in to the office before us.  The babies were all almost asleep and there was hardly any crying (except for all of the parents)!  Sophie immediately fell asleep and stayed asleep for our tour of the orphanage.  She sat with Brad for most of the trip home - she is facinated with his beard.  Once we arrived at the hotel the crying began - except for when she had her bath and when she inhaled her bottle.  She has exhausted herself with crying and trying to crawl.  Hopefully she sleeps well tonight and is more relaxed tomorrow.  Sophie is tiny!  She is about 7.5 kg with tiny hands and feet.  She is very interested in all of her toys and especially loves the pictures of Carson.  We will post again tomorrow after our visits with the Doctor, bank and notaries.  Miss you all!