To Xian for Shen

Now Posting On Stinky-Mouse

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-18T23:24:49-07:00

Now that we are home from China with Shen we are ending updates to this blog. We want to thank everyone who shared along on our journey to adopt Shen and left so many wonderful comments. If you would like to continue to keep tabs on Kai and Shen, and how we're all doing you are welcome to continue reading our family blog:

The Adventures of Chou-Chou Shu - A.K.A. Stinky Mouse!

We're Home!

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-16T21:12:01-07:00

The 15th was a really long day. We boarded a jet in Guangzhou at 9:00 AM and got off the last plane in Seattle at 5:30 PM that evening: 30 hours later. Our three checked suitcases had gone MIA; last seen at LAX (which remains my least favorite airport on the planet) when we cleared them through customs and put them on "the transfer belt". All three airports we used in China had our bags waiting on the carousel by the time we got there. At SeaTac on the way home we dawdled on the plane and took our time getting to the baggage claim area. When we got there the attendant at the desk said it would be another half hour or so before the bags would appear. So we went to see if we could get something to eat. All the restaurants at SeaTac are behind the security checkpoints. There was a Starbucks and a wine bar that had some upscale snacks. By the time we got a table in the wine bar place we had less than half an hour before our shuttle bus to Marysville left so we bailed and headed back to the baggage claim area. No bags. I double-checked with the attendant again and she told me all the bags were off. So I had them file a claim. They needed a description of the bags, and asked if I could identify an item in each one: Let's see, they're full of clothes and junk from China. I put yellow duck tape on them, but wouldn't you think that big white label they tape to the handle with my name and a barcode number would be enough of an identifying mark? I know this guy behind the counter didn't lose my bags, but 30 hours of air travel and airports makes it very hard for me to be civil with the lost luggage people. I am so glad I don't have his job, as he had a line of people who all looked as happy as me.

So we abandoned the bags and ran to catch the bus, thankfully it was running late or we would have missed it. An hour later we met my mother, sister and nephews in Marysville with our van. We were starving at this point so we went to my mom's to grab a bite before making the last hour drive home. My mom and sister both got a kick out of meeting Shen. He made himself right at home - ate watermelon and played with toys - flashed his naughty grin and charmed them thoroughly. We then loaded the boys up one last time and headed home. Ben and Cam and Brittni all met us at the house. Shen was more than happy to meet his two older brothers, he gave hugs all around and even roughhoused with them a bit. We finally got the little boys in bed around midnight and followed them directly. I cannot tell you how good it felt to be back in our own bed. Really, it was so, so good! I never slept in China the way I have slept the last two nights - it's like the sleep of the dead. And then impossible to get up in the morning.

We did have to get up though as we needed to collect the luggage from the local airport (turns out it wasn't lost, they just couldn't unload the plane in under 2 hours). And we had a doctor's appointment for Kai. He had broken out with a strange rash on his hands and feet. Turns out he picked up "Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease". Considering how he touched pretty much everything in China, we took him to visit two orphanages, let him play in the Swan Room and he's a devout thumb-sucker, we feel lucky he got off so easy. This also explains the fever he had the last couple days in Guangzhou.

The second night home we put the boys down in their room at 8:00 PM. They went to sleep easily, but were up at midnight as if they had had a good nap. We struggled to get them back down, but ended up with them in our bed for a couple hours before we could slip them back into their own beds asleep. They were down again at 8:00 PM tonight and we're hoping we'll get a full night out of them. Shen is a good sleeper so we're confident this is only a temporary setback as we recover from jet-lag.

Shen is settling down a bit as he gets his bearing here at home. His eating has slowed down and he has less out-of-control moments. Transition times are hard on him, but we aren't able to give him fair-warnings in Chinese. As he learns the rhythms and gets better English skills we're sure this area will improve as well. He and Kai get along as well as any pair of 3 and 4 year old kids I've ever met. They require a lot of supervision, but they are really enjoying one another. I think Kai is truly as happy having a little brother as he thought (and we hoped) he would be.

Here are a few last pictures from our trip home...

Kai and Shen killing time in the airport watching The Monkey King on the DVD player. This was one of my best finds in China, Kai loves Monkey King and doesn't mind it's only in Chinese with no subtitles...

Eating noodles at the Hong Kong airport - check out the chopstick action...

Kai before take-off in Guangzhou. I love this photo as we didn't pose it, he asked for the safety guide and started looking through it.

Here's a photo from his first flight with us two years ago...

Shen meeting Cam and Brittni...

Kai and Shen playing in the backyard sandbox...

We're Tired And We Wanna Go Home

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-14T08:57:50-07:00

This is it, the last blog entry from China. I've tried to record our time here on our Quest For Shen as best I could, but there is so much I haven't told you about. Mainly, I guess I haven't really given too deep an insight into who Shen is. I suppose we don't really know this ourselves yet. I can tell you he is a very happy little boy, he is rambunctious, and a bit impulsive, yet he is tender as well, and clearly has a very big heart. He is talkative, and says lots of stuff - all in Chinese. Most heartwarming is that he says, "Wo ai ni." to us, which is Chinese for "I love you!"

We have had a bit more challenging time this trip. We miss having Cam and Ben with us. Mostly just because we miss being with them, but also because they were such a huge help to us when we came to China for Kai. Last time it was four basically grown-up people and one toddler. This time it's two on two and the little boys are both bigger and more willful. There were a lot of outings we thought we wanted to do, but just didn't have the energy for. We have been very lucky with the weather here in Guangzhou. I was very worried about the heat here, and while it has been hot and humid, it's not been above what we can handle. We have had a number of intense storms with heavy rain and dramatic thunder and lightning, but they've been at night and haven't impeded upon our days. They've actually helped keep it a bit cooler and the air a bit cleaner.

We have met a number of amazing people here in Guangzhou from all over the U.S. who are here adopting. It's very moving and inspiring to see people bringing these children into their families. We saw many more older children being adopted this trip, and many more special needs boys. We were much less of an oddity at the White Swan this time.

I remember being a bit sad to leave China at the end of our trip last time. I'm a bit sad I don't feel that way now. It's not that I appreciate China less, but we just haven't had the opportunity to be in it as much. We need to get home, and get to work on truly integrating Shen into our family. He hasn't even met his two oldest brothers yet! It's time for us to go. Our bags are packed and the boys are sleeping. We have to leave the hotel at 6:45 AM.

Thank you for following along with us, and thank you for all your warm wishes.

Today's Job: Stay in Your Room!

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-13T07:41:12-07:00

Today was the day that we had our "consulate appointment". This appointment is actually done by our guide. The guide takes all our paperwork for Shen's immigration visa and files it with the consulate. Our job during the appointment is to stay in our hotel room so we're available in case there are any questions regarding our application or documents. We were to be in our room from 10:00 AM until 12:30 PM. We took the boys out for a walk after breakfast to visit the park along the water and watch people exercise and play. They were feeling tired after that and rested pretty quietly while we waited. We hadn't heard anything from our guide by 12:30 so we took the boys to the pool and then went out shopping.

We were supposed to go on a river cruise this evening, but Kai seemed to be running a low fever, so we decided to bag it and stay in the hotel room instead. It has ended up raining really hard, so we're even more glad we decided against going. We gave Kai some Tylenol, and think he'll be fine - probably just over-done. Right now it sounds like a monsoon outside!

Here are a few pictures from our day...

A fisherman on a boat outside the window of the hotel restaurant at breakfast...

The boys watching Mulan in Mandarin on the portable DVD player in the room...

On the way to the pool...

Swimming with Mommy...

Women dancing in the park...

Men Playing cards...

Women playing mahjong...

Preschoolers being taken for a walk...

Kai and Shen playing with parasols in the room...

Another Old Friend In China

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-13T07:39:51-07:00

This is a picture of the boys with "Don" he is "Susan's" husband.

He and his wife run one of the little shops outside the White Swan hotel where we're staying. In addition to selling popular souvenirs, these shops will get your laundry done cheaper than the hotel and loan families strollers. We had spent a fair bit of time there two years ago, so we decided to visit them again this time. I stopped in with our laundry yesterday afternoon, I was by myself, and simply said, "Hello" to him. He took one look at me and did a bit of a double-take, "Is this your second time adopting?" he asked. I was very impressed. He got a bunch of our money again.

The Trick is Getting In on the Ground-floor

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-13T07:36:24-07:00

We noticed that a number of the river-cruise boats on the Pearl River had illuminated ads on them. If you look closely at this one...

you can see it's promoting Amway! 1.6 billion people would make a hell of a MLS pyramid!

The "Look"

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-13T07:20:05-07:00

White people draw looks in China. White people with Chinese children draw even more looks. White people with Chinese boys with funny hands draw even more looks. I took to staring back hard, and taking their pictures. A couple times I would walk into their personal space staring straight into their faces (you have to get pretty close to Chinese people before they notice you!). This would usually cause them to quickly divert their eyes, but I caught a couple good examples with the camera:

To be fair, we received a number of very positive responses from a number of people here - usually older Chinese men, who would smile and give a thumbs up.

White Swan Survival Tips

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-13T07:08:34-07:00

Every hotel we've stayed at in China has a night-stand "console" between the beds.

It's a unit with switches that control all the lights and things in the room - there's a TV button, even a "Do Not Disturb" button that lights a sign outside your door. Because of the complexity of the wiring, I always assumed these things were immovable, but upon further examination I found they are connected to a thick cable that's fairly long. So we moved it as far to one side as we could and pushed both beds together up against the wall. It puts the two wall mounted bed-lamps in an awkward spot, but it gives us a large "family Bed" and much more space than we would have with two cribs or toddler beds in the room.

The staff has not said a word to us about this arrangement, so I'm sure we're not the first ones to do this.

The top of the TV armoire is the highest surface in the room. This makes it the perfect place to store things you don't want your shorter roommates into. We've even unplugged the night-stand phone and put it up there.

Buddha At Last!

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-12T07:52:54-07:00

Kai has been asking about Buddha since before we left home. "See Buddha?" he says. I think he's asked about seeing Buddha every single day here. We were hoping to visit temples in both Baoding and Xi'an, but didn't manage to do it. Today we finally returned to the Six Banyan Temple here in Guangzhou, and Kai was very happy!

In the main hall of the temple are 3 giant bronze statues of Buddha each weighing 10 tons and cast over 300 years ago, they are the Buddhas of past, present, and future.

The hands of each one is positioned differently...

We visited the temple with the a group of families all adopting through our agency that are here at the same time. Our guide asked the monks if we could receive a blessing for the children, but was told it wasn't possible as they were preparing for a big ceremony. Then suddenly one of the monks changed his mind and said if we hurried they would do it right then, so we all quickly gathered and received the blessing.

Kai was fascinated by the monks, and enjoyed lighting the joss sticks at the different shrines.

A nun stopped to admire Shen.

It was a beautiful visit, and we really enjoyed the time we spent there. Afterwards we went to the Chen Family Temple, which is a museum of folk art and craft work. It's an amazing site, but we weren't really able to see much of it with the boys. The temple visit was easier to experience as it was more about the atmosphere and mood of the place, as opposed to looking at things. Between pushing a stroller up and down lots of little flights of stairs and multiple potty breaks, we didn't get much out of it. I enjoyed the architecture though, and it was fun to see something new to us.

Afterwards we went back to the hotel and fed the boys lunch in the room - cup-o-noodles and milk.

I took them swimming while Tina sorted laundry, then we went out for a walk. We had dinner at Lucy's

And then Kai really wanted to go to the park in the middle of the island with all the play and exercise equipment. It was busy with lots of local Chinese families using the equipment. Kai loves this space. I think he used every device they have there. It's funny watching how comfortable he is here. I shot a lot of video of him playing and running around. Shen likes to sit in the stroller and watch, but he finally decided to climb out a play a bit too.

On Shamian Island

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-11T08:39:59-07:00

Our plane into Guangzhou was delayed and we ended up not getting to bed until 1:00 AM last night. This morning we had to be in the hotel lobby at 8:30 AM for the Shen's immigration medical examination. It was raining really hard when we woke up and continued to rain as we made our way to the medical clinic on foot. It's close to our hotel so even in the rain it was an easy walk. The place was packed with adoptive families, which makes the "Quiet Please" notices on the wall seem quite useless...

The examination, visa photos and paperwork session lasted long enough that both boys ended up passing out and getting some sleep in the middle of things, so when it was all over we took them to the little park in the middle of the island where there is playground and exercise equipment. Kai has taken to the island like a true alumni. He runs off ahead of us and is eager to explore. It's nice that the traffic is so light here that we aren't in constant fear for our lives when walking down the street! Kai played hard at the park...

Shen liked the exercise equipment that had chairs...

After the park we took them back to the hotel and swam them in the pool before having dinner at Cow & Bridge, the popular Thai restaurant on the island. This schedule was enough to put them down hard and fast this evening, which is good as they really need to catch up on their sleep.

We were a little disappointed that we didn't a room with a river view this trip, but we are situated at the very end of a hallway on the 10th floor. There is a fire exit we can step out on and it has a great view of the river. We are calling it our lanai. I tried taking a chair out there to sit on, but one of the floor attendants regretfully informed me that while we could step out there to enjoy the view, we are not allowed to sit there for a long time. It was funny how apologetic he was after the level of customer service we had gotten used to receiving at the last two hotels. This guy seemed to really feel bad telling me I couldn't block fire exits with chairs. Still it's a great view...

Last Day in Xi'an

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-11T06:58:25-07:00

We managed to finish all our business in Xi'an and leave on schedule. I know that by looking at the photos, you'd think we were here on vacation, and we have been surrounded by countless families here for just that. Xi'an is an amazing city. We have scratched just the surface of the things to do and see here and we feel totally overwhelmed by it. Yet we aren't here for any of that; we are here to complete the international adoption of our fourth son, Shen.

On the leg of our journey here in Xi'an, besides receiving Shen, we completed his adoption here in China, had a number of important documents related to this process produced, copied and notarized, and applied for his Chinese passport. Once all the paperwork was filed we had only five days here to get the documents before leaving for Guangzhou. Adoptive families pay expediting fees to make this all happen within this tight timeframe. You often hear of families getting their documents at the very last minute, or worse, having to arrange to stay longer, or get documents couriered to them after leaving the province for Guangzhou in order to meet the rest of the deadlines in the process.

When we adopted Kai things went pretty smoothly and we had all the documents in our hands well before it was time to move on. This time however, we were riding the edge. Our guide called us the day before we were to leave, and told us she had all the notarized copies of everything but the passport was still not ready. Hopefully, she said, it would be ready tomorrow. "Hopefully" is not a word you want to hear associated with anything on this kind of trip. The morning we were to leave Tori met us in the lobby and explained that we would check out of our room at 2:00 PM, She would meet us at 4:30 PM, we would drive to the civil affairs office to meet the official with the passport right at their closing time on our way to the airport to board a 7:30 PM flight. Since the airport is an hour drive, this timeframe was a little stressful. Amazingly, it all went according to plan, and we are now in Guangzhou with all the documents we need to file for Shen's U.S. citizenship and immigration visa.

There was a bit of a mixup around our flight tickets as they got scrambled with another families, and even after we straightened that out we weren't assigned seats together. My solution was to simply take seats that were together. When the Chinese speaking ticket holder for the seat I occupied tried to explain to me I was in his seat, I simply told him, "Yes, I know, but I'm sitting here now, you can take it up with the flight crew." As he repeatedly showed me his ticket I would nod, and suggest he find another seat quickly before takeoff. I felt bad for him, but I had my own problems; and as Kai and Shen were both crying hysterically when it was time to fasten seat-belts I think the ticket-holder for my seat began to realize he didn't really want it.

So here's a few pictures of our last day in Xi'an...

Packing up a hotel room with 2 preschoolers is a challenging task - especially when you're as bad at packing light as we are, but we managed to get it all loaded up...

We went to lunch one last time at Pizza Hut (yep - ate there three times, I'm such a hypocrite) Here's the guy who knew our order the minute we came in the door on our 2nd and 3rd visits...

We wanted to buy some more junk before we left so we hit the Muslim vendor street behind the Drum Tower one last time. Kai really wanted a cricket (they were huge!), but we thought getting it home would be tricky. Kai told us this one was his friend when he was a baby in China...

We picked up a couple little sequined Muslim caps for the boys, as these are specific to this region and not seen in Guangzhou. Shen had had enough at this point...

He did wake up in time to receive his passport though...

The Snozzberry Dumplings LOOK Like Snozzberries!

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-09T07:27:24-07:00

We decided Pizza Hut was not going to be an option for our last night dining in Xi'an. Another adoptive family who is here right now left a comment on the blog about a dumpling restaurant across the street from our hotel, so we decided to check it out. How hard could it be to cross a street, right? Well it's not exactly a street; it's a roundabout that incircles the Bell Tower. To get across it you go down into a brightly lit underground mall that loops the area. It is a bit like a labyrinth down there and easy to just keep circling around. There are escalators and stairs that go up and down to different points - the escalators only work part of the time, so we are usually lugging the boys in their strollers as if we were coolies toting sedan chairs.

Once we got to the side where the restaurant is, we had to locate it. This would have been easier if it had been dark out, because this is the sign for it when it's lit up.

Of course in the daylight, it was a bit tougher to find. Finally we saw these cooks waving to us from the 2nd floor window and figured out where we needed to go.

Inside they have this fabulous display of all the dumplings they serve.

And a giant golden dumpling.

We couldn't read the menu but managed to order a dumpling dinner for two - We figured there would be enough to share with the boys. Kai of course won't eat these, so we ordered him rice. Shen, on the other hand, eats virtually all of it! The meal was served in courses: first came some appetizer type things...

Then they brought the plain pork dumplings - these are what we call pot stickers.

They kept you stocked on these through the meal the way Mexican places keep the chip bowl full. Shen thought this was a great system.

We ordered milk for the boys, but the milk usually served here is more like a yogurt smoothie drink. It's very sweet and Shen loves it.

Kai won't drink it, so we asked for some tea for him. They brought us the tea menu. Yes a Tea Menu. I ordered the cheapest green tea on the list. This was served by a tea hostess who made sure Kai's little teapot was full the whole meal (this isn't a good idea for 4 year old with poor bladder control!)

Then the fancy dumplings started showing up. Our waitress would explain what each one was as they were served. These fancy fish shaped ones were fish!

These little green frog shaped ones were... you guessed it: FROG!

And these pretty little pigeon shaped ones... That's right, pigeon! Pigeon's not bad, actually tastes a bit like frog!

To date, this has been our most adventurous eating - we'll let you know tomorrow how it all sat with us - so far, so good!

The Great Mosque

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-09T06:57:59-07:00

After our visit to the CWI we went back to the hotel room and crashed for several hours. It was raining hard and we used the time to just rest. After a while though we decided we needed to press on and take in a few more of historical must see sites before leaving Xi'an. So in spite of the rain, we loaded up and headed out to visit the Great Mosque. Islam came to China over the silk route and this mosque was begun in 742 A.D. It's a beautiful place and we knew it was close to the hotel. Tina had brought plastic raincoats and ponchos for us and it turned out to be a good plan.

Though the mosque is a very popular site and is central to the city, it's not easy to find. It is tucked away down a couple side streets in a vendor district that is loud and colorful.

It took us some hunting to track it down, but it was well worth it.

Not long after we got there it stopped raining!

It is a very beautiful and peaceful spot...

We saw the Muslim men praying.

As they were filing out of the prayer hall they stopped to check out Shen and Kai. They asked if the boys were "Chinamen" and gave us a thumbs up!

CWI Visit

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-08T21:00:03-07:00

This morning we went to visit the Xi'an Children's Welfare Institute.

This is where Shen lived before we received him four days ago on Sunday. It was just a short visit, and not very well organized, basically a walk through of three of the floors where the little children live. Our guide, Tori, had a bit of a hard time with this visit. She is very young, and this is the first time she has ever been there. When Tina asked if she'd ever been before she said she wasn't brave enough. It is very, very difficult to see so many children in this situation.

Today it has rained hard all day after the lightning storm last night, and it was pouring hard during our visit.

We were there at the same time as three other families with a total of almost 20 people. It made it somewhat difficult to communicate with the nannies. We did not meet with the director, or see Shen's main nanny there at all. We had a list of children who have families waiting to adopt them, and we did our best to get pictures of these children. We brought a few gifts: some little favors for the nannies, some art supplies and clothes for the children.
Kai enjoyed the visit. He particularly liked seeing the babies - he loves babies, and I saw him rubbing their heads a couple times. We had our guide explain to Shen that we were only going for a visit, that he was not going to stay there. We wanted too make sure he understood this because we were told he went home with foster families for visits from time to time, and we didn't want him to think that was what his time with us so far had been. (He actually seems to be bonding pretty well with us, as he already does not want other people helping him with a range of things.)
The visit had a bit of a desperate feel to it, as we wanted to accomplish so much. Ultimately we only sort of brushed over all we hoped to do. We did get to see the space and take some pictures and video, so Shen will have a little more to help him know about this part of his life.

I was surprised that I didn't have a harder time while we were there. I felt a lightness and purpose that made it pretty easy to be there. But afterwards, when we were back in our room I broke down. When we were there on the floor Shen had last lived on we visited and played a bit with the preschoolers, and younger school-age children. Since I was trying to get as many pictures as I could, both for us, and for other families, I started taking pictures of all the kids and them showing them their faces on the camera. These kids have watched a number of their little friends have visitors come and hunt for them with gifts and get their pictures taken. We had brought some candy and a handful of token gifts for them. I hugged them, and took their pictures, laughing with them as they looked at themselves on the little camera screen. Then we drove back to the hotel and left them all there.
Here are a few pictures of children no one asked to see...

The Tourism Is Killing Us

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-08T09:03:38-07:00

When we travelled to adopt Kai two years ago, we complained that we didn't have time to visit Xi'an. Now we realize how lucky we were. Actually visiting Xi'an to do cultural touring before receiving your child would be great. But being stuck here during the in-province wait for the passport is grueling. There is far too much to see and do, and it feels wasteful not to take advantage of the opportunity. The problem is, that we have this brand-new member of the family, and there is a lot of very serious work we should be doing to integrate with him. This kind of work is really done best in a dimly-lit quiet room, laying in bed, long baths, singing, humming and eye-gazing. None of that for Shen! Time to get on that bus!!

Honestly though, he's holding up to it remarkably well. The guy is a little party animal. It would help if his legs functioned outside of the hotel room. Once we clear the door he stops like a mule and gives you this pouty face. "Bah" he says, holding up his arms. And since he is not going to move we have to carry him. We would have died today without the strollers.

We left the hotel at 9:00 AM to drive for an hour to see the Terra-Cotta Warriors. If you don't know what this is you can check out the Wikipedia Entry Here. It was truly amazing to see. Of course we had to stop at a Terra-Cotta Factory, this is the obligatory tourist trap/money extraction station that is always a part of these types of outings.
The museum for the Terra-Cotta Warriors was absolutely amazing, but it's huge. I mean really, really huge - and we were pushing the boys in the strollers, and it was stifling hot and humid. Kai actually was quite interested in the figures, and was a bit concerned for the ones that are still buried.

I didn't realize that all the figures were crushed and that the all the "whole" figures you see are restored from fragments.

After the museum tour we went to a buffet that featured a "noodle-show". This is basically a noodle chef who makes the long fresh noodles by hand. I don't have pictures of this because I shot video of it. The internet speed here is too slow for me to upload that right now, but it's very fun to watch - kind of like tossing pizza. After he makes the noodles he cooks them and you have them served fresh.

Kai was in heaven!

After lunch we went to a "Shadow Puppet" show. Again, I'm not going to copy a bunch of info on what this is here as you can read the Wikipedia Entry Here. We really enjoyed this. It was a little troupe that had a small space near the noodle restaurant - which was all right at the Terra-Cotta Warrior museum. We were the only ones there, so when we sat down on the little wooden benches they asked what kind of story the boys would like to see. We asked if they had a Monkey King story, and they did! So we watched The Monkey King Slay The Fire Dragon.

Also nice was that when the boys both had to go pee just as they were about to begin the show they stopped and waited for us! After the show they let us look behind the screen and see the musicians and puppeteer. They played another song for us and demonstrated how the puppets worked.

Again, I shot video of all this, but can't upload it easily right now.

After the puppet show we were allowed to return to the hotel for a short break. Tina and I were determined to have some dinner tonight. We also wanted to try to get across the street to see the Bell Tower and thought it might be fun to see it at night. So we put the boys back in the strollers and headed out to Pizza Hut again. I know! I know! Pizza Hut is lame, lame, lame! But we just didn't have the energy to try anything else. We got in there and the guy who waited on us before was there and remembered what we had ordered before - it was pretty funny. A young waitress was fascinated by us, and asked a thousand questions about what we were doing with the boys, where we were from, could they speak English, and on and on and on. Kai actually passed out before we got seated, so they gave us a booth...

Somehow, Kai managed to get his second wind, and woke up as we were paying the bill. We had saved him some pizza, so he ate it in the stroller. We then went to the grocery store we like and bought some candy for the orphanage visit tomorrow, and some milk for the boys. We dropped this stuff off at our room then pressed on to the Bell Tower. This is a picture of it at night taken from the front doorway of our hotel...

Kai was up for walking now, which was good, because the Tower is mostly stairs. We enjoyed the lights of the city night and got to watch a musical performance inside the tower. it was very fun to see it at night! Again, I shot that with video, so you don't get see it now.

It was going on 10:00 PM almost before we got the boys to bed, and shortly after that an amazing lightning storm began to rage outside. We've never seen anything like it! Constant flashes and claps of thunder all around. And the rain is just pounding down. It feels as if it is cooling things off a bit though. The lighting was striking so close that it was setting off car alarms in the parking lot below our window, but as you can see, it didn't bother the boys...

The Very Fussy Man In Room 644

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-07T07:43:41-07:00

This entry is my review of our hotel in Xi'an. We are staying at the Bell Tower Hotel. It is a very nice Hotel right in the heart of the city. The famous city Bell Tower is right outside the front door. Here's a picture I took yesterday afternoon when the light was particularly nice...

It's an amazing location. Very central to lots of touristy stuff to do. It's packed with westerners from all over - we hear German, French, Italian, Russian, etc. There's also lots of Asians too. There are not, however, any other adoptive families, or for that matter, any other families we have seen with kids Kai and Shen's age. And the hotel is not set up them either. When we checked in with Kai we were in a different room than we're in now. It was a standard room and they brought us a "crib", or maybe it would be more aptly called a cot. It was not like anything we'd ever seen before, but we thought we would give it a go. Here's a picture of it...

Then we told them we would need two cribs, so they brought in this...

I'm not sure if you can get a really good idea of the nature of these "devices" so let me show you a couple detail shots...

These arrived when we were in the midst of "The Saga Of The Missing Bag" so I didn't handle it very well. We sent the "cribs" away and complained to our guide. We told her we wanted a different hotel. She told us that we probably couldn't get in anywhere else or get our money back here. So while I was chasing down the bag Tina arranged an upgrade to a deluxe room. This got us a lot more space, which has been great for letting the boys play in the room. Then we rearranged all the furniture so that we have the two beds (which are somewhere between twin and full size) pushed together. Fortunately we enjoy the "family bed" concept because all four of us are bunking together - boys in the middle. This is how Tina and I are celebrating our 25th anniversary. It's so romantic!

Then there is the restaurant where they serve the breakfast buffet. It's a good buffet, but they only have one high-chair in the place. I didn't complain about it the first morning, because I thought maybe the other chairs were in use. But the 2nd morning I realized we had the only little kids in the place, so I decided to raise a stink about it. Did you pick up on how useful complaining is in China from my post about the lost bag? The hostess told me they had only one high-chair in the restaurant, so I told her to go get one from another restaurant in the hotel. She told me the other restaurant was closed. Now in my mind that means their high-chair would be available. But that is pure crazy talk here. I tell her again to go get the chair, she goes all "English as a 2nd language" on me, and keeps repeating what she's already told me. My blood-pressure starts to go through the roof now, and I finally just wave her off and stomp away. I manage to cool off by the end of breakfast and go back over to the hostess station. I tell them very clearly that we will be here tomorrow morning, the morning after that, and the morning after that. And that we will require two high-chairs each morning. Amazingly they pulled it off for me somehow. I hope nobody on the staff gets executed.

A Day On The Wall (Not THAT Wall)

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-07T06:38:57-07:00

One of Xi'an's notable landmarks is it's well-preserved Old City Wall. It is a rectangular enclosure that now incircles just the inner-most core of the city. It is a popular tourist destination and is just a short walk from our hotel. We met up with Rebecca Morris and her family. Rebecca is here adopting a 10 year old girl from the same CWI as Shen. Traveling with her is mother, Barbara, her other 10 year old daughter Sarita, 4 year old son, Nathan, and 12 year old nephew Dakota. They were great company for this outing, and are the family I bought the 3rd stroller for yesterday. Here's a picture of the big kids pushing the little ones in the strollers...

Here are some pictures of our day...

Approaching the entrance to the wall

Kai standing by an old gun

The Western Bell Tower (this is not the main City Bell Tower, but one of the four wall bell towers)

The little shuttle we rode in around the top of the wall (12 kilometers)

Some views of the city from the top of the wall...

It was really hot out and humidity here is brutal. Stepping outside is like entering a sauna, so after touring the wall we all needed a break. We went to lunch at Pizza Hut (I know, it's the lamest place you could go in China, but it was air-conditioned and easy with 6 kids!)

And now the gratuitous Cute Kids Shot for the day!

Adoption Day Update

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-05T22:00:18-07:00

Okay, so I put up the little video slide show yesterday, which I think gives a pretty good feel for the mood of things here. Tina and I are almost in a state of shock over where we are with Shen already. He is a very tough little guy and is quite happy to go with the flow. Bonding and attachment is going to be a different process with him than it was with Kai. Kai was weak and little - Shen is sturdy and tough. He is very cuddly too though, and he is also able to sit and be still much easier than Kai. Kai is always wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. Shen gets rowdy and throws things, but does this mainly when he is over-stimulated. Unfortunately everything is very stimulating right now. We are working hard at trying to keep things calm so that he can get centered with us. He is very into the loot. He likes the clothes and the toys. The things he likes, he latches onto and won't let go. Sharing is a bit, of problem, but not too bad. Kai is doing great and has offered everything to Shen, including Stinky-mouse. Kai is very quick to cry when he thinks he has suffered the slightest injustice, quite often just for the show and the noise. But he has held up really well and has taken minor abuses from Shen in stride. He seems to understand that Shen is the "little brother" and that he needs to be cut some slack as he finds his place in our family. Hopefully Kai will continue to shoulder the responsibilities of being the ge-ge (big brother), and his new di-di (little brother) will quickly learn that the toys and loot are not at risk of being lost.

Health-wise Shen seems to be in pretty good shape. We suspect a range of parasites, but won't know exactly what all we're dealing with there until we're home. He's fully potty-trained, and went poo on the toilet the first evening in the hotel room. This is often a point of stress for new adoptees and their families as the stress of the experience "stops" a lot of kids, especially the babies. Shen does not seem stressed at all really, which is a bit of a concern in itself. We need to be sure we don't mistakenly confuse his apparent comfort with us as true attachment or bonding. These are things we will need to work hard on for some time. Still, the ease with which he has moved in with us makes this time much easier for us and him.

So, what else can I tell you about him...
He is a well-packed, rolly-polly little guy, with a wicked naughty grin. That picture of him at the top of the blog is a pretty good capture of his standard look, except he's more densely packaged than i think he looks in that picture. He has a very cute little mouth. The buzz cut really suits his nature, and all the boys here have buzz-cuts this time of year. (We really should take Kai somewhere to get one so he'll fit in better.) Shen is built very similarly to Kai's good friend Mimi, who is the same age as Shen. Kai is taller and lighter, he eats almost nothing and is almost always moving. Shen is shorter and heavier, he'll eat just about anything and will sit very, very still. He is a little cuddle-bunny and loves to be held and carried.

He is also quite the little "talker". At times he babbles on in a blue streak - jabber, jabber, jabber! Some of it we recognize - Mama, Baba, Gege (big brother) xie-xie, etc. We assume he has a pretty big vocabulary, but Tori, our guide, has said that she can't understand a lot of what he says either, so apparently much of what he's saying is pure toddler-ese.

Today was our adoption day. That means we went back to the Civil Affairs office and processed the paperwork and paid all the fees associated with the adoption and Shen's passport. It takes quite a while to get through all of it, and we were with 3 other families. The boys held up really well during all of it, but when we got back to the room they went into total spin out mode. When they are "on" the energy level is very intense. Tina and I are a bit overwhelmed by it - and aren't really interested in doing restaurants with them. Consequently we are living on snack foods and room service.

Tomorrow we have nothing on the schedule. So we are planning on having an outing exploring the Bell Tower and the city wall. How to contain these two out in the open seems a bit daunting, so we decided to buy some cheap strollers. Yesterday I had our guide take me to find a grocery/department store and we found some basic strollers for 169RMB (= $22.50)

I was short on Chinese cash at the time so planned to go back later. One of the other adoptive families here from our agency was looking for one also, so today I went back on my own and bought three baby-strollers. It sounds simple enough, but the reality was something different. I had a list of other stuff I wanted too, but getting three strollers back to the hotel on foot, let alone down the two flights of escalators in the store was all I could manage. I felt I had really scored though because the first place we looked for them was the big fancy tourist mall by the Bell Tower across from hotel, the cheapest one they had there was almost twice as much.

Hold Your Breath. Make a Wish. Count to Three.

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-05T08:10:49-07:00

What Is It With Me And Losing Important Bags In China?

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-04T07:39:40-07:00

I'm all alone in a dive of a motel right next to the airport in Beijing.

This is the second time I've flown into Beijing today.

I was here earlier today with Tina and Kai. Bob had driven us here to catch our flight to Xi'an. All that went swimmingly except for one little thing. I left a carry on bag at the gate when we boarded a little shuttle bus which carried us out to the airplane on the tarmac. As soon as the bus doors opened I realized my mistake. I have a couple lame excuses as to how I overlooked the bag: I was carrying Kai, we had set the bag under a seat at the waiting area at the gate, we were carrying bags differently than we had done the rest of the trip. blah, blah, blah. I forgot the bag.

I immediately told a flight attendant what had happened. The bus ride couldn't have been more than 5 minutes or so. I figured they could call back to the gate and have someone go get the bag for us. And it was this thought that set off a series of assumptions on my part that grew into a very difficult lesson. I knew the principle of this lesson in theory already, but apparently hadn't truly come to terms with the reality of it. And this lesson is:
THINGS DON'T WORK IN CHINA THE WAY THEY WORK IN THE U.S.

Oh, maybe I should tell you first which bag I lost...
It was my computer bag, and yes, my computer was in there, along with a bunch of other electronic paraphanalia, but none of that mattered to us. My computer bag also contained all of our adoption paperwork.

EVERYTHING.

Without that paperwork I'm not sure we could complete the adoption. At least not on the same timeline we had set out with. The stuff I lost included original documents issued by China. Copies of everything are on file with our agency, but all our contact information for them was in that bag as well - either in the folder with our documents or stored on the computer.

Are you waiting to adopt a child internationally right now? If so, start taking some notes here. we made some serious mistakes you want to avoid.
NOTE #1: DON'T PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET. Have copies of all your paperwork and important contact information stored in more than one bag!

So I tell the flight attendants about my problem and they appear to understand me inspite of my complete inability to speak Chinese. Most of the time here we are with a guide - especially when important information needs to be communicated, but once you clear an airport security point you are on your own till the next airport. So the flight attendants begin moving in slow motion. I stay at the front of the plane as they appear to try to get someone to look for the bag. After a while the attendant says to me that they can't find the bag and the plane has to leave. Now this makes no sense to me. That bag is at a gate. It's past the securtiy check. The only people in that area are cleared passengers and airport personel. It's a big, heavy, ugly bag. I can't imagine another passenger deciding to grab it and add 25+ poungs of unknown contents to their load in the amount of time that had passed between us leaving it and when we notified the flight attendants. But that was that. I called Bob to tell him what had happened and see if he could help, then I numbly went to join Tina and Kai in our seats. It took pretty much everything for the two of us to hold it together at that point. We divided the time in flight running through scenarios of how we could contact our agency and get copies of documents faxed, and beating ourselves up for being so careless.
(NOTE #2: RENT A CELL PHONE IN CHINA - We didn't do this on our trip to adopt Kai, and never really needed it. Who would we call, we wondered? This trip we rented one because Cam and Ben didn't come with us and we wanted a way for them to contact us at anytime in case of an emergency, and also because we were traveling during my companies peak production period - not a good time for me to leave.) I have no idea at this point how many calls I've made on that phone today.

When we hit the ground in Xi'an I raced to find our new guide. There at the edge of the baggage claim was the sea of guides holding name cards in different languages, just like in Beijing. I spotted her quickly; she was a very small, young woman with a pretty face and a happy smile who introduced herself as Tori. She looked eager to share in our joy of adoption and the thrill of being in Xi'an, an amazing city with immense cultural history to experience.

I knocked all that out of her pretty quickly.

"I'm Scott Ocheltree, and we have a very serious problem." Once we brought Tori up to speed, we promptly set to work with her trying to contact the airport to see if the bag had showed up. I called Bob again who let me know that he had contaced the police in Beijing. This was all looking really bad, then a woman called my cell phone and said she had my bag. -- Cue Handel's Halelujia Chorus --

Okay, this is great. Can the airline just put it on the next flight to Xi'an for us?
No.
Can the airline pack it in a protective box and check it as freight on the next flight and bill me?
No.
Can they ship it FedEx?
No.
Can the airline help me with this problem in any way?
No.
And if you are asking, "Why" in response to any of the above negative replies, then you need to learn the same lesson I've been working on all day:
THINGS DON'T WORK IN CHINA THE WAY THEY WORK IN THE U.S.
The woman who found my bag is an airport employee. She did not turn over the bag to the airport lost and found or the airline we flew. She contacted us directly somehow. But the only people at the airport who had my number were the flight attendants. So she must have talked with them about this. Tori, our guide, and her manager both spoke with this woman and a number of other people with the airline. All of them were unable to make any kind of arrangements to send this bag on another flight. The only option was for someone to go back to Beijing and get it.
Tori sort of offered to do it, but I could tell she wasn't thrilled about the idea. And I don't blame her, she wasn't the one who left it in Beijing. That person would have been me. So I had her come with me to the airport in a taxi and get me on the earliest flight possible - it was leaving about 15 minutes after we hit the ticket counter -- and the earliest flight back isn't until tomorrow morning at 7:55 AM. My Plan: get to Beijing airport find this woman with the bag somehow, then hang out overnight until my plane flies back 9 hours later.

I found my gate and got on the plane. I had nothing to check as I'm now traveling with nothing but my passport and wallet. I have never flown on a plane this light before - I'm not even carrying a jacket or a magazine - it feels naked almost.

How am I going to find this woman in Beijing who supposedly has my my bag?
I've get her cell number, but she speaks almost no English. Beijing airport is HUGE, and I have no idea where she is. All I know is, is that she is supposedly working until 1:00 AM, can't leave her station, and has my bag.
Somehow I managed to sleep on the plane. When we land I fire up my cell phone and am on my feet fast to get inside the airport. They unload us right at the baggage claim and as I enter through the sliding doors I scroll to her number on my phone and hit send. But before I can get the phone to my ear a young woman in a uniform of some kind says, "Excuse me, are you..." she fumbles around, then unfolds a small scrap of paper with my name on it. I nod yes, and she says she has my bag. She asks me to sit down on a bench and wait 10 minutes. I do so, and before long she shows up with the bag. With everything in it. She asks me if I'm going to a hotel. I tell her I am just going to wait at the airport until my flight leaves. She becomes quite concerned and shadows me as I head out of the baggage claim area. I keep trying to tell her I'll be fine, but she doesn't go away. I think she wants a reward or something, but I'm very irritated that she has my bag in the first place. Why had she not turned it over to the lost and found? Why had the airline not sent it on ahead for me? Why am I out roundtrip airfare from Xi'an to Beijing and back and stranded in an airport overnight? I am not happy and have actually gone off on our guide several times about how badly I feel I am being treated by the airline and the airport staff. So anyway, she's not getting a reward from me. But she still is following me. As we walk out of the baggage claim area a gentleman approaches and and asks if I want to stay at the airport hotel. finally I concede maybe this is best. I'm tired. I'm drained, and oh yeah, I haven't mentioned yet, that our guide, Tori, has told us we are getting Shen tomorrow!

Maybe I should try to get a little rest now as my alarm is set for 5:30 AM. I'm sorry this blog entry is late in coming after the last one, but I've been kind of busy mopping up after myself here. But, as you can see, we have THE BAG back and the BIG BIG AMAZING NEWS IS: WE GET SHEN TOMORROW!

Who Needs Hong Kong Disneyland?

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-02T22:51:48-07:00

We are on our own for most of the day today so we had breakfast late then went out for a walk. The staring here is REALLY intense! Tina and I are quite amused as we speculate what's going on in their heads. Foreign adoption is not commonly known about within mainland China. I think when we're with Bob people assume he is Kai's father, Tina is Bob's wife and I'm the brother-in-law, Uncle Scott. When it's just Tina, me and Kai the looks we get make it appear that there is no reasonable explanation for what they are seeing.
So anyway, we headed out away from the hotel in hopes of finding a park. We only had to go a few large city blocks before we found a really sweet deal. There was a beautiful little park with a man-made lake with islands and bridges where they were renting paddle-boats.

This sounded like a great idea to Kai. You know, paddle-boats look much more serene then they really are.

I wish I could tell you that the well-maintained state-of-the-art engineering behind the propulsion systems on these ones made them a joy to peddle, but all I can really say is I'll be feeling that ride tomorrow.
There was also a set of carnival type rides there as well, which Kai absolutely loves, so we let him pick one out to ride.

But not this one.

or this one.

He settled on this one, but didn't really understand the point of the ride.

Until the kindly ride operator hopped on his car in motion and explained how the guns worked.

These are targets that you shoot to make them animate!

Soon Kai was joyfully shooting up the animals like a pro!

This ride went on for about 15 minutes or more. At one point two older boys came along who were itching to ride spaceships and shoot at animals too, so one of the workers used brute force to stop the cars and let them on. After a while the operators moved around behind the control booth like they were going to end the ride, but they were only taking a smoke break. When some other kids came along and wanted on they stopped it again, and this time I stepped in to remove Kai. Even though the deal was "only one ride" it cost us this balloon to get out of the park and back to the hotel without a tantrum.

Old and New

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-02T22:49:41-07:00

Mmmm... Italian Red Meat Flavor!

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-02T22:03:11-07:00

Free sample that came with the very hard to find plain potato chips. Ketchup and Tomato appeared to be the most popular flavors. Also saw Spicy Seafood and Korean Kimchee flavors.

A Note We Found Slipped Under The Door

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-02T21:58:19-07:00

Apology Letter

Dear guest:
Our hotel will repair the wall of our building from tomorrow to 15 Aug . So you need to notice something:1.Plese close the door and windows when nobody in the room.2.Please Dont approach the building avoid hurting yourself.3.Please stop the car 10 meters out of the building to avoid hurting your car. We hope you could understand it if it make you trouble.

Heng Tong Fortune Center Hotel
2,Aug 2007

Nothing Like Blogging From China To Increase Your Hit Count!

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-02T21:49:13-07:00

Hits are way way up. It makes it fun to write when you know people are reading. Of course it's much easier to write when you're over your head in subject matter.
Comments and email are very welcome - sorry that responses aren't too great - most of my writing focus is centered here. I used to require comments to be approved before allowing them up, but for now your comments are posted immediately, so thanks for all your good wishes!
Here's where all the exciting blogging action is happening - one of the tidier areas of the room.

Going Bonkers In Baoding

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-02T05:49:17-07:00

Today was the first day we woke up in China (I actually woke up a couple times in China this morning). We met Bob in the lobby at 9:30 AM.

Since we were up in our room at about 6:00 AM, this gave us plenty of time to get ourselves sort of put together and have breakfast first. The hotel we're staying in is not one I'd recommend, but it's not too bad. The "buffet" has very few western items, and I'm not quite brave enough to venture into the Chinese breakfast staples yet. We did alright though, and got a kick out of the amusement we provided to the staff. After breakfast we headed straight to the S.W.I. where Kai used to live for a visit. It appears being granted the opportunity for this visit was quite fortunate on our part. Another family who was just here to adopt was refused by the director. Bob told us that when he first inquired about our visit with the S.W.I. director he was refused as well, so he contacted the local governor who gave his approval. Basically Bob went over the director's head. We aren't sure why the director doesn't want familiies visiting, but the nannies and the assistant directors made us feel very welcome. We worried a bit about how Kai would do during this visit. Would he be frightened that we might leave him? Would he truly remember his nanny? Would he behave? As Bob drove closer to the S.W.I. Tina and I began to recognise the area from our trip to adopt Kai, and then we were pullling in to the compound. When Kai saw the entrance to the offices he proclaimed, "China!" He finally felt we had arrived.

We went in to the same office where we first met Kai; the assistant director we met two years ago called out, "Hui-Hui!"

She greeted us, and Bob explained that we would be allowed to take pictures outside, but not inside, then a few other adults joined us and we headed to see the new children's building. The assistant director took Kai's hand and he went with her willingly. As soon as we got the children's building Kai's nanny, Chin-yen appeared and scooped him up! Kai was actually thrilled to see her!

The language barrier is so frustrating, even with an interpretor it was very difficult to communicate what we wanted to say. We have looked at pictures of her so often with Kai, that meeting her again was almost like encountering a mythical being! There is a play-structure in the atrium of the new building that Kai was dying to play on, so they let him in and we all followed him. We had a short list of children who we know have adoptive parents waiting to come get them, so they brought these children down for us to photograph. I have a lot photos of these children, but the internet connection is too slow for me to upload them all now. Hopefully it will be faster in Xi'an and I will get them all uploaded to our Walgreen's site then. Kai had a great time playing and visiting with the nannies, and one little girl in particular who was close to his age. We only saw a few other children besides the ones on our list, and we weren't allowed to see their living areas. but the nannies were very gracious and truly thrilled to see Kai. They were all over him, and at one point his main nanny scooped him up and took him up the stairs. It was clear that Tina and I were not to follow, and even when she took him out of view, he was fine with her. It was actually quite strange the way he was so at ease. He seemed to be enjoying the visit every bit as much as they were.

We brought a few gifts of clothes and art supplies for the children and asked the nannies what they could use. They told us that they really needed disposable diapers and formula for the very young babies, as they seemed to be getting more of these lately. So we went to a store and bought some more of these items and returned with them later in the day.

We invited the directors to lunch but they declined. Bob felt that this was probably due to our visit being arranged in spite of the head director initially declining our request. He had met with us out of obligation, but was going no further. So we went to a very nice lunch at a beautiful Chinese restaurant with Bob. The rest of the day we spent touring the former governor's estate/office, and the Lotus Pond Gardens. The former governor was a very high ranking position and the offices were layed out like a small version of the forbidden city. The Lotus Pond Gardens, were formally owned a by a very wealthy landowner and are amazingly beautiful. Kai particularly enjoyed the gardens as he was able to run and play outdoors. Bob was very indulgant of him and played games of make-believe that Kai initiated. The day was very warm and humid, but the rains from last night had cleared the air and we had blue skies overhead and good visibility. In spite of feeling a bit sticky, it was a very beautiful day for site-seeing.

Kai had a few very minor melt-downs, but on the whole he has continued to be extremely cooperative and eager to go and see whatever is next. He loves talking with Bob, who is way too indulgant. The staff at the S.W.I. were this way too, he was definitely spoiled today and was the star of the show. Considering though, how things will shift for him when we receive Shen, we are glad that Kai is able to be the main focus for this part of the trip.

We continue to receive lots of intense stares from people when we are out. It's mainly the site of us with Kai that seems to puzzle people. I went alone to a little grocery store down the street from the hotel on my own to pick up a few snack items and was hardly noticed, but add the woman with curly red hair, and the little Chinese boy speaking English to us, and we become something like a UFO siting.

Blogging through the night in China

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-01T12:53:29-07:00

I was so exhausted when I posted the last blog entry. Actually I still am, but I woke up and had to go to the bathroom a bit ago, and when I laid back down in bed I could not get back to sleep. I looked a the clock and it was a little after 3:00 AM. My cruel, cruel body-clock was suggesting we go find someplace good for lunch. I'm sitting at the desk now listening to the thunderstorm outside. I can see the flash of lightening around the edge of the curtains every so often and can faintly hear the steady tattoo of the heavy rain falling on the street below our hotel room window. It was hot and hazy here when we arrived, with very thick smog, so I am hoping this storm cleans the air up for us, but lets up in time to let us get outside later on.

So, my insomnia allows you to enjoy some pictures of our trip so far. I have not done as well with the camera as I had hoped so far (really missing Cam and Ben here for that) but will try to do better as we go ahead.

I forgot to mention that on our way to the airport in Seattle we stopped in Marysville to drop off Ben with my Mom and Sister. We left our van there and took a shuttle to the airport. While we were there we met Tanya Cecil and her children. She and her husband adopted their son Brandon in February (need to fact-check this date) from Baoding (where Kai used to live. This is the first time we've been able to get the boys together.

More Random Photos...

Flying over Mount Adams (? I think it's Adams - feel free to correct if you recognize the peak)

In flight status update shortly after take-off from LAX. (it feels good to be over 7000 miles away from that airport)

Kai enjoying his backpack full of activities Cathay Pacific Airlines gave him on the plane...

Kai enjoying the kid's HDTV setup in the Hong Kong Airport...

Thunderheads outside the airport in Hong Kong...

Kai anxiously waiting to get on the third airplane of the trip - he loves flying in airplaines!

A few pictures from Baoding...

Okay, Kai was stirring and I've moved him into bed with Tina. I need to lay back down and pretend to sleep for a while now. I know there's more stuff I meant to write, but the synapses aren't all working correctly - hopefully I'll get a little more sleep and improve their connections. Good night again.

And We're in Baoding!

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-08-01T05:45:23-07:00

I tried going to bed a few minutes ago, but Tina says I absolutely must blog first, and of course she's right.

I should dump some pictures in here, but that would take some more work, we'll see how I feel when I get to the end as to whether or not I have the energy left to hook up the camera and dump in the pix.

First of all, I just want to warn those of you who are reading this in anticipation of your own upcoming adoption trip that the experience of traveling abroad in Asia can have its share of discomforts and challenges associated with it. Developing countries aren't like home, and we found this to definitely be true as we set out on this journey. However the worst of the hardships and challenges we've been faced with so far were the conditions at LAX. I'm telling you, that place is a HOLE!. I mean really, how can a North American Airport of this size be such a dump? The smell, the filth, the horror of the security checkpoints, I really can't convey the trauma we felt passing through there. It was like an Orwellian, post-apocolyptic wasteland. And that we went from there to the airport in Hong Kong, which is absolutely beautiful which only underlined the nastiness of LAX.

There was one little glitch in Hong Kong. after we cleared security there (which was a breeze), and were making our way to the next gate, we noticed that someone was missing from our party. "Where's Stinky-Mouse," Tina asked. "Gone," was the answer. We had progressed up and down a couple sets of escalators and around a few odd-degree turns by the time we discovered his absence. Tina and Kai stayed with our luggage and I (Scott) headed back to see if we left him at the security check-point. I assume my sister is laughing already now, because she of all people knows that I am not the person you want to send on a recovery mission into unknown territory. You see, my sense of direction is not...
Well it's not, OK? It's just not at all. And so two minutes after leaving them and trying to retrace our steps through this maze of airport mall storefronts and backlit signs, I quickly slipped into a full on panic attack. Not only did I not know where I was going, but was now worried about getting back. I turned around and got back to Tina and Kai and told them they would have to come with me. Tina of course was able to walk us straight back to where we had been, and Mouse was there! Yay!

We pressed on and soon were in Beijing. Now I have to tell you, that Kai was an amazing little trooper through this whole travel leg of the trip. We left our house Monday morning at 8:30 AM and didn't get him put to bed in a hotel room until 5:30 AM Wednesday morning Bellingham time. That's about 45 hours straight of being on the go. He slept on various airplanes along the way, but still, that's a long haul.

It's really strange being here in China again, not quite two years after our last trip. We had no problems in the Beijing airport, and the 3 suitcases we had not seen since checking them in Seattle all appeared unharmed on the correct carrousel. We collected them and headed out to the front of the airport. There was a sea of guides holding signs. We started scanning them, looking for Bob, the guide we had in Baoding and Shijaizhuang when we adopted Kai, and there at the end we spotted him! He had a huge grin on his face and looked as excited to see us as we were to see him. Kai ran right up to him and gave him a big hug, then Tina and I hugged him as well. We loaded our luggage into his car and headed off for Baoding. As we drove along over the same stretch of road we had been on two years ago, catching up with Bob on one another's family, it was the oddest feeling. Two years ago this whole experience was so foreign and full of unknowns. And now we find ourselves relaxed and getting reacquainted with an old friend. It felt really, really good!

We went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant that was named something like "Beautiful Flower Mountain" which is the home of The Monkey King. The front of the building was decorated to look like a big rocky mountain, and perched upon it was a golden statue of The Monkey King. So we've seen him already! The food was excellent and we visited more with Bob.

And, now, I am completely exhausted, so I promise to post more tomorrow. The pictures will have to wait till then - there aren't any of Shen yet, so I don't feel too guilty about that.
We're safe, we're here, we're happy.
More to follow!

Oh My Gosh, We're Really Going!

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-07-29T18:45:21-07:00

It has been a really crazy week around here trying to get everything ready to leave, but I'm pretty sure we're going whether we're ready or not!
Poor Kai is getting Very, Very Excited, and we are too busy to really give him the attention he needs. Tomorrow everything changes and the adventure really begins. I am looking forward to getting in the car and driving away. I'm tired of planning and getting ready. I want to be going and doing.

We had our weekly Sunday dinner with Cam and his girlfriend Brittni. We have had no time to cook this week so we were going to take them out, but then we didn't have time for that either, so we ordered Chinese take-out and sent all four of the kids (Cam, Brittni, Ben and Kai) to go pick it up. It gave us a few minutes to clean and pack without Kai. It's weird leaving the two big boys behind this time. We worry about them, but know they'll be fine.

Tonight for bedtime I read a Monkey King story to Kai. It's a big artsy book his Aunt Erin gave to him. It skims through the basics of the plot, including Monkey's defiance of Buddha. Kai always listens very intensely to it. In the end, Guan Yin helps Monkey solve a problem, and the moral is about learning to accept help from others. After I read the story to him I told him that maybe we would see the Monkey King when we were in China. Then he told me he didn't want to see the Monkey King. I reminded him of how Big Bird saw the Monkey King in China, and he told me he wanted to see Big Bird. I told him we could watch the DVD on the trip. After I tucked him in and turned off the light, I was sitting on the floor by his bed singing our standard lullabies, and he said to me, "Baba?"
"Yes Kai," I answered.
"I want to see Buddha."
"We'll see Buddha in China." I assured him.

I finished our lullabies.
And now I have to finish packing.
Next update will be from China!

and we got email from Bob...

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-07-26T23:58:08-07:00

Bob, A.K.A. Yang Baoshan, was our guide in Baoding and Shijiazhuang in 2005 when we adopted Kai. We really felt a connection with him, and have had a few email exchanges over the last two years. When we decided to return to Baoding on this trip we were really hoping that we would be able to have him for our guide again. The last time we corresponded with him regarding the possibility was in March, after that we didn't have any firm idea as to when we would travel until July 18. So we were worried he might not be available during our time there, but tonight we got an email from him letting us know that he will be our guide for that part of our journey!

As Tina and I were excitedly discussing this she made the observation that this is just one more thing that makes the experience of this trip feel much more transparent to us in advance; we already know our guide for this leg of our trip. It goes along with all these photos and video images we've received of Shen, which gives us so much clearer an image of who he is. I think we still have lots of surprises in store for us, both in terms of who Shen really is, as well as what lies ahead on this trip, but it is comforting and reassuring to know that Bob will be there for us when we get off the plane in Beijing!

Surprise! MORE PHOTOS!

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-07-26T07:48:28-07:00

Another family from the Xi'an CWI Yahoo group ended up traveling much sooner than they expected, so we didn't even know they were there, but they got these great pictures for us! We have only four days before we travel now!!!

Travel Itinerary - 1st Draft

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-07-24T06:33:18-07:00

We are now exactly one week from travel!
We have our tickets and our travel itinerary. With these in place it makes it very difficult to try to think of Shen's adoption and the accompanying trip to China in an abstract way. Tina is doing pretty much everything. I am starting to feel like a deer in the headlights. Ben has managed to flee, he went to the coast with a friend's family for four days.

We discovered one of our large suitcases has a broken zipper, so Tina bought a replacement last night. She ended up getting a bundle deal that had an overhead sized case and some some carry-on bags as well. The new luggage about pushed Kai over the edge. He proceeded to pack Stinky-Mouse into one of the smaller cases and wheel him around the house while repeating "This my suitcase. Go to China. Get Little Brother." At bedtime he had to have the suitcase in his room and he showed me more things he was taking to China for little brother. Kai is very clearly aware of our plans now and it's funny to see him working through it all, as four-year-olds are so external in the way they process things. (I'm processing here on the internet)

So, here is the first draft of our itinerary.

Aug. 01st: Arrive in Beijing (Guide to meet family at airport. travel to BaoDing by van)
Aug. 02nd: Visit BaoDing SWI.
Aug. 03rd: Visit office of Governor-General of HeBei province. Old Lotus Pond. Lunch.
Aug. 04th: BaoDing-Beijing Airport. Fly to Xi'an - Xi’an guide meet family at airport.
Aug. 05th: Visit Xi’an SWI.
Aug. 06th: Meet child at Civil Affairs. Sign agreement.
Aug. 07th: The family will go to Civil Affairs for registration, notary and apply passport.
Aug. 08th: One day tour to Terra-Cotta Figures.
Aug. 09th: Enjoy shadow play.
Aug. 10th: Take passport. - Fly to Guangzhou.
Aug. 11th: Medical. Take photo for child. Visit Chen Clan.
Aug. 12th: Half day tour to Six Banyan Temple.
Aug. 13th: 10:30 visa appointment. Pearl River Cruise.
Aug. 14th: Take visa in the afternoon.
Aug. 15th: Leave Guangzhou 9:30 AM

We are asking they move our visit to the Xi'an SWI to after we receive Shen. We don't want to meet him and not take him with us. We are pretty confident this change will be worked out. Other than that, the itinerary looks pretty good to us. We are excited about getting to see some more of Baoding, and that they have scheduled a visit to Kai's SWI for us. We have a list of additional things we want to try and see if it works out, but really I'd be fine with being locked in a windowless room the whole trip as long as we get Shen!

Pure Imagination

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-07-18T13:40:53-07:00

Hold your breath.
Make a wish.
Count to three.

Come with me,
And you'll be
In a world of
Pure imagination.
Take a look
And you'll see
Into your imagination.

We'll begin
With a spin
Traveling in
The world of my creation.
What we'll see
Will defy
Explanation.

If you want to view paradise,
Simply look around and view it.
Anything you want to, do it.
Wanta change the world?
There's nothing
To it.

There is no
Life I know,
To compare with
Pure imagination.
Living there,
You'll be free
If you truly
wish to be.

My favorite line from this song is "Wanta change the world? There's nothing to it."
Sometimes it is hard for me to believe this. Then we book plane tickets to China.

We Have TA!

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-07-17T13:23:11-07:00

Our agency told us today that we have received Travel Approval from China! Now we are waiting for a U.S. consulate appointment date so we can book our travel arrangements. We are hoping for a consulate appointment of 8/13 or 8/20, and then we're on our way!!!

New Video of Shen!

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-07-15T20:16:16-07:00

We are feeling pretty confident that we are getting close to traveling. In the meantime, we were very excited to receive a DVD from the last family we know to have been at Shen's CWI. I've edited out a short version with just the shots of Shen. I set it to a song Tina and I both like that I initially chose for its length, but the lyrics seem quite fitting. Shen is the one in the denim shirt and the pink pants.

Changes To Shen's Blog (technical)

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-07-12T23:49:47-07:00

Okay, this is kind of a technical entry, but if you are reading Shen's blog through an RSS aggregator like Bloglines you will want to update your subscription.
The software I use to publish this site has a bug in the current version that is forcing it to upload the entire site with each new entry I make. Consequently the upload time for blog entries was getting quite long. I was concerned about how this might work while we are in China. Since I will only be making updates to Shen's blog while we are traveling I decided to split that page out into it's own site. It looks the same, and has links in and out of the Stinky Mouse blog in the same way, but the URL address has changed. It used to be:
http://homepage.mac.com/socheltree/mouse/page9/page9.html (this is now a redirect page)
but now it's:
http://homepage.mac.com/socheltree/shen/

I have also moved all the pictures in the entries to PhotoBucket. This way they aren't contained in the blog file that's uploaded each time, only the referencing HTML code (hey, I warned you this was a technical post). This has changed the size of Shen's blog on the server from 4.5 MB to only 463 KB. That is a LOT smaller! This way when I'm writing new entries in China the uploads won't be too crazy.
Sorry for this technical interruption. Hopefully we'll have some exciting news to report soon!

More Photos!

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-06-28T13:46:11-07:00

Can you believe what a terrible parent I am? We've had these photos for a week now and I'm just now getting them on the blog! The family who took the little stuffed bear for us took these pictures. I've had to tweak them a bit because of the backlighting, so the color is a bit wonky. But is this guy cute or what?
So, the LOA (or now I find out that people are calling this the Signing Commitment or SC) has gone back to China, and we are feeling pretty good about the first week of August for traveling. If my little weather widget over there in the sidebar is accurate (when it manages to update at all!) then I'm not too worried about Xi'an in the summer. I'm trying not to think about Guangzhou.

L. O. A.

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-06-19T18:57:34-07:00

It Came! It Came! It Came!

That's our "Letter Of Acceptance" and is the document we have been waiting for China to send us for the last 77 Days. It's a letter we have to sign and return to China which states we accept the "referral" of Shen. As we didn't have to do this when we adopted Kai we're actually a little frustrated that they've inserted this step into the process. I'm guessing it was implemented by China's Department of Redundancy Department. You see, we started out by asking them for permission to adopt Shen and they wrote us a letter giving their approval. Now they've gone over all our paperwork and have written us a letter asking if we want to adopt Shen.

But it's Finally Here!!

And so now we can finally start waiting again! For the next step, which is Travel Approval (TA). Best guess for that is 2 to 3 weeks after our signed LOA gets back to China. When we adopted Kai we traveled 17 days after getting TA. So when do we travel? I'm guessing sometime in the first half of August. You are welcome to post your best guess for "Gotcha/Metcha/Family Day" in the comments.

"Care Package" #4

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-06-16T16:45:53-07:00

We have sent another little gift off to Shen with a family we met through the Yahoo Group for families adopting from Xi'an. They left on Friday for China to adopt another little boy at Shen's CWI. We are hesitant to send too much stuff, as it's hard on the traveling family and on the nannies. I have heard stories of families sending clothes and when they finally travel to get their child the nannies take the brand new clothes out of a cupboard and return them. The nannies assume the families want the clothes back and there isn't anyplace to store individual belongings for the children. The families I know of would have been happier if the clothes had simply gone into the community bin, but the nannies err on the side of caution. Photo albums are quite welcome, so we've sent two of those so far. This time we sent a little Beany-baby sized teddy bear with a cut-out heart tag bearing a little photo of Tina and me labeled Mama and Baba in Chinese. We know it might go in the cupboard till we get there, but we figure at least he'll get to play with it for a little bit, and he'll see a photo of us again. We are hoping we will get more new photos of him again too!

Blog Bling

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-06-16T16:34:51-07:00

What's Blog Bling? Blog Bling is what you call the little "widgets" people put in the sidebar of their blogs. There are thousands of funny little programs you see on different blogs, some are functional and some are just silly entertainment. I like having a few of these over there on the right if they're relevant. So last week I searched around and found a few fun ones to put here on Shen's blog. We've got a "count-up counter" keeping track of the number of days we have been waiting for LOA. We've also got a the current time and weather in Xi'an listed as well. These let us see a bit what's going on in Shen's world at the present moment. The last one I added is a little Chinese language flashcard. Each time you reload the page it displays a different word, and if you click on the little play button it will play a recording of the correct pronunciation of the displayed word.

New Photos!

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-06-06T23:02:47-07:00

Today our documents have been logged in at China's Center for Adoption Affairs for 65 days. We have been hoping to hear something soon, specifically we want to get our LOA - Letter Of Acceptance. A bunch of people logged in shortly before us received news today, but not us.

We did get a very happy present from a family in Xian right now though! They were able to take another photo album to Shen for us and post pictures of him online for us. It's just a couple pictures, but they are really great ones, in the photos he is holding the little picture album we sent him! Check out his new summer haircut...

Fundraising

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-05-24T21:50:10-07:00

In the fall of 2004 we embarked on a journey we had dreamed of for many years: to grow our family through international adoption. At the time we made this decision, I can honestly say, we didn’t have any idea what the experience would come to mean for us, and how profoundly it would change our lives. When we began, we thought we would adopt a healthy infant girl, but somehow as we made the first few steps down this path, we felt called to go a different way and bring home a “waiting child”. We adopted a little boy almost 3 years old with a limb difference; that little boy is our son Kai, who many of you have had the opportunity to meet, either in person, or through our blog. And now, just as for the speaker in Robert Frost’s poem “A Path Diverged Into a Wood”, for us, this has made all the difference.

We quickly became very involved with the world of international adoption, and advocating for waiting and special needs children. We also knew we wanted to open our home to another child. We are currently in the process of adopting another little boy from China with a limb difference. His name is YuHeng (the meaning of his name in English is Eternal Rain), he’s three years old and is living in the Child Welfare Institute in the city of Xi’an.

Adopting from China has many associated expenses including agency fees, home study costs, local, state and federal background checks, document acquisition, notary fees, translation fees, immigration fees, as well as travel and airfare costs.

One of the expenses in adopting from China is a required $3000 donation to the social welfare institute that has provided care to the child being adopted. This money helps the institute to provide care for the children who continue to live there. Because of this money, we have witnessed great improvements in the lives of children in these orphanages. And this is where we would like to ask for your help.

I know that all of us are frequently called on to contribute to many worthy causes, so I don't assume for a minute that you are short on opportunities to give financial help to others. Still, I am hoping that you might consider assisting us. Rather than asking you to buy overpriced magazine subscriptions, extra-thin wrapping paper, or chocolate of questionable quality, I am asking you to consider making a financial gift of any amount you like by clicking on the Chipin Button at the top of this page. Chipin provides a safe secure way for you to donate money via a credit card or through PayPal. Your gift will go towards helping us in the process of bringing home our son Shen.

Thank you very much for taking the time to consider our request. If you are interested in other ways of providing financial assistance to children living in orphanages in China please visit the websites of these excellent charitable organizations:

Love Without Boundaries

Half The Sky

Starfish Foster Home

Cool Video...

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-04-26T23:15:14-07:00

We found this video through the Yahoo group for families adopting from the Xi'an CWI. It's from an overseas volunteer program called i-to-i

Shen Update • With Video!

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-04-08T08:40:13-07:00

We continue to be amazed by the amount of information we have been able to get about Shen and the Children's Welfare Institute where he lives. It's very reassuring to know that the CWI is open to visiting families. Evangline's family, who took photos for us on March 14th posted some thoughts about their visit which I have distilled a bit of here...

“All of your children are well loved and cared for. It was a party in there when we brought the news of those who are being adopted! The ayis celebrated each child's new family; literally, they would run at my list to see whom I had and would jump for joy with the names on the list! It was unbelievable. Our rep from our adoption agency said he has never experienced anything like that before! He asked if I knew you all personally and I said in a way, yes!”

The main building houses 350 children. When the children are ready, they move from the first floor to the third floor where they have a daily preschool class. The 2nd floor is for children who have more severe special needs. All the floors were well kept and smelled clean. They have another building on the campus which houses older children who go to school, although some also live in the main building. There are some families from the community who take children home for 2 weeks at a time; they are called assistant foster homes. College students from the local university come periodically with boxes of snacks and candies and to play with the children. A family who recently visited the CWI to adopt their daughter met a young English woman on the first floor named Natalie. She was volunteering in the CWI for a month. Her sister was adopted from China and she wanted to experience what life was like for her in the CWI. After visiting the CWI this family wrote, “it was a wonderful experience and we are very lucky to have our children raised in such a nice place!”

And Now, The Video!

More New Pictures of Shen

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-03-29T11:18:42-07:00

Wednesday night Tina and I spent the evening waiting for an American family in China to get back to their hotel room and get busy!

They adopted their daughter from Shen's orphanage earlier this week and Wednesday they were scheduled to visit there. This is the second family in two weeks that has been able to visit the orphanage and deliver gifts and take photos for waiting families. We had sent them a little gift bag with a small toy airplane and a greeting card from us. The airplane is a little Matchbox model of a jet airliner. (we hope someone might tell him he will be riding in one of these with us) In the greeting card we glued a picture of us holding a large print of a photo of him taken by the family that was there two weeks ago. We also printed out some phrases in Chinese like, "This is your mother and father", and "We love you." and pasted these into the card as well. We were hoping to get new photos of Shen and we weren't disappointed! Both of these recently traveling families have been able to upload photos to Walgreen's within hours of their visits to the orphanage. And both times we managed to check their Walgreen's accounts as the photos were being uploaded. We could see the number of photos in the album go up as we clicked through them. Tina wanted to study each picture, but I wanted to click through them all as fast as possible to see if they got any of Shen. Again, not disappointed...

It is truly amazing to us to see pictures of him looking at pictures of us looking at pictures of him!

Even though he's only 3, these correspondences are going to make him aware on some level that something big is going to happen to him. The families that are bringing them to him are adopting other children and he is seeing these children leave with them. He is seeing pictures of us, and hearing the plan. This can only help make the transition into our family easier for him.

P.A.

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-03-22T21:54:32-07:00

Last Thursday 3/23 was a VERY Big Day here!
Our agency called to let us know they had received our P.A. That is "Prior Approval" to adopt Shen. This is the CCAA's (China Center for Adoption Affairs) official reply to our L.O.I. or "Letter of Intent" we sent to our agency on January 12. That makes it 10 weeks for us to get this final piece we needed to be DTC (Dossier To China). The CCAA actually only took about 8 weeks from when they got it.

We keep benchmarking our progress on Shen's adoption against the time it took to complete Kai's. This is pretty easy as we began both adoptions in early January two years apart. The difference is that we have completed things in different order. Last time we had P.A. well before we managed to complete our dossier. With Kai the big wait was for the USCIS to get us our 171-H. This time we managed to have all of our documents assembled and ready to go quite quickly, but couldn't do anything with them until the PA arrived. So now our documents are on their way to China! We are almost 2 months ahead of where we were with Kai's adoption. However, the next phase, waiting for Travel Approval, is taking over two months longer now than it did two years ago. With luck this will hopefully change, but we are now on to the next phase of waiting.

Updated Blog Header

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-03-15T21:42:23-07:00

When I first put this blog up I really wanted a picture of Shen in the header, but the only happy face picture we had of him was the one with him holding a sucker in front of his face. I tried photoshopping it out, but I'm not that good. So I went with a composite of landmark images from the city where Shen lives.

But now we have these amazing pictures of Shen taken by a family who was at his orphanage last week to adopt their daughter. The internet really makes some amazing things possible. A family in Texas we've never met in person carried a gift from us to Shen. They took pictures of him and posted them to the internet, and we were able to print the photos within hours of them being taken.

Another family is traveling this week so we are sending another little gift bag. This time we're sending a little toy airplane and a card with a photo of us holding a photo of Shen...

It amazes us being able to send little gifts to hem this way. We hope that it helps to prepare him for the adoption and transition into our family.

Little Dog Has Landed!!!

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-03-14T22:44:16-07:00

Xiao Xiao Gou

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-03-11T21:58:47-07:00

Little Dog is serving as a bit of a Trailblazer for us. We have sent him along with a little photo album to Xi'an for Shen. A very kind family from Texas has carried him with them for us on their trip to adopt their daughter from the same orphanage where Shen is.
Before we travelled for Kai we were able to send a package for him through a service called "Blessed Kids". We didn't know anyone who had been to Kai's orphanage and there were no online groups for families who had adopted children from there. Shen's orphanage in Xi'an has a very active online group of families both who have been, or are waiting to travel. It has provided quite the network for people to send items or to get photos and videos of their child before they travel to meet them.
We hope that Little Dog and the photo album will both get to Shen. We printed little tags with Shen's Chinese name on them and put the tags on the album and Little Dog. The album is filled with photos of our family and home. We labeled the pictures in Chinese so maybe a nanny will be able to tell him who's who in the photos. We have heard that the orphanage does a really good job preparing children for the adoption process so we are hoping that they will have time to look through it with him.
Hopefully it won't be too long before we can follow Little Dog and meet Shen ourselves!

A New Blog for Shen

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-03-07T22:36:09-08:00

Since I stopped updating Kai's original blog I intended that the Stinky Mouse site would serve as a family blog, which has been great, but we want to have a record for Shen like the one we kept for Kai. This blog will mainly be for the travel story, but we will keep track of the other little steps along the way here too. I have copied some posts from the Stinky Mouse blog into here to fill out some of the paper-chase. I haven't been as good this time at documenting each step along the way. It's just gone so much faster this time and some of it just didn't seem as big a deal. I feel bad for that - the curse of being the second child has already struck! The same thing happened to Ben, though I have to say that it seems to even out on the other side in that now that Cam has moved out we seem to spend more time one on one with Ben, so hopefully we will find balance in our lives with Kai and Shen as well!

The picture at the top of the page is made of two signature images from the city where Shen is now. In the background are the Terra Cotta Warriors, and on the right is the Bell Tower in the center of the city. This graphic is different than the our other page headers, maybe a little more formal, but in that way it more closely resembles our original blog for Kai. I'm sure as we get to know Shen and have more pictures of him this will change.

Time to Wait

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-02-20T22:14:42-08:00

I've never celebrated Mardi Gras. I have eaten pancakes for Shrove Tuesday, but that doesn't seem quite the same.
As I drove around town today and looked at the gray, dead landscape of the tail end of winter, I thought that if ever there was a time in need of a party this is it. One last big blowout before we begin the final countdown to spring. I mentioned our little Chinese New Year celebration this last weekend, but I didn't mention our other big reason for celebrating. On Friday we received our I-171. This is the document that says our petition to bring Shen home has been processed by the USCIS. This was the last piece we needed to complete our dossier. Now we are waiting for China to grant us Prior Approval (PA) before we can send our dossier to Beijing. Then we will wait for China to send us a Letter of Acceptance. Then we will wait for Travel Approval and a consulate appointment.

We have finished all the preliminary steps required and now begins our very own season of Lent. I wish that like Lent we knew how long this wait will be. I think it's safe to assume we have more than 40 days until our Easter comes. But each day we mark off brings us closer to Shen. The days are still cold, but the sun is coming closer. Soon this worn and weary landscape will surrender to the quickening forces of spring. We have begun our wait.

Check Out This Photo!!

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-02-04T09:35:04-08:00

This is the most recent photo we have of Kai's new little brother (Note: he's Cam & Ben's little brother too!). This picture was taken in October by a parent who was at the orphanage in Xi'an to adopt their daughter. They posted it online in an album of photos. They didn't know us or that we were adopting this little boy when they took the picture, or when they posted it, but we are very grateful to them. We have 5 pictures of him that we received from our adoption agency as part of his file. In all of those pictures he has a pretty sad little face, so it was really nice to get one of him with a happy face!

And now, I'm tired of only using pronouns when talking about him, so I'm going to tell you the name we have finally decided on. His new name is Shen.

We will keep Yu-Heng as his middle name, just as we kept Hui as Kai's middle name.
We had a harder time deciding on this name than we did with Kai's name. My preference is for short names. Cameron and Benjamin are longer names but they have good short versions: Cam and Ben that they use more regularly. We want to give him a Chinese name that is not difficult or awkward sounding to westerners. The Chinese character we chose for Shen is 深. It means "deep" or "profound".

Road Trip to Yakima

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-01-25T23:43:57-08:00

This week marked a big step forward on our Adoption Journey Number Two.

Tina and Kai and I all drove over the mountains to go to the Citizenship & Immigration Services Office (USCIS) in Yakima to turn our I-600A form and get fingerprinted at the same time. When we adopted Kai we didn't know we could do this. We had sent in our I-600A application form on February 12th, 2005 and waited until April 22nd for a fingerprinting appointment in Tukwilla. By driving our application over the mountains and getting fingerprinted when we turned it in we're 3 months ahead of where we were the first time on this piece of the puzzle. We still have to wait for them to send us our I-171H. With Kai we got that on May 2nd, which at 10 days from fingerprinting was REALLY fast compared to how long it's taking most people now(we know people who are currently at over 30 days). Part of why it was so quick with Kai was that we got our Doctor's office to fax a letter to the USCIS explaining the need for him to receive medical attention. At the time we honestly believed Kai would likely require some kind of corrective surgery for his hand. When I think about this now it's almost funny. So I'm a bit unsure about doing it again. I'm not sure what kind of medical attention Yu Heng will need. He has no hand, but knowing what I do now about children with limb differences I doubt he'll need any immediate procedures. I do know that he definitely needs to be home with his family as soon as possible, so I'm willing to pretend I don't know that children who are born with only one hand are not "missing" a hand - they are one-handed. There is a big difference.

So it was a great trip over "the hill". This is really NOT the time of year to drive over the cascades, but we scored on the weather. It was a beautiful drive over with bare, dry roads and light traffic. The other great part of the trip was that we were able to visit really good friends we haven't seen in too long! Lisa and Jack, and their two sons Darrin (14) and Troy (11). Tina and Lisa have been friends since kindergarten, and they used to live near us. Since they moved away we haven't been able to see them as much, and this was the first time they have gotten to meet Kai.

Kai was in great form for the whole trip. When we got in the door at Lisa and Jack's he turned on the charm and set to bossing Darren and Troy around. Actually he wasn't bossy, but he very much enjoyed going off with the big boys and being entertained by them, he was not the least bit clingy or shy. We ended up staying way too late and didn't get to our hotel until almost 10:30. Kai was a bit confused by this arrangement, but was still very excited about the adventure - we fixed him his bedtime oatmeal, tucked him in with us and he passed out cold.

We made it to the USCIS office by 8:30 AM the next morning and got everything done in less than an hour. The offices are much smaller than the ones on this side of the state, and everyone there was very nice and helpful. We met two other couples from the Seattle area there who were also adopting from China. They really enjoyed seeing Kai, and hearing a little of our story. We were through the whole process in less than an hour and headed home.

We had one last stop on our way and that was to visit Kai's friend Jasper in Ellensburg. Jasper's dad was at work, but we had a really good time visiting with his mom Paula, and were really glad we got to see them.

When we got home Tina had email from a director at our agency with a tracking number for our "Letter of Intent": it was received in Beijing on Tuesday! So now the race is on to see if the U.S. will get us our I-171H before China gets us our "Prior Approval" (P.A.). We are thinking about starting a pool on bureaucracy will move faster.

More to the story...

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-01-13T10:17:52-08:00

Two years ago, when we started the process to adopt Kai we didn't have any clear plans about a second adoption. Going through the process of international adoption for the first time was overwhelming enough. Once we had Kai with us though, we knew we would want to do this again. It has really been an amazing experience. I won't tell you that we never had second thoughts about going again, there have been many times when we've thought for certain we are too old, too tired, too poor, too... fill in the blank.

But we feel strongly that a sibling close in age would be a very good thing for Kai, and that it would be nice for him to have someone else in the family who shares his ethnic background. With these thoughts in mind we made the decision to start the process again. I'd be lying if I told you we didn't start with a girl in mind this time (we did with Kai too), but somehow we were drawn to a little boy on our agency's list again.

And so we found YuHeng. We are guessing his nickname is YuYu. We've been working on a name to give him, but haven't finalized that decision yet, so for now he's YuYu. He was born missing his right hand. He's almost exactly one year younger than Kai, but will be about exactly one year older than Kai was when we get him.

Here are a few more pictures of him...

I apologize for not blogging more the last couple weeks, but we have been really busy. We feel we did pretty well at rushing through the paper-chase to get Kai - it took us only 9 months from the date we turned in our agency application to the day we received him in China. We are doing everything in our power to make our "chase" to YuYu even quicker. There's an odd mix of issues working both for and against us. As we have been through this gauntlet before we know the path and have many of the necessary documents on hand. However, the process has changed a bit since two years ago, and there are wait times for some things that have increased. All we can do now is get through the steps we can ASAP. So what have we gotten done?

Our agency approved us to adopt Kai on January 20th, 2005.
Our agency approved us to adopt YuYu on January 2nd 2007.

Our social worker has finished our homestudy and emailed us a draft last night.
With Kai our home study wasn't complete until February 9th.

We finished our "Letter of Intent" (LOI) this is the official letter we send to the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) asking permission to adopt YuYu, and sent it in to our agency on January 12th. We didn't send in Kai's until January 26th. Now that this is on it's way we are waiting for China's response which should be in the form of a Prior-Approval (PA). This will take up to two months.

The next big step is to submit our I-600A to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office in Yakima and get fingerprinted for our I-171H. With Kai we sent in the I-600A on Feb 12, we got fingerprinted April 26th and received the I-171H on May 2nd. We are hoping that we can speed this step up quite a bit this time.

There are a few other items on our to-do list but these are the big ones which involve waiting on the U.S. and P.R.C. governments. Once we we have these we'll have the rest of our dossier ready to send to China and start waiting for the CCAA to send us the Signing Commitment (SC) this is a new step in the process we didn't have to do with Kai. Then we start the wait for Travel Approval (TA).

We've seen wait times on these things fluctuate so much over the last two years that we are hesitant to project our travel timeline yet, but we're hopeful it will be before then end of summer. So that's kind of a quick recap of what we've been up to, and where we are in the process of "Adoption #2".

Yu Heng

socheltree@mac.com — 2007-01-02T23:06:48-08:00

Let the paper-chase begin...