We Got Our Sunshine

Hi everyone,


Sorry for the delay in posting to our blog but unfortunately we are unable to access it from China so my sister Lisa is going to update it for us. This post is a bit long as I'm trying to update since we have been here. As most of you know our Gotcha Day was yesterday, Nov 22nd and was by far the most amazing moment of our lives. She has done amazingly well. She was definitely shy at first and scared...we all were so scared but we were able to get some smiles out of her pretty quickly. We met at the CCAA at 9:30 sharp, Paul and I got their first with Vicky, our guide and could barely breathe. Then we heard the elevator beep and out comes little miss "pink" sunshine. I am not even sure what all went on because all I could do was just stare at her. I think we were there for about an hour. We saw little babies coming in to meet their very nervous parents as we were leaving, it was surreal. On our way back we stopped to get snacks for her, thought she would go for typical cakes, candy or chips and she ends up picking up a bag of chicken feet, yes chicken feet. I asked the guide if that was ok, she of course said "yes, they are very spicy". Yes folks, chicken feet, and they look just like that...we got two bags:) We came back to the hotel, had lunch with the guide and quickly learned Sha loves spicy food. After that the guide left us and what we thought was going to be a panic moment ended up being everything but. Suddenly something kicked in Paul and I and we somehow just knew what to do. We first all laid down and watched some tv, played a game of UNO (she named all the numbers and colors in English) then took her to the pool to show her it and she asked for a bathing suit (of course we had) and then she went swimming with Paul, she loved it. She also loves taking pictures of us with the digital camera. She appears to understand some of what we are saying...laughs at our Mandarin and if she doesn't know how to say it she will write it in PinYin and then we enter it into the translator. Oh yeah, the e-translator that Paul and I still couldn't figure out, she figured it out in 2.2 seconds, no lie! Yesterday Paul laid down with her to read one of our eng/chin books and she feel asleep leaning on him...oh yeah, she loves to hold Paul's hand too...simply a blessing we can't describe.

Last night we went out to dinner with Clare and Lis and Sha wanted a steak:) She has a great appetite and eats very healthy, likes fruit and veggies and ANYTHING spicy. Then we came back to the hotel and I gave her her first bath, she loves the bath. I read her two books and at the end she let us hug and kiss her goodnight, we melted.

Today we went back to CCAA and finalized our registration, she is officially ours. It was bittersweet because we went back to the same place we met her at and she suddenly got very quiet. She then asked Vicky if all three of us are going back to the hotel after. I think she was afraid we were leaving her:(:(:(:( The sweet part is she still likes us enough to want to go with us:)

Right now Paul is playing eng/chinese monopoly with her and she is counting money and knew how to subtract from 500 and give Paul change back...she is smart smart smart. The best part is she just opened the chicken feet which I seriously thought I was going to be sick and she was so kind to share it with Paul and I...will not describe any of that but will share a picture.

China is beyond an amazing country. It has far outweighed our expectations. The people are very warm and welcoming. We did Beijing (Great Wall, Tianaman's Square and Forbidden City) and it was breath taking. Amazing to learn all about that history through Rose, our first guide who was the BEST.


We can't thank you all enough for all your thoughts and prayers. We feel so blessed and so lucky...the luckiest people alive right now. I have already turned into a biased mother because I seriously have the most amazing kid in the world. We can't wait for you all to meet her.


Love

Linda, Paul and ShaSha