Home Sweet Home

I can not believe I am writing this blog from my kitchen.  We got home two nights ago at midnight.  We were greeted by Wai Gong(mother's father) and Wai Po(mother's mother) at the airport holding signs up in Chinese and Pinyin saying "Welcome Home Sha".   Sha liked both the signs and also meeting Grandma and Grandpa.  She did amazing on all the flights. We had crazy turbulence from Hong Kong to San Francisco however she managed to sleep through all of it.  I, however, did not:)  When we landed in San Fran Sha became an instant American Citizen, she was very happy to take a picture with her paperwork just moments before it was official.  While we were waiting for our plane from San Fran to NYC Paul noticed on the board it said "Ljameson,Pjameson and YSha have been upgraded to Business Class".  We were so excited to see that, it was a free upgrade and let me tell you that was a perfect way to end this amazing trip.  Sha now really thinks we are loaded and this is how we travel.  Poor sunshine, little does she know it doesn't work that way most of the time-LOL.  
When we got home my parents had our house all lit up with Xmas candles in all our windows.  Those candles are one of my favorite memories of Xmas when I was little and I have always dreamed of the day we had our house to put them in so this was just such a wonderful delight to see our house all glimmering when we got home.  Sha was greeted by Jack, the moment we were all holding our breath over.  She was a little afraid at first but then quickly followed him all over.  She also discovered she could feed him and now that is all she wants to do.  She did exactly what we thought she would which was run through the house looking at everything.  She loved her room.  She even said she was going to sleep in it alone in it the first night as long as Jack stayed with her. Well Paul and I knew who Jack was really dedicated to and was quite confident he wouldn't be in there just quite yet.  So we all ended up sleeping in our queen size bed, much different then the king beds we were used to in China.  We crashed about 12:30 and sure as I imagined Sha woke up at 6:00 all excited about her new house.  That was a bit painful but I got up with her.  She told me she wanted to cook mama and baba fried rice with eggs.  Anyone who knows me knows I can't cook rice so I ,of course, didn't have rice in the house so her first breakfast was the usual noodles with hot sauce (also her midnight snack last night).  We did manage to get rice thanks to my mom.


Last night we had dinner at my folks which Sha was all excited because she has been wanting to play with the doll house.  On our way back home she crashed in the car and we were able to carry her to her room and put her in bed.  After many attempts Paul and I were able to get her changed into a tshirt however that was a total team effort.  About an hour after she fell asleep she gave us our first true health scare.  Paul went to check on her and she had broken out into a full blown sweat, she was soaked all the way through.  We are not sure what caused it.  Paul was able to get her soaked tshirt off however she was very upset and agitated and was speaking loads in Chinese. About an hour or so later we were able to get her to go back to bed.  Paul stayed in the room with her until she fell asleep. 


When we woke this morning she was determined to make us fried rice with egg.  To our absolute delight it came out amazing. We also had coffee and hot chocolate out of our China and Changsha Starbucks mugs and played Wii, she loves Wii.  Below are pics from our flights,her fried rice and Wii.  We are curious to know if she is up for cooking dinner:)  Tomorrow we are going to get our Xmas tree which she appears to be excited about.

Leaving Tomorrow

Hey everyone,


Quick email as we are getting ready to go to bed since we have to get up at 5:00am to leave for the airport. I think we can officially say we are ready. It's very bittersweet, knowing it will be difficult for Sha and knowing we will all be home soon. I feel grateful that we were able to truly enjoy this visit. China was amazing. For our last dinner we did room service-ha. Sha kept telling us she never got room service before so we saved the best for last and she was over the moon on eating while sitting next to her bed.

While in the bath tonight she said she was excited to go to America but more excited to meet Jack. That of course made my day. She knows the flight will be long and seems ok with it however she is not happy about waking up at 5:00 (nor or we). Also while in the bath she decided to pull the drain all the way out. Next thing I know I am in 6" of water and it's getting deeper. Not sure what she did but it caused all the bath water to come up thru a drain in the floor. Yeah..we have two housekeepers with a shop vac in our bathroom and Paul and I are soaking wet. I suppose I should be grateful it's this bathroom and not our house:)

Anyways, we land at 10:00pm Friday night then have to drive from JFK...long day so keep us in your thoughts tomorrow. We will let you all know when we land.

Trip To The Zoo

Hi Everyone,


Sorry it's been a few days since we last blogged. So much has happened not sure where to begin. Last we blogged we were waiting for Sha's TB results which came back fine so that was nice. We went to the American Consulate yesterday and I don't know about anyone else but that was almost as chaotic as the medical exam, the only difference was it was more exciting...of course:) Paul and I took the oath, swearing with our right arm up that we would forever take care of this little sunshine who has a kick of "spice" to her. After that we just walked around downtown which is really beautiful. I know my "AP" parents will recognize the statues in our pics below. We had fun taking some shots of Sha with them. They are everywhere in downtown.

Today when we woke the hotel transformed into a Xmas wonderland which was quite nice. We went to the Safari Zoo which was so nice for Sha. We save every kind of animal out there and was pleasantly surprised over the good care they were in. Us being animal lovers were nervous on what we were going to see. Sha got to feed giraffe's which she LOVED. When we were done she went back and paid for another branch with her own money and then shared it with Katherine who is a 6 year old cutie in our group. It was very sweet.

We had our first temper tantrum but I'm not sure I can fully call it that. It didn't last long which was nice. Poor sunshine just got frustrated because she couldn't explain to us that she was tired and didn't want to walk to dinner:( Paul and I synced up together to get her through it but it was our first little "struggle" which for day 10 is not bad. She just typed in her translator that she is excited for the big plane ride to her "new home"...we had a big family hug for that.

Signing off for now because we are just exhausted.Tomorrow's our last full day in Guangzhou and then we are homeward bound. For the first time this entire trip I can say I'm ready.

Miss and love you all.

From Baby Clothes to Burberry

Hi everyone.....we are day 3 in Guangzhou and things are still going great.  I'm late in blogging as we are just exhausted so I am just going to attach some cute pics and highlight the "melts':

- Started the day with a family blessing at a Buddhist Temple which was amazing, very moving. It was a beautiful Temple and Sha of course asked Connie loads of questions about the Monks "Do they live here year round", etc. Connie kept saying "Oooh she is smart".:)

- After that we went to Jade factory (got my sis a surprise:) and then went to lunch. 

- At lunch Sha ordered fruit salad and mussels...yes mussels. Paul and I ate grilled cheese and BLT's and she had mussels.

- Finally found a playground for her but she was not really having it.

- At night we went shopping and dropped off some very needed laundry.  One of these little shops near the hotel had these children's coats.  The woman of course threw one on Sha and said "Oh she loves it", I could tell she didn't but the BEST part was I saw this khaki trench coat behind that one thinking to myself how cute that one was and all of a sudden Sha pointed to it and lit up....Come to find out it was a knock off Burberry trench coat.OMG so so cute and for once we agreed on something for her to wear.  I cried-LOL

- On our way back from dinner we found a Pug statue which she recognized it and said "Jack".  She sat on it for a picture and we of course tried to say "see he's friendly" and she gave us a look like "Duh, no kidding he's a statue"-LOL

Her English is improving literally every day.  She is now starting to repeat things like when I am always saying "Oh My God"..yeah.  Each day she gets closer to us and now will come up and hug us for no reason.  She is starting to test us more but when she pushes us and we stay stern she is ok, she listens and doesn't test us further.  Let's hope that stays that way.

Well that's all for now. We are going back to the medical clinic to confirm she doesn't have TB which we are confident she doesn't-yeah!  Then we are off to the pearl market.

Miss you all....
Love us 3

The Power of THE KISS

Good morning. It's about 5:50PM on Saturday and we just got back from our first full day in Guangzhou.  Sha had her medical exam first thing in the morning and had to get 5 shots, poor sunshine.  We went with another family from CAWLI and from CT.  The place was insane. There were easily 300 people in this room and screaming babies everywhere.  It scared me more then it scared Sha I think however she did really good.  The family from CT had a 1 year old baby who had a little fever so they didn't give her the shots.  When it was Sha's turn she got very nervous and started to tell the nurse she had a fever so she couldn't get the shots today....it was quite cute although she was quite scared.  She did really good though. I, of course, took photos. We walked to the medical clinic so we could see downtown Guangzhou which is much more exciting and colorful then Changsha.  Paul and I laughed because this morning at the buffet we felt like we were at a Little People convention except it was an Adoption one instead.  There were loads of other families which was really neat to see and chat with.

After the clinic we walked more and had a brief moment of sadness because Sha just wanted to walk with Connie so she could chat with her.  We were walking into a Seven 11 behind her and just as Paul and I were all like "Awh she wants nothing to do with us" she went thru the door with our guide and then bounced right back out to make sure we were still behind her. Once she saw us she gave a little smirk and then went back with our guide.  Silly I know but we were melting inside.

Ok, so our highlights for the day.

    * We played hide and seek and she finally got her to laugh her head off with us.  She has this laugh that is indescribable.  We were waiting for the moment we could get that out of her and we did today.  She was decided to hide in a drawer and when Paul found her she just cracked up. I captured that for a pic.

    * The Kiss.  She does this cute little face when Paul and I kiss each other so today when she got all silly we attacked her and started to smother her with kisses, this time she loved it so all day today she would push our heads together and say "kiss" and then wait for us to kiss her again.  I think Paul and I kissed more today then we have in the 15 years we have been together-ha.

    * The Hug. Paul got the first official Bear hug today.  After playing hide and seek she sat at the end of the bed near him and wrapped herself around him and stayed there for a bit.  She then came over to me and gave me one and then a kiss on each cheek. Ahhhhhh, melting just writing it.

    * At lunch she ordered shrimp full still in "body" and she tore into it like there was no tomorrow.

    * At lunch she held up her drink to us and said "Cheers"..ha love it

    * After lunch she typed in her translator "Can we go for a stroll"

There are so many moments I could go on.  This hotel is really nice.  We got a Barbie doll that came with a little Asian baby...well I think it's Asian.  When I pointed to it I said "Mama and Sha Sha" and she lit up with a huge smile.  The lobby and the pools are really nice. There are HUGE koy fish in this pond under this waterfall...in the lobby...see pics.

That's all for now.  Ya know there will be more.

PS...you'll see she is also getting more comfortable in front of the camera:)

Sha LOVED her first plane ride

We are in Guangzhou! Sha Sha LOVED her first plane ride, she was awesome.  We were very nervous leaving Changsha and having her say good bye to Clare and her friends but I think within her she may have been ready to go. She got the window seat (of course) and was just glued to it before we took off.  Once we were up in the air she just took it all in. The seats were two and then 1 so Paul got the honor of sitting next to her which is fine because I was too busy being a silly first time mom taking all these photos.  There were two Chinese woman behind me with a baby who I think thought I was a drunk-ha.

So for the highlights of this trip, the three of us spent the morning together and then Vicky came by with her passport (so stinking cute BTW), the setback we saw earlier completely went away and she was starting to bond with us again.  We had a great opportunity at one point for Vicky to talk with her about the flights, her ears, staying close to us and her clothes. As I mentioned earlier she doesn't like them but wears them anyway. We were able to really get the point across that she doesn't have to, it's ok to tell us stuff like that and then she asked Vicky if she can go shopping in Guangzhou and pick out her own clothes.  That was my melt # 1,989, my daughter LOVES to shop....isn't that every mother's dream-ha.  Paul won't admit it but he was excited about that too.

When we got to the airport we bumped into the family that have those sweet girls Sha likes.  The mom offered Sha a peppermint paddy in the airport which Sha took, then she reached into her backpack (which we learned she also doesn't like:)  and pulled out a chocolate cookie she got and handed it to her and said "Thank You"....another big "melt".   The couple ended up sitting right in front of us. When we were on the plane I pulled out goldfish and she immediately stood up to hand the bag over to them asking them if they wanted any...it's insane how generous she is, she is always thinking of other people.   So then they served us this little snack thing that none of knew what was in it.  The mom leaned back to me and said "Ask Sha what this is", so I asked her and she pulled out her translator and told us what it was, she explained the whole meal to us and then typed in her translator "I want your asparagus" to Paul and me.  That of course was fine by us since we didn't know this flat white looking thing in a bag was asparagus.

So we then landed, her ears hurt a bit but Paul taught her to chew on gum, she didn't complain at all.  When we got our (now 3 bags) of luggage she was all excited about the luggage cart.  After Paul loaded the suitcases he put her on top of them to push her and she loved that.  We met Connie our guide and another family from CT and went to the White Swan.   Very nice hotel but the best part is our view. Guangzhou has the Asian Games right now. The city is on a huge river and it every building is just lit up.  They have all these ferry boats with amazing lighting on them.  Sha ran into the room all excited and then looked at the window and went "WOW, beautiful"...I don't know what # melt that was but it was another huge one.

Today is her medical exam which we are nervous about because the little sunshine has to get about 4 shots I think and a full exam.  Connie said it's about 2 hours. We told her after that we will go clothes shopping.  Tomorrow I think we are going to take her to a zoo which I'm sure she will love.

All is VERY GOOD in China.  We miss everyone and can not wait for you all to meet our little miss sunshine.

Last Day In Changsha

Hi everyone,

This is our last blog from Changsha.  We've been here 5 days and it's been wonderful.  We have mixed emotions about leaving, the main one is our concern for Sha as this is the only place she has ever known but then we are excited to know we are getting closer to bringing her home. Plus Guangzhou, where we fly to today, has a lot more to do for kids, Changsha does not.

Yesterday was another great day but it came with a lot more emotions involved.  We went and visited on of ICC's orphanages that was basically for children who are not adoptable.  Either they aged out or were severely special needs.  The main reason for the visit was to thank a woman who was the first person who cared for Sha when she was first abandoned.  I have attached a picture of her.  She was very grateful to Paul and I and just kept thanking us for giving her this chance.  Sha Sha also was able to see a few of her friends she knew when ICC did camping day trips.  This visit was truly a life changing event, there are just so many children who need 24 care that are not getting it.  They are certainly not neglected but it was very difficult to see the setting they were in.  Clare, Lis and the staff at ICC who all volunteer their time are just amazing, they need so many more Clare's.

After the visit we went and had a "hot pot" lunch which is basically a gigantic bowl of soup.  We ordered a non spicy one and a very spicy one for our spicy girl,  the LOVES spicy.  We later found out she order a frog soup hot pot.  When I say frog it had ALL parts of the frog in it..yuk.  Sha loved it and wanted us to try it.  I seriously didn't think I could do it but she offered me a kiss on the cheek if I tried..well can't say no to that.  Clare took a picture of me eating it..wasn't chicken that's all I have to say.  After that I finally found my Starbucks, thought I died and went to heaven, I have dreamed of this. Clare convinced us to try a green tea latte which I did....why not sure when all I dreamed about was a cinnamon dulce latte skinny-ha.  We did take a picture great photo of her outside of SB though.

After that we went back and had dinner at Clare and Lis, for Thanksgiving.  We were nervous about this because Sha was going to see her best friends Don Jia for the last time. We were afraid it would set her back a bit and unfortunately I think it has.  This morning she was somewhat back to day one with us, still sweet but a little distant from us.  I felt so bad because she picked out an outfit that I knew she didn't like but she was telling me "yes".  To me it looked babyish but she kept saying yes.  I should have gone with my motherly instincts and known she didn't like it but she is too shy to say no.  She later told our waitress Zoe that she didn't like it.  Zoe got her translator again and all 5 of us were able to chat at the restaurant and were able to tell us it's ok if she doesn't like it, she doesn't have to say she does.  When we got back to the room we made a "yes and no" pile,she did good with that and did put a few pieces in the no pile.  She also told the waitress to tell us she is not a baby,  ha.  I'm sure we are babying her a bit but at least she felt comfortable enough to tell us that.

We ended last night with a ride on this huge ferris wheel and after she was able to ride these little cars in the park, she loved it.  We are hopeful once we are in Guangzhou she will bet closer with us again, there is a zoo we are going to take her to.  She is such a smart, sweet child who we just want to make feel safe and happy.
That's all for now, will write from Guangzhou.