Sorry..i'll give an update before you wake up tomorrow

We have a girl!!!!

Today we got up at 2am and left for the airport at 5:30am. A quick 2 hour flight brought us to Nanchang early this afternoon. At about 3pm the seven families went to the Civil Affairs Office to meet our new babies. It was somewhat unofficial, tomorrow we have to go back and do all of the paperwork. They brought the six babies into a really big room and one by one we went up to get them. There was some crying by everyone. It happened so quickly that I can hardly remember it. Kim & I were trying to figure out which child was Cha Bing...we really werent 100% sure. She is adorable. She can and does turn on a cry(with no tears) in an instant, then stop on a dime a be occupied by something else. We have been parents now for 5 hours and she has definetly warmed up to us. She is very smart(cunning & devilish may better describe it) We took her to dinner a little while ago and she was very good and she eats like me. Who doesn't love a good bowl of Congee. Well, we have to come up with a name tonight..which we werent expecting so I need to go. Here are a few pictures

Friday

We landed last night around 10:30pm. It was very hot & humid. The fog was so thick you really couldn't see much. We checked in to the hotel and got to bed around 1:30am. Our beds are firm, but we slept well. After a 24 hour trip we could have slept well in an alley. Got up early for our tour of Beijing. I was daring at breakfast and decided to skip all of the eating rules, but 16 hours later and I havent been sick yet. The food is not bad but as expected there are some things on the menu that seem questionable. Our tour guide for the day was a young Chinese guy named Jerry. He was very entertaining and may consider a career in comedy if the tour business goes into a recession. He was even more entertaining after lunch when he slammed about 5 shots of Chinese vodka. He said it helps keep him loose. It worked. The Panda's were really cool and exciting to see. One of the younger Panda's was named Gigi. Hmm. We stopped at a pearl market and made a small purchase for a future birthday. The prices are outstanding. Almost no one speaks English, and no one seems to understand my version of sign language. The group of people we are with are from all over the world but primarily the US. We overslept from our nap and missed dinner with the group, so tonights dinner was Coke and potato chips. Kim is sleeping already. When we wake up tomorrow we will be one day away from meeting Cha Bing.

WE LEAVE TOMORROW!!!!

Wow, This has been like climbing a mountain for 3 years except my legs arent really that tired. We are almost to the top. There really isnt't much that I can say at this point. We are excited, nervous, happy, scared to death and just about any emotion you can think of, but mostly excited. Will she be walking? who knows. How long will it take for here to bond with us, a day, week, month? Sooner or later she will have to like us. She will probably like me first(Just kidding...Kim doesn't really read the blog)
We still havent settled on her name yet, but we decided to wait until we meet her. In the mean time we will call her Bing Bing(thats what her nanny calls her)
Anyway, big plans tonight....I can't leave the US for 2 weeks without some of my second favorite pizza, get to bed early, get up at 4am, run 5 miles and head to the airport.
I'll try to post everday but I heard a massage only cost $3 an hour...so I might be busy relaxing. I'm not joking...$3

Cha Bings Room

Cha Bings room is done and ready. Special thanks to Marilyn and Dick, we never would have gotten the crib together by ourselves and they did a great job on fixing up some furniture and getting everything sewn, hung and assembled. We are pretty well packed and ready to go. So, T minus 7 days, and Cha Bing s life will change forever and so will ours. A few pictures are attached to show their awesome work(pictures don't really do it justice). If you look closely, you will see a little OSU hat hanging on the hook. Born to be a Buckeye!!

Saturday

Its a week and half before we leave. We received our travel itinerary last night. We are ready to go. One more week of work for both of us. It seems like we are ready, but we will forget alot of stuff. We will figure it out.

We leave Columbus next Wednesday morning the 25th.
Fly to Detroit, then spend 13.5 hours flying to Tokyo
Only 4.5 hours from Tokyo to Beijing. We land in Beijing Thursday night at 9:30pm(which is 9:30am Thursday for those of you in Zanesville)

Friday we spend the day on a Tour of The Summer Palace(check out the Marble Boat)..then to the Beijing Zoo to see the Pandas, then to the Temple of Heaven.

Saturday we get to see where the Olympics will be held, the Forbidden City, Tianimen Square and get to climb the Great Wall of China

Sunday morning we get on a plane and fly to Nanchang to meet our new daughter. Finally!!