""And whosoever receives a little child such as this on my behalf, welcomes me." - Matthew 18:5

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Isabella's appointment with the American Consulate

December 10, 2012

Mei Mei did great last night, as I mentioned in my previous post, she is no longer grieving and is sleeping well in her playpen all night.

We woke up early, had breakfast and headed downstairs to meet Grace and the Cole family to head to the U.S. Consulate for lan lan's and mei mei's appointment.

We took a van to the U.S. Consulate appointment which was about a 30 minute drive. Mei Mei did not want to eat much for breakfast and I am glad she didn't because on our way to the consulate appointment she threw up when we had gotten there in the van.I am not sure exactly why. I at first thought she may have been getting sick but once we got in the building, she wanted to have a mandarin orange that I had in her bag.

Anyways, we got sworn in and took the Oath. Shortly after we were called up to the window and we had an American officer interview us. We turned in all of Mei Mei's paperwork and the process was painless. Before you knew it we were done and off to the next place on our agenda.

On our way back to the hotel, Mei Mei threw up again (all 11 pieces of mandarin that she had eaten, poor baby) I figured out afterwards that it had to have been that she got carsick.

At 11:30am, we met as a group and headed to the Pearl market. The Pearl market was a great big market place with like 8 floors. I have to say that all the stores and malls here are huge and they have high buildings everywhere. Very Very high !

At the pearl market, we bought Mei Mei her very own Pearl Necklace and matching earrings. This is a gift that will be given to her the day she marries. Many years from now.

After shopping at the market place, all the families kinda went their own way and we invited Grace, our guide to have lunch with us. We went to a nearby Pizza Hut.

After lunch, we grabbed a taxi and headed to the Children's wholesale Market place. This was another huge shopping strip with clothes, shoes and anything you basically need for children. Basically, the only thing I was looking for were jeans for mei mei.

It took us awhile to figure out how to shop there. Since it is a wholesale market, you can't just walk into a store and buy one piece of clothing. They sell the items by volume. Hence, wholesale market. What they do have are bins outside their shop and in these bins you can find one piece items and buy them. We finally found a store that had jeans for mei mei... Such cute jeans too ! We ended up buying 8 pairs of jeans for $25.00 u.s. dollars. Super cute jeans.

After our shopping spree, we grabbed a taxi and headed back to the hotel. It took us forever to get a taxi to stop for us. I think the cab drivers don't stop for Americans because of the language barrier. Seriously, it took us like 20 minutes to get a cab to stop for us and you pretty much have to get in the way and hope they don't run you over and then open the door to their car.

It was a long morning and afternoon. We were told by grace to all meet downstairs in the lobby by 5:15 as we were going to take our group picture from CCAI and also have all the babies take their pictures too. Not on the "Big Red Couch" like the one at the white swan but our imitation of it on the "Big Brown Couch" at the China Hotel.

After our pictures, we then headed out as a group to the marina to go on the Pearl River Dinner Cruise.

It was a nice 1.5 cruise with a buffet dinner. I did not eat the dinner because it didn't look that great but Mei Mei ate like a horse while we enjoyed the scenery of the buildings all lit up. We got to see the 2nd largest building in the world. It is a TV satellite building and I was told that there is a mid-point in that building that people are allowed to bungee jump... That is just plain crazy. After the dinner, a funny looking clown came out and entertained everyone by juggling and doing some cool tricks. Mei Mei enjoyed the clown, got a balloon and got to spin a soccer ball on her finger (I tell you, this kid is talented).

After our dinner cruise, we came back to the hotel and called it a night... We were busy busy busy !

                                 Our beautiful daughter is officially an American Citizen
                                                            Isabella Yong Mei Bosch
                                                                   The Cole family
                                                       Lan Lan and her beautiful smile
                                              Forever foster Sisters from Guanxji Province


                                                              The Pearl Market Place


                                                           Herb checking out the Pearls
                                       The Pearl necklace and matching earrings for Mei Mei



                                 Carl, little Kyle, Jennifer and little Evan from North Carolina
                                                Kathy, little Maya & Her husband Jodi
                                                  Chong, Chong fell in love with Mei Mei
                                             Becky, Sadie (aka - chong chong) and John
                                                            Little Maya (14 mths old)
                                                                   The Cole Family 
                                           Chong, Chong, Maya, Mei Mei & Lan Lan
                                                         Mama, Mei Mei and Daddy
                                                            Our CCAI Group picture

                                   Chong, Chong; Maya; Mei Mei; Lan Lan; Evan & Kyle




Sightseeing tour of Buddhist temple; Old Chen House; and Arts & Crafts shopping center

December 9, 2012

Isabella has no longer grieved. Her personality is shining through each day that passes and we are realizing that she has some minor behavior issues that need to be adjusted and have been dealt with here in China. When she doesn't get her way she bursts into a full blown tantrum but she is quickly learning that this behavior will not cause her to get her way.

Today we woke up early had breakfast and headed out on an optional tour with our group. We did some sightseeing of the Buddhist Temple,  Old Chen House and the provincial arts & crafts shopping center.

The Buddhist temple was beautiful. A serene environment, aptly suited for the Buddhist way of life, surrounds the Bright Filial Piety Temple. It is one of the major Guangzhou attractions that one will come across during their stay in the city. This ancient Buddhist temple has a history that is about 1,700 years old.One much like the one that we saw in Nanning. We did hear a service going on while we were visiting and we got to see many locals pray to their different buddas. Again, it gave me an appreciation for the one and only true God that we serve, our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ.

After the visit to the temple, we went to the Old Chen House. The Guangzhou house of the Chen family is commonly known as the ancestral temple of the Chen family. It is now the site of the Guangdong folk art museum. The 100 year old temple was once the ancestral temple and study of 72 Chen families in Guangdong in the Qing Dynasty. It is now the largest and best preserved and decorated ancient architecture existing in Guangdong Province.  We had the chance to have the master chen write Isabella Yong Mei's name in chinese on a large scroll. So we got that for her and hopefully she will appreciate it when she is older. We also got the boys a smaller one for their rooms in chinese as well.

After our visit to the Chen House, we went to the arts and crafts shopping center.

Here we visited a jewelry center where the sell authentic Jade. It is a custom in China that a child is given jade three times in there lifetime. The first time it's given to them by their parents when they are born. They can give them usually a small pendant jade or earrings. We bought Mei Mei a beautiful pair of Jade earrings that we will put on her once we get back home and can get her ears pierced. The second time they are given Jade is when she gets married (usually given by her parents or by the in laws) and the third time is when she turns 60 years old and its given to her by her children.

One thing I can say about the Chinese culture is that they have very strong family ties. The children look after the parents (the way it should be).

Oh let me mention while we were at the jade shop, we were getting ready to pay. Next to the register there was a Budda (very common to have buddas in stores for good fortune and money) Mei Mei was in her stroller and she saw the budda. She made it clear that she wanted to get out of the stroller. She kept pointing at the Budda and saying Mo Mo. So I went and grabbed our guide and asked her what mei mei was saying. Grace began to speak chinese to mei mei and what mei mei was saying was "that she wanted to touch the Buddha". I am not sure if the foster parents ever exposed her to buddhism or not but I took her to the buddha and she touched him and smiled.  I asked grace what type of buddha that was and they said it was the buddha for money and good fortune. So, of course Herb went and rubbed everything on that buddha, lol (crazy man).

We got back to the hotel around 1:00pm and then at 4:00pm, we met our group downstairs to do visa's paperwork.

After the paperwork we all got together and went out for a group dinner at the Macau Street Restaurant.

We had a great day, here are some pictures of our day !

                                              Group Dinner at the Macau Street Restaurant
                                                               Eating with chopsticks
                                                               Buddas at the Temple
                                                                           Pagoda


                                                     A form of prayer for the Chinese
                                                                    A buddhist Monk



                                              These are what they call the master buddas




                                                               Another form of prayer

                                             The detailed architect at the Chen House

                                   Master Chen working on a scroll with Isabella name on it
                                                                       Final Piece

                             This was the Buddha that mei mei was rubbing and so was Herb

























Sunday, December 9, 2012

All Isabella Yong Mei

So this post is about all the things that we have discovered our girl can do...

Mei Mei can do the following things:

She can eat with CHOPSTICKS (all fine motor skills)

She can put on her own shoes

She can eat by herself with a fork and spoon

She can climb just about anything

She does pee and poop in the toilet (almost already potty trained)

She can read (hahahha just kidding)

She can and will eat anything that doesn't eat her

She cleans up her mess

She can help me comb her hair

She can sing

She can dance

She can make you laugh

And she can definitely melt your heart, Just sayin :)