Good-Night/Good Morning from Guilin

Flying can be such a scary thing to do, unless you're Xiao Qian, who's never been on a flight before mind you. She was so excited to hop on that airplane and experience it taking off (you could just see it in her bones that were almost literally jumping out of her skin). There's a lot of anticipation built up around flying, even for those of us who are experienced at it. Unfortunately the anticipation was centered around "hurry up a wait", a familiar theme around here. Once we got on the airplane, poor Xiao Qian had to wait another 45 minutes for a delay in taking off, so we decided to fall back to our old stand-by, playing Crazy-8's. No sooner had we played a few games (with Xiao Qian winning, of course), we folded our hands because the time to pull away from the jetway had come. We taxied out to the runway, the engines wound up, and off we went. When the plane lifted off for Guilin, she had this huge grin on her face, and then she whispered, "Wow". That was a joyful sight, and of course another "first". (We later found out through one of our friends in Guilin that she wasn't feeling too good on the airplane, so we bought her some motion sickness pills for the trip back to Guangzhou in a few days.

Our day was completely packed with catching up with old friends (several flew down from Beijing to be with us) and running from one activity to another. Guilin is beautiful, quaint and quiet, quite the opposite from Guangzhou. We caught up with our previous Guide from our adoption with Willow (yes Zoe, it's XiXi), and after picking us up at the airport drove us straight to her lovely home in a nearby village where we munched on another remarkably prepared home-cooked Chinese meal. Tastes nothing like what we get in America, and I mean nothing (I'm complimenting the food in China, not the United States in case there was any question). After checking into the hotel, all of us (with our friends) hiked and hiked, toured and toured, and ate and ate. They all loved Xiao Qian. They simply cannot believe how at ease and confident she is - joking, laughing, skipping, teasing, etc... The hardest part for us (Victoria and me) in the midst of all this bliss is the communication bonding happening with all of my Chinese national friends that we simply cannot partake in. And to be perfectly candid, there have been times when tinges of jealous are aroused, exposing the ugliness of my heart while surrounded by love, joy and unity. "Wait a minute, she's MY daughter and I want to connect and communicate with her!" Nobody is doing anything wrong except me. So I quickly slap that idiotic and sinful thought down and move on.

But here's the best part about today:  Up until now we've spent the entirety of our time here in China trying to learn about and invest into Xiao Qian's life. That's why we came, and that's the way it should be. However our friends gave Xiao Qian a little glimpse into our lives that she'd never had until now (other that what we've given her, which is less than ideal given the communication barrier). Their ability to speak Mandarin with her (by the way, she's bi-lingual with Cantonese as well, a language that's ten times harder than even Mandarin, so I'm told), and explain who we are, a little about our family, etc... was no doubt the best gift God gave to us (and her, whether she realized it) today. Serves as a perfect juxtaposed position against my envious thoughts earlier.

A hard part about today? We've been gone for over a week now, but it feels like a month (so much has happened in our lives in such a short span of time), and with that comes home sickness. That's home sickness not for the home, but for the home full of what homes are full of, family and love. We miss Austin, Meagan, Annie, Barret, Poppy and Willow so much, and we've just hit the halfway point. We also just want them all to share in the exuberance of their new sister as soon as possible. All in due time, all in due time.

For now, I am enjoying this moment writing this journal with two of my girls flanking me in their beds, all snuggled up.  Soon enough we'll all be snuggled together, probably and eventually all in the same bed.

(PS:  It's been very difficult to send information from China. Pictures are not attaching or going through, multiple blog posts are sent, or not sent, so please bear with us as we try really hard to navigate around all of this. In fact, this post is not saving, so I cannot send it (and may not be able to until tomorrow.)

Good-night/good morning from Guilin,