Welcome to Beijing!After a 13+ hour marathon but uneventful flight we've made it safely to Beijing! We are staying at the Holiday Inn Downtown for 3 nights unatil we leave for Zhengzhou. To say it was sureal coming in to land is an understatement. Our flight path was north from Newark, over Quebec and the Hudson Bay and then across the polar ice cap. We started turning south over Russia and flew over that for a few hours. I remember looking out the plane window once I knew we were over China and thinking, "I'm looking at the land of my daughter's birth." Our landing was one of the smoothest I have ever had. Lots of buildings and homes around the airport, which is north of center city Beijing. It actually reminded me of the midwest strangely enough. The in seat entertainment systems on Contenintial were great! Lots of movies, tv shows and music to partake in. There was also a screen which would show where the plane was on a map. It also showed the miles we had traveled, miles to go and the current outside temp. I think the coldest we saw was -70 degrees F. We were cruising at 38000 feet for a while. Before we could de-palne, the ministry of health came on and took everyone's temp.on the forhead with a scanner. It only took a few minutes and we were able to leave. We had to fill out a health forn, immigration card, and show our passports numerous times. After all that we found our luggage pretty quickly and found our guide Sindy and our guide waiting for us. Sindy helped us check into the hotel and will meet us tomorrow at 9:00 to visit the Forbidden City and more. I'll post more after the tours.

WELCOME TO BEIJING!

Here we go!

We are getting ready to leave for New Jersey to spend the night with Rob's brother so we can be at the airport bright and early tomorrow morning. Wish us luck, pray for us, for Evan and Kendall, and next time we post it will be from China!

Leaving on a Jet Plane!

Leaving on a Jet Plane!
I can't believe that after 3 years we are leaving on July 1st to travel to China for Kendall. Right now I have so many emotions going through my head...I'm excited, scared, nervous, anxious, but happy and optimistic too. 17 days is a long time to be away from Evan...he's going to miss us and we are going to miss him so much! We are going to try to rent a cell phone in China and call him hopefully every day. Our flight leaves Newark at 12:10 pm on Wednesday and gets to Beijing at 1:50 pm on Thursday. 13 hours and 40 minutes...wow is all I can say. I think the plane is full or nearly full, at least going to Beijing. We will be staying at the Holiday Inn Downtown in Beijing. We will tour the city on the 3rd and 4th, and fly to Zhengzhou, Henan Province on Sunday the 5th. We get Kendall in the morning on the 6th. We fly to Guangzhou on the 10th and leave to come home on the 17th. Please say a prayer for us that everything goes smoothly and our health remains good, that Kendall has an easy transition and does not grieve too much, and that Evan has a good time with his grandparents and doesn't miss us too much. We'll try our best to post from Beijing. If I can't get on Blogger, then my wonderful friend Becky will post the messages for me.

Update on Kendall!

We got an update on Monday about Kendall including a new photo and measurements! As of June 5th, she weighed 26.4 pounds, was 33.8 inches tall, had a head circumference of 18.89 inches, a chest circumference of 20 inches and her feet were 5.5 inches long! She has 19 teeth and is healthy! I cannot WAIT to go get this girl. The time until TA (travel approval) seems to be dragging by. I feel like I've been stalking my Yahoo groups, RQ (the China adoption rumor board) and my e-mail several times an hour to see if our TA is on its way. I hope it comes within the next week so we can make our travel arrangements soon without having to pay even higher flight costs.

The photo is the one we received with the new measurements. I was THRILLED to see her in a dress, especially a pink one! But alas, she looks less than thrilled. I sure hope she likes dresses, as she literally has a closet full of them in various sizes waiting for her once she gets home.

BTW, check out the evil looking apple in the background...

New Photos of our girl!

We are so lucky to have these new photos of Kendall, that were taken last month. A family visiting the orphanage took these photos and posted them to the Luoyang Yahoo group that I belong to. The shot of her with the little boy in blue is first photo we actually have of her smiling! She looks like quite the ham in this photo! The other photo cracks me up...she looks nosy, like she's miffed about not knowing what is going on. Boy, will she fit in here! I cannot wait to bring her home! Now if only her hair would grow.........