Ni hao!

Hi all,

Sorry for the delay in posting. It has been a busy couple of days and we just now had time to figure out how to connect to the Internet from our room. The time change between Canada and China must be more severe than even we figured because the 24-hour business centre was closed last night when we went looking for some help. :-)

So, anyhow, here is a short recap of our last couple of days. (I know, you're all just interested in what happens from today on anyhow, when we will have B.)

Day 1 -- travel

We left home at 5:00 a.m. on Friday to head to the airport for our flight to Shanghai, via Beijing, via Vancouver. 30 hours later we finally arrived in our hotel room in Shanghai. A pretty exhausting day (actually two days as by that time it was 11:00 p.m. Saturday in China.)

Day 2 -- Shanghai and more travel

Yesterday, we went on a whirlwind tour of Shanghai. It's a pretty cool city, and one I'd like to visit when I have more time (at least another day). We joined a city tour which was all in Chinese, but our guide (Lily) translated some for us. We went to the Oriental Pearl tower which offered a great view of the city. It kind of reminded me of the CN tower. When you took the elevator up to the viewing location it took 48 seconds to travel up 88 floors. Pretty fast.

Here is a picture taken of (part of) the city from the tower observation deck. As you can see, it is a bit hazy in this city (although I didn't notice it until I looked out from the tower).















After the tower, we visited a museum on the history of Shanghai. It was pretty interesting. You can tell though, that China is growing and changing super fast, because Lily refers to things that were made in the last 20 years as really old. Basically it seems that anything in China that was here more than 10 years ago is considered old. This was reinforced at the museum, where most of the exhibits demonstrated Shanghai in the 1930s or 1940s. Here's a pic of DoT and I at the museum...
















Then we had a pretty funny experience. The tour guide took us to visit what we were told was one of the 50 most successful businesses in the world (Hillman's, a German company). Turns out we were part of a live infomercial. Basically we went into a room and watched a guy demonstrate the amazing slice and dice capabilities of knives. Pretty funny. I think the tour guide operator must be getting kick-backs or something if he brings tours into there. Worked out pretty well for the company though, they made a lot of sales to our group.

Then from there we headed off to the next place that the guide was getting kick backs for -- a jade factory, which we were told before we ever went in that there is no good jade in Shanghai, so don`t buy anything from there. We went into a boardroom and sat there while everyone chatted with the store personnel -- mostly about where in China they were from, at least according to Lily. Then we were done and we left. No purchases, by anyone, there.

Then we went on a boat tour on the Huangpu river. This was nice, but I'm told it is much nicer in the evening, when all the buildings along the river are lit up. Since were catching a flight in the evening, day time was our only option. It was nice to see along the river, where on the one side were buildings with old architecture, and right across the river were the new skyscrapers. Here is a pic of DoT and I on the boat...















And a couple of shots of the river banks from the boat...


(The tower in this picture is the Oriental Pearl, that we went up.)














Then it was lunch time and we went to a local restaurant, where Lily ordered for us. (Good news, Lily doesn't like fish either, so completely understands when I don't want any part of the tonnes of fish or seafood dishes available here.) The meal was very good.

Then it was time for a visit to a shopping section of the city. We got off the bus and walked around and visited the shops. Where we were, there used to be a big Buddhist temple, but it has now been turned into shops of all kinds. I almost bought a painting at one of the shops, but decided against it in the end, much to the chagrin of the woman trying to sell it. She actually followed us out of the store and down the street, and agreed to sell it to us for the original price I said we would pay. But by the time it got to that point we didn't have time as we needed to be back on the bus. Lily has assured us that she will take us to some nice studios in Beijing when we are there, where she says there is great work by some of the more famous Chinese artists. We were also hampered somewhat in our shopping efforts because so far we have not been able to get any money changed into Yuan. DoT brought a bit of Yuan with us, mainly in case we needed to get a taxi from the airport to our hotel, but not enough for any serious shopping. The hotel in Shanghai wasn't able to change our traveller's cheques into cash. Not sure why... maybe we were trying to change too much (Cdn$200). It wasn't very clear. And so far, we have found communication here in China much more difficult than the last time. Nobody seems to speak English, so we are reliant on Lily to translate. Which isn't a problem, but we don't want to call her constantly and drag her here to help us. (Now that we are in Guangzhou she is staying in a different hotel, close by. Not in the one we're at.)

Here's a pic from the shopping area we were in...

(Lily took this picture for us since it shows the contrast between the old (shopping area) and the new (buildings in the background).)


(This picture is of a tree we saw, in the market area, full of lanterns which I thought looked pretty cool.)




After finishing our quick shopping, we got back on the bus and saw a few more sites (just from the bus) as we headed for the airport. We flew to Guangzhou at the end of the day and arrived in our hotel here around 11:00 p.m. last night. I slept great (8 hours uninterrupted... don't remember the last time that happened .. but I'm still tired), but DoT was awake today from about 5:30 a.m. We go to meet B at 2:00 p.m. this afternoon, and then have a bunch of appointments to legalize the adoption and start the paperwork for his visa. I'll try to update the blog tonight (assuming we can get him to sleep at a decent time), with pics and info about B.

Bye for now.

We're on our way!

I intended to put our itinerary on the blog, so everyone would know where we are on any given day, but it turns out I didn't bring the itinerary with me. So, all I can tell you is that we're on our way to Shanghai, via Beijing, and right now we're in the Vancouver airport. We had a couple of hours between our arrival here and our departure for Beijing, so we had a nice lunch.



So how is that for up to the minute updates?!

We'll try to post again from Shanghai when we arrive there in, oh, about 18 hours. :-)

K...

P.S. I miss A & E already! :-(

Happy New Year!!

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Happy Holidays!

So, it's all over for another year. I love Christmas, but I must admit it's nice to have a bit of a break from all the last minute shopping and preparations. This year, for the first time ever, we stayed in Ottawa for Christmas. And I even made the big Christmas dinner -- turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, veggies, and rolls. And everyone ate, and no one got sick. :-) I searched, and searched, for cranberry sauce in the grocery store -- as much as I love homemade cranberry sauce, I thought that might just be the straw that breaks the camel's back -- but in the end finally gave in and bought a jar of lingonberry sauce, which it turns out tastes just like cranberry sauce. But, according to the label on the jar, is also great on fruit and ice cream.

The girls made out like bandits this year, even though DoT and I only bought them one present each. They have very generous grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, daycare provider and playmates. Our cleaning lady gave us a great gift too -- and really the fact that this lady cleans our total disaster of a house every few weeks is truly gift enough!

Unfortunately, I didn't get a lot of good shots to post. Much of Christmas morning DoT held the camera, and apparently he didn't realize that photos of the kids are not acceptable if they have me in my pjs in the background. But, here are a couple of shots...

Posing on the stairs.

Reading one of the books at grandma and grandpa's house.

Christmas morning breakfast of kinder eggs.

Opening presents Christmas morning.

We are scheduled to leave for China in 13 days! Yikes. So far we have done next to nothing to get ready for the trip. Vaccines? Yup. Everything else. Not so much. I have printed a packing list, but have done nothing to start pulling things on it together. Also, I need to find all of our paperwork, which alone could take days. And, there were lots of other things that I really thought it would be nice to do before we go -- like make and freeze some meals for when we get back, organize the basement, and get some furniture for B's room. Right now the poor kid only has a crib. And if he's like our other two, he's not going to want to sleep in it when he gets back anyhow. We have nothing into which we can put clothes, which really isn't that much of a problem since we have no clothes for him anyhow. But, hey, some day we're going to have to dress him, and you know, a bureau might be a good thing at that point.

Well, the troops are getting restless. Gotta go.

Happy new year everyone!

Updated Photos of B!

Hi all, we just got the final paperwork to sign for the adoption from the Chinese government. It looks like we will travel on January 9 or 16 (or later if travel arrangements can't be made quicker). They included three updated photos but it doesn't look like much else was provided. So we will likely recognize him when we get there, but not have any clothes that fit. If only they made kids' clothes in China...If we get anymore info we will pass it along. Bye for now.

The big update

Hi all,

It's been awhile, again, so lots of events have happened since our last post. So, I'll try to highlight some of them.

#1 -- Annual Proulx Family Farm Visit

How tall this fall?...

This year we had lots of fun with the giant slide, the wagon ride, and of course, the best part, candy floss!!!

Hallowe'en was also a blast this year. I thought I could get away with taking the girls to 6 or 8 houses, but they were having none of that. It was just too much fun for them and I think they'd have happily stayed out for hours going door to door. The only way I got them home was by telling them we could surprise daddy by ringing the door bell and yelling 'trick or treat' at him when he answered. So, after about 20 or 25 houses they finally agreed to go home. Here they are in their costumes this year...

I also have a video of the two of them singing one of the Hallowe'en songs their caregiver taught them. There were a few of them, but although they walked around singing them much of the month of October, when I tried to get them on video they'd clam up. Here's the best one I have ...

(the words, in case you can't make them out, are

I am a pumpkin big and round,

once upon a time I grew on the ground,

now I have two eyes (they say tears.. they think they're funny) a mouth and a nose,

what are they for do you suppose,

with a candle inside, shining bright,

I'll be a jack-o-lantern on Hallowe'en night)

We also had our first snow storm a month or so ago. The snow didn't stay, so we have none right now. But for several days it stuck around and the girls thoroughly enjoyed it. (I enjoyed it less.)

Finally, we've started getting ready for our newest family member. We set up the crib a week or so ago, and of course the girls were only thinking of B when they insisted they test it out to make sure it was safe. If it can stand the two of them bouncing up and down in it, I think it's pretty solid...

Finally, we are trying to put together a care package to send over to B in China. Hopefully we'll have that finished in the next day or so and we can get it in the mail. When we send the care package we're also going to ask to get an update on B's development. We'll let you know if we get any news.

That's it for now. Hope your fall is going well. Only a little more than four weeks until Christmas. My tree is going up this week! (Obviously not a real one.)

K...

How many days until next summer??

Hi again all,

Sorry for the long hiatus between posts. I don't really have any excuse. Normally when I don't post for awhile it's because nothing much has been going on, and I have nothing to tell you. Not so much the case this time. I guess I was just too lazy to post.

So, DoT told you all about our NB travels this summer. We also spent a week at a cottage on Lake Huron, with my family (except brother of sister-in-law, who couldn't make it). It was fabulous. Now that the girls are a bit older, they can entertain themselves somewhat, so it meant more time relaxing for DoT and I. And when the girls did need entertaining, cousins J & M were always ready to help. :-)

Here are a few pics (a couple at the cottage pool, one at the beach, and one of the girls' first exposure to "smores" - they were a hit) ...

In other big news... the girls are toilet trained! Yeah. When they started back at the daycare this August, we decided to give it a try, even though the girls didn't seem to have any interest, and if anything seemed quite against the idea themselves. But they surprised us all, and within a matter of several days had gotten the hang of it, and we really had few accidents. It's nice to not have to be changing so many diapers. They still wear diapers to bed at night, but that's fine with me.

Finally, we've been to a couple of fairs in the last few weeks. A loves most rides, but E is a bit more selective and only wants to ride a couple.

Well, that's it for today. Hope you all had a good summer. And here's hoping for a long, long fall season followed by the shortest winter on record.

K...