We created this blog so that Chandler and of course all of our friends and family can follow our journey to GO GET KENDALL! This truly has been a journey in patience, and perseverance, and we have found the MAJOR difference between giving birth to a child and adopting is... No EPIDERAL for the pain, yet, we know the day we hold Kendall in our arms it will seem like nothing, kind of like pregnancy amnesia we will have adoption amnesia. So follow along, we will post as much as possible, and please leave us your thoughts and comments!
We arrived safe and sound after a pretty good trip. Kendall again amazed us with her resiliency, despite being the longest day in her little life, she was a trooper. We were shuffled down to the last immigration window where she was stamped in as a legal resident, on her 1st Birthday too! The day she became a US Citizen will forever be in our hearts as a special day for sure.
We were greeted by our family and most importantly Kendalls big brother, he told Dez's mother that the 1st person he was going to kiss was his sister, and he technically did, she is a girl after all, so air kissing was as good as it got. We were all exhausted, yet after some refueling via good old Taco Bell, we were all able to get a 2nd wind, Kendall went down for a 2 hour nap and woke up and stayed up until 7:00pm!!!
We then enjoyed her 2nd birthday celebration, Jim figured her birthday out to be 40 hours long, lucky girl! And, all the worry about the different time zone was for nothing, after the 1st day she has been on Pacific time! Whew, we are so lucky.
Kendall's new buddies! These are 2 of 3 of the Jimno clan, we missed ya McKenna!
Kendall had 1 of 3 Birthday celebrations before we left Guangzhou. we ate traditional Cantonese dinning, although it was AMERICAN Cantonese dining. Excellent and unique flavors such as lemon chicken, and Dez's favorite was the chive fried pancakes, Uhmm they were delicious. Kendall had her 1st Birthday cake and this served as our last group dinner. We were sad to say goodbye to good friends, but so ready to get our little Ms. Priss home! Cyndi our wonderful guide will miss our little Miss Priss, she adored her! She even brought a friend to our hotel the night before we left to see her, she was Kendall's 2nd Biggest fan with her big brother we would say was #1!
Before leaving we strolled with our New Jersey friends the Redlings, along the Pearl River, it was a beautiful stroll for our little girls. The pathway is lighted and the view is amazing at night.
This island was very fun, the people so nice and really ingenues with their sales pitches, they would come up to you and tell you what a beautiful baby you have, the most prettiest baby they have seen, and then hand you their business card, we must have like 20 business cards of shops named Sherry's place, Jennifer's place, Jordan's place etc. not real imaginative on their shops names, but hey the bargains were outstanding.
A very popular adoption souvenir is the granite etching, in this video you will see a 14 year old girl doing our etching of Chandler and Kendall. Amazing artistry!
This statute was an example of the ones throughout the island. It was called the evolution of the Chinese Women.
On Kendall's 1st B-Day we left our hotel at 5:30am on Wed. Jan 31, and took our last bus ride, the Kendall and Lucia said goodbye for now, with promises to keep in touch via skype and hopes they will remain life long friends! The fact that little Lucia and Kendall spent their 1st year together was pretty special to their parents!
After the goodbyes it was on to the last leg of our adventure, where Kendall decided sleeping was over rated and enjoyed only a 6 hour nap on this 14 hour flight! Lucky for us it made one of our 2 seat mates leave to another seat and gave us more room!
We guess little Miss Priss likes to only fly 1st Class, she had better not get used to this in the states, they brought out a bassinet for her to sleep in, and a baby bag full of useful and much needed supplies.
We are so glad to leave to be reunited with our son, yet, we know this was a trip of a life time, one we know we will do again. We want our children to experience this when they are older and can better enjoy and embrace this unique culture. Goodbye China, thank you for our amazing gift!
First of all we are so sorry the blogging stopped, we were very busy the last few days in China finalizing the adoption and of course shopping to do our fair share of aiding the Chinese economy!
The day started out with the traditional "Red Couch" picture of the Jiangxi Provenience adopted girls in our group. All of these families are with our adoption agency Great Wall China Adoption. The couch is infamous almost every agency and every American adopting a baby must go to Guangzhou, so they all stay at the White Swan hotel which was about a block from our hotel and right next door to the American Consulate. However, we all know Dez, and how frugal she is, she found us the Victory Hotel with a better room, at 1/2 the price, however, the breakfast there was way better then ours we must say!
Anyway, we both were optimistic that this picture would be a peace of cake, I mean, Kendall is so secure and calm around our group, she would be fine, yeah right! We did not take into account the photographer would shake this round rattle thing (that we had found out earlier) that Kendall is absolutely terrified of, and then add about 18 crazy new mommies and daddies standing in front of the girls on the couch, with 18 cameras going off, and lets just say it was not pretty! Kendall started screaming and doing her rattle cry that says I am scared pick me up NOW and started almost the entire group off crying! It was crazy! But it was traditional, what would a red couch photo look like with perfect babies!!! We yet again gave Kendall ammunition against us to tell her future therapist about, as today she still FREAKS when we sit her on a couch!
After a nice long nap, and some major cuddling, it was off to the Qingping Market, called in English the "Peaceful Market". Wow peaceful uhmm not so much! This was a loud, crazy, and life changing trip! I will never look at food the same, it is one thing to go to the local Albertsons an see your nicely wrapped fish and meat up, quite another to watch it still breathing! The herb portion of this market was very unique, we were asked to buy pearls several times, when we asked Cyndi what the pearls were used for she explained that the women grind them up to drink to make their skin beautiful, they also will use them in lotions. The Chinese use various things to enhance their health such as dried star fish when you have a sore throat, dried tendons for broken bones, and deer extremities to increase male vitality.
It was interesting to say the least!
DISCLOSURE this video from the market is of squirmy, slithery things, and things that cluck, so watch at your own risk!
Everything at this market was fresh, we learned that the Cantonese pride themselves on not being wasteful which means, they eat or utilize in some fashion about every part of the things they eat. Again we wish we could upload the smells of china, it is something to remember for sure!
We then enjoyed her 2nd birthday celebration, Jim figured her birthday out to be 40 hours long, lucky girl! And, all the worry about the different time zone was for nothing, after the 1st day she has been on Pacific time! Whew, we are so lucky. 
