Alissa Quan ("Chwen")

What an emotional roller coaster!! We now have beautiful Alissa in our arms! We could hardly contain ourselves as they brought 5 children into their new families. Alissa came right to us and held onto Kristin very tight.  She came with a backpack from her foster family with pictures of her childhood, gifts from her foster parents so they would be remembered, and a letter to us. What a tear jerker!  To top it off, Kristin had brought along the same photo book of us, our family, and her room that we sent to her foster family. We got this out and right away, Alissa was pointing out mama and gu gu, but she wasn't so sure of me.  Her foster parents had prepared her for this day! Again, more tears!! Alissa had missed her nap and was extremely tired. So it wasn't long before she was falling asleep. We got her back to the hotel and she was fast asleep. We all crashed. After she awoke, she then began a very deep grieving process for her foster parents. It broke our hearts! No amount of books or training can really prepare you for this moment. We need lots of prayers for her to work thru this process in a positive and healthy way and to allow us to help her comfort her thru this process. She finally came around and we had a lot of fun playing together as shown in the picture above. That was great until she started to put her shoes on to go home to her foster mom. We then went thru a very dramatic bed time. We simply did not have the energy or time to make a post until this morning at 7:30 am. As I'm typing this, Kristin is getting ready and Alissa has awoke to play with Benjamin. The morning has been great so far! We need to leave for breakfast and then meet at 8:30 to make the adoption official. We will post again when we have some more moments. God has been so great, and has surrounded us with so many family and friends to walk with us on this Journey.  Alissa is a precious little girl and we feel humbled to be her parents. Thank you for your prayers as we transition as a family and as Alissa mourns the loss of her foster family. We love you all, take care.

In 45 minutes...

Just a quick post. We arrived safely in Nanning at 10:45am.  It is 3:45 pm Sept 16th. We just filled out some paperwork for our adoptions. We leave the hotel in 15 minutes. We will meet our children at 4:30pm at the Civil Affairs office. We'll try our best to post later tonight. The emotions are running high here! Take care all!!!

One Last Update...

Tiananmen Square

Flower gardens for the Olympics

Another adoring fan

Forbidden City

Another adoring fan

Forbidden City

Rickshaw Ride in the Hutong

As a family of three! It is Monday September 16th 8:35pm as I post. Today was a fun day. We went to Tiananmen Square. We're told that it is the size of 60 soccer fields. You'll see the picture of Benjamin there. There were incredible flower gardens there for the Olympics. Afterwards we continued on to the Forbidden City. Wow! You can't even imagine this place. We walked from the south entrance to the north about 1 mile. It was really amazing. Afterwards we were back on the tour bus to the Hutong. Once there we all loaded up on rickshaws (pulled by bikes) and toured Hutong Alley. These are old narrow streets. And yes, Benjamin was a rock star again today. Parents came up to have his picture taken with their children. Still a hoot! Today our whole family had our picture taken with a little Chinese boy. One member in our group told us to enjoy our 15 minutes of fame. Afterwards we did some more shopping at Silk Alley. I was sweating by the end. Just not my thing! Brent on the other hand had a blast.

Tonight we had supper at the hotel (oh, by the way last night our group ordered in Pizza Hut. Benjamin enjoyed that much better than Shrimp with eyes.) We sat there and talked how this was our last supper as a family of three. I felt myself tear up again overwhelmed with emotion. You wait for over 3 years and than all of a sudden it's here. We've talked about this with some of the other families as well. It's this surreal feeling. God has been so faithful! We have been so blessed by our travel group and guide Joy. Bethany Christian Services has taken such great care of us! Tomorrow morning (which is Tues Sept 16th here) we have to be in the hotel lobby by 5. We are all being taken to the airport. Our group (there are 5 families total) will fly out at 7:40am and should arrive at 10:40am in Nanning. We have been told that we'll go to our hotel to check-in, have lunch (really who's going to be able to eat!?!), and then be taken to the Civil Office where we will meet our children. Oh my, here come the tears again! Thanks until next time...when we can introduce you to our new family of four!!!!!