Goodbye Guangzhou!

Merry Christmas from Guangzhou, China! It isn't beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but there are Santa Clauses everywhere here. Large signs everywhere announce "Marry Christmas, Marrow Christmas, or Merry Christmas!" Store clerks wear Santa clause hats, Rudolph antlers, and Mrs. Clause outfits! There are Christmas trees all over the place though! We have yet to walk into a shop where there aren't English Christmas carols playing. We even happened to hear a Chinese version of Jingle bell rock. Some of you are wondering if they celebrate Christmas here and to answer your question. Yes, they do recognize this holiday, but they don't celebrate it exactly how Americans do. The weather here certainly doesn't cooperate for a White Christmas. It's so warm here, it feels like summer!

Grandma is returning to the states tomorrow an she will be sorely missed when we view the Great Wall, Tienanmen Square, and the Forbidden City. It has been a pleasure to be with her this trip and we are thrilled that she was able to be part of Cory entering our family! We have made some memories that will last a lifetime and look forward to sharing our stories with you! Cory is doing well. He still isn't acting quite like himself since he does have a bit of a cold! My dad has already pulled a back muscle from lifting the little tank! My dad says, "he weighs more than an artillery round." The first words out of his mouth when he wakes up in the morning are, "momma, gir-gir, me-me, milk, and MEAT!!!" Bath time is his favorite part of the whole day except for when he is eating his meat! Merriella and Cory have turned out to be best buds and they hold hands everywhere they go and Cory gets very upset when Merriella leaves the room without telling him where she is going. Merriella is quite the big sister and loves to play the role of mommy. In fact, she now calls herself a "big girl" and calls Cory a "baby!"

Tomorrow, we head for colder waters as we board a flight to Beijing! It's time for all of us to pull out our winter coats again! I'm sure we'll have adventures from the plane. We usually do! Especially when you have to take a 3 year old to a bathroom on the airplane. Talk about crowded! The easiest part is getting in, the hard part is how to get back out!

We enjoyed our last day here in Guangzhou and spent the last portion of the day packing suitcases. My mom has been so patient this trip and hasn't lost it once. My dad, Hannah, and I yet again went out into the city streets at night and had a blast just looking around. We had amazing daughter and dad bonding time! We made a special trip to a Chinese restaurant to order Cory chicken fried rice! Wow! That must have been amusing for the Chinese people to watch! Did I mention how hard it is to convey what is desired when one person only speaks Chinese and the other only speaks English? It is demonstrated how disastrously it goes by how well our food order turned out at McDonalds! Our "chicken" tonight turned out to be tofu and the "fried rice" was steamed instead. Oh well. Cory loved it anyway!

For those of you who were wondering, all of our paperwork is completely done and the last 4 days that we have here in China are going to be spent touring the country! Cory received his formal visa and passport that grant him permission to leave the country! My parents took the oath that all the information they have given is truthful and received the packet with all of his papers that finalized his adoption! The Consulate appointment went very well today from what I heard. The 4 oldest stayed at the hotel and we also did some touring while Cory, Mom, and Dad finalized the process with our guide! We are so excited and blessed to have this little boy in our family! He truly is a walking sunshine wherever he goes! Well, until next time!

Making Memories...

December 17th dawned, and it was time for Cory to have his medical checkup. This was necessary in order for a visa to be issued granting him permission to enter the USA! He has been coughing for several days, been wheezy and unable to sleep at night. Since he's awake at night, mom is awake constantly with him. Merriella has also developed a slight cough and a little bit of a fever, not unlike Cory. The doctor at the medical station prescribed an antibiotic and a cough syrup for Cory. The medical exam clinic even has a separate room for the children who are being adopted out of the country. After the appointment, my parents met up with us on Shamian Island right next to Starbucks!

The rest of the morning was spent walking about! Our final shopping was being done on the island so that we wouldn't have to go back the next day other than to pick up our laundry! Along the way, we met several adoptive families that were back in China for the 2nd or even 3rd time. It has been nice to talk with them and hear their life-changing stories as well as share our adventures of adoption with them. We have even managed to exchange a few addresses and created lasting bonds with a few people! Hearing other family's stories can be both a blessing and an encouragement!

The rest of the night was just a blur of humorous stories that would take hours to tell and many diaries! Although, we did have our first outing here in Guangzhou to a restaurant! We went to Lucy's! The food was fantastic and our stomachs couldn't have been fuller by the time we were completely finished eating! While out, Cory and Merriella made us almost choke on our food with how humorous they were to observe while they ate! Colin and I both ordered chicken noodle soup and the portions came in bowls the size of a small circular table! They were huge! Cory and Merriella were given a grilled cheese sandwich to split, but Cory immediately opted for my mom's Chinese style rice! I don't blame him, the kid is smart and very tasteful! Hannah ordered pizza and finished of the whole plate! My dad and my grandma (both being the carnivorous people that they are) insisted on having beef and quesadillas. Cory has a peculiar habit of sucking the heads of his broccoli off before finally eating the stem portion! It was quite amusing to compare his eating habits with Merriella's! After finishing of supper, we took a lovely walk back to the hotel! My dad, Hannah, and I yet again went out into the city streets to shop around a little bit! That really was a blast! It's truly like shopping in an outdoor mall! Life-changing stories that have changed our entire outlook about certain things will be told when we return to the USA!

Give Me A Little More...

Our family had another amazing encounter with the Chinese people today, when our limited Chinese and their minimal English understanding fused, causing us to have a slight mishap. Not to worry, it makes for a good story that we will always remember! Ever had an experience where someone thinks you said one thing, but you really said another, and the other person feels stupid when the real meaning of what was said comes out? Hannah, my dad, and I had a similar adventure when we decided to drop in on our friends at McDonalds!

After a long day on the 16th of December, Cory was crying and Merriella was fueling his fussing. They were both calling out for meat and expressing their desire to have a hamburger from McDonalds. Everyone else was starving as well, but no one except the 3 youngest seemed to be interested in fast food. Chinese style noodles sounded more like it! But, considering that my dad, Hannah, and I wanted to tour the town anyway, we decided it wouldn't be so bad to just take a walk and go out for a walk on the crammed city streets! That in and of itself is an adventure worth keeping in one's memory! Anyway, when we arrived at McDonalds, we decided to attempt to order, but not without using the dumb people's menu. When we began to order, we realized that all the hamburgers came in meals. We only wanted the burgers. We carefully explained to the food handlers that we didn't want the MEAL, we just wanted the burger. She gave us the thumbs up and immediately began yelling something we obviously couldn't understand across the room. Almost immediately, the Chinese people began laughing and pointing at us. We didn't figure out until later why they were laughing at us!

25 minutes later, we got back to the hotel where we were greeted by the 3 youngest starving children. Colin quickly dashed out of the room to devour his "double cheeseburger." Not more than a minute later, Colin was back in the room saying, "couldn't I at least have one piece of meat? By the way dad, this isn't double cheeseburger, this is double cheese!" Apparently, the people at McDonalds thought that we had said, "give us no meat!" Sure enough, we opened all the burgers and they were minus the meat portion. (That would give reason for the previous laughter at McDonalds!) We hurriedly walked the 15 minutes back and got our orders fixed so that the few carnivorous children that are in the family could have their daily meat intake! All in all, we got a great taste of culture just from that experience!

The earlier portion of our day was spent at the Yan Tai Garden! The weather proved to be perfect for touring! It was in the upper 70's and everyone was wishing that they had brought shorts, myself included! It was phenomenal! The flowers and scenery looked like they were out of a Better Homes and Gardens magazine! Vibrant colors all around proved to be a perfect location for pictures! Believe me, we have enough to make our own V-7 novel! After spending most of the day in the gardens, we went back to the hotel room where Cory, Merriella, and my mom attemted to take a nap. Nana and Colin stayed at the hotel and relaxed while the adventuresome 3 went out onto the pedestrian zone to do some shopping! Exciting stories to tell there as well, but not enough time or space is available! I'll write about more of our adventures later! We send our love to those of you reading this blog and those of you who are unable to do so!
By the way, Cory is still doing amazing! He has healthy attachments with everyone, but he is a mommy's boy!!!

Hear, See, Speak No Shopping

We have seen the most amazing assortment of cool boots here. Hannah and I were interested in having a pair, so one day, my dad, Hannah, and I went out on a shopping trip to find some. Note to self: foreign money spends faster than American currency! Along the way, we did some sightseeing. We saw the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower in the center of this, the former imperial city of China. It was so cold outside that we decided to stop along the way for hot drinks to warm us up. We stopped at... guess where?!? Starbucks! On the way out, we decided to sip on our drinks while sitting on a bench outside of Starbucks. Merriella decided to say, "nee how" to a Chinese woman. Thinking that Merriella spoke Chinese she attempted to carry on a conversation with her. My dad rushed to the rescue explaining to the woman that Merriella didn't understand. In a short moment, we had a gathering of over two dozen people who were curious about a number of things including: 4 westerners with a chinese girl; the man with three daughters(!); which region of China Merriella was from; and what brought us to China. The crowd kept getting bigger and before long, people were questioning if I was the mother or if my grandma was. Dad's 10 chinese words were of little use since 5 of them are hello, airplane, thank-you, yes and no. After finding a woman that spoke both English and Chinese, we were able to convey to them why we were in China. Many of them were perplexed. The Chinese are more likely to stare, come very close and ask direct questions than Americans. All in all, it was an amusing thing to see a family of Americans trying to communicate with a woman who only spoke Chinese! What a sight!
Nana had the experience of a lifetime as well, when on the way back to our hotel she attempted to tell a chinese taxi driver who spoke no english how to get around in his home town. Dad also had a conversation in the pool hot tub with a Chinese man who was attempting to give him Chinese speech lessons! With every attempt my dad made to fix his grammatical errors, the man just spoke louder, more dramatically, and further inside dad's personal bubble! That went splendidly! Did you know that a chinese word has 4 different meanings depending on the tonal inflection? One word in particular might be "mother" or "horse"!
Only a few of our many adventures have been recorded thus far, some of them will have to be told in person when we get back home!

Experiencing China, Discovering Xi'an...

Sorry for the late entry and keeping you all waiting on updated news! The past 3 days have been a blur of excitement! Between going shopping for boots, sightseeing, dad warding off souvenir hawkers, visiting Cory’s orphanage, adjusting to having another little one, tasting new foods, meeting amazing Chinese people, and traveling from Xi’an in Shaanxi Province to Guangzhou in Guangdong Province, the adventure continues! Every time we turn a corner, I am amazed to discover that what little we have seen of China is just a glimpse into their daily bustling lives! I have yet to be bored, although Hannah and I are greatly missing our friends and lifestyle back home.

Both the little ones are being the best troopers! They never complain and do whatever they have to in order to make this trip more pleasant. Cory and Merriella are still joined at the hip and one can’t go anywhere without the other. I almost feel as if Merriella has stepped into the age group of Hannah and me because whenever we are with her, I feel like we are the best of friends. She is letting this little boy enter our family so easily and with such minimal jealousy, that one would wonder if she was feeling quite alright. Mommy and Daddy are being shared as equally as is possible between the 5 children, with the 2 youngest being at the forefront of their attention, of course. We realize this is very necessary in order for Cory to adjust properly. Cory on the other hand is very possessive of his mother (very different from our experience with Merriella) and doesn’t appreciate sharing Mom as generously. Colin is still Cory’s little buddy and is eagerly sought after at all times. Our overall experience so far has been entirely positive and we only have positive updates!

Ancient Historic Monuments Anyone?

December 11^th turned out to be a nasty day as we expected. The weather didn’t hold out for us, but the Terracotta Warriors did. At 9 am, we hired a bus and a guide to take us up there for the day. The greater part of the morning was spent at the Terracotta Warriors, then, later in the day, we went over to the city wall that surrounds the province of Xi’an. It is said that 15 grown men can stand on the width of the wall. I would say this is a very believable statement that I would readily believe just from standing on the wall. It was an amazing view from the wall and the insides of some of the guard tower buildings were really remarkable!The brief history of the Terracotta Warriors comes from the idea a powerful emperor had during his reign. Since Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi believed he needed an army with him in his afterlife, he began building his army out of terracotta at the age of 19. It is known that 7,000 of these figures were buried with Qin Shi Huangdi in 3 different pits. When he died, the Terracotta Warriors along with 3,000 concubines were buried alive in his pits. Over the years, invaders came and stumbled upon the pits. When they did, they stole the bronze weapons the figures were holding, smashed a large number of the warriors and lit the pits on fire. To this day, archaeologists are still repairing the damage done so many years ago.

Walking into the dome where the Terracotta Warriors are kept really was just like stepping back into time or walking right into a history textbook. It truly became moving when I was staring at ancient relics of past history. No words can describe the emotions that were being felt at that exact moment. The only thing I can say that even comes somewhat close to what I was thinking is, “Wow! I am standing not more than 6 feet away from one of the most amazing monuments of all Chinese history! I’ve seen the Terracotta Warriors!”

We still attracted stares wherever we went today. Except people were taking digital pictures and sketching our family at various times throughout the day. Pointing, laughing and smiling are not the exception, they're the norm. We have sort of gotten used to it by now and it doesn't bother us. It is very rare to have a big family. The Chinese are especially taken with Cory and Merriella! They constantly try o talk Chinese with Merriella only to have her turn and look at us saying, "I don't know." Cory just pulls away or turns his head when he is addressed by people he doesn't know. He has a healthy bonding attachment, whereas Merriella is still learning the proper way to be loyal to her own family members. Her affection is transferred very quickly. Not so with Cory! He knows what it feels like to be loved and show love!

Cory did fantastic all day today and we had no problems with him at all! He was a hoot at breakfast and cracked us up even more throughout the day! He and Merriella really are the Terrible Two together. They don’t go anywhere without the other and are like two peas in a pod. They took a bath together tonight, which was a show in and of itself. They like to wash each other’s hair, but Merriella is very particular about how she wants it done! In fact, tonight, Merriella insisted that Cory was washing her hair wrong and quickly scolded him saying,”Cory, no. This is how you wash Ella’s hair!” He just stared at her with that adorable “melt your heart look.” The rest of the bath was truly likening to a comedy show. After he drank his bottle, he quickly hit the sack. It had been a long day and he hadn’t had his daily nap (except for the brief times he slept during the day.) It’s a hard life for a baby.

A Bundle of Love!

December the 1oth definitely brought to full circle the realization that we have another boy in the house now! I have a feeling that the girls aren't going to be so lucky in picking on Colin anymore. He is now blessed with having a buff baby on his side. Already, Cory and Colin share some unspoken manly bond between them. He is very affectionate with his older brother and the affection is mutual between them.

Cory is adjusting quite well and is quickly becoming acclimated to our family! The Bickfords did an amazing job preparing him for the entrance into our family. We wouldn't have had such a smooth transition without their complete devotion to Cory! Since he was familiar with our family to a certain extent, he is very comfortable going, "hey..." then finishing out his commands (which we delight in attending to!)
He still drinks from a bottle and has an appetite likening him to a bear, although, when he doesn't want to eat the food that is in front of him, his stomach quickly becomes like that of a mouse! When an undesirable food is in front of him, he places his hands across his chest and tells us, "no," while grinning from ear to ear. It is very difficult to deny him of what he most wants, especially when he looks at you with his little brown eyes and angelic features. Through and through, Cory has already become a valuable addition to the family and adds frosting to the top of the cake!

Today, Mom, Dad, and Cory went and took care of some official paperwork that had to be done, while the rest of us just chilled at the hotel. According to them, a baby couldn't have behaved any better while sitting through hours of dull waiting. He really is a bundle of joy sent from heaven!

Merriella has gathered him under her wings and really embraced him as her younger brother. She plays the role of firstborn quite well for never experiencing that position. Cory on the other hand thinks he is older and insists that she is his younger sister by calling her Me-Me (Chinese name for little sister!) He hates letting her out of his sight and squeals excitedly whenever she comes into the room! They really are amazing siblings and they bring a smile to my face just at the mere entrance they make into a room. I couldn't be prouder of them! The Vazquez 7 family has big plans for tomorrow! We are going to see the Terracotta Warriors and walk the city wall that encloses Xi'an! The weather isn't looking to promising, but rain or shine, we are going to complete the mission!