All is well...

We are back on Canadian soil and last night, jet lagged and feeling crappy we had wonderful news. Minyun has had her surgery and she is doing very well - there will be very little scaring and she will be ready to be adopted by a family very soon.
We want to thank everyone but especially those who reached out to us and gave their assitance especially Epin from the Tonggu family group who was just AMAZING and kept us up to date on what was happening, Tonja from my Marching Pandas group who jumped right in and made some wonderful things happen and Sarah. You guys were wonderful.
You are the best people in the world!!!!

Your support...

has been wonderful. We are doing our best to communicate with those who might be able to help our little Isabel Minyun and I believe that we have been somewhat successful - funds are being allocated to her care and Love without Boundaries has also been contacted through the network. We are hoping to receive updates soon. We felt so helpless and I have learned through this experience how incredible the Chinese Adoption world is. It is incredible.
It is with a heavy heart that I write that this will be one of my last posts on this blog. It was all about Isabel and we are no longer on the same paths in life. I will keep you all updated with any news we recieve about her care.
Thank you, thank you, thank you all for your words, emails and kindness. We are thinking that we were referred little Minyun because we are the type of people who would try to help her no matter what. At least we know that she will be taken care of and adopted by a loving family one day. Minyun will forever be in our hearts and we are so very sad that we won't be the parents that will raise her but we will always love her, forever...

Thank you...

For all of your thoughts, prayers and comments. We are going to look in to the kind of care that Minyun is receiving today. That was our utmost concern and our guide assured us yesterday that she is in hospital and her SWI is a good one that has some $ (our International Specialist gave us the same information when he went over her file). Will keep you updated.

No photos...

only sadness. Our little girl was in a bad fire on the weekend and we are unable to adopt her. Please say a prayer for her to heal quickly (the photo was devestating but we saw her little eyes shining through) and be put back into the system so that she can be adopted by a loving family. We are waiting to hear what happens next...
Thank you,
Kristine and Shawn

Photos of yesterday....

This is outside of the Llama Budhist temple in Beijing. It was quite an experience. There was quite a bit of insence and the artifacts were incredible. Check out the little puppy. We have seen a few of these little cuties walking around - no big dogs though.

This is the scene outside of our hotel. There are bikes everywhere and lets just say that they don't follow the road rules so trying to cross the road for a massage is stressful enough that you NEED a massage after you do it!!!! We have quite a few pictures to post but blogger isn't allowing me to put them on.

Last night we and two families ventured out for dinner ourselves. With the help of our dictionary, we were able to order a fabulous meal with crysanthemum tea. We were very proud of ourselves. For 8 of us the total was 20.00 Cdn. Cool...

Oh and the luggage arrived last night. I was sleeping and Shawn was in the shower so it was fun to navigate but hooray!!! We have a change of clothes. I washed our clothes yesterday afternoon - if you ever need a wringer, Shawn rocks as everything is bone dry this morning and ready to wear if we needed too!! But we don't!! Yippee!!!

Oh well, tomorrow we meet Isabel!! Off to the markets today. We are REALLY glad that we came a few days early to experience the culture, food and get our heads straight!!! We leave the hotel at 5:30 am tomorrow to fly to Jiangxi province to meet our daughter. What an experience this has been so far. Can hardly wait...

a few thoughts...

So after we tried numerous times to hook up the computer with the adapter that we brought from home, we took a chance and spent the 5.00 on one at the grocery store up the road- I know, a huge chance!!! Guess what!! It works, so now we have power and free internet access. Yippee!!!!
We have basically been left on our own today and tomorrow which is great. One of the families has a friend here and we met her at the bank. She told us where to go to find the Beijing artists in residence and we think that we will take the Subway there tomorrow. Now the Bank, that was certainly an experience and I have to say that we were VERY happy that we insisted upon brand new bills from the bank. The gal really did look at each bill, back to front, put them through the counter/counterfeit detector a few times. It took over an hour but it was fine- Shawn is learning great patience!!! There are lots of extra police on the streets as there are conferences going on so we felt very very safe walking the streets with our moneybelts on.
Oh and pack your deodorant in your carry on!!! As our luggage hasn't arrived yet, we are without and it took a LONG time to find some here as the Chinese don't really use it. It was also very expensive but NECESSARY. It was wild - we bought deodorant, hair conditioner, lipstuff and Shawn's hair stuff - the total was almost 80RMB!!! Our lunch from the takeout was 8RMB in comparison (rice with egg, stir fried veggies, bread for Shawn and a pineapple bun - very yummy!!).
We are now having a little rest (we were up at 4 am this morning) and then we are off to see the sights and I might have a massage as the massage place is just across the road. Looking forward to that!!!!!
Will post pictures later. The sights here are amazing- a bunch of guys sitting on their bikes having their lunch, an old bike with the trailer holding a tv, it is really the people that make this city vibrant and there are lots of people here but not as many as in Toronto's Chinatown!! Actually it still kind of feels like Chinatown at home except people speak very little English. We had a small run in with the pineapple bun lady and three other people came to help!! It was too funny but everyone here is kind and will try and help the silly foreigners.
Anyway, just can't believe that we are here!!!! Can't believe that in two short days we will meet our darling child and wow, is Chinese tv ever humorous!!!!

We're here!!!!

I just wrote a long post that blogger erased. So suffice it to say, we are here - Beijing in hopping but we are hopping into bed - the "rock futon". Our luggage did not arrive with us but should be here tomorrow and we have met two of the families in our group. We had a nice dinner and now we are all in our rooms, trying not to fall asleep too early. Shawn took some great photos bufor some reason, when we plug the laptop into the wall with our converter, it doesn't draw power so we aren't going to be uploading until we figure it out.
Anyway, off to bed.

one day left...

Tomorrow we fly to Beijing. Pretty crazy stuff!! The house is clean, frozen meals are done (both of these, thanks to Colleen - I would post the photo of her cleaning the oven but Shawn won't let me - it is hysterical!!!), Isabel's room is set up, the laundry is done, the bags are packed, the computer is backed up, the skype is ready to go, the mail has been held, the reservations for dinner tonight have been made and the taxi has been ordered to pick us up. Yikes, you would think that we are organized!!! Doesn't feel like it - really it doesn't but I guess after 4 years of waiting, we are ready to go!!!!!
Wish us luck!!!!