Feb 28th - Trip To Cathwel in Shenkeng and Shinlin Market

I was so tired last night, that I didn't post, so I'm posting half way into our last day, but posting for yesterday.

In the morning we hung around our hotel and moved to another room.  It's like huge!!!  A condo room, basically.  Two bedrooms, living room. kitchen, full bath, outside balcony and 3 T.V.s!

In the afternoon at 2:30 we went to Shenkeng to meet Mr. Yeh and Ann and Celicia at Cathwel.  They were the people that were the social workers on Lily's adoption.  The meeting went well, very emotional for Lily with some new things we found out.  Please keep Lily in your prayers, some things she found out weren't positive, but she's working on dealing with them.

After the meeting, we went to the street behind Cathwel, which is a shopping street with local merchants only.  This is the street that is famous for Stinky Tofu.  You can get Stinky Tofu a lot of places in Taiwan, but this is the place that started it, I guess.  Well, let me tell you, it stinks!!!!!!  We didn't buy any there, but did try some later at Shinlin market.  Tastes like it smells!  We bought some things at the stores, mostly little stuff.  We did have some tofu ice cream, it was pretty much like ice milk.

In the evening, we met Brandon and Lidia again, and went to Shinlin night market.  It's huge!  Many local merchants, again, but the stuff is cheap!  I bought Callie a watch for $6 and Lily bought shoes for $13, nail polish for both an candy at a candy store.  We had dinner in the food court in the basement, under the street, as this is all outside.  I had the best fried rice I've had yet, and Rick and fried rice.  Lily finally got her oyster omelet (pancake) and she said it was good, but got one with egg shells in it. :)  We finished up the night with shaved flavored ice, mango and strawberry, which includes the fresh fruit on top.  It's similar to ice cream, but colder and same level of sweetness.  It was awesome!  Rick also bought a T-Shirt in Mandarin that says on the front "White men can't read this" and on the back of the shirt "Black men either".  LOL

We have found out the Callie does not do well without food, and boy can she eat!!!  I think she may be anemic.  She's crashes quite hard and bounces right back with food.  I'll have to have that tested when we get home.

We got back to the hotel at 11 pm last night.  On the walk from the MRT to the hotel, Callie had to go to the bathroom really bad, so Rick ran back to the hotel with her, in front of Lily and I.  We went up to our room, while she used the restroom on the main floor.  Rick said on the elevator ride up with her, she said to him "I'm so happy happy happy!"

Our new accommodations, which weren't bad before this room

Officially a US citizen!

Today was our appointment at AIT, which is the US embassy here in Taipei.  All went smoothly and Rick and I swore that we didn't lie on any documents.  Then, the very nice AIT worker from Virgina, said in perfect Mandarin to Callie "Let me be the first to welcome you to the United States of America!.  Yup, I started to cry.  It was just cool to hear that and see Callie smile and say "sank you" back to him, in not quite perfect English.

The remainder of the day was spent with Trent and Lori Baines from Colorado Springs, who also had their AIT appt. with Sadie, their new 14 year old.  Sadie could hardly believe that Lily was Taiwanese.  She said she looked and sounded American.  This seemed to help Sadie understand that she too will "become" American and it's possible for things to work out just fine. 

Trent and Lori are sooo much fun.  Trent is a kid in an adult body, for sure!  He had all three girls laughing over and over again.  Unfortunately, they took our group photo on their camera, so I don't have that to load up.  We went to the Taipei Discovery Center and Taipei 101, again. :)

We weren't allowed to take photos of the AIT building or the inside, so I can't share any photos of that, either.  Bummer!!!!  I would have liked to have that memory. 

Taipei 101 - Now the third tallest building in the world, with the fastest moving elevator - 45 seconds to the top 101 floor

Callie thought this was funny :)

 OK, So I guess you must take photos here.  LOL

Callie with her fortune for the fortune machine.  Sadie is the girl behind her on the left

What a great Jei Jei (Big Sister)

Gotcha Day - Feb. 26, 2013

I'm totally exhausted, but I know you're all probably up looking for a post, so I decided I'd hold off sleep a little longer.

Callie is laying on the bed next to me looking at pictures on Lily's Ipad and laughing her head off!  The two of them are like two peas in a pod.  Kindred spirits, for sure!

We went to Chung Yi this afternoon a bit early so Lily could check out her old school.  We did manage to find Chung Yi on a Chinese Map, on foot!  Thank you so much Dad, for teaching me to read maps!  I can even do it in Chinese - LOL  The director of the orphanage is the same director that has been there for years.  She was so excited to see Lily, laughing and tearing up, as did one of her "mamas" that also came to greet us, who is now a vice director.  She then walked us down to Lily's school so we could take pictures.  It was hot today 82 degrees, and it just cracks me up how all the locals still had long sleeve shirts and winter coats on. On the way to Lily's school a younger guy came riding up on a bike calling Lily's Taiwanese name.  It was a worker from Chung Yi that use to take her to kindergarten and do errands for the orphanage   He was so excited to see her, too!  The school looks pretty much the same as it did 5 years ago and Lily got her pictures.

We then walked back to Chung Yi and talked to the director a bit more.  After awhile, they took us down the street just a little bit to another building that houses Chung Yi's social workers, including Alice.  We sat in a room while she got the final paperwork together to go over with us.  Callie came in, but they took her to another room, while we met with her government social worker and her orphanage social worker.  We talked to them for awhile and they told us things about Callie and we were able to ask questions.  They also gave us two photos of her grandfather that had passed away 3 years ago who was her main caregiver.  One of the pictures is of the two of them together.  That really choked me up.  I'm so glad we have two photos of him and a note with two addresses and two phone numbers, which they don't know who these addresses belong to, but maybe some day we'll find out.  We did find out that her grandfather's family is from Hun-an Province in China, so it could be addresses of relatives in China.

Then, finally after about 1/2 hour, they brought Callie in to sit with us.  We didn't sit there long, but they then asked Callie if she had questions for us, which she said not really and laughed.  She laughs a lot!  We weren't inn that room too much longer and they took us back to the main Chung Yi building.  Then, they took multiple photos and the guy that was so excited to see Lily gave her two old photos of her.  Then Callie's social worker from Northern Region Children's Home, her orphanage, and another caregiver from NRCH that brought her to Taipei, said their good-byes.  They were crying buckets and hugging Callie so tight.  Rick then hugged the social worker and she actually let him just hold her for a bit.  It was priceless.  These two women love Callie like their own child.  So hard to watch,, but I thanked them for taking such good care of Callie and that they were good mamas to her.

After that Alice took us on a tour of Chung Yi, so that Lily could see her old room.  We saw another mama in the baby room that remembered taking care of Lily as a toddler.  More hugs!  The babies there were soooo cute!  I told Alice I'd take them all home with me if they'd let me.  She just laughed.  I could take a picture of them, but trust me, they were cute!!!  On the top floor is a meeting room for the kids to do special things and the kitchen.  Well, both the cooks came out and they were the same cooks Lily had.  Again, more pictures :)

Then, we went back downstairs and they called a taxi for us.  We took Callie back to the room and played a game with her for awhile.  Then she and Lily hung out and played Nintendo DS on the bed.  We've been trying all week to get Lily to try speaking more Mandarin and she basically said she didn't remember.  Well, in the last 5 hours her Mandarin has come back - Hahaha!  She can't get all the words, but enough that Callie knows what she's saying.  So funny!

Tomorrow we're off to AIT (American Institute in Taiwan) which is our US embassy here.  Hopefully, we don't have any issues with her visa!

I hope everything is good at home!  Thanks Cam and Alli for watching the boys!!!!!!

Added the videos to the last post!

Sorry, last night the videos wouldn't upload, but they did this morning!  Go back a day to see the videos on the end of the post

Yay!!!! Callie meeting

Finally!  It feels like we've been here forever without Callie.  Today, we went to her orphanage in Taoyuan to meet her.  It went GREAT!!!!!  Best of all, she doesn't seem nervous at all.  We all went for lunch at the same restaurant I went with her the last time I was here.  Lily and Dad loved her, just as I knew they would.  Lily finally admitted that she actually does look like her.  I could also tell that Callie liked Lily.  Lily was able to understand Callie, if she spoke slowly, so we told Alice, the social worker with us, to tell her to speak slowly to Lily so she could understand. 

Callie took us on a tour of her room, which was hilarious, because she didn't want to, because she said her room was messy.  In the video I'm going to post, it shows her trying to tell us that the neatly made bed next to hers is her bed, not the messy unmaid one next to it.  It was soooo funny!!! 

Her main caregiver, whom I don't know her name, was with her.  She was visably not real happy, but I had a feeling it was only because will be taking Callie home with us and away from her.  This was confirmed later, when we returned from lunch, and Callie's social worker at the orphanage asked our social worker, Alice, if the caregiver could please meet us at the airport on Friday evening to say a final goodbye to Callie.  We told them to tell her we would love it if she came! 

Can't wait to pick her up tomorrow!  She's ready, we're ready! 

Our first family photo - A.C. (After Callie)

Feb. 24 - Pingxi Lantern Festival

What a fabulous day we had yesterday!  We met our friends here in Taiwan, Brandon and Lidia and also the two other families from the states that are also adopting.  Kyle and Beth already had their new 3 year old, Avalyn.  Trent and Lori had just arrived the evening before.  We all met at Grace Baptist Church at the English service. 

Church was good, their services are all very traditional services, no contemporary options, but we all noticed how direct and unapologetic the sermon was.  No political correctness, that seems to sometimes wiggle it's way into US churches.  Refreshing!

After church we went out for lunch - Dumplings!  They were really good - pork, veggie, curry, and fish dumplings.  We also had Kimchi, a Korean spicy cabbage.  Lily eats this at home with her aunt Mindee, but I had never dared to try it.  It was actually pretty good. :)

After lunch we had a stomach turning taxi ride for an hour into the mountains, headed to the Pingxi Lantern festival, which was actually in Shinfen this particular day.  They have three different days during Chinese New Year that they do the festival and they move it from little coal village to little coal village.  IT WAS AWESOME!  It was during the afternoon, but the weather was perfect, and it was actually just as much fun to do the lantern in the day light, as we could see well and get great pictures (below). 

Avalyn, the 3 year old, also did great!  She loved Lily's long hair and kept grabbing it.  Kyle and Beth and Trent and Lori were all so very nice!  Trent is a hoot and wants to try eating everything, while the rest of us are more reserved in food choices!  Haha

Enjoy the pictures, but our next pictures will show us meeting Callie!!!!!!!  We are leaving for breakfast now and then off to Taoyuan to meet her at the orphanage.  We won't be bringing her back with us today, as it's just "meetcha day" and not "gotcha day" today.  However, it really doesn't matter, I can't wait to see her again and Rick and Lily are super excited to get to meet her for the first time!  Thank you, Jesus!