Yangtze River Cruise Day 1

We are writing from our ship. We are unable to use our own computer and do not think we can upload photos from theirs. If we can we will.
We are three out of five white foreigners on our boat. There are two women from Australia and there is a group from Singapore as well. Usually it is half and half but it is the end of the cruise season. The area is beautiful. It is very similiar to the photos of the Li River from our first China trip. Today we visited the Three Gorges Dam which is the largest Dam in the world. It has been under construction since 1993 and is almost finished. We then had to go through 5 ship locks to get over the dam in our ship. We hope to figure out how to send photos.
We are all doing well. Meigan is warming up to the people but giving plenty of eye rolls too! Meigan slept in till 4am today and has had normal naps today so we are hoping for a full nights sleep. Tomorrow is a big tour day.
 
We still can't see our blog, email us if you need us. We also can't skype till Friday/Saturday.
 
For some reason the smells here are much worse for us this trip. Maybe its because we just haven't gotten used to it, but I suspect it is because we have been sick and every little smell makes us want to hurl. The upside of having allergies is that with all of the congestion and stuffy nose it is harder to smell.

WE MADE IT!

We made it to Hong Kong safely sunday night. Meigan and Jodie slept from about 9pm until 2am when Meigan decided it was time to play. She watched LOTS of Barney while we tried to get more sleep. Needless to say, she slept for 5 hours this afternoon and we were in airports and airplanes so we let her. We were unable to connect to the internet in Hong Kong and we are currently writing from a restaurant in Guangzhou airport as we wait for our flight to Yichang to board the cruise ship. Brian went down to eat dinner last night when we went to bed. We were staying at a Marriot and he was able to watch the Utah Jazz game.

We are being stared at quite a bit already. One man looked at us from one side and then walked around us to get a better look at Meigan sleeping in my arms. These are definitely not friendly looks. Can't imagine how many looks we will get once there is two little ones with us.

So far travelling has gone well. Meigan has been a trooper. Hopefully it won't take us too long to switch our days and nights around. We are unable to view our blog so we are posting via email. Hope it is working and hopefully we will be able to see it in our next city. We will hopefully post again soon, but we are unsure when we will have access again.

On our way!!!

We have successfully checked our luggage and are awaiting our first of 3 flights today. We will arrive in Hong Kong sunday night. Monday we will take 2 more flights and then board a cruise ship on the Yangtze river until friday. We hope to post all week but we are not sure which days we will be able to access the internet. Again, Monday November 23rd is the day we will meet MEILIN!

November 23rd!!!

November 23rd is THE day! The day we will meet Meilin for the first time. We are SO EXCITED to finally be on our way. We will be leaving THIS friday night. We will have to stay at a hotel friday for an early saturday morning flight out of the US. We will be doing a Yangtze river cruise next week and then travel to her city friday Nov 20th. All GOTCHA days in this province are scheduled on mondays, so we cannot meet her until then. We will be in her Province that week to complete the Chinese side of things and then in Guangzhou for a week to complete the US paperwork. We will be home December 5th. Meigan will be travelling with us.

We are in need of all your prayers. Meilin is much older than Meigan was and we are preparing for a much harder transition. She will be 20 months old, and she has no idea what is about to happen. She will be handed over to complete strangers that look funny, smell funny, and talk funny. Please pray that she may be comforted at this time. We hope that having Meigan there will help her. But, having the 2 of them in this situation is going to be a handful. We need all the prayers we can get!

TRAVEL APPROVAL!!!

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Our Travel Approval (TA) is on its way and should be at our agency monday. We should know by the middle of next week when we will finally meet Meilin!!!

And We Wait

Yes, still waiting for our travel approval (TA). A very long and stressful wait. Hopefully this week we will know WHEN we can finally bring Meilin home. Until then, we wait, wonder and worry.

FINALLY, Our Article 5!

After waiting 34 days, we are relieved to announce that we finally have our Article 5! Now what? We wait again for the CCAA to issue our travel approval so we can hop on a plane. The China side of things has been quick this time around, lets hope that holds true.