The Potato Chip

I gave Jade a Potato Chip yesterday and she laughed her butt off, she thought it was the funniest thing. She didnt eat it, she just looked at it and laughed hysterically. I was able to get a short video of part of it. I tried to attach it to this post but I don't think it worked, I can't tell from here. If it worked, enjoy, if it didnt I'll try again later.

A -

Here She Is!!!

OK -here she is!! She is a beauty!!

These are kind of in reverse order, the sleeping shot is from this morning. Jade was up all night and wouldnt let Scott put her down, so at 5:00 am I strapped her into the carrier and she and I walked around the hotel until 7:30 then had breakfast together, she is beginning to like me :) - which is a good thing. She ate a Croissant with Jelly, I don't remember what the heck I ate I was just so happy she wasnt freaking out! :)

The photo of Scott in the black shirt holding Jadie who is in the Pink sweater is "Gotcha" Day - as you can see she really liked him from the beginning, she didnt cry or anything she just checked him out and touched his hair. She was given to me first and completely freaked out which was kind of good because I didnt cry, I just freaked out too (ha, ha, ha). It was absolute mayhem on Gotcha Day - babies screaming, tons of people all over, having to pull together paperwork and make bottles - YEHA!

The picture with Scott holding Jade with her smiling - she is actually smiling at me, not at the bottle with food (good thing huh? ) and the shot of the town is downtown metropolitan Jaingxi China, it's a cool place, I think over 8 Million people and more buildings than I've ever seen in my life. It's not as European as Beijing so we are getting to see the "real" China.

One of the pictures is at the Notary Office, Scott and I are with the Director of Jadies Orphanage and the woman who is in charge of all of the adoptions. The gave us a photo album with pictures of the orphanage, Jadies Nanny (Fu Hu Di) and a business card so we can email/snail mail updated photos - we also got a piece of Porcelin (sp?) and a silver charm from them for Jade.

Since we didnt have a good night last night, we all decided to stay at the hotel and just lay low, we thought Jade was getting a cold, but she seems A-OK now. We ordered room service - Spaghetti for Scott and I, a ham sandwich (for Scott) and some rice with Eggs for Jade - it was so nice to not have Chinese food (even though it was really Chinese food - ha, ha, ha). We also walked around outside but decided to come back to the hotel becuase we completely stand out and the beggers make a B-Line for us - We went to Walmart yesterday, what a freakin trip! A Bizillion people in the store and it was 3 stories. Amazing, but we did OK!

We Are Here!!!!

We made it! It's Saturday morning 7:25 AM. We just got done with a great breakfast and super good cup of coffee! I'm going to try and post a picture, let me know if it works!

Anyway, out hotel is really nice. The beds are comfortable and the folks here are very nice/friendly. Scott is loving it too, when we went through immigration (or what ever we had to do to come in to the country) the official told Scott he was "cool" - so we be cool!

We will keep you all posted!

Love

Deed

OK, I can't figure out the picture thing yet, so I'll try again later . . all of the icons are in chinese, so this is going to take a few trys

We Are Ready To Go!

Believe it or not, we are ready to go! Two suit cases and two back packs - can you believe it? We are kinda psyched cuz the pile that we had to pack looked a lot more like 4 suit cases and 3 back packs!!

Scott and I have a ton of reading material, munchies (thank you Kathie and Jim) and sleep aids to get us through the 13 hour flight from Chicago to Beijing. We are exhausted but totally ready to get this party started!! Thank you to all of you who have been so supportive through our journey, we will keep you all posted.

Just think, we leave tomorrow, but by Friday morning when you all get up to go to work, we will be in Beijing China - CHINA, CH- CH - CH - CHINA - Yahoo!

Here we go!

Love to all!

Aileen & Scott!

P.S. the pictures are of us getting ready and yes, that is a glass of wine on the dining room table, a girls got to chill out yes? (ha, ha, ha)

Love you guys! Stay tuned!!

What A Weekend!

We are leaving in 4 days and finally got the room "done". Is it perfect, no, but there is a crib for Jadie, clean clothes and a bed for mommy and daddy if we need it. Suzie, Cakie and Willie T came up this weekend and helped me get it all together (thank you!!) and I must say, the room looks pretty cool. It looks like a little girls room and one that I think Jade will find interesting. A good number of colors and textures as well as some friends hanging out all over the place.

In her room she will have a leprechaun with an umbrella, a Chinese friend (check out the lamp mom), a mobile and all sorts of other nice things that Nana can sing about (we can't wait!)-

Bean also had a great time hanging out with the crazy 4-legged Weiss girls, they wore him out! And Uncle Scott had a fabulous time on his Ski weekend with the guys, he actually went skiing, the first time since we met. I'm sure he was practicing for when he gets to take Jadie skiing.

Anyway we are all very excited and can't wait to get to China and Back with our beautiful daughter, granddaughter, grand neice, neice, cousin and choochie-momma. J-D-Q!

Yippee!

This Is For You Cakie!

Here's is the progress on the room, you asked about the colors. We chose a very nice off white (kind of creamy) and a red-raspberry, it looks awesome. When you come up next weekend you can help us pull it all together.

P.S. I've included pictures of the house and the crazy mess it is, as we try and get Jades room pulled together.

P.S. Thank goodness for Nana and Poppop.

I love you!

Shopping For Jade

Last weekend we went shopping for stuff to bring along to China, we over purhcased as you can probably tell. Although overwhelming, Scott and I did manage to have some fun. As you can see we both purchased some items for our beautiful baby daughter - I'll let you all figure out who bought what! Note to grandparents - just hope that I'm the one dressing her when you baby sit! (ha, ha. ha!)

By the way, I confirmed our travel itenary to and from China. We will be flying out of Bradley and then Chicago to Beijing, and the THREE of us will be flying from Beijing to Chicago to Bradley. We arrive home on 2/8 around 9:30 PM.

We Are On Our Way Jadie!!!

We had our travel meeting yesterday and found out we will be travelling to China on the 25th of this month - YAHOO - and we will officially become parents on the 29th. Scott and I are so excited we can't even think. Here's our itenary:

Leave the 25th arrive in Beijing on the 26th
1/27 - visit the great wall and see an acrobatic show in the afternoon
1/28 - visit the summer palace and Tian'an Men Square
1/29 - fly to Nanchang (2 hrs) and get Jade
1/30 - registration and notary (where we officially adopt Jade)
1/31 - site seeing in Nanchang
2/1 - same deal
2/2 - same deal
2/3 - get Jades passport and all of her other important documents
2/4 - fly to Guangzhou (don't know how long the flight is)and check in to the White Swan (yippee!!)
2/5 - Jades visa photos and medical check
2/6 - Jades Visa appointment
2/7 - fly to Beijing (3 hours)
2/8 - fly home (13 hours)

We don't know which airport we'll be leaving from yet, it will be either Chicago O Hare or Newark. I need to do a bit of research. Anyway, we have just about 2 weeks to pull everything together - AHHHHHHHH. We'll keep everyone posted!

Adoption Update

There is none. HA, Ha, Ha. Really, no update. Bummer. We are still waiting for our Travel Assignment from China, until then nothing can really happen except pulling stuff together for the trip and finishing Jade's room. Speaking of the room, I did start it, I'm still in the cleaning out stage. Scott and I have accumulated a ton of stuff in the 7 years we've been married. Once I get it all cleared out, then I'll paint. The big pile of stuff is the last of what I need to go through and get rid of. The other photo is Jades closet, as we get closer Aunt Suzie, Mom and I can't help but buy cute little outfits for Jade - AHHHH - hopefully they will fit her :)

We do have our travel meeting next week, we are both looking forward to that, we'll be able to connect with the other families we are travelling to China with. It's all good and we will keep you all posted.

Love ya!

Deed!

Christmas in Vermont

Christmas in Vermont was beautiful, we actually had snow! The only bummer was Scott and Molly couldn't join us because they had to work. We still had a great time, ate a lot, drank good wine and enjoyed some nice long walks!

Here are some pictures of our hanging out and having fun! The picture of Molly is from Anita's party and Mom, we did'nt get any pictures of you! Love you all!!