Hanging out in Zhengzhou

After lots of official business yesterday, we're happy to have a free day today, so we'll take a walk to a nearby park and probably hit up the hotel pool after naps.  I'm sure we'll have some photos from that excursion, but for now Maddie has added another english word to her vocabulary - UP!  We also found out that she counts in Chinese, (yi, er, san, si, wu) so for now, we doing 1, 2, 3 in both languages.  (sorry, I had to upload in a pretty low quality due to bandwidth issues).

 

We've got her!

The very instant we got to hold Maddie for the first time.

She's very generous with her kisses!

And likes to pose for the camera.

Keegan and Regina think she's the greatest little sister they could ever have.

Food = love

Getting to know one another.

She's very tiny (only 8 months younger than Regina).  We hope to remedy that with some TLC.

More kisses for Mama

High fives for Regina

And, in case you were wondering, yes, she is a thumb sucker!

Zonked out for an afternoon snooze after an exciting morning.

Zhengzhou, Day 1

We arrived in Zhengzhou in the Henan province today.  It was a very hazy morning, but cleared up later in the afternoon.  We met our Zhengzhou guides today -Yisha and Rita.  The bar was set pretty high by our Beijing guide, George, but so far Yisha and Rita are doing great.  Rita thinks Keegan and Regina look like Barbie dolls.  Most of today was spent preparing for the arrival of Maddie tomorrow morning.  You may not be aware of this fact, but there are actually 10 families in our group adopting a total of 12 kids (2 families are adopting 2 children this trip).  So, we spent the day preparing the room and doing some shopping.  The main highlight was our evening trip to Walmart.  The trip to Walmart, or for that matter, anywhere in Zhengzhou can be quite treacherous.  You must share the sidewalk with motorized scooters...and there are tons of them zipping by. 

Tomorrow morning, we gather at a nearby meeting place where each family will meet their daughter/son.  Since Maddie, and her orphanage director are local, we figure we'll probably be one of the first ones up.  So for now, we're hoping to get a good night's sleep because tomorrow we go from a family of 4 to a family of 5.  Now, I can finally start giving "Salinger" as our party's name when checking in at a restaurant.

  

Our (somewhat palatial) room in Zhengzhou.

The halls are lined with cribs being set up for all the new parents.  All ten families are staying in the same wing of the hotel.

Sharing the sidewalk with motorized scooters.  Reckless abandon!

Zhengzhou Walmart.  A 3-level store filled with most everything you'd expect to find at a Walmart.

We recognized a few favorites from home.  Chips Ahoy and Oreos.