Home Sweet Home

Hi there, I know you all have been wondering where I have been and if I made it home. The answer is yes I am home and so very glad!!!!

We started out our jorney home at about 2 pm when we had to check out of our room. We then spent four hours sitting in the play room at our hotel. We left for the airport at 6 and boarded our plane at 8:15. We then sat on the runway for almost 4 hours because of a bad storm. Then had a 13 hour flight home. We arrived about 10 or 10:30 and had to go through imagrations and have Lottie's paperwork processed. I missed my flight home so went to Alaska Airlines to check in so I could leave at 6:20 am they said I could not check in until 4 am by then it was midnight they said I could sit over in the chairs until check in time. I had, had it by then and called Jon and cried right there in their lobby. I finally got my self together and remembered that in the international departure section there was a McDonald's so that is were I spent the next four hours. At 4 am I went to check in Lottie had done good up until this point and decided to throw a HUGE tantrum. She was done and so was I. Everyone was staring at us and finally some lady said " Crying isn't going to make it any better". I said to her " If you had just gone through what she has you would be crying too. I told her I felt like scream too." she didn't say anything else. We finally arrived in Seattle Sunday morning at 8:40 am I was so glad to be home and to see my family!!! Lottie is doing good. She loves her brothers and sisters and her daddy and is very happy. She is having a little trouble at night so I am still not getting much sleep. but we will get there. That's all for now.

Hugs from Home!!!!
Teresa

Coming Home!!!

Good Bye, China!

Lottie and Maria eating their pizza

The Ulm family

the Tenkley family

The Larochelle family

The Haynes family

Well this will be my last post from China. I am homesick!!! I miss my family so much!! I am so ready to come home. BUT, I have been blessed this week to meet some wonderful people!!! The families in our group are so wonderful. I know that I have made some lasting friendships with them. I will miss my friend Jenny who has been so good to me. I will be praying for her and that God will bless her little shop because of her kindness. I will miss our wonderful guide Emma. She is so good at what she does and really cares about each of the families. I will miss Stacy and our long walks and talks we had together. That we got to meet is such a gift from God. Our adoption journey has had its ups and downs. It has been very painful at times. But, there is no doubt in my mind that God had a plan. Lottie needed our family and we needed her!! We are so honored to be her parents. As I watch Lottie and learn about who she is I know she was meant for our family. There are so many things that she does that remind me of her sisters. I know we have some work to do when we get home, but God will see us through.

Tonight our group had a farewell pizza party. We ordered pizza and it was delivered to our hotel. We had a wonderful time visiting and then Gary had a beautiful prayer for all of the families and for AGCI. It was a great ending to our time together.

While you are sleeping I will begin my journey home. I know the journey may be hard, but God will see me through. I thank you all for your prayers for Lottie and I while we were in China. I thank all those who cared for my family while I was away. I will never be able to repay you!! And to my wonderful niece Dakota I thank you for doing this blog for me so that our friends and family could be part of this incredible journey to Miss Lottie Mei XiYan Tall.

If you ever feel God calling you to adoption, I ask you to NOT ignore His voice. Take that leap of faith. Though the journey is sometimes hard, the blessings you will receive will out way the hardships!! There are so many beautiful children longing for a forever family. Could you be that family they are looking for?

Good bye from China,
Teresa and Lottie

Oath ceremony and red couch photos:take two

This little guy wouldn't even sit on the couch!

Smiley!

that's my girl!

that's my girl again!

"We'll only look at you from the back

of the couch!"


We had our oath ceremony today at the US consulate. Our adoption process in now finished here. Tomorrow Emma our guide will pick up the visa for Lottie and then we are homeward bound!!!!! The oath ceremony is very simple, but I felt very emotional. This journey has been very painful at times and to be standing there and knowing that this is it and Lottie is our daughter was almost more then I could do to hold back the tears. Lottie was again very scared as we entered the building. It was like she thought we were going back to the same building were she came to me at. She cried when they called her name and we went to get her papers. You could see the fear in her eyes. She was so happy when we got back in the bus.

We did more pictures today. It was a little better and candy helped!!! but I would have to say it was a lot of work trying to get the kids to sit and take one good picture. Enjoy the pictures of our red couch photos take two!!!

Love and hugs from China,
Teresa

Red couch photos: Take one!

My friend Stacy and her little girl are leaving in the morning so we thought it would be real nice to do red couch pictures. What do you think? We have to do this again with our group tomorrow. I am thinking I might need to get some candy!!! It was fun even though the pictures weren't perfect. Better memories when they are like this.

Enjoy,
Teresa

Kisses for Mama!!!!!!!

Can you find the joey?

There is nothing more beautiful then kisses from my girl. Wet juicy ones!!! But I will take them. These kisses are coming after days of wondering if her broken little heart would ever let me in. The last two days now she has been giving me more and more of them all on her own. She snuggles next to me at night and if she can't find me she cries out for me and then snuggles next to my side. It's enough to make this mama's heart over flow with joy!!

The big news of the day is that all my paper work is finished!!!!!!!!!! Lottie can come home!!! The tears start to come just thinking of being able to go home together!! Tomorrow is our swearing in ceremony at the consulate. Friday I receive her visa and Saturday we are coming home. Please pray the weather holds on Saturday as we have been having big storms here and the airport has been having trouble getting planes in and out during this kind of weather.

We didn't do to much today but play together. There was a big thunderstorm and Lottie refused to go out of our room during this time. It was fine with me and I enjoyed playing together. So no big crowds and thunderstorms. My girl is terrified of them. Oh and I can't forget people dressed up in tiger suits!!

Oh how I long to hold and kiss my family!!! Counting down the days, hours and minutes until I can see their beautiful faces.

Hugs from China,

Teresa

A BIG day

Mommy and Lottie holding tiger

The SCARY tiger!!!

Lottie and Maria

Lottie and Gavin

We had a very big day today at the wild animal park. I would have to say it is the nicest park I have been too. It had so many baby animals. It was so fun seeing all the babies. But the best thing of all was getting to hold the baby tiger!!! Lottie really liked it too. I thought he would be very soft, but his fur felt kind of wiry. We saw so many animals, but the baby section of the park was my favorite. I loved the koala and pandas too. We had a great time with the other families in our group. So much fun getting to know them all. We ended the park with a thunderstorm. It felt good though as it was so hot all my clothes were already wet from sweat. Lottie did pretty good today considering it was a long day and it was so hot. She did freak out over the man in the tiger suit and she cried some at the end because she was so tired. She ended up sleeping the whole way back to our hotel. Tomorrow is big day too as my guide takes the last of our paperwork to the consulate. Please pray that all goes well!!!

Lots of Love from China!!!!

Teresa

Another Day

Lottie organizing her suitcase


The front of our hotel

Another in front of our hotel

viewing outside our hotel

Well another day is drawing to a close. We didn't do very much today, as Miss Lottie has decided she does not like to be in crowds. We had to go to the bank today to exchange some money and the bank was very crowded. No more than two minutes in the bank and the little girl who had been so happy earlier started to scream and cry and would not stop until we were back in our room. She then was happy and played and snuggled with me. So I guess we will be staying in our room more and enjoying each others company. We are going to go and see some tigers tomorrow. So planning on lots of snacks. Hopefully that will keep her happy while we are there. She has also started trying to say the same words I say. She has the sweetest little voice.

Love to you all,
Teresa

Trips to the market and other adventures...

Lottie wasn't sure what to think of these
kittens


A man selling olives

My guide Emma

tiger claws

dried snakes

dried turtles

roses

the saint bernard puppy

some very hot bunnies

Hi everyone, today we went to the market it was very interesting. There were so many weird things there for sale. They had tiger claws that you make some kind of soup out of for some kind of sickness. They had dried snakes, turtles, bugs and lots of herbs and flowers. There were good smells there and real bad smells. We also went to the pet market. There was the cutest saint bernard puppy there. I don't think he would make a very good pet for the city though. Then we made our way to the shopping street. There were so many people there!!! I miss my country home!!! I am not a city girl. Lottie must not like lots of people either because she freaked out and started screaming and there was nothing I could do for her she didn't want to walk or be held or be in a stroller. She wanted to lay down in the middle of the street and kick and scream. Everyone was looking at me and who knows what they were thinking. I didn't really care. I just needed to get my girl to calm down. I finally bought her some juice and that got her mind off of what ever had set her off.

Lottie continues to grieve every time she lays down to sleep and when she wakes up. We are making progress though. I am hoping we will have gotten through most of the grieving before we head home as that could make for a VERY LONG trip home and some not so happy travelers on our flight. Please continue to pray for her broken heart!!! and for wisdom for me.

Love and prayers,
Teresa

Progress!!!!!!

First of all I want to thank you all for the comments!! I can not read them, but Jon reads them to me everyday. Your words are such an encouragement to me and it is so nice knowing that I have a prayer team lifting us up in prayer. Thank you so much. Also I have to say thank you to the ones who are taking such good care of my family!!! You are so needed. I will never be able to repay you for all you have done.

We have finally turned a corner!!! Thanks to a very bad thunderstorm last night. Lottie finally decided she needed me and opened her little broken heart to her mama. She was so scared from the storm she clung to me for an hour and went to sleep in my arms. I thought maybe everything would go back to the way it had been when she woke this morning, but no, she cuddled right up to me and has been snuggling with me off and on all day. She has been a lot happier today too and no silent tears when she went down for nap.

We went back to our favorite french fry place Lucy's. Lottie loves ketchup she eats it on everything even lemons. She reminds me of someone. Oh yes my good friend Jenel!!!!

We went for a long walk again today around the Island. It was very humid since it had rained so hard in the night. We saw lots of groups of people some were singing and Lottie loves music she wanted to stop and listen to them sing. Others were doing their morning exercise, some were playing hacky sack and others were playing some kind of board game. It is so much fun to watch them doing all these things out in the park. We also met the other families in our group. There are four of us all together. One family is from Washington and we share the same social worker. All the families are very nice and I look forward to getting to know them better.

One more week until we come home and I can't wait for you all to meet our beautiful and courageous daughter.

Hugs to you all!!

Teresa