The Caley's Have Arrived In China!

Well, we really are here. It was a really long trip. We left our house at 6 a.m. Thursday and arrived at 0:30 Saturday. Yes, That's after midnight. Of course we lost a day and gained 12 hours. In other words, the trip was over 24 hours.



Breakfast in the hotel was great, then we made a trip to the grocery store where Kathleen broke out into the Halelujah chorus at the sight of Diet Pepsi.



Next was a trip to the Silk Market--actually an indoor market with all kinds of vendors. We bought too much. Chinese Decor for our home, gifts and silk dresses for the THREE girls and a cool silk outfit for Aaron. The calculator is how you communicate price when there is a language barrier. The vendor types a price, you counter with something 1/4 to 1/3 of that, go back and forth ten times and eventually reach a sale. Yes, you do always reach a sale, because if you try to walk away, suddenly your last offer is enough, "But why you treat me so bad? I offer you best friend price."



Kathleen and I got some Chinese shirts too. Kathleen got her first experience with the "squatty potty." No graphic descriptions here, but those of you close enough to her will eventually have to endure the full living color instant replay, I'm sure.

Tonight we went to see the children who are in training to be the acrobats of China. It was absolutely amazing. Kathleen, however found it necessary to inspect the insides of her eyelids for most of the show. Jet lag? Nah, not us, we're long time international travellers.

It looks like we have no access at all to blogger, so we can't see your comments until we get back, but feel free to post. We can get e-mail, however at our regular e-mail address. It's difficult to reply though, because we have to go to webmail. Maybe we'll get that figured out later. We plan to post again tomorrow and then won't post again until we get Autumn.

We love and miss you all. And, oh, by the way, Two days until we hold Autumn for the first time.

Two Days and Counting!

So we're officially freaking out. Everything that it seemed like we'd have time to do later, well, how's that working for you? So what to pack? and oh, we better get another battery for the video camera and will we be able to recharge that thing in China? and what about pictures? who will take those as we officially get Autumn? and still or video? how can we get both? Are you packing Baby Shampoo? Do we need Diarhea medicine? When are we going to buy snacks?

Did we mention that the official "Gotcha Day" is April 3 in the afternoon? It's 12 or 13 hours earlier over there, so let's see that'll be in the middle of the night over here.

Also we heard that blogspot is not accessible over in China now, so one of my students, Matthew, has agreed to do the posting for us. We'll e-mail him the photos and posts and he'll upload them. A great big "THANKS" to him for that.

I'm working on uploading video clips via Youtube as well hopefully, that's still available in China.

WE ARE ON OUR WAY!!!!! MARCH 29-APR 14TH

We made our trip to Congressman Holden's office on Thursday afternoon. We received a phone call that afternoon stating that our form was being mailed that afternoon. It came in the mail today. Praise God!!!!! He must always think "why do you doubt me o ye of little faith?" He truly is faithful and now we are officially on our way. We will be leaving two weeks from this Thursday. Guy is currently putting in new flooring for our beautiful new kitchen. Thank God this remodeling will be done before leaving. It is definitely worth it!!

Thank you for all of your prayers. We appreciate continued prayers for our whole family during our travel. Keep posted!!

Travel Dates!

We will be traveling to China on March 30th and returning home with Autumn on the 14th of April. That means she'll be in our arms around April 2. Continue to pray that our imigration paperwork comes through, we're not to nervous about it because we have 3 weeks and we're going to our congressman tomorrow to get some help (nothing like a "congressional inquiry" to grease the beauracratic wheels). Still we need that form to go but we're buying the tickets on faith.

Big sister, Alexandra is a little bummed that we'll be gone on her birthday (April 12). But she knows that we have no control and, hey, she may get a really cool brthday gift from China. I mean, really, when have you ever had anything that was made in China!

P.S. Kathleen wants to have "Made in China" tatooed on Autumn's behind, but I'm trying to talk her out of it, Love Guy.