Mom, I Don't Want to Be Sunflower Pooh!

Sunflower Pooh was one of our first purchases in St. Louis when we arrived back in 2001. We were downtown taking care a business when we visited Union Station. The Disney Store had an incredible sale going on at the time and we bought this costume despite having only Joey, our poodle at the time. We had to let Ty try this costume on as it has traveled with us between all our moves, just waiting for the day a little bundle of our sweetness could wear it for Halloween (we have loaned it out for others to use). Well, it is obvious what he thought of this costume even though we would have modified it with holes for his feet. Oh well, no big deal. We will save it for #2, Lord willing.

First Taste of the Midwest

First I will cut my corn with a knife...

... and then try my fork.

So proud I have to kiss my "plowboy" dad.

I tease Troy about spending the majority of his childhood on a farm. If you knew me in my teen-age years, I was adament I would not marry or date a person who raised livestock or crops. I am not against these people at all, I just thought I was too "cultured" or a city girl to understand their way of life. God has a funny sense of humor and I married a "plowboy" as I call/tease Troy. He really didn't have an interest in the lifestyle and considered himself more of a city boy and moved to Austin once he got a chance. Now we call our current destination a mix between his hometown in Iowa and my birthplace, Austin. Agri-business is huge here and there are corn and soybean fields all around, which I have learned to appreciate their beauty. I am becoming more educated in the machines used and the difference between sweet corn and field corn.

Ty had his first try of corn this past Sunday and was not too sure of corn on a stick. I let him play around with the corn as he was intrigued with what it was all about. FIrst he tried a knife and then a fork. He figured out a way to eat some corn as he didn't want my help in his discovery.

Do They Have Beans In Beijing?

You know you are apart of this family when Mexican food is at the top of your list. As a born and bred Texan, Mexican is a weekly part of our diet, if not daily with homemade salsa and tortillas. We have a neighborhood joint that has become a Friday night favorite with $1.99 margaritas and the best Mexican on this side of town. Ty has already discovered he LOVES refried beans, rice, guacamole and tortillas! I was SO proud of my boy and KNEW he was meant to be ours!

Total Cuteness

Mom was ecstatic Ty was eating his green beans!

"Hello Grandma. I cannot wait to see you and Grandpa." (Ty loves his monkey slippers!)


The package is more fun then the gift.

Jack gets a bite of PB @ J.

Ty gets a bite.

Dad gets a bite.

Ty continues to be a trooper and so much fun. We saw a pediatrician that specializes in international adoption in St. Louis on Tuesday and poor Ty had 5 shots, 3 viles of blood drawn and 2 x-rays in addition to hanging out in a tiny room for 2 hours while mom and dad answered questions. We had great intentions to go the Dr.'s, eat lunch at our old neighborhood joint and shop at Trader Joe's, but poor Ty had enough.

This week Ty has been eating anything we give him, except milk despite our tries to make it good with chocolate syrup or vanilla extract. We have figured out we can hide it in his rice cereal with yogurt so he gets some calcium. We are grateful he likes cheese too. He has also cut his nap down to one hour a day, but sleeps 12 hours at night.

Ty LOVES music and we checked out a Justin Roberts CD this morning at the library in addition to a few others. While driving home listening to Justin, Ty was sucking one index finger and beating the other against his chest to the exact beat. It was too cute. We knew he had musical talent when he would drum to the beat when we sing songs, but this was another reminder. Ty is also giving lots of kisses to us and has even tried to kiss Jack.

Since We've Been Back

A surprise welcome from our house church family.

Playing at the library.

Our little drummer boy.

Looking cute in my new hat.

Smiling for Daddy on his birthday.

"I'm coming to get you Mom."

Isn't that the cutest grin?

Ty and Daddy taking a stroll along the lake.

Ty trying hard to put on both his shoes and socks.

A, T, and P. House church friends.

We are all better now and have been out and about since we have been stuck in the house. Ty had his first trip to Target, Walmart, the library, friends house for a birthday party and took it all in like it was no big deal. We have also started to introduce him to co-workers and of course all those from house church when they came over on Sunday. Ty takes everything in and tries it all. The boy does not have any fear. He steps into a situation with full anticipation and excitement. He continues to charm those he meets with his giggles and smile.

Ty's diapers are getting better. We still have our occasional blowout that requires a bath, but we are getting to be experts now. The little guy still does not like to get dressed or have his pants changed, so we have our wrestling matches despite distractions to make it fun. He is also starting to eat fruits which make us proud. Bananas are the only "natural" fruit at this time beside canned mandarin oranges and tropical fruit, but we will not complain. Otherwise, he is a meat and potatoes boy.

Jack has been incredible with Ty. We were afraid that he may not do well and be extremely jealous since he doesn't have a great history with kids, but our prayers have been answered. Jack has been so gentle and full of kisses. He will even go into Ty's room when he is sleeping to peek into his crib. This morning he was howling along with Ty's cries as he was waking up. It was too cute.

We Are Home and Sick

Yep! Troy and I have the stomach flu. I am on the mend, but he is slowly recovering. It is not easy parenting when BOTH are sick and you are dealing with a toddler with jet lag. Enough said.

We Are Packing And Ready

Our bags are packed with a few items remaining that need to go in tomorrow morning. It will be a VERY early morning for us as our luggage needs to be outside our door at 5:00 a.m. and we are meeting our group at 5:50 a.m. Please pray for us as we travel. It will be a very long day, but we are anxious to get home. We are also nervous about having a very active toddler who is learning to walk and has lots of wiggles on a 14 hour flight. Ty is no longer the quiet little guy who goes with the flow. He takes everything in so much that he is in full swing at all times so he won't miss a thing. It might be a few days before we update our blog as we recover, unpack, wash, sleep, play, go on walks, introduce Jack to Ty....etc. Thank you all for your prayers on this journey.

Red Couch Photo Day

Ty turning on his charm in his Red Couch photo.

Ty has a new friend, Mocha the Monkey. Mocha is a world traveler.

Flooding from the rain of the typhoon.

The Pearl Market- 6? story shopping mall with tons of jewelry.

Travel Group #1419

The infamous Red Couch Photo.

The happy RoRo family.

Amy: Our time is coming to an end in China and we are SO READY to be home with Ty. This trip has been full of wonderful memories, history, sights to see and food to eat. But we are ready for a sense of normalcy. Hotel living and eating out is getting extremely old. We are ready to be in our home and introduce Ty to his new bedroom, toys, family and friends. The little guy is a charmer and has attached to us very well. He is a musician banging his utensils on the table repeating his dads beats, an engineer taking things apart and putting them back together, a sweetheart blowing kisses and waving goodbye as we leave a place and a chef, making interesting concoctions with his food. We have also started to eliminate dairy products from his diet to see if it makes any difference in his blowout diapers. Asians are prone to be lactose intolerant and we are seeing if this might be true for Ty. Day 1, we can see a slight improvement. We will see what Day 2+ bring.

Tomorrow we take our oath and go to the zoo. Everything was perfect with our Visa/Immigration paperwork and there were not any questions, praise God. We have been killing time visiting the shops on the island and went to the Pearl Market today with our group. All shops sell the same thing and most follow you around like pests. They do not understand the concept, "I am just looking, thank you" which really means "LEAVE ME ALONE!" We did find a lovely shop that all the profits go to benefit the orphans of China. They were classy and had handmade products that were gorgeous and unique.

We had a really cool experience today leaving the Pearl Market. Our guide was getting a taxi for us and they were all full as each drove by. Finally, an empty taxi approached us and another man wanted it. Our guide guarded the doors and said, "No" and motioned us to get in the cab. We were kind of afraid and could feel some stress. We didn't want anybody to be mad at us. The taxi driver kept looking at Ty and asking questions to our guide. When we arrived back at the hotel, the cab driver would not take our fare. He pointed to his lip and gave a thumbs up to Ty. Our guide told us he too had a repaired cleft lip which I thought I got a glance of when we got in the cab.

The Guangzhou Sauna

View from our hotel room.

"Smell my feet and I will honk your nose."

This picture speaks for itself.

This picture too speaks for itself.

Ty looking cute in his new stroller.

" I love my scrambled eggs!"

Ty posing in the playroom at the hotel.

Ty and Dad playing basketball.

Our hotel is on the Pearl River. There is a lot of barge traffic.

The infamous waterfall at the White Swan Hotel.

Amy: We made it to Guangzhou fairly well. Being Ty's first plane ride, he survived the first 2/3 of the trip. The last 1/3 was around his nap time, they had just served us lunch (a 2 hr. flight with lunch and 2 drink services. Never in the US!) and we were descending. He had enough and screamed bloody murder for probably 30 minutes. Nothing worked and we got the stares. Hopefully the flight home will be better.

It is a nice change to be in Guangzhou, but it is HOT and HUMID! Very nasty! The type that drains you. We are to get the wind and rain from a typhoon tomorrow, so we might find ourselves indoors a lot more. There is a nice playroom which is a good distraction with lots of other adoptive families to talk to and share stories. It is amazing the number of adoptive families that are at the White Swan. The Shamin Island which we are on totally caters to all of us. There are stores galore with American names like Jordan's, Susan's, Jessica's, Andy's Place etc. that have all sorts of Chinese merchandise. Very interesting.

Ty got his Visa photo taken today, had a medical examination which he despised and Troy finished up all the paperwork with our guide. It feels good to be nearing the end and getting rid of money. I never thought I would say that, but... we had to take a large amount of cash to pay for all the required adoption related expenses and it is not fun being responsible for it.

We LOVE being Ty's parents. He is truly comfortable with us and recognizes us as Mom and Dad. He is fascinated with the features of our face and loves to touch them and play little games. The boy loves to eat. Today he discovered Gerber Graduates Puffs in Cherry flavor. He keeps pointing and grunting at the canister so much that we had to hide them. Right now we are working on please, thank you and more in sign language so we can phase out the grunts.

Shaolin Temple Day

Ty on the bus ride to Shaolin Temple

Warrior Monk Statute outside Shaolin Temple - The Home of Shaolin Kung-Fu

Ty in His Hoodie

Total Cuteness 101

Shaolin Temple Kung-Fu Show

Shaolin Temple Kung-Fu Show

Shaolin Temple Warrior Monks Statute

Pagoda Forest @ Shaolin Temple

Shaolin Temple East Tower (Gorgeous!)

Troy: Today was another great day! A little cool, but nice. We went to Shaolin Temple - 50 miles northwest of Zhengzhou. Shaolin Temple is the Home of Shaolin Kung-Fu. All the children who were a part of the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony doing Kung-Fu in white outfits were from this school and temple. We saw them all practicing out in the courtyards together on our way to visit the site. There were hundreds of them - amazing sight. We saw a Kung-Fu show and visited the Pagoda Forest. Each pagoda is the tomb of a Shaolin Warrior Monk. There were 247 pagodas in the forest with the earliest dating back to 719AD. That's more than 700 years before Columbus discovered America! We are back at the hotel and finishing our packing before we fly to Guangzhou tomorrow! We're excited about being on the road again. We have heard great things about Guangzhou and the White Swan Hotel where we will be staying. Very kid friendly. We will be there until flying home this coming Friday non-stop from Hong-Kong to Chicago! Bye for now!

Amy: Today was such a long day that Ty went down at 6:30 tonight! He also presented us with another major blowout that got all over my clothes this time. Chinese children are known for their loose stools and we can verify that whole hardily. It doesn't help that he is teething and that causes a little extra mess. A couple that just adopted their 3rd daughter presented us with a pair of plastic pants to put over Ty's diaper. This will be VERY helpful, especially on the plane. We have a list of things created that we need to purchase when we get home. So far they are Nuby sippy cups (brought one with us and he loves it), plastic pants and a basketball hoop. This boy loves to throw things in the garbage can or on the ground. Ty is also eating scrambled eggs for us, sausage and passion fruit. Today was the day that he wanted anything I wanted and it was all about the mama. He even said "Mama". My heart melted. He is starting to wave bye-bye and blow kisses. His personality is really cute and comes out more each day.

See you in Guangzhou! We are ready for a change after living in the same hotel room for a week. We are also ready to get back to a slower pace of life. We will NEVER complain about traffic, bad drivers or the size of our house. Americans are SOOOOO spoiled!