12th Wedding Anniversary!!!

I had hoped to do the recap of our trip to China without interruption (thus the lack of Christmas pictures so far), but I didn't want to miss out on this day, our 12th wedding anniversary.  We skipped the romantic dinner for 2 and instead had lunch after church at Wendy's with 6 kids (Christina had a friend spending the night last night and tonight).  It wasn't romantic, but it was a lot of fun!  Our kids are such blessings to us.

I had planned to say some really nice things about my husband, maybe even let him say something too!  However, the kids are running wild, and it's time to get them off to bed.  Ernie and I are truly blessed to have each other and our precious children.  We have a beautiful home nestled in one of the most beautiful parts of the country.  We have a great church and great friends.  My family is also a great blessing to us, and we pray daily for other family members who have chosen not to be a blessing to us and hope that one day they open their hearts and allow love to fill them up so they too can fill the unspeakable joy we feel in our hearts and finally be a part of all they are missing out on.

We thank God for the last 12 years and look forward to many more years together sharing in the blessings of God's great love upon us.  Here are a few pictures from the last couple of months of the many blessings God has so graciously given to us.

Joshua REALLY does not like to have his picture made, thus the lack of decent photos of him!

The kids really love their grandparents, and their grandparents love them too!

Caleb, Malachi, and Micaelyn with my mom and my grandparents (her parents) - how greatly we have been blessed, and how especially greatly blessed I was to be raised by such a loving Christian family!

Our home - There is nothing better than a WHITE Tennessee Christmas!

The cake Christina and her friend (Caleb too, he says!) made for our anniversary - beautiful!!!  :)

Passing the time in Guangzhou

We ended up spending nearly 2 weeks in Guangzhou.  We should have been able to leave on Thursday, September 16th.  However, our agency told us we should plan to spend several more days in China in case something went wrong - they were not used to families adopting 2 kids at the same time or families adopting kids who were aging out.  As we were doing both those things at the same time and had a couple of things expedited they were concerned something might not work out.  We had originally planned to leave Guangzhou on the 16th with everybody else from our agency and just spend the extra 4 days in Hong Kong (most people depart China via Hong Kong, which is very close to Guangzhou, as it is often the cheapest way out - if something had gone wrong we could have canceled the days in Hong Kong and stayed longer in Guangzhou), but because that was going to be so costly (Hong Kong is expensive!) we decided to take a train trip to nearby Guilin instead.

In the end we ended up canceling that and just spending the extra time in Guangzhou.  Even though we were tired of the place, tired of the heat and humidity, and a bit bored it was easier than traveling to a new place and dealing with the train rides with 4 kids.  Of course we would have been much happier to have just come home (despite our agency's concern everything worked out fine and we really should have been able to leave on the 16th, but it would have cost a fortune to change the tickets back to the US), but since we were just sticking around the hotel with nothing else to do we spent some time enjoying the pool on top of the hotel.

It seemed Joshua had never been swimming before - he was terrified of the water at first and kept a swing ring on the first several days even though he could stand on the bottom.  He did enjoy it a lot though, as did Micaelyn, Malachi, and Caleb.  The pool was almost always empty except for us.  It made a great way to pass a little bit of time each day.

Guangzhou orphanage visit

Before we left China we took time to visit Joshua's orphanage.  Ironically, on the day we visited the Guangzhou SWI there was a group of officials visiting from the Guiyang orphanage, the very one we had just visited after we received Micaelyn.

Visiting an orphanage is always heartbreaking.  It is impossible not to get emotionally torn up over all the precious children left behind who want nothing more than the love of a family.  It is so hard to see their faces as they look at you, desperately wishing for someone to come for them, knowing that will never happen for many.  Joshua's orphanage had well over 1000 kids - so many dear children needing families, and that is just ONE orphanage out of so many!

Our first impression of the orphanage is that it was a very nice place for an orphanage, definitely the best one we have ever visited.  However, the orphanage where the kids live now was built only a few years ago. When Joshua was younger it was a very different place, and all the things I've heard do not paint a very good picture of what life was like throughout Joshua's infancy and childhood. Even now that it is so much better the orphanage is still not a good place for a child to grow up. Children need love, they need affection, they need to be cared for and know they are special. Although Joshua is a good kid, we can see the affects of growing up in an institution in how distant he is with us. I only hope we can tear down the walls he has built emotionally and build up his self-esteem and self-confidence so that he can reach his full potential and succeed both professionally and socially in his new life as our beloved son.

At the entrance to the orphanage

Joshua's room.  His bed is the one with the buckets on it.  We were actually really impressed that the older kids had individual rooms (4 kids to a room) as this was so different (and better) than any other orphanage we've visited.

Even though it was nice they had bedrooms, I still thought it sad that teenage boys slept on what looked like baby bedding, not to mention how uncomfortable the beds looked.  Also, there are no signs of individuality, expression, decorating, etc.  Just the essentials, plain and simple, nothing more to mark it as a bedroom for 4 teenage boys.

Standing in the entrance to the room to get an overall view.

Just outside of the room.

A bedroom for smaller children (obviously not infants since the railing doesn't wrap entirely around the bed).  This is not where Joshua slept when he was younger since the orphanage is in a new building now.  It's nice to see it so clean, but the bareness of the room is sad.  All little children deserve to have a soft blanket and a little lovey to hold when they go to sleep!

The orphanage was actually in a nice place outside of the city with grass and trees around it.