We are in China!

I feel like I have an "out-of-body" eperience here, or like I'm actually in a "magic Tree house" book. I fell asleep shortly after take-off in LA, and when I woke up, I was magically transferred to the other side of the world. What a strange feeling!
But let me back up just a little....
Our flight was very uneventful and quiet, and we met two other adoptive families-to-be on the plane, both of them adopting beautiful baby girls. One of the couples will acutally be in the same province as us! I slept for close to 10 hours, Mike managed to sleep only about three. Wow, the service on China Southern was amazing, at least during my few awake hours *ha* - our flight attendant was super attentive, kind and quick, it made me feel like royalty! We opted for the Chinese breakfast this morning, and it was very good - I'll post a picture of it.
We arrived early in rainy Guangzhou (about 5:30 am), and now we are here at the Victory hotel, trying to get settled and letting it sink in that we are IN CHINA!
It feels very tropical here, hot and humid, with many beautifully landscaped and manicured areas around the airport (which by the way is very new), and countless crowded and delapidated high rises along the highway into town. We are totally fascinated by what little we have seen so far, and can't wait to get out and take it all in. We just watched a little bit of Chinese TV with some sort of Home shopping network airing, and it was very funny. I wish I could speak this beautiful language - maybe I'll add this taks to my "do after retirement" list (along with quilting), or at least to the "once the kids are out of the house" list (along with learning how to use a pottery wheel). Honestly though, at the rate we're going, those two might not be all that far apart.

Another Aha moment I want to share though... going back to our experience of flying over The Grand Canyon and Monument Valley en route to LA. I really feel like this was a heavenly "Bonus" for me, something the Lord just kind of threw in there along the way. Mike and I had talked about how we don't want the kids to feel like we are depriving them of fun things to do because of this adoption. Same goes for me - there are a lot of things that had to take a backseat because of this journey to our little girl. So getting a chance to see two beautiful areas of our country (even from 36000 feet in the air) that I had never seen before, was just really special!

I have been reflecting a lot on our WHY for the adoption of Nina, and to me it boils down to that: I see it as the path the Lord has simply laid in front of us, and all we do is walk on it. Yes, I'm scared, yes, I'm grieving for the family that will never be the same again, yes, it's crazy and we don't "need" any MORE kids (we get this question a lot!), but it's a thing that the Lord himself started planting in my heart about 20 years ago. This beautiful bud called adoption is just about to break into a flower that I have never seen before, but that I know is created by the master himself. I feel blessed that Mike has embraced this as well, and I can't wait to see him with his new daughter!

As far as the blogging goes, it seems to be working from here, although I cannot see the blog myself. I'm also unable to see the last few comments that were left, but I changed that so hopefully we will be able to get them from now on.

The pictures added are from our breakfast, our hotel room and the view from our hotel. Again, I do not know in which order they post, but please bear with me!

We love you all, and kiddos, we miss you bunches and bunches!

***Deutsche Version*** auf www.chinagirlswitzerland.blogspot.com Titel: Erster Tag