Settled In.

Some time has passed and it's time for an update. Kylee has settled in just fine here at home. It has taken some time to get all of her special needs arranged for but they are in place now. She has had her medical exams, dental and eye screenings and is being seen by an audiologist. Everything checks out fine and her hearing is slightly better than we had hoped for. She is listed as severely deaf, which is better than profoundly deaf.:-) She has new earmolds and her hearing aids have been tuned for her initial wear period. She will go back in 2 weeks for fine tuning. She attends McGraw Elementary in Fort Collins 3 days a week in the special needs class and one day at preschool. Providers at both schools just love her. We will be starting speech therapy sessions here at home 2 days a week and 1 session a week here at home of family signing class. We go to a meeting with the school district on Wednesday to establish her initial IEP (individual education plan) for the future.

Aliya and Kylee both attend swimming lessons on Saturday. Its a busy schedule but well worth it! :-) Aliya and Kylee still have some sibling rivalry issues but are growing together beautifully every day as sisters.

Kylee see's her room for the first time.

Gotta warn you. Dad sounds like a total spazz. Whats new you ask? I was tirrrrrrrrrrrred this time!

Welcome Home Kylee!

Crashed out with Dad, it was a long long journey home.


Playing air hockey with big sister Aliya.


Basement play rooms are cool! :-)


Jumping for joy!


Home at last.


Just a few pics of when we arrived at Kylee's "forever" home.

Heading Home.

I-25 and homeward bound. Aliya is already crashed. Note the cool boufant from her Vet Clinic feild trip the day we left.


Just get the truck Dad.....we are so ready to go.


In LA Saturday morning.....can you say tired?


The famous non-recliners!


One last Victory (hotel) Dance!


I will try to bring this thing back up to speed, got a little behind traveling. Friday we had to be checked out of the Victory by 3:00pm. I had some laundry done by one of the local little shops, they all take in laundry but it's probably all done by one or two local facilities. Anyway, I laid out some clean clothes on the floor to wear for traveling. Bad mistake! During a heavy thunderstorm that afternoon the room leaked and my clean clothes were floating.:-( Luckily I had a set still in the plastic laundry wrapper and they were fine. I took the wet stuff back to Jennifer's and had them re-dry it to pick up by 5:00pm. Judy met us in the lobby of the Victory at 6:00 with a driver to take us to the airport. It was a zoo! But after some time we got through security and customs. We boarded the plane on time but found to our dismay we were screwed! lol It was the same type plane as we flew in on but had a different configuration. We had the middle row 26 on both flights but..... this one had a set of lavatories right behind our seats. Handy right? Not!!!!! These seat backs did not recline. So we got to spend 12 hours in coach with out reclining! My neck still hurts. And then to rub salt into the wound, I could see Tony about 10 rows up, in upgraded seats, Showing me his slippers, his extra room, the ability to recline and stretch etc. etc. etc. You suck Tony!! lol lol. Anyway we made it into LA on time, got our new kids paperwork turned into immigrations and made through customs. We managed, with help, to catch the wrong shuttle to our hotel but the driver was kind enough to deliver us there anyway. Lisa went and got us some burgers and we all crashed about 10:00pm. We only slept a couple hours though and everyone was awake so we left for the airport about 3:30 am. We got there plenty early but got checked in for our flight home. We had upgraded to 1st class for the flight to Denver so that was nice, breakfast and all. After a smooth flight we arrived in Denver where "Uncle Morgan" met us to welcome us back home and pick up the bag we had brought back from China for him. We loaded up the truck and made it home in about an hour. Aliya was asleep when we got here so I left her sleeping in the truck while we brought Kylee in to see her new "forever home". He face was just glowing and she was just ecstatic as she recognized things she had seen in the pictures we sent to China. She just fell all over herself when she saw her very own bedroom! Well we still have a long ways to go for these two girls to get over their sibling rivalry! I'll post more in a couple.

Thursday,a free day.

Today is a free day for us. The Harbours were planning a trip to Morgan,their daughters orphanage today. It is about 4 hours one way by bus. Unfortunately the weather was too rainy and bad towards their destination to safely make the journey. Instead they arranged to have Judy take them on another excursion. We had been promising the girls a shopping day here on the island so we stayed behind to relax and do that. The quantity of adoptions occurring in the last two years has dried up so much that the local merchants here are really struggling. They have built most of their retail business around adoptive parent and their new children. Between this and the economy, since 2006 China has been experiencing high inflation also, the little shops are struggling to make ends meet. We talked with one shop owner, Jordan whom we had met in 2005,and he told us he had been forced to move his shop to another location on the island because of the rent increases for retail space. The shop owners are great sales people and all are smart enough to praise how cute and sweet your adopted children are. "Oh your babies are so cute, where are they from and while we are talking won't you come into my shop and look around?" They all sell almost exactly the same "touristy" merchandise. It just matters how much you are able to negotiate the price. Any of the souvenir prices are negotiable, in fact you are expected to negotiate either price or additional goods for the first price quoted.

Well, tomorrow is our last day here. We have all our documentation but have to wait until Friday evening to catch a direct flight back to LAX. We will arrive there Friday evening around 7:30 pm. This before we even left in China! It is a 12 hour flight and with the time difference we gain back the day we "lost" coming over. I will try to post one more time before we pack up here tomorrow. Miss you all and are ready to be home!

More Safari pics.

Consulate Day

Yesterday in the afternoon we traveled by van to the U.S. Consulate for Kylee's visa and swearing in ceremony. The consulate used to be located here on Shamian Island but has since been moved downtown for numerous reasons. We never heard the same reason twice, even from the attache' at the consulate! It is about a 40 minute drive from the hotel. No camera's are allowed so I don't have any pictures. There were about 25 families gathered in a large waiting room and after every ones paperwork is checked the lady in charge of adoption visas came out and welcomed us and gave some information and a little speech then all of the adoptive parents raise their right hand and repeat the adoption oath and the rest is history. It only took 45 minutes or so. This time there were about 25 families, many adopting for the second time and 1 family adopting for the 3rd. Last time we were here there were around 75 families.