Happy Anniversary Hon!

9 years since our wedding. 10 years since our engagement. 11 years since our first kiss.

Malia Growing By Leaps and Bounds - Already Feeding Herself!

All of Malia's tests for diseases came back negative from the pediatrician. Yay. Also, the doctors, nurses, and staff at Dell Children's all met Malia. We are set up!! Malia will get lip revision surgery in September and cleft surgery probably in the November time frame. A speech therapy initial consult was given as well as discussion with a social worker about helping Malia and the family with other people's questions, etc. We are set with professionals lined up to help.

Chuy's

We met Allyson today at Chuy's to firm up plans for Mary's baby shower. Alex was having a good time but didn't want to pose for a picture. Silly kid! Malia loves TexMex food.


We have our initial appointment with the doctors and nurses on the Cleft Team at Dell Children's Medical Center tomorrow morning. We are anxious to have them meet Malia and hear what the process will be for setting up her surgeries.


Malia already had her initial visit with our pediatrician, Dr. Chiapetta. Lots of tests and immunizations. Not fun for Malia or Momma!! The only test result we got back so far was the tb test. Negative. Yay.

Hiking with Daddy

Barton Creek Hiking

Swimming and strolling

Malia had a great Father's Day swimming with the family at grandma's. Here she is hanging out with Aunt Rocka.










This morning, Marc, Alex and Malia are going for a little stroll before it gets too hot outside. Alex loves the job of official stroller navigator.

Malia feeling great after a little nap

Malia has adjusted to the time change already. Her parents - not as fast. Alex is loving being a big brother and enjoying summer camp which he says is a million thousand ten times better than school.

Welcome Home Malia

We were greeted at the airport by friends and family. We want to thank them all for being there!!! There's also a picture of big brother Alex paying special attention to Malia. They have been bonding so well and making everything that much easier for Malia's adjustment home!

Hong Kong and Home

We have as much wanderlust as practically anyone. And yet, there's nothing like taking care of your new baby daughter for two weeks in China to really, really, REALLY make you miss home. Thankfully, that's exactly where we are now as this is posted.

On Thursday we packed to leave. Marc & Malia had one last adventure to the Sun Yat-Sen memorial before we all headed to the U.S. Consulate to pick up Malia's passport & Visa and head to the station for the train ride to Hong Kong. The trip lasted about 2 hours.

Wow. Hong Kong. We only got to spend an evening there, and vowed to return one day. Marc has always thought of Hong Kong as the "perfect city" (dense not sprawl, tall not wide, foreign yet english, and Texas temperatures), and it did not disappoint. The transportation system makes you simply envious. This is how you build a city.

We taxi'ed to the airport Marriott, checked in, and then headed out via subway to Hong Kong island for a quick tram trip up to the top of Victoria Peak for dinner & views. Before leaving for China, Marc had mentioned how Victoria Peak would be the "end" of the trip for him. So our subway ride back to the hotel was technically the beginning of the journey home.

And yes, a short beginning. Friday was a 24 hour day with a shuttle, two very long flights (HK - San Fran - Austin), and unfortunately zero hours of sleep for the parents. Both of us went from "not tired" to "too painful to sleep" somewhere off the west coast. Malia, however, did fine.........sleeping, eating, and more or less respectful to her fellow travelers. The 12 hour nightmare flight from HK to San Francisco was not nearly as bad as we feared.

It's Saturday, and we have more or less recovered from the trip. Family greeted us with excitement at the airport. We are so thankful to the grandparents for their help back home while we spent 17 days on the other side of the globe completing our family.

More than anything, we are just thrilled with how Alex has taken to Malia. It's like a big brother "switch" has been flipped, and he is showing an intense interest not frequently seen before. We are thankful for this, as we intentionally titled this blog as "a little sister for Alex" and have been hoping that a sibling would benefit him just as much as parents for Malia and a daughter for us.

More posts will come as Malia goes through the surgery process and as we enjoy special events with friends and family. But they will be less frequent.

Now comes the fun part. Raising our daughter to work hard and enjoy life in Austin, TX. Hope you enjoyed our China story. We certainly did.

Pandas & Paperwork...the U.S. Consulate and getting ready for Hong Kong

It's just about time to head home. All Chinese adoptions by Americans are handled by the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, and today we had our appointment with 10 other American families. The consulate was full of Chinese waiting in line for Visas to study, travel, or do business. We were lucky to get into the adoption express lane, which consisted of a fee, some signatures, and an officially administered oath declaring all adoption related documents to be accurate. Then, we were done and headed back to the hotel.

All that is left is to pick up Malia's Visa to travel to the U.S. tomorrow. She will officially become a U.S. citizen when we touch down in San Francisco. Back in Texas, we will likely "re-adopt" so that we can get a U.S. birth certificate in her American name. But that is pretty much just post travel paperwork. After picking up the Visa, we'll head straight to the Guangzhou train station to catch the 4:12 Guangzhou-Hong Kong express.

Marc's always wanted to go to Hong Kong since he was a kid. Upon arrival, we'll head to the Airport Marriott, check in, and then take off with Malia back into town in our to take the Star Ferry across the harbor and tram up to the top of Victoria Peak. At the top of the Peak, we'll have a little celebration and officially begin our trip back to the States. We depart Hong Kong around noon Friday Hong Kong time, and arrive around 6:00 p.m. Friday Austin time.

Sunday through Tuesday was primarily spent sightseeing, bonding with Malia, and waiting for our appointment. Monday included a trip to Southern China's most famous Buddhist temple, as well as a trip to the top of Canton Tower (third tallest structure in the world behind Dubai & Tokyo). Tuesday was a relaxing day at Guangzhou's safari zoo, the highlight of which was of course seeing the Chinese pandas. After the appointment, we had picture day at the White Swan. Our family, all of the adopted kids, and all of the families together.

Over two weeks ago, Dianne & I were about to go to sleep and wake up to start this incredible journey. We had two thoughts....."what the heck are we doing?"............and "I can't wait for Hong Kong". Well, we are even more thrilled with what we are doing now, and tomorrow Hong Kong arrives.

Guangzhou, Li Na, & Lili

Outside of the tennis world, very few in the west are familiar with Francesca Schiavone and Li Na. And yet, Li Na's victory tonight over Schiavone in the French Open final not only has given China their first grand slam champion, it may very well have been the most watched tennis match in history. Some are estimating that nearly half of the 1.4 billion in China were watching; that figure includes two Americans in Guangzhou (not Malia, who was more interested in a snack). That's the huge impact a nation that is 1/5th of the globe can have on statistics. Development economists at the UNDP & World Bank are also familiar with how China can skew statistics. China's phenomenal rise out of poverty since 1978 has forced economists to always measure human development two ways.............including China and excluding China. The former makes the world look pretty doggone good! The latter? So-so. Measurements with the phrase "(excl. China)" are almost always requested to get an accurate picture on how the rest of the world looks.

We've arrived in Guangzhou, and we are impressed. Southern China is booming, and this city (like Hong Kong to come) is busy & glowing. We arrived late Friday night with a few of the families with whom we had met in Beijing. We all are staying at the White Swan hotel on Shamian island. The White Swan is constantly frequented by American families adopting in China because of its proximity to the American consulate, which handles all U.S. related paperwork for Chinese adoptions. There were at least 20-25 American families at breakfast the next morning, from all over the country. The hotel is extremely nice; before arrival we were ready to go home, but now we are joking about asking for "an extra week". :)

We had wrapped up Changsha nicely on Thursday & Friday. The Hunan provincial paperwork was all done, and we were just enjoying the sites. Dianne felt a little under the weather on Thursday, so Marc headed out to Orange Island and took a little tour to see the new "Young Mao" monument where he was one American among 400 Chinese and a big hit with the locals. After getting a joking "Mao Tse Tung" thumbs up from one of them in the group, Marc's reply (thought of earlier) of "Deng Xiao Peng" with a thumbs up got a good number of laughs. In China, I guess you gotta figure out how to criticize Mao without criticizing Mao. On Friday we took one last long walk around Changsha, packed, and headed out to the airport.

If you've read about traffic in China, you will not be surprised to learn that we had a wreck on the way to our flight. In America, this is a big deal. It's rare, stressful, you exchange insurance, your rates go up, and you are glad everyone is ok. Not so China. Here they drive like they walk. No space, bumping, no rules. Before the accident, rush hour traffic leaving the city literally took over an incoming lane of traffic. Our guide pointed out how there was now one outbound lane ON THE OTHER SIDE of the yellow line. Then we got rear ended. The driver who hit us made a monetary offer, which was accepted. And off we went. No big deal in China.

On the flight to Guangzhou we met a doctor who told us that the lion's share of the funding for cleft lip / palate surgery in the provinces comes from the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation. I had been wondering who these groups were that traveled around the country doing this repair work in areas that can not afford it. It's no surprise to learn that the Gates foundation and its heavy emphasis on health & education would be putting its resources there.

Saturday was spent having breakfast at the White Swan alongside the Pearl river, working on U.S. consulate paperwork, and taking Malia to her exit medical exam (all thumbs up!). The rest of the week will primarily be sightseeing in Guangzhou (Canton tower, Sun Yat-Sen Memorial, Baiyun mountain) before getting Malia's visa to travel home to the U.S. on Wednesday and heading for Hong Kong on Thursday.

Malia's Chinese name is "Huai Xuli". The Huai last name comes from "Huaihua", the hometown of her orphange. The "Xu" comes from "Xupu county", where she was found. Li means "beautiful", and we've begun calling her "Lili"........her nickname in Huaihua........as well as "Tiger Lilly", given that she was born in the year of the Tiger. Watching Li Na win in Paris for China with your daughter "Lili" in China is not surprisingly a very beautiful thing.

Malia, Mao, and the sites of Changsha

On Tuesday we made the adoption official with the Chinese government by, among other things, paying all of the required fees (we are done!) and stamping Malia's foot in ink on the decree. We also said one last goodbye to her orphanage staff. We met a few other couples adopting at the Civil Affairs office as well, from Wisconsin, Quebec, and Washington state.

The rest of our time in Changsha has been (and will be) spent getting to know Malia & the city. Tuesday afternoon we took a long walk to the Changsha City Museum, where an imposing 1968 statue of Mao was built during the cultural revolution. Changsha was completely destroyed by Chang Kai-Shek in the 1930s, so it feels very new with few relics from China's past. It is also, like many Chinese cities, experiencing tremendous....almost unrestrained....growth. And all of this is occuring on the banks of the Xiang river, a tributary of the Yangtze.

While walking to the museum, I asked Dianne what American city she'd compare it to. What industrial, fairly non-descript city on a river in the heartland is most like Changsha? While I was thinking of my answer, Dianne blurted out the same guess. Cincinnati! Yup, we got our daughter in China's Cincinnati.

Wednesday we met up with our guide Amy and toured Martyr's Park, dedicated to Hunan's contribution to the 1949 revolution. Much of it was devoted to Mao's family. He had three wives, the first of which was murdered by Chiang and the last of which was associated with the Gang of Four. He also had children from all three. One died in 1950 in Korea fighting the Americans. One died in Beijing in 2008 around the time of the Olympics. It was National Children's Day in China when we walked through the park, and we got to enjoy the immense crowds. Now this is China. It certainly felt like a nation of 1.4 billion.

After the park we spent an hour at the Hunan embroidery museum. China is known for silk, which comes from the silkworm, which calls Hunan its home. The work is tremendous; in fact, it's hard to distinguish between the thread portraits and a picture portrait. We watched the staff work, picked up a few embroidery gifts, and headed back to the hotel for the afternoon off to play. The evening activities involved us caving into a McDonalds crave, which Marc volunteered to take care of since he enjoys walking around unknown cities speaking unfamiliar languages with multitudes and ordering a fish sandwich knowing only two words of Mandarin (and zero words of Xiang / Changsha dialect). Dianne ended the evening with the hotel's traditional Chinese massage, which was different but enjoyable.

Today we head to the Hunan provincial museum. Friday we hope to visit the huge "young Mao" monument on an island in the Xiang river. The monument is Rushmore in size. We will also get Malia's passport, say goodbye to Amy, and head to Guangzhou. Amy has been wonderful and a tremendous help. She has visited the northern U.S., and we hope she will visit the south one day and pay Malia and us a visit. We will miss her, but we are excited to get to Guangzhou, see all of the other American families with kids on Shamian island, and begin the last part of this journey.