Introducing Anna

We started out early this morning for a 7:40 flight to Nanchang.  Angela picked us up at 6:00, but Matt and I had already been up half the night.  We were so nervous and excited.  The boys really liked Angela (we did too!), and they are already missing her!

 We met some other families on the plane who were adopting.  One family is getting their girl from our same orphanage, so we had been in contact by email.  The other family is from Spain, and Matt sat next to them and practiced his Spanish on the flight.  They fed us breakfast on the plane, Chinese or Western breakfast.  Our breakfast had scrambled eggs with peas and carrots, a small sausage, hashbrowns, a fruit cup, and a croissant.  The Chinese breakfast had congee (like rice soup), a roll with a brown paste in the middle, a squeeze tube of something, and a fruit cup.  Our guide met us in Nanchang, and we were off to the hotel. 

 Nanchang is different than Beijing in that it is not as well built and cleaned up.  They have a huge ferris wheel, that was amazing to see as we drove by.  The traffic is worse than Beijing, but it didn't seem too bad yet.  There are more bicycles it seems.  We got to hang out in the room this afternoon, and I got a much needed nap.  We were to be in the lobby to get Anna at 5:00, so we got down there at 4:30, at 5:15 our guide showed up and said that there were three babies from our orphanage and that they were delivering the other two to two other hotels.  We know one family, and I hope we make contact with the other family tomorrow when we do official paperwork.  So, they finally showed up around 5:30. 

 She was wearing the outfit we sent in the care package.  It is 18 months and so big that they had rolled up the sleeves and pants legs.  She was also wearing the shoes from the package and they are squeaky shoes which are popular.  They squeak when she walks.  The orphanage director was carrying her, and she had a little cracker in her hand.  It just took my breath away.  I didn't want to scare her, so we just looked at her for a while.  Then, the director put her down and said "mama" and pushed her toward me.  Her little shoes squeaked.  I picked her up and looked at her in awe.  The boys were on photography and videography duty, so Matt and I could visit with the ladies from the orphanage.  Anna never made a peep, she just looked around very solemnly. 

 When it was time for the ladies to leave, we just turned around and headed to the elevator.  Anna made a little whimper, but that was it.  We decided to go next door for dinner, and she sat in the high chair and let Matt and I feed her rice.  She also picked up some Gerber puffs and ate those.  She drank some juice from a sippy cup.  She never put down her little cracker.  She makes good eye contact, and she is reaching out to touch things, like the keyboard and chopsticks.  Joshua is crazy about her, while Caleb was just happy to have the camera and take a zillion pictures of everything.  We did some paperwork for tomorrow, and we skyped with Mom, Luke, and Thomas, called David and Mimi, and skyped with our Pastor's family. 

We changed her diaper and into pajamas with no fuss.  She finally gave Matt what was left of her cracker.  She took a little bit of a bottle of formula and fell asleep in my arms.  It was precious.  We are in love with this little beauty. 

We hope that tomorrow she will start to come out of her shell.  They said that she is outgoing and can say some words.  I know she was exhausted tonight, she yawned several times during the evening.  It was a day worth waiting for.  Thank you for all the prayers that have gone up on our behalf.  We are so grateful for our daughter.

She is so loved.