Wednesday, June 24 - Ezekiel Ze You!

This will be quick because we have a lot going on, but I wanted to post a few photos of Ezekiel!  They called him "You You" (pronounced Yo Yo) at the orphanage, so we've been kind of calling him that since it's what he's used to.  He seems to be doing pretty well so far, but we'll see how the next few days go.  TongJie has been great, but it's definitely going to be a big change for him to no longer be the only one. 

Ezekiel has albinism, which means he is albino and lacking the pigment in his skin, eyes, and hair.  That's why he has blond hair.  The orphanage caregivers who brought him told us that they usually keep the children's hair short, but they have been keeping ZeYou's hair long because they want him to look like a foreigner.  I'm posting a few pictures and hopefully will post more soon.  He's super cute!  He is not really walking yet, but crawls a lot and can pull himself up.  He is 16 months old.  Tomorrow we have a long day - we do all the important adoption paperwork at the civil affairs office, and then travel to Liaocheng to apply for his passport and perhaps get a chance to see the orphanage.  It will be about 8:30-5:00 to do all of that stuff Cindy says.

Tuesday, June 23 - In Jinan

We checked out of our hotel yesterday at noon and went to the train station.  We met our guide, Cindy, at the train station.  It's nice to have a guide now!  Especially at the train station, since we wouldn't have known where to go to pick up our tickets or anything like that.  Cindy was actually our guide in Beijing when we were here three years ago - she was our guide when we toured the Great Wall and some other sightseeing in Beijing.  After Jeff told her that we remembered her from then, she thought about it for awhile and then said, "Oh yes!  I remember your wife!" (I guess I must be pretty memorable, ha ha!) She thought it was really neat that we brought TongJie, and she kept saying what a good boy he is.  We'll see what she thinks after a few more days with us . . . he really is doing great right now, but we don't know what to expect after we get Ezekiel.  The train station was really crowded and hot, and we had to wait for almost 2 hours for our train.  The Chinese Dragon Boat Festival was just ending, so Cindy said there were more travelers than usual in Beijing because of that.  There was no place to sit down, so we put all of our luggage down and sat on the floor where some other people were sitting on the floor.  We sat there for about 30 minutes until an official from the station came and told everybody they had to stand up.  So we had to stand for the rest of the time.  Poor TongJie was so tired and hot - it was the middle of the night in the US and our bodies still aren't quite adjusted to the time.  He had been looking forward to riding the train for so long, and he just wanted to get on the train - he did a pretty good job of waiting though.  The train ride itself was neat.  The train went almost 300 km/hour (around 180 mph), so it was fun to see everything going by really fast!  Cindy came on the train with us because she is going to be our guide here in Jinan.  She helped us get checked in to our hotel and then we were on our own for the rest of the evening.  Our hotel is really fancy!  We walked to KFC for dinner because it was close by and we could figure out how to order stuff without needing a guide.  Then we came back to our hotel room and it was only 6:00 or so, so we didn't want to go to bed yet (even though we were all exhausted!) so Jeff took TongJie to check out the swimming pool and I stayed in the room.  Jeff said the swimming pool isn't really meant for kids and there was a whole list of things that are prohibited (splashing, jumping, yelling, etc), but TongJie still did a really good job remembering to be quiet even though he was so excited.  You have to wear swimming caps at the pool, which we had known about so we brought some from home.  Jeff said there were also some older ladies there at the pool swimming laps.  Not sure what they thought about a big white guy and a really excited Chinese kid wearing a life jacket, ha ha!  We were all in bed and asleep before 8:00 and we all slept pretty well, so hopefully we're getting adjusted to the time difference by now.

We're supposed to get Ezekiel ZeYou here in our hotel at 2:00 this afternoon.  So, this morning we got up and got ready for the day and then had breakfast at 7:00.  The breakfast buffet is so fancy!  I took a picture of TongJie's breakfast this morning.  Right now, TongJie is watching Chinese cartoons on TV and Jeff is working out in the fitness room.  When Jeff gets back, we're going to walk around and go to a store to get a jug of water.  I've been boiling water in our room and then waiting for it to cool and refilling our water bottles.  We're so excited to get Ezekiel, and also nervous.  We're really wondering how TongJie will do over the next few days and weeks with becoming a big brother.  We appreciate all the thoughts and prayers, especially for TongJie's little heart right now, and for Ezekiel too, of course!  We'll post pictures when we can of us getting Ezekiel.  The pictures right now are of TongJie's breakfast, my dinner last night at KFC, and a couple from the train.

A walk in Beijing

We have some extra time before we have to get ready to go to the train station, so I figured I could post some pictures of Beijing while we're waiting.  TongJie is watching Chinese cartoons on TV in our hotel room right now.  We had breakfast this morning, and TongJie was so impressed that they had rice and noodles for breakfast!  He had noodle soup, rice, a tea egg (he's had tea eggs before at Chinese new year and loves them - they're hard boiled eggs soaked in soy sauce), a spring roll, and fruit.  Afterwards, he said that the fruit was his favorite :) 

In our hotel is a display case outside of a gift shop, and there was a large stuffed panda on display.  TongJie has a favorite stuffed animal that is a panda he named "Sister," I think after Sister Bear from the Berenstain Bears.  Anyway, when he saw the large panda in the display case, he immediately wanted to go up to our room to get Sister so she could meet her "dad."  ha ha!  So we got Sister and introduced her to the big panda, and then she came with us when we went for a walk around some of the nearby streets.  It's smoggy here in Beijing but the weather is really nice right now other than that.  It's not too hot, so we tried to enjoy being able to walk around in the pleasant weather today since we know it will be really hot and uncomfortable when we get down to Guangzhou.

Made it to Beijing!

Hi everybody!  It's 6:30 am in Beijing and we made it here last night.  TongJie did great on the long flight and even in the Beijing airport going through customs and picking up baggage after being rudely awoken in the middle of the night.  By the time we met the driver who drove us to the hotel (about 45 minute drive) and got checked into our hotel room, it was around 9:30 pm on Monday night, so we pretty much just went straight to bed.  We tried our best to sleep all night, and did pretty well.  This morning, we're getting ready to go to the breakfast buffet at the hotel (TongJie is going to LOVE the breakfast buffets here, well, all of the food actually) and then we'll probably walk around for awhile before we leave for the train station at noon.  We will catch the train at 2:30 for Jinan, and then we'll be there till Saturday.

We have two twin size beds in our hotel room here in Beijing, and last night TongJie was sleeping in the bed with me.  He slept pretty well, but woke up a few times and each time he woke up, the first thing he said was, "Mama, when this day is done do we get to go on the bullet train?"  He is very excited for the train!  

If you followed our blog last time we were in China, you probably remember that we couldn't access Blogger to update our blog, so we used a way of emailing the message to our blog and attaching photos to the email. I hope it still works because that's what I'm trying to do today. (Maybe someone like my parents or Melonie can email us to let  us know if it seems like it's working :-D  ) We can only attach 4 photos at a time and they seem to appear in random order.  Also, we can't access the comments but feel free to leave comments (if you can) and it will be fun to see all of them when we get home in a few weeks!  Tomorrow is the day we get Ezekiel and we're all very excited!  

Here we go!

Hi everybody, we're getting ready to leave soon and we're all very excited!  We're flying out of Seattle tomorrow (Sunday) evening, and arriving in Beijing on Monday evening.  The flight is about 12 hours.  We'll stay in Beijing overnight and then take the train to Jinan on Tuesday morning.  Jinan is the capital of the Shandong province and we'll be in Jinan for several days.  We meet Ezekiel on Wednesday.  The next time you see a post from us, we should be in China!

Here's a picture of TongJie helping with the packing earlier today.

Our New Adventure

If you haven't heard, we have some very exciting news: Jeff, TongJie and I are traveling to China to adopt our newest family member, Ezekiel ZeYou!  Ezekiel is 16 months old and we can't wait to meet him.  We're leaving for China this Sunday, June 21, which also happens to be Father's Day.  So the next few days will be spent packing, finishing up last-minute things around the house, and all the things that you generally do when you're preparing for a two and a half week trip to a foreign country with a four year old and a new one year old.  I'd love to post a few photos of Ezekiel, but I can't quite yet because he's still not officially our son.  We are planning to update the blog during our trip, so if you're following, you'll see some photos pretty soon!

In the meantime, we wanted to let you all know about the fun fundraiser we're doing to help us with the last of our expenses of the adoption.  Most of you have probably already heard about this (more than once!) but in case you haven't, we're putting together a puzzle to be displayed in TongJie & Ezekiel's room.  This puzzle is special because the back of it is filled with names of friends and family who have donated money to help us bring Ezekiel home!  When it's finished, we will frame it between two pieces of glass so all the names can be seen.  We are asking for a suggested donation of $10 to sponsor a puzzle piece if you'd like to add your name to Ezekiel's puzzle.  We are so, so appreciative of all our generous friends and family who have donated so far!  As you can see from the photo, it's really coming along!  When it's all said and done, we plan to use the remaining unsponsored pieces to write Bible verses or sayings on and maybe draw some fun little pictures so we can get it framed soon.  So . . . if you'd like to sponsor a piece or two, let us know and we'll reserve them for you.  You can send us a check if you'd like (send us an email if you want our address), or if you want to donate by PayPal you can use our email address: jcsandberg04@yahoo.com  Thanks everybody!  It's not very fun asking for money, but it sure has been a fun project to see the puzzle come together little by little.  I can't wait to be able to see the back of it!

That's it for now, but stay tuned and we'll let you know how things are going along the way!

The next fall

Hi everybody!  I was planning to post something new on the blog every season or so, but obviously that is not happening, ha ha!  We ve been busy, but having a good time.  Life with a four year old is great!  TongJie is in preschool at St. Paul's Lutheran School this year and has a wonderful teacher.  Here he is on the first day of school:

And here is TongJie's school photo from this year:

We recently had a visit with TongJie's cleft team at Seattle Children's Hospital.  It was a very long day - he saw a lot of different specialists: Audiologist, ENT (ear, nose, and throat) doctor, Surgeon, Speech Language Pathologist, and Pediatrician.  Things are looking pretty good, and it sounds like he will be having another surgery sometime in the next few months.  We are still waiting for Children's to schedule the surgery so we don't have a date yet.  It will not be nearly as major of a surgery as the palate repair a couple years ago.  This one will be a lip surgery to correct the direction the muscles are pulling (right now the muscles are pulling his lip up towards his nose).  This will also lay the foundation for sometime down the road when TongJie will have surgery on his nose.

Looking back further, we had a great summer and fall.  Aside from the summer of 2012 when we adopted TongJie, this was the first summer since Jeff and I have known each other (14 years or so I guess - wow!) that neither of us was working or going to school.  So, we got to enjoy a lot of family time together going to parks, hiking, camping, and just being together.  It was fun!  Then, at the end of the summer, we celebrated TongJie's fourth birthday.  Earlier in the summer, we had bought a wooden train set at a yard sale and we'd been saving it for his birthday present.  It did not disappoint!  He loves it, and still plays with it all the time.  To say that TongJie is interested in trains is an understatement.  Like many little boys, he absolutely loves all things train related.

Also over the summer, we tore down the old shed in our backyard and got a new one built.  We really like the new shed!  It has windows, a storage loft, a workbench for tools and projects, and space to work out.

Here are other pictures of things we've been up to:

Merry Christmas, everybody!