We had surprises today

We got up at 4:30 this morning to be ready to be picked up at 5:30.  Again, Jade's mom handle the transportation and got us a private driver to the airport.  It was great not having to worry about it, they even brought us in, got our tickets for us and walked us to the security checkin before leaving us.  We were so grateful for Jade's mom for arranging this.  It took stress off us.  We boarded on time, but then ended up on the tarmac for 25 minutes before taking off.  Everyone except Monika took a nap sometime during the 3 hour flight.  We got fed breakfast on the airplane.  When we arrived to Guiyang and got our luggage, we were greeted by Jade's dad.  We kinda knew that he might be showing up, at the same time, we found our guide who told us that we were getting Erin this afternoon and also told us that we were having an interview with a CCAA representative due to the uniqueness of Erin's adoption, her given age and disability.  From my knowledge, I don't know of anyone having this and did just IM a friend of my that adopted 3 teenagers two different times and she wasn't interview.  I am hoping this means the CCAA will be more open to letting teenager be adopted  We were very surprised.  Reality set in and the nerves started going,  I was trying to focus on Jade's dad and our guide.  When we got to the Van, our guide said "do you know this gentlemen"  we said yes and tried to explain to her who he was.  He got on the bus with us to check into the hotel.  Him and Guide shared a lot of words, sometimes it sounded a little bit on the negative tone, but all is well.  She did tell him that he couldn't be around for the next couple of days because of the adoption.  But we will be spending some time with him Tuesday afternoon and probably more after that.  He flew down from the Northwest aspect of China and he asked us for our flight info. to Guangzhou, so we are thinking he will go with us there to.  We haven't quite figure out how we are going to explain him to Erin yet.  You can see the resemblance of Jade to her father.  He is able to speak some english so that helps too.  Once we got checked into the hotel, got money exchange, unpack, did some catch up blogging, we head out for a walk on the streets.  Guiyang is a lot of what I seen in the past in China.  Beijing had changed so much, like I had said it seems to have gotten a lot more modernized.  Guiyang has very old buildings and crowded, a lot of store front vendors and surrounded in mountains.  While walking, I noticed a lot of teenagers/ young adults that had similar facial features as Erin and a couple of the other tween/teen girls that have been adopted from the same orphanage.  Now the details of getting Erin.  We left our hotel with our guide Aggie at 4:45, we walked about 10 minutes to the Civil Affairs.  When we got into the room there was a little toddler playing. We sat down, was interview by the CCAA representative.  He basically asked us why we wanted to adopt her and not a baby, what did we think of her without seeing her physical appearance, what we are going to do for her in America, how long of a process was it.  He also asked the girls questions.  While we were being interview, the new family to the little toddler showed up.  The little girl had a very very hard time, they took the family and the girl to the other room, but we could still hear her.  I felt very sad for her.  Another family showed up with a preschool age girl.  She was pretty happy until the foster family had to leave, then she had a hard time too.  Both of these girls were from Erin's orphange.  We finished up with the CCAA, then the Director of Erin's orphanage showed up, and told us some things about Erin and then asked us if we had any questions.  We were put on the spot and totally unprepared, but did manage to ask questions.  Then all of sudden there is Erin with a big smile, saw us, signed Mom and gave me a hug, then to Dave signed Dad and gave him a big hug and then to each of the girls signing sister.  She had been working on learning ASL.  Her hugs weren't stiff or uncomfortable, they were sincere hugs.  We sat on the couch and she wanted all us next to her.  I took out our homemade sign language book, and she started to sign to the girls and so forth.  She is a fast learner, very expressionist, smiled most of the time.  She has that twinkle in her eyes already.  With the other three girls, they didn't have that twinkle for a long time, even when they smiled.  She did.  So we signed and talked while paperwork was being done.  Erin even had to fill out some of it.  Once we were done, we walked back to the hotel, went to supper, she is a caretaker.  She kept wanting to help the 3 younger girls and dave and I, she wanted to make sure we were taken care of before her.  I had to keep stepping in and nicely and casually take over taking care of the girls.  The girls are very independent and she was helping them to much.  We also tried to help her, but she is very independent too.  We had a good meal.  She has good table manners right now.  We came up to the room and talk/signed some more.  We tried to use a translation program on the computer, but it is hard for her to write due to the keyboard isn't in Chinese, but we are managing. We now have 5 daughters,  As you can see in the family picture, we are missing Jade.  We wish she couild be here, but she is having a lot of fun with orientation at college and she is staying busy. How am I feeling?  I am still can't believe I have a 5th daughter.  I am nervous as I know that more then likely we are in the honeymoon stage and everything is perfect right now,  I know (or at least expect it) she will grieve sooner or later and that things will be difficult, but until then,I am going to enjoy the sweet loving daughter of my. How are the girls doing.  They are all loving her up, Katie is a little sad because she can't understand Erin or sign language.  We reassure her that Monika, Jenny and Daddy still need to learn sign language too, and that this is a learning process for all of us.  She felt a little bit better. I am able to see my blog ( was given a great website to bypass the block), I can read the comments, but can't post anything on the blog.  I have to do it thru email.  So if you want to leave comments, I will be able to read them, otherwise you can email me. I am so thankful for Jesus, for giving us Erin.  This process was very hard, time consuming, emotional roller coaster, and now having her in our room together makes it all worthwhile.  Make sure you look at the previous post to see more pictures of gotcha.  And again thank you for all the great support.