Nikki
Family picture courtesy of Petermans Photography in Elk Point
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Thursday January 27, 2011
Today we had a free day. The weather was beautiful, we walked for hours. Molly took us to the Qing Ping Market on the other side of the freeway. It has a medical market section with everything you can imagine: roots, barks, scorpions (live), dried seahorses, starfish, nuts everything. Matthew was so excited to see a live scorpion with its stinger still on. Then we walked through the pet section and on to the clothing mall. A lot of the stores are closed because the Chinese New Year celebration begins on Sunday and the shopkeepers have gone home for the holidays. We stopped by Lucy's Restaurant for lunch & it was so nice we ate outside with our coats off. After naptime we did some souvenir shopping and Nikki had her first bite of ice cream. She wasn't sure about it at first but she seemed to like it. After supper we are going to take the traditional White Swan red couch picture. It is tradition for adopting families to take a picture of their children on the red couch here in the hotel. If we were part of a group traveling together we would take the picture with lots of kids.
Tomorrow afternoon we can get Nikki's visa to enter the US and then drive to Hong Kong.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Wed jan 26 Consulate Day
Wednesday January 26, 2011
Today was Consulate Day. I stayed in the hotel room with Nikki from 10 to 11 in case our facilitator Molly needed me to answer any questions. She was at the US consulate turning in all our paperwork for Nikki to immigrate to the US. Everything went fine, so we took a walk around the island. It was beautiful today-probably 50 degrees and sunny. We stopped at subway for lunch. Then at 2 pm we got on a big bus with probably 40 other couples, kids & babies and headed to the US Consulate for our oath taking. We never had to do that for our other adoptions but China is a Hague approved country and Ukraine is not. For those of you who don't know, from what I understand Hague countries have to prove without a doubt that the child is truly an orphan with the documents to prove it. We go in a big room, raise our right hands and repeat what the officer is saying. It had to do with swearing that Nikki's immigration paperwork is correct & done honestly. Then they call each family forward to sign the DS-230 which we mailed to them in September or October. We had to sign an affidavit that we will have Nikki vaccinated within 30 days of her arrival in the states, this was supposed to be done in the states. I kept asking our Social worker about it and she said we didn't need it, even though I knew we did. But oh well, we got it done today. Now we wait until Friday when Molly will pick up Nikki's immigration visa from the consulate and we head to Hong Kong. Saturday we fly home.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
The zoo
Monday January 24, 2011
In the morning we walked around the island for a few hours. We were trying to find a bridge that leads to the Qingping Market on the other side of the canal. No luck, but we saw lots of neat things got some exercise. We took a nap in the afternoon and got ready for our dinner cruise without the dinner. We ordered Papa John's pizza and took it with us. They deliver the pizza to the hotel on a bike. The scenery is beautiful; many of the buildings on the riverfront are lit up in all different colors. Nikki wasn't real impressed but as long as we kept her supplied with cheerios she was happy. Matthew & Jeff spent a lot of time on the top of the boat which is open to the outdoors. It was too cold for Nikki up there so I stayed below and enjoyed the sights from the first floor. The cruise lasted about 1.5 hours.
Monday Jan 24, 2011
Monday January 24, 2011
In the morning we walked around the island for a few hours. We were trying to find a bridge that leads to the Qingping Market on the other side of the canal. No luck, but we saw lots of neat things got some exercise. We took a nap in the afternoon and got ready for our dinner cruise without the dinner. We ordered Papa John's pizza and took it with us. They deliver the pizza to the hotel on a bike. The scenery is beautiful; many of the buildings on the riverfront are lit up in all different colors. Nikki wasn't real impressed but as long as we kept her supplied with cheerios she was happy. Matthew & Jeff spent a lot of time on the top of the boat which is open to the outdoors. It was too cold for Nikki up there so I stayed below and enjoyed the sights from the first floor. The cruise lasted about 1.5 hours.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
norbycj@hotmail.com
Sunday 1/23/11
Sunday January 23, 2011
Today Molly took us to a Buddha Temple; I think the name was 6 buyan trees temple. It is over 600 years old and the buildings are beautiful. There is a gorgeous pagoda in the center. A monk said some sort of blessing over Nikki, she laughed at him. He said that is a sign of good fortune. Then Molly took us to a Jade market where we bought a Jade necklace for Nikki when she is older and one for me. Then we went to a Carrefour which is the French Version of Walmart. We bought some diapers and snacks. The store is 4 levels high with flat escaladers that are magnetic so you cart sticks to it and doesn't roll down.
We walked around Shaimen Island after a nap, we bought Nikki a pair of squeaky shoes, they squeak when she walks. But she doesn't want to walk so we don't have to hear the shoes. We ate supper at Lucy's restaurant , it has all kinds of food.
Nikki sleeps like Matthew used to. Every so often she wakes up and I have to pat her back to reassure her that we are still here. Matthew called out for us until he was probably 4, we would just say go to sleep Matthew and he would. In orphanages the staff gets off work while the kids sleep so a new group of staff are there when they wake up. It takes a while for kids to realize we aren't going to leave during the night. Fortunately Nikki's crib is right next to the bed so I just stick my arms through the bars of the crib and pat her back.
Friday, January 21, 2011
In Guangzhou
January 22, 2011
Somehow I'm off a day, seems even after a week I am jetlagged and confused-especially about the date.
Yesterday was Friday; we flew from Nanjing to Guangzhou. Nikki was great on the flight. Matthew was the entertainment of 2 Chinese children about his age-a boy & a girl. The boy spoke a little English and they thought everything Matthew said or did was hilarious. They were so loud.
Today is Saturday. We went to Nikki's health appointment for her visa. The place was full of people like us. The Doctors (2 of them) couldn't hear much of a heart murmur. I don't know how they could hear anything it was so loud in there. Guangzhou is beautiful. It is green and a lot warmer. We are staying at the White Swan Hotel which is a high rise; It is supposedly a 5 star hotel. The breakfast buffet was huge. I had, scrambled eggs, banana bread, muskmelon, fish nuggets, a Chinese spring roll, pizza, a muffin, orange juice, hot tea, bread with jelly, fried potatoes and French toast. We skipped lunch because we ate so much. Nikki loved the scrambled eggs, melon and had her first banana. She also had a little banana bread and yogurt. Matthew and Nikki are napping because we didn't arrive in our hotel room until around 11 last night. Our guide David is still with us and we also have a guide Molly. Molly said she thinks Nikki has a great personality for an orphanage baby, she would have though Nikki was in foster care because she is very smiley and happy. She said most orphanage babies take a lot longer to come out of there shell. Everybody comments about her crazy hair. A lady in the breakfast café said she thought her daughter had sticky uppy hair but Nikki has her beat by a mile. After the doctor appointment I went with Molly & David and took care of a bit of paperwork. China is so easy, there is hardly any adoption stuff to do, and we don't have to be there for most of it. Even the embassy paperwork was easy. This is like a vacation compared to Ukraine.
Tomorrow Molly is taking us to a Buddha temple, a supermarket and a Jade Market. Later this week she is going to take us to a zoo so Matthew can see a Panda Bear, and a cruise on the Pearl River which is just outside our hotel.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
January 19, 2011
We didn't really do much today, it was cold and still snowing. Nikki ate 2 small pancakes for breakfast. Jeff and David went and picked up the official adoption decree. Matthew worked on his homework and he and Nikki took a nap. I washed some clothes in the tub. We ate supper at Pizza Hut next door. We tried the Garden Veggie Pizza; it had tomatoes, green peppers, corn, mushrooms, onions & pineapple on it. Nikki loved the green peppers; she ate them about as fast as I could pick them off. She is feeling much better. She eats a lot and sleeps a lot. Matthew is being a great big brother, he even tells me it is time to change her diaper, and them he gets a diaper, wipes and a towel to lay her her on. He doesn't want to change her though.
Nikki's first bath
January 18, 2011
Nikki's first bath
We gave Nikki her first bath in a bath tub. In the orphanage they had large bowls that they filled with water. She screamed for the first 20 seconds but then she was good with it. She was so fun to watch. She splashed water everywhere and giggles when I rinsed the soap out of here hair by dumping water on her head. No luck though her hair stills stands up even after it is washed. Matthew hated baths for weeks after we adopted him, he screamed so loud and shook with fear. We were all prepared for Nikki to be the same.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Wednesday January 19, 2011
A visit to the Social Welfare Institute of Nanjing
Today we visited Nikki's orphanage. It is a nice place-probably a bit nicer than Matthew's orphanage but not nearly as nice as Alex's. We didn't get to go inside the rooms, but we were able to take a peek and a few pictures from the hallway. We met lots of her caretakers. We weren't there very long because they said the kids were sick. It seemed to be naptime. We got a photo of Nikki's bed which sadly has already been filled by another orphan. There are over 137 million orphans in the world, but 1 less as of yesterday.
After the trip to the orphanage we walked behind our hotel to the area of the Confucious Temple. It is very pretty, but it was cold and breezy so we didn't stay long. We stopped by Pizza Hut for lunch. We tried some deep fried squid which wasn't bad. Then back to the hotel for a nap for Nikki and some homework for Matthew.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Tuesday January 18, 2011!
She is officially Veronika Fay Eileen Norby!
Nikki didn't sleep well, she had a fever. She tossed & moaned most of the night. We were all up for good by 4 am, which seems to be the normal-the time change is a killer. We started her on the antibiotics that our doctor's office gave us before we left. We went down to our free buffet breakfast (all our hotels have had them). It sure puts the continental breakfasts at home to shame. They have everything, Western breakfast, Chinese breakfast, lunch foods everything. You can have cereal and chicken nuggets if you want. Nikki had her usually breakfast of Congee which is rice boiled into a kind of paste, and she had a slice of watermelon, she really liked it. After breakfast we headed back to the adoption office to finalize the adoption and see a couple of notaries. We were expecting an all day thing-in Ukraine it would have taken all day or several days, but we were done in less than an hour. We signed a few documents, put our red fingerprints on our signature as well as Nikki's, took a couple of pictures, received a necklace & picture from Nikki's caretakers and we were done. No wonder China is called "The well oiled machine of adoption".
It snowed here today; they say it never snows here. There were about 9 men with shovels outside the hotel trying to remove about and eight of an inch of snow. You can see our hotel if you search for Mandarin Gardens Nanjing. It is beautiful!
We spent the day lounging around our hotel, we were tired & Nikki wasn't feeling well. We ventured out to McDonald's for supper & Nikki had her first French fry. She was only happy when she had one in each hand. When we took her clothes off for bed she had bits and pieces of fries in her clothes. She really hasn't had much solid food before, she does have 6 teeth: 2 on the bottom & 4 on the top.
Nikki crawls around, pulls herself up on things but can't walk yet. I'm sure it won't be long. She isn't very strong but she spent most of yesterday crawling all over us. She is tiny, the 12 month clothes are really baggy but she needs the length. I don't think she'll be in 12 month too long. She loves going outside, when the snowflakes hit her face yesterday she just giggled.
I can only post a few pictures at a time; I can't see the blog so I hope it is ok. I can't see comments either, but please post them to the blog anyway. If you want you can email them to me too, norbycj@hotmail.com
Thanks Angie for fixing the blog.
We have Nikki!
Monday Jan. 17, 2011
We have Nikki! We picked her up at the govt office at 9:30. We signed some papers, they took an official picture and we are back at the hotel. She didn't cry when they handed her to us. She sniffed a few times like she was going to cry, had a few tears but didn't cry. She drank a bottle a fell asleep. We have to go to our guides room and sign some papers, But I'll try and email more later.
Vicki, as of today they said we couldn't visit the orphanage because Nikki & Lilly's group have the chicken pox, Nikki has a few spots and a runny nose. Funny thing-Matthew's group had the chicken pox when we got custody of him too. I'm going to ask the director tomorrow, maybe he'll let us in.
Matthew has been very helpful, bringing us things, taking off her shoes, helping make her a bottle.
She weighs 17.7 pounds on our scale with all her clothes)several layers, shoes and diaper. She is very observant like Matthew was and likes to grab things. She likes the books we brought for her too. She has a bad cold? Nurse Laura & mom, should I start her on the antibiotics that we got from our drs office for this, her snot is very yellowish green and she rattles when she breaths.
I'm told I can't blog unless someone goes into our account and somehow switches the set up so we can email to it. We can't access anything with facebook, blogger, I even tried to get some Math flashcards for Matthew to play online and I can't.
Alex, I think Nikki will like you to hold her and feed her a bottle.
I don't think she can walk yet, but she doesn't want us to put her down.
Love, Cara
Sunday January 16, 2011
We are in Nanjing!
We left our Hotel in Beijing around 8:30 this morning and flew for a couple hours to Nanjing. It is warmer here and things are green which is nice to see. We arrived at our hotel and got Nikki's things together, we go tomorrow to the government office to get her, then go back to the same office on Tuesday to sign all the papers to make it official-there must be 24 hours between meeting her and signing the papers.
Last night we went to bed at 6 and slept most of the way through the night. I woke up thinking about the yummy food we had yesterday. It was so good. We had some sort of Chinese food on the place today that wasn't too bad either.
Outside of our window here we can see a KFC and I'm told there is a Pizza Hut down the road.
I still haven't figured out the blog thing. Cara
Saturday The Great Wall & Olympic Park
Today we visited the Great Wall of China. We drove with our guide for the day Nancy and a friend of hers from France to the Great Wall. It is located 64 km outside of Beijing. They say outside but Beijing goes almost all the way there-there are 20 million people in this city alone. The Great Wall is built in the mountains and you can see bits and pieces all along the drive there, most of it has fallen apart. The original part was built in 700 BC. It was around 30 degrees in Beijing but it was around 5 degrees at the Great Wall. We dressed warm but with windchill I'm sure it was well below zero-even so we made it to the fourth fort up the line. Nancy said it was too cold for her so she waited at the bottom at the KFC (yes there is a KFC at the great wall-it used to be a starbucks). After we left the Great Wall we drove to The BIrd's Nest where the Olympics were held. Now it is used for indoor recreation, concerts and indoor skiing. Then Nancy took us to one of her favorite restaruants where we had a little of everything:Peking Duck(not at all what I was thinking it was, I imagined a duck on a platter it really is slices of slow roasted duck in a crepe like shell with some sort of sauce-actually pretty good, Matthew liked it too), Kung Pow chicken without the spice, garlic brocolli, some sort of deep fried pork and rice. It was all delicious-She had them bring a fork for Matthew and me, just couldn't pick up any food with those darn sticks. Then we exchanged money, paid for our airline tickets to Nanjing for tomorrow and went back to our room. Matthew was going to swim, but they require a swim cap-who brings one of those? We are all exhausted so we are off to watch a movie & relax.
Friday, Jan 14 What Happened To Friday?
What happened to Friday?
We left Sioux falls, Thursday Jan 13 and flew to Minneapolis than to Seattle where we barely made our connecting flight to Beijing. We had to run just like in the movies. The flight to Beijing was 12 hours long. Matthew slept for a couple hours, Jeff slept a bit. I didn't sleep much at all. We arrived in Beijing at 9 pm on Friday night. We are staying at the Oriental Culture Hotel. It is nice. We went to bed, again Matthew slept until 6, Jeff made it to 3 am and I slept until 2. Today we are headed to the Great Wall and Olympic Park.
Monday, January 17, 2011
test
The greatfire wall of china won't even let me view the blog to see if it posts.
Hopefully this work so I can let everyone know what is happening here in China!
Saturday, January 8, 2011
We are going to China!!!
We were told we wouldn't be in China until mid February, We really wanted to get there in January so I would have more time at home with Nikki before Tax Season is in full swing. We prayed for a quick TA and got it! God is Great!!!
We will be holding Nikki in our arms on January 17!