Happy Thanksgiving to you All !!!

I know people are not so patiently waiting for post each day but it would be impossible to explain what we go through each day here. Everything seems to be rushed. We get up early each morning and rush to eat some breakfast, then we rush to the bus to go to all of the appointments that we have to that day to take care of paperwork. We run from one building to another and wait in long traffic jams to get to the next appointment and come back exhausted and do it again the next day. I will continue to try and post once a day but even doing that keeps me up till midnight and we leave some mornings at 7:15am. We really want to brag and bore you with details and we will when we get home. Thanks for everyone caring so much about us and our babies.

GREAT NEWS:

The one family that had to take their baby to the hospital for test came back with a good report. Only had "rickets" which means she did not get enough vitamin D and sunshine. Proper care and nutrition will reverse the symptoms and she is going to be fine. PRAISE THE LORD!!!

Some Bad News:

We had a terrible night last night with Ashley as Billie was up with her until midnight and her crying all of the time. I slept a couple of hours and then took my shift with her. She finally fell asleep in my arms about 1am and it would have been funny if you could have seem me trying to get her and me into the bed. She always wakes up and cries if you change anything. If you go from standing to sitting she cries, if you go from sitting to standing she cries, if you go from standing to leaning she cries, you get the idea. I was swaying back and forth when she went to sleep so I had to keep that up as I shuffled over to the bed in the dark. Then I stood there swaying for a while till she stopped moving again. Next I slowly sit down on the bed all the while swaying back and forth. Sort of like doing deep knee bends with a 25 lb weight and swaying at the same time. Then I had to sit there swaying and then slowly lay back while swaying, ETC... Anyway she only slept for about 2 hours before she woke up hungry and we fed her and she watched Taylor's favorite movie "The Twelve Dancing Princesses", I have been telling everyone that she woke up and wanted "Dinner and a Movie". Anyway all this time we could not put our finger on what was wrong but we knew something was up. No fever no other systems, normal body functions and such but something just was not right. She would be happy and the next minute break out crying for no reason. The Lord did a great thing in putting us in a group that has a Pediatrician as one of the adoptive moms. I asked her if she would mind taking a look at Ashley just to see if there was a problem. She "made a house call" to our room and brought her medical equipment and found the problem in seconds, BOTH of her ears are infected. We started medicine right away and the transformation is amazing. Right now she is sitting in the floor playing with toys, something she has not done since we got her. If you tell me there is no God I will till you that you are crazy as He put this Doctor here among us to help diagnose a problem with no symptoms.

Back to GOOD NEWS:

Everything has been such a blur here that it was this morning before I realized something amazing that happened on "Gotya day" Tuesday. As we walked into the building and got the the 5th floor I turned on the camcorder as I walked down the hall to the room where we would meet our babies for the first time. As I went down the hall I was taking video of the pictures on the walls and we passed an open doorway. As you watch the video the first thing you see is Monya and then Ashley walks into the picture. The camera goes on to the wall and you can hear Billie and I saying "That's her, That's Ashley" and the camera comes back to the doorway and Monya and Ashley with their care givers. We had to move on so we would not get in trouble but we have on film the very second we first saw Ashley in person !!!!!!!! The music behind this part of the completed video when we get home will be the song "The first time, ever I saw your face".........

Thanksgiving:

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving Dinner here with our new family and believe me family they are, we have grown so close to these wonderful people. We do however MISS our WONDERFUL and AWESOME family back home and cannot wait to see them again. We hope that all of you have a good Thanksgiving there but try not to have too much fun without us. Allison, our guide, worked it out here so that we had a buffet dinner and they even found a turkey just for us, not something that you normally find at a Chinese dinner.

Sorry but I am going to go play with my daughter for a while and then we will be trying to call family to talk to them before we go to bed.

Love to all and Praise and Glory to GOD !!!

Mike & Billie