"Road Trip" China Style

How to sum up having two of your best friends in the world come to China, graduate high school and then spend 2 weeks travelling across the country…AMAZING!  Katie Sue & Zachery Linn came to Shanghai one week before graduation.  Thank goodness that Kelly only had one final exam that week since not much schoolwork was happening after they arrived!  Instead a lot of catching up, sight-seeing, walks around Jin Qiao and watching movies!  The day after graduation the three of them boarded a plane (because you don’t really take road trips here in China!) and began their cross country tour.  First stop – Yangshuo.  Hiking among the rice terraces, kayaking in the Li River, biking among the karst mountains and a little caving.  Next stop – Xining, where they visited great friends from Fayetteville – Amanda Wherry and the Gurels.  Much fun meeting Amanda’s friends in the Xining deaf community, visiting the hospital where she works, having drinks at the Gurel’s coffee shop, going into the countryside & meeting some locals.  Xining is a totally different China from Shanghai and it was great for the three of them to see & experience that!  Final stop – Beijing (what trip to China would be complete without going to Beijing?!?).  Forbidden City & Tianamen Square before hiking on the ‘wild wall’ – an unmaintained portion of the Great Wall where you can see the wall & its beauty without the large masses of tourists! 

YANGSHUO

XINING

BEIJING

Kelly Thielman...Class of 2012

How true it is when people say...time flies!  I can't believe that last month we watched our amazing oldest daughter graduate from Concordia International School!  She has done a little bit of everything throughout her school years - public school then home school then charter school and finally private school.  I would have to say that the home school years were my favorite with the extra time as a family (especially as we started our adoption journeys during these years), the opportunities and flexibility they provided.  Then again I was the principal - we'd have to check with her teacher Dad to see if he would say the same!  And then of course these last two years at Concordia have been unique and 

challenging but the experience of a lifetime.  

For perspective on the competitiveness of the international school here are a few soundbites:  there is no valedictorian of the

 class because there are way too many people with perfect 4.0 GPA's; there were ~10 students who graduated with enough AP credits to already

 have a minor degree in Mathematics and as soon as school gets out SAT camp starts - morning to night, every day for several weeks and it is packed!  Now doesn't that sound fun!  But in a society where Kindergarten kids go to boarding school Monday-Friday and in first grade parents begin to lament because the pressure at school really starts to heat up, maybe SAT camp really is a break?!?

We are so proud of our girl...not just for what she has done through her school years but for who she has become.  She is a young woman after God's heart, seeking to fulfill the plans He has for her & recognizing that it isn't always easy!  She is a treasure and a joy!  And for now we'll just leave it at the celebrating graduation part...because I'm still trying to accept the next phase (going off to college)!

SENIOR PICTURES  

VERY FUN!!!

Round 2 for the Grandparents!

That's right both sets of grandparents made it back to China for their second trips!  What a blessing it is for them to travel this great distance to see us all again!  Of course the fact that Kelly was graduating certainly helped too!  They each came for two weeks and overlapped the week in the middle which worked out great to have time alone with each of them but also to have time together with all of them!  Here are some of the picture highlights!

Xiaolongbao (pork dumplings) at the Nanxiang Restaurant

Eating Coldstone Creamery in Xin Tian Di after a morning of sight-seeing!

Touring through YuYuan Gardens

Weekend at West Lake in Hangzhou (after taking the high speed train!)

Visiting Baobei Baby Sharon right after her surgery

Visiting the Urban Planning Museum (yes it is actually interesting despite the name!)

The calm before the storm...

Isn't it great that God always knows exactly what we need and when we need it?  And He knew we needed a vacation before the month of April hit along with the ensuing summer craziness.  You see, spring break/our trip to the beach at Sanya (the southernmost point in all of China), came two days after we found out we were able to travel for Joseph's adoption and finished two days before we headed out for two weeks of adoption travel and then had 8 weeks of visitors (which we are in the midst of now!).  And before the visitors are finished some of our crew will be heading back to Arkansas for the summer.  So all that to say, we are so blessed to have had this vacation and I am finally getting a chance to write about it!

So the beach in China...beautiful, different and interesting all in one.  Here are some of the highlights for the week:

• For those that like 'people watching' this is the place to go...there were tour buses of people that got dropped off near the pier and they loved to do two things...take lots of pictures of themselves posing and also apparently watch what we were doing.  While there are some foreigners who visit Sanya (mainly from Eastern Russia as this is the closest warm beach), there are few if any foreigners with 6 kids and 3 of them Chinese.  We had many a questions (in Chinese, which we did our best to answer), got a LOT of pictures taken and sometimes had people just stand right next to us & stare while we sat on the beach playing.  

• At the beach you can rent jet skis, banana boats, floaties and even bathing suits.  Yes that's right...and I don't like bowling because you have to wear someone else's shoes!  Thankfully we had brought our own suits!

• People loved wearing matching outfits...that would be boyfriends & girlfriends, or entire tour groups.  Of course, not to be left out, Andy and Joseph got themselves some matching outfits too!
• While Lindsey was kicking the soccer ball around, a young Chinese man came up, dropped all his stuff and then challenged her to a game!  That was awkward for a 14 year old girl...so Andy went to join her and it turned into 2 on 2.  Still not sure who won!
• Our resort had 3 wonderful pools and a swimming area right out of our back door - Joseph and Abigail are our water babies.  If they weren't eating or sleeping, they were swimming.
• Because at heart, I really think I'm more of a mountain person than beach...I could only do the beach & pool for so many days in a row without some break.  So we took two outings while Joseph napped...one to a butterfly park where Zoe just LOVED having her picture taken with peacocks and also to a rainforest.

Sweet 16

Yesterday was Megan's sweet 16th birthday!  We are so blessed by such a wonderful young lady as our daughter...she is truly a treasure!

To celebrate, Andy, Megan and I went to one of the highest restaurants in the world...100 Century Avenue on the 91st floor of the Shanghai World Financial Center.  Needless to say the view was amazing, but the dinner companions were even more so! What a treat it was for us to spend an evening just talking with each other (un-interrupted might I add!), enjoying delicious food (Megan and her sushi) and watching the sun set from high above the Shanghai skyline.

Thank you Jesus for the gift of Megan!

April...Whew!

6 planes, 5 cities, 4 weeks, 1 train...we're exhausted and so glad it is yet another holiday weekend here in China!  After Zhengzhou, Andy, Joseph, Sue and Zoe (a late addition to the trip but she was real sad at the thought of us being gone for a week so we took her with us!) headed to Guangzhou to finalize Joseph's immigration status with the US consulate.  A medical appointment, a bit more paperwork, the 5 minutes spent with the US consulate representative and then you pick up the Chinese passport that now has a US immigrant visa in it!  Gave us lots of time to explore Guangzhou which included a visit back to Shamian Island, the area of GZ where we stayed for both Abigail and Zoe's adoptions.  VERY fun to go back there, walk through the streets, see the White Swan hotel and, yes, eat at Lucy's.  So many fun memories and it was great to have Zoe there and talk about all the stories of when we were there to adopt her 8 years earlier!

We are also thanking our father that his timing is perfect as we finished up in GZ on Thursday and could take the train to Hong Kong to see Kelly and Lindsey play soccer in the Asia Pacific Athletic Conference (APAC) tournament for Friday & Saturday.  It was great fun to be in Hong Kong...we really enjoyed that the primary language was English, there were double decker buses everywhere, signs discouraging people from spitting on the streets and the school was located essentially in the mountains!  The soccer games were the best...Concordia made it to the finals and after an excellent game lost in overtime.  It was wonderful to see the team and our girls just give everything they had for each game.  Kelly was also named as an All-APAC player...one of just 16 girls selected out the 120 at the tournament.  A fabulous end to her high school soccer career!

Back in Shanghai now we are getting ready for our first post-adoption placement visit...there will be 6 over the next 5 years.  I think they are trying to discourage people from adopting through the sheer amount of paperwork alone.  Try as they might we're happy to keep doing paperwork for as long as it takes for our little guy...he's worth it and so much more!

It's a boy!!

It's a boy and it's finally official! Today in Zhengzhou, China, Zhao TongXin officially became Joseph TongXin Thielman...and we are over the top happy! It has always been so clear that God has his hand upon our little guy's life and we are humbled and honored to be his Baba, Mama, and JieJie's (older sisters).

Andy, Joseph and I travelled to Zhengzhou (the provincial capital for Henan province where Joseph's orphanage is located) on Sunday. Memories of our first two adoption trips came flooding back first thing Monday morning as we saw many other families with their adopted kids at the breakfast buffet! It was so sweet to talk with them and hear their stories...we just LOVE adoption stories as they are all so unique and special! After breakfast (and a quick walk to the park where lots of people were playing badminton or doing tai chi) we headed to the government building. What a different feeling walking in with our child and already knowing him so well since he has been with us for the past 14 months! It allowed us to really see all the other families (because we weren't so focused on meeting our child for the first time!)....the joy in the parents voices, the uncertainty on how to comfort the child who was crying inconsolably, the look of complete bewilderment on an older child as to what was going on, ayi's trying to convince the kids that everything was going to be okay...so many emotions and so overwhelming. The process itself was a bit chaotic and seemingly unofficial...lots of signing our names on documents we could not read, never actually talking to any of the government officials, giving our 'donation' to the government, taking a picture and we were done.

We quickly learned that despite a 'small' city of 8 million people, there wasn't a lot to do in Zhengzhou. We had our celebration lunch at Pizza Hut, treated Joseph to some new Hot Wheels Cars and a ball to play with at the hotel, took a nap (that would be Andy & Joseph) and then celebrated again with a Sichuan dinner! We also hung out some in the lobby and talked with several other families there (also trying to occupy themselves at the hotel on a rainy afternoon!)

Today we returned to the government offices and this time we were the only ones there. The government head came out to officially give us the adoption certificate and thank us immensely for giving Joseph a home, a family and a future. She kept saying thank you and we kept saying that we were the ones who were blessed by this gift and thanking her. After that exchange and talking more with our guide, it seems that even for those who work in the adoption process they have a hard time understanding bringing another child into your family, especially one that is not yours and even more so one that has special needs. So when we are asked why we have adopted, how we manage more than one child, we answer truthfully...it's all God - He planted the seeds for adoption, He used our wonderful friends in Arkansas to help the seeds grow, He matched us with Zoe & Abigail and He brought Joseph to us through a 'chance' meeting and question from a friend in the grocery store that asked "Would you mind watching a little boy for a week while his foster family is out of town for Chinese New Year?".

A week, 14 months, a lifetime...absolutely!