Pictures and blog from our China Adoption!
11/29/09 7:41PM
Today we celebrated Kaeli's 2nd birthday at the
Lehigh
Valley Zoo. It was great to see everybody.
Wow... the girls are growing up fast! See some
pictures!
11/25/09 3:12PM
Well, we just got our
Holiday
pictures back.
We think they came out pretty well. It's
not easy to get a 20 month year old to cooperate!
The pictures are out of order, but you can tell which
ones were first (bad mood, towel, etc...) ha ha. Happy
Holidays.
10/04/09 7:41PM
Check out some pictures from
Joanna's Christening (and a few pictures at home
afterwards).
06/07/09 8:55PM
Today our adoption agency, Adoptions from the
Heart, had their annual picnic at a park in Port Washington, PA.
There must have been 1,000+ people there, which included
families that adopted domestically and internationally.
It has been practically 5 months since we have seen the
other couples we went to China with... Needless to
say it was very good to see everybody. Andrea
later told me that she almost broke out in tears when
she saw everybody. The kids are not walking, they
are all pretty much running! Two of the couples
did not attend. Lori and Mike are moving to
Tennessee within a few days. Their neighbors threw
them a party last night, so they were not able to make
it unfortunately. I am not sure what happened to Tom and Roe.
Last I heard, they were planning on attending the
festivities. I tried my best to take decent
pictures, but since the kids are running everywhere, it
was very difficult to have any of them stay still for
two seconds.
Check
out the pictures!
03/28/09 10:42AM
It's been a while since we've updated the web site, but
I wanted to post some new pictures. These
pictures were taken about 2
weeks ago. We're all doing great. Joanna is
walking now!
01/05/09 10:31AM - ITS GOOD to BE
HOME... not sleep a wink. Once we arrived in Hong Kong we had to
get out with all of our things to go through
Immigration. We were going to have to get out again in
order to actually walk across the boarder (not sure why,
something to do with Hong Kong and China being separate
entities) but our agency arranged it so that we did not
have to. Instead, a man from Customs came on the bus and
inspected us.... it was not as eventful as it sounds but
saved us from lugging all of our stuff out and back in
again.
We finally crossed the boarder to Hong Kong and checked
in at the Regency Hotel right in the airport. It was New
Years Eve already for us and the hotel was decorated so
nice. They were having a huge party but we could not go
because we were completely pooped.
We did sleep.... woke up 5am to get all of our stuff
together and meet the group in the lobby at 8am. Our
flight left at 11:15am China time on New Years Day but
U.S. time was still 1 day behind.... so, with minimal
sleep and missing an entire day because of the time
change we boarded the 16 hour flight. We were so tired
but we new we were coming home so we did not even care!
When we sat down on the plane, there was a woman who was
supposed to be in the joining 3rd seat to us. She looked
at us with the baby and walked away. We never saw her
again! So we wound up with seats in a row... I can
only assume that someone up there was looking down and
arranged that because seriously we would have been
completely insane with out that little bit of extra
space.
Joanna was up again on this trip. Yes. Out of 16 hours
she slept about 45 minutes. She crawled back and fourth
between mom and dad for the entire flight. A 16 hour
flight is very long. You notice every hour. We kept
looking at the flight map on the computer screen in
front of us to see where we were.... ugh, it was never
ending.
We landed as scheduled at about 2:00 on New Years Day
U.S. time. But the time change is a little crazy because
we actually skipped an entire day. The night before we
left in Hong Kong it was New Years Eve. During our
flight, according to U.S. time, it was New Years Eve
again. And We had no sleep on the flight and an
exhausting prior couple of days... so our bodies are
moving but not sure how!
When we landed we needed to go through Immigration and
Customs to give off the "brown folder" that was given to
us from the U.S. Consulate in China. We handed it off to
the man at the Immigration counter and he reviewed it.
He had his little American Flag pin and said, "She's
beautiful, Congratulations and Welcome Home". Ah.....
What a great feeling. At that moment, Joanna became a
Citizen of the United States.
We gathered all our bags weighing in at about 175 pounds
all together! and headed towards the exit.
The entire LaRosa crew was there waving and holding
signs up to welcome Joanna. What an amazing picture of
everyone crying and smiling all at the same time. Joanna
was a little overwhelmed with all the new faces but did
not even cry. I think she was in shock! But she gave
everyone an intense stare and even a little smile.
When we got home Jason's mom, Carole and his brother
Corey decorated the house with signs and had the
refrigerator stocked with food!
We got lots of help getting our things home and spent
some time with the families eating some good food. Even
though we were so tired it was just so good to see
everyone. Joanna fell asleep on the car ride home from
the airport and slept through her visitors. We let
her sleep.... she needed it.
We had so much to get organized getting back from the
long trip and so much adjusting to do but we are getting
there. We are in a little better shape but unfortunately
Joanna is still on China time. She is up all night and
sleeping during the day so mom and dad are working on
that. Hopefully, she can come into our time zone soon
cause we need sleep! (we have to give a shot out to Aunt
Gina who took the night shift the other night! Thanks
Aunt Gina!)
Joanna is doing great overall. She is still adjusting
but smiles a lot and loves music. She sings and sways
back and fourth when she hears any kind of beat or soon. We can't believe that we are
finally home with her. It seems we never had a life with
out her.
Going to China was more amazing than we could have
imagined. We learned so much about the culture and the
people. It is such an interesting place with pretty
landscapes and beautiful parks. The cities are crowded
and the people work hard. They seem honest and
respectful of one another and of us. They were good to
us. We always felt safe wherever we were and we left
there with an appreciation of what we have home but with
a huge respect for China and its people.
We have had so many people following our journey. Family
and friends told friends and family so we are getting so
many good thoughts and wishes. We feel like Joanna is a
celebrity! When she is older, we can tell her about how
many people followed her story.
What an amazing ride..... but its good to be home....
Thanks so much for following our journey..... and
pictures will be posted soon.
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