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Tuesday, May 23, 2006
origiSunday, December 18, 2005
Just a quick note to let everyone know how the girls are doing. Within the first week we were home, we took Nikole to the doctor to have her heart checked out because of her VSD and see what we needed to do in regards to vaccinations. At that appointment, we received the wonderful news that Nikole's heart sounds perfect. The
doctor said she has a normal heart rhythm with no sounds of a murmur or leakage. So she will not need any further treatment for her heart. The only thing he would like to do is when she is 5 or 6 years old, he would like to do an echocardiagram on her heart, but that is not necessary at this time, since she is too young to lay still for them. She is going to need some vaccinations to get her up to date, but she is currently on antibiotics to treat ear
infections in both ears, so the vaccinations will have to wait till she has recovered from this first.
The girls are getting along great! They do of course, have their normal fights and arguments over toys, mom and dad's attention, etc. But we know they love each other, as they love giving each other hugs and kisses. Emilie loves trying to help her little sister and Nikole loves following her big sister around the house every where she goes. They also love joining together and terrorizing mom and dad. :) It has been a lot of fun watching them play together.
As you can probably imagine, things have been rather crazy around here since we have been back. We have had very limited time for Christmas shopping, Christmas cards, Christmas cookies and candies, etc. but we are trying to do our best.
I hope this finds you all well and enjoying the Christmas season. For those of you who may receive our Christmas cards late this year, we wish you all a Very Merry Christmas!
God Bless,
Steve, Lisa, Emilie and Nikole
19:37 Posted in Blog | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this | Tags: China Adoption
Originally posted on Saturday, November 19, 2005
Saturday, November 19, 2005 12:27 AM EST
Hello All! We made it to the Fort Wayne Airport last night about 6:00 pm. What a joy it was to give Emilie a big hug and a kiss and see family and friends waiting to welcome Nikole home. It was also cool to see another Fort Wayne family coming home from China on the same flight.
Now a little about how our day went. We got up 3:30 am Thursday morning (2:30 pm Wednesday Indiana time) to get ready for our day and finish packing our suitcases. We left the White Swan Hotel at 5:40 am and made the 40 minute drive to the Guangzhou airport. After checking in our bags, we said goodbye to our guide Helen who
was headed back to her home in Beijing and also Mei from CWA, who was heading back to her hometown there in China to visit family. We boarded our flight with the remaining 4 families from our group, about 8:00 am and our flight left around 8:30 am for Hong Kong. We arrived in Hong Kong at 9:00 am local time. There we said goodbye to another family who was spending the night in Hong Kong.
After spending an hour and a half at the transfer desk and getting through security we finally boarded our flight at around 10:40 am. Although before boarding, Steve, Lisa and Nikole got pulled aside at the gate for another security check. They even made us take off Nikole's shoes and ran a wand over her. So that insured that we got
to board our plane with a tired and now scared and screaming child. Needless to say, she didn't like strangers poking and proading at her.
Once seated and a little soothing from mom and dad, not to mention her favorite towel, she stuck her thumb in her mouth and went to sleep for the next three hours. When Nikole woke up, she was a happy camper. She then played with everything, and I do mean everything, in and around our seats for the next 4 to 5 hours. She
then went back to sleep and we finally woke her just before landing in Chicago. The flight took about 13 1/2 hours, was very turbulent and as Steve and one of the other adoptive dad's called it, as close to torture as you can get. After landing, we made it through customs, and then had to clear security once again before we could
make our way to our next flight to Fort Wayne. And of course, we once again had a scared, screaming child. We found our gate and put her in a better mood, by getting her a happy meal from McDonald's. She is a true American girl who loves french fries.
At our gate, we were able to say goodbye to the Pace family, who were leaving out of the same gate as ourselves, only and hour and a half earlier. We then found out about a half hour before our flight that they changed our gate. We found our new gate and Nikole picked that time to fall asleep in Steve's arms. She woke up just in time to board the plane, but was too tired to walk, so we had to carry two backpacks, a stroller two goody bags, and a child onto the plane. Once seated on the plane, Nikole was happy and loved sitting next to the window where she could see everything. She watched out the window and talked and sang to herself the entire 30 minute flight to Fort Wayne. The flight to Fort Wayne ended up being the least turbulent flight of our entire trip.
After we arrived, we proceded toward baggage claim and as we decended the escalator we could see a Welcome home Hammell Family sign waiting for us. As we walked through the doorway, Emilie came running over to greet us and about knocked Steve down as she grabbed hold of his leg. She gave us both a huge hug and kiss and was then introduced to her little sister Nikole. Nikole then got to meet her Grandma and Grandpa and several of our wonderful friends who were there to greet us. We then collected our bags, which all arrived fairly safely. And Lisa's mom and dad then took us to the Olive Garden for a welcome home dinner. We then arrived home about 10:00 pm with two very tired little girls.
This morning when we woke up, Nikole and Emilie both woke up happy and have been playing fairly nicely all day. Emilie is being a great big sister so far. She has been very kind and considerate of her little sister and loves helping her with things, sharing her toys with her, etc. Nikole on the other hand is going to need a
little work on the sharing front. She seems to really like her big sister, but throws a fit whenever things don't go exactly how she thinks they should. She has even tried to hit Emilie once, when Emilie was trying to hug her. So needless to say, Nikole has been introduced to time out in a corner of our home. All in all, the transition seems to be going fairly well, and the jealousy/behavior we have gotten from the girls was expected. Once they have a little more time to get used to each other and Nikole learns a little more English and some manners, I think they will be great friends and playmates as well as sisters. We would however, appreciate your continued prayers for our entire family as we learn how to live and get along as a family of four.
This our last official post of our journey to China for Nikole. We appreciate everyone coming along on our journey with us through this yahoo group. We also appreciate all the prayers and support we have gottern along the way from all our family, friends and our church family. You all mean so much to us. This is the end of our trip to Nikole, but not the end of this yahoo group. We will try to post more pictures from our trip as well as updates about the girls and our family periodically and include pictures so you all can see how the girls are growing. And with God's grace, you may eventually hear about a third trip to China. Emilie is already telling us she wants another sister, but she wants a baby sister this time. :)
We do serve an awesome God! It is only through Him that this amazing blessing of two little girls has become a reality for our family! We could sit for hours and tell you about ways we have seen Him working our lives to bring us our two little angels. God is good!
And finaly, if there is anyone out there who is considering adoption for their family, please feel free to contact us if you have any questions that we may be able to answer for you.
God Bless,
Steve, Lisa, Emilie and Nikole!!
hammell925@hotmail.com
19:31 Posted in Blog | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: China Adoption
Originally posted on Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Tuesday, November 15, 2005 9:36 AM CST
Subject: Shopping in Guangzhou
Today, after breakfast, we headed for the shops surrounding the White Swan Hotel to do some major shopping. Although we did do a little shopping in Beijing, we saved most of our shopping for Guangzhou where prices are much better. The list of items we have acquired is too long for us to list at this time, but we did get some great deals.
Then at 11:30 am we met with Stacy Dexter and had lunch with him. Many of our fellow CWA friends reading these posts may remember Pat and Stacy Dexter. They adopted their yougest daughter Hope from China in 2002 through CWA and they are currently missisonaries here in Guangzhou, where they have been for nearly 3 years now. This is the first time we have gotten to meet Stacy and we had a wonderful visit with him. We regret that we missed meeting his wife Pat, as she is currently visiting family in the United States.
After lunch, Lisa took Xue Zheng back to the room for a nap, while Steve went with Stacy to a local fish and reptile market. The market was located on about a 20 square acre plot and it was the most interesting/disgusting thing Steve had ever seen. Steve said the cages, crates and barrels held all types of fish, frogs, turtles, and snakes. All awaiting a buyer to take them to one of the local restaurants to become someones dinner.
At 3:00 pm we met with our group and our guide took us all to a local Buddhist Temple called the 6 Banyon Tree Temple. It was a very pretty area and was very intersting to see. We were offered the opportunity to take our children to the main building to have a Buddhist Monk bless them, which was about a 10 minutes ceremony. Needless to say, not being Buddhist, we chose not to participate in this ceramony.
From the Buddhist Temple, we were then taken to a Jade Store that is government run, but bargaining was still allowed. We were able to find a couple small pieces of jewelry that we were able to bargain and get for a decent price.
We then went to dinner at ... you guessed it.... another Chinese restaurant. The food was pretty good, but we are all getting pretty tired of Chinese food.
After dinner, we came back to the hotel, where we all went our separate ways. Most of us hit the shops again to do a little more shopping. We made a couple more purchases this evening, then we went in search of a suitcase to use to get our purchases home.
Zheng Zheng continues to do well, however, she seems to have picked up a bit of a cold, as she has a runny and stuffy nose and a bit of a rattly cough. We have given her a couple doses of a decongestant and some cough medicine and hope she doesn't get any worse until we can get her home. Please keep this in your prayers.
We would also like to once again request your prayers for our safety in light of the fact that we found out today, that there has once again been a terror alert issued. This time the terror alert is specifically for Guangzhou (where we are currently located) and specifically against government buildings, hotels, restaurants, etc. where Americans tend to meet or congregate. This makes us a bit nervous since we are in a hotel that is frequented by thousands of Americans every year, including past U.S. Presidents, etc. As well as the fact that we have our appointment at the U.S. Consulate tomorrow, which is also a possible target. Please pray that the three of us, along with the rest of our group, remain safe and healthy for our return home on Thursday (Wednesday night your time).
Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day for us, as our guide has planned a few activities for us tomorrow. And we also have to get everything packed up and ready to fly home. So this will likely be our last post from China. We will try to make another post once we get home to fill you in our last day here and the flight home.
Emilie, mommy and daddy love you very much and we will see you in 2 days.
Love in Christ,
Steve, Lisa and Xue Zheng
19:20 Posted in Blog | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: China Adoption
Originally posted on Monday, November 14, 2005
Monday, November 14, 2005 8:46 AM CST
Subject: Exam Day
This morning was our first morning in the White Swan and the breakfast buffet here is absolutely wonderful. The breakfast buffet we had in Beijing was nice, but was getting a bit old after 8 days. So the White Swan Breakfast buffet has been a very nice and welcome change.
After breakfast this morning, we noticed that it was raining, so that put a damper on our shopping plans. Instead we came back to our room, gathered our dirty laundry and Steve took it to one of the shops across the street from our hotel to have it washed. They do a very good job for a very good price.
Then he took Xue Zheng downstairs to the Mattel Playroom that is in the lower level of our hotel. While they were playing Lisa spent time organizing some of the paperwork we needed to get ready for our Visa Appointment at the U.S. Consulate.
The rest of our group showed up from Nanchang at about 12:30 pm today. All of their girls are just adorable! We thought Nikole would be very happy to meet everyone and we had been telling them what a happy little girl she is, then when it came time to meet them all, we had to wake her from her nap. Needless to say, she was less than thrilled. She was a very unhappy for the next hour or so, since she had not had enough sleep. After we joined up with them we went at 1:30 pm to go get the Visa photos taken of the girls and then we all went to lunch. After lunch we walked to the clinic for the girls to get their medical exam. The medical exam was not Nikoles favorite thing in the world, but went as well as could be expected. Because of Nikole's special need (VSD - Ventricular Septal Defect), they had two doctors lisen to her heart and they both said everything sounded fine. They also told us the currently weighs in at 28.7 pounds.
After the exam we were all free to go. Our guide asked us to be in our room shortlly after 5:00 PM so she could go over all our Visa paperwork with us. And she was also having Pizza Hut Pizza delivered to our room tonight. We will all meet up and eat as a group again tomorrow evening for supper.
All the rest of our free time was spent shopping. We have ordered a couple granite etchings, and then tonight we also bought several little silk dresses for both Emilie and Xue Zheng.
Emilie, mommy and daddy love you and miss you very much. We enjoyed talking to you on the phone again tonight.
We will be home in 3 days.
Love in Christ,
Steve, Lisa and Xue Zheng
19:19 Posted in Blog | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: China Adoption
Originally posted on Sunday, November 13, 2005
Sunday, November 13, 2005 8:38 AM CST
Subject: In Guangzhou
Well, we made it. We are now residing in room 1707 in the beautiful White Swan Hotel. Our room has a king size bed and beatiful view of the Pearl River. It is truly nice to be able to walk the streets around the White Swan and hear American voices. As there are several hundred other adoptive families staying in the same hotel. Where in Beijing, we were nearly the only adoptive family to be found in our hotel. Partially due to the fact that the Beijing Children's Welfare Institute does not do many adoptions.
Now a little bit about our day. We started out by meeting our guide and driver at 9:00 am this morning as we were checking out of our hotel. Our guide took us immediately to the airport and got us checked in and through security. We were expecting Xue Zheng to melt down when Annie left us at the airport, but luckily there was enough activity at the security check that she was distracted and didn't even notice Annie leaving.
We then boarded our flight for Guangzhou that left at noon. The plane was very nice, a brand new Boeing 777. We even had an inflight movie, which is not always common on Chinese flights. However, it appeared to be an old 1970's "B" movie.
Since this was Xue Zheng's first time on an airplane, we had no idea what to expect. She did amazingly well for the first hour and a half of our nearly 3 hour flight. She fell asleep about 15 minutes after takeoff, but something woke her and the melt down began. She cried, loudly for the next 25 minutes. We knew it was mostly because she was tired and it was her nap time. Being the parents of the year that we are, we had forgotten to get a towel to take on the plane with us. (the towel is Xue Zheng's comfort item when she sleeps) After walking around the plane with her, and even letting 4 of the chinese flight attendants take her to the back for a bit to calm her down, Steve finally thought to ask one of the attendants if they had a towel. Sure enough, they did, and that did the trick. She was happy and smiling by the time the plane landed.
When we landed we got our bags and left the baggage claim area to look for our guide who was to be awaiting us. To our surprise, we found no guide. We stood there turning in cicles for a couple of minutes, wondering what to do next. Then about the time panic was beginning to set it, we spotted a gentleman holding a sign with our names on it. He apologized over and over, but showed us that the board he was watching showed that our flight had not yet arrived, and that was why he was not at the exit right away.
Our guide, Elvin, brought us to the White Swan and got us checked in and our bags brought to our room. He even requested this wonderful room with the view of the Pearl River. He then asked us if we wanted to go out for dinner, or if we would prefer to have dinner from Danny's Bagel's delivered to the room. Since Xue Zheng hadn't had much of a nap today, we chose pizza from Danny's Bagels. It was wonderful. We then took a quick walk to do some window shopping and get an idea for our shopping adventures to come in the next couple of days here around the White Swan.
The rest of our group arrives tomorrow around noon and we will be going to Xue Zheng's Visa photo taken and go for her medical exam.
God bless,
Steve, Lisa and Xue Zheng
19:18 Posted in Blog | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: China Adoption
Originally posted on Saturday, November 12, 2005
Saturday, November 12, 2005 7:13 AM CST
Subject: Our last day in Beijing
Today we met our guide at 10:00 am and went to tour a Hutong. A hutong is the old style neighborhoods in Beijing where cars are not allowed because the streets are too narrow. The only transportation in a Hutong is either by foot, bicycle or rickshaw. Our guide hired us two rickshaw drivers and a Hutong tour guide who showed us around for about an hour. Believe me, a ride in a rickshaw is definitely an experience. We got to visit a beautiful park, a kindergarten for the hearing impaired and the home of one of the residence all in the Hutong.
It was amazing to see the home of this family in the Hutong. It was very small and very basic. Yet the lady of the house told of how their life had gotten better in the past few years as they now can afford to own two television sets. One in the small living room for her husband and one in the small bedroom for herself, so she and her husband would not argue over what to watch. :) She said that she and her husband, both in their early 60's are retired and together they receive a pension from the government of equivelant to about $300 US for the month and that is enough for them to survive.
There was another tour group there at the same time we were, who were from Australia. While the lady of the house was talking, Xue Zheng was more popular with some of the Australian ladies than the tour. They were very interested in the fact that this was our second adoption and thought it was great. They lady of the house was also happy that we were adopting Xue Zheng. She kept telling us Xie Xie (Thank you) for adopting her and pointed to her and Lisa's chest saying we had a good heart. She also liked seeing the photos of Emilie and was very pleased to see we had adopted two girls from China.
Our guide then took us to the shopping plaza down the street for pizza at Pizza Hut. She ordered for us and paid the bill and then had to leave, which brought on Xue Zheng's first and only melt down for the day. It is a very helpless feeling to be holding a screaming child in a Pizza Hut 6000 miles from, especially when everyone around you is watching and can understand what your child is saying, while we can not. She finally calmed down after about 10 minutes, only after we gave her some Sprite. We have found that they started her on soda much earlier than we would have preferred and she is very much attached to the sweet drinks. One thing we will need to work on when we get home, but are tolerating at the moment since she has had so many other changes in her life this week and many more to come as we prepare to take her from this culture she is so accustomed to, into a very unfamiliar environment for her.
After pizza, we stopped by a small ice cream stand to get a small cup of ice cream to share among the three of us. And of course, Xue Zheng loved the ice cream. We have not found a sweet thing yet that she does not like. :)
We brought Xue Zheng back to the room, so she could take a nap and she slept for nearly 3 1/2 hours. Steve decided to go for a walk while Lisa stayed in the room with Xue Zheng. Steve walked from our hotel down to one of the gates of the Forbidden City, which is only about a 10 minute walk. Steve took a few pictures around the gate of the Forbidden City until the batteries went dead in the camera. He then returned to the hotel and when Xue Zheng and Lisa woke up from their nap, he went to get some KFC for our supper. Pizza Hut and KFC are a pleasant change over the authentic chinese dishes we have been having all week. Don't get me wrong, the food we have had all week has been very good, but something somewhat familiar from home has been a great change.
We are in the process of trying to get everything packed up into our suitcases. As tomorrow we meet our guide at 9:15 am where she is taking us to the airport to catch our flight to Guangzhou. So this will be our last post from Beijing and if we can get everything to work we will post again tomorrow from Guangzhou.
Emilie, mommy and daddy love you and miss you very much!
Love,
Steve, Lisa and Xue Zheng
19:17 Posted in Blog | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: China Adoption
Originally posted on Friday, November 11, 2005
Friday, November 11, 2005 7:05 AM CST
Subject: Still in Beijing
Today we met our guide at 9:30 am and we immediately went back to the police station we were at on Monday when we applied for Xue Zheng's passport. Today we were able to pick up her passport. So this officially completes the Chinese portion of the adoption.
From the police station, we went to a silk store where we made a few purchases. Then proceeded on to a tea house where we got to taste several different Chinese tea's. And of course, we were then offered the opportunity to purchase the teas, tea sets, etc. Being the silly American's we did buy two small containers of tea.
Then it was time for lunch where our guide took us to a dumpling restaurant. Our guide ordered 3 kinds of dumplings, one tofu dish, and one rice noodle dish. For us, the rice noodle dish left a little to be desired. The rice noodles were very thick, long and slimy. But everything else was very good.
We then returned to the hotel, where of course Xue zheng had her daily melt down when our guide left. She did calm down rather quickly and fell asleep in Lisa's arms.
While mommy and Xue Zheng took a nap, daddy decided to head off for a long walk to Tianamen Square. Unfortunately, he never made it to Tianamen Square because he got tired of people trying to scam the silly American. As you walk the streets of Beijing, people are always trying to sell you something (Beijing books, Mao watches, post cards, rolex, etc.) or they try to get you to come see their art exhibition where of course you will pressured to purchase. And if you don't get one of these, you get someone who is just begging for money. Steve even had one girl ask him to have a drink with her and also one girl tried to get him to leave the shopping mall and walk outside with her. He figured they were both trying to set him up to get him alone for some dishonest reason. Needless to say, he went with neither of them. :) WE ARE BOTH VERY READY TO LEAVE BEIJING AND
GET ON TO GUANGZHOU AND HOME. Beijing is nice for a couple of days, but for a couple of small town Indiana people, a week is a bit too long.
Anyone who may be reading this that is preparing to come to Beijing for their adoption or any extended visit, learn to use chopsticks before you come. The first two days, we were mainly taken to restaurants that were used to westerners and had forks available. However, for the past few days, our guide has taken us to much more
traditional Chinese restaurants where we could get a real feel for the culture here in Beijing and they have had nothing but chopsticks available. Luckily, Steve and I both knew how to use chopsticks, but just weren't very skilled at it. We will probably be pros by the time we get home.
After supper tonight, Steve, Xue Zheng and I walked down the street to the Wangfujing Night Food Market. The sights and smells were unlike any we had ever experienced. It was like a street fair back home, except with much more exoctic choices. We saw things like squid on stick, starfish on a stick, baby chickens on a stick, baby
snake on a stick, lots of different types of stir fry, baked goods, and many things we could not identify. Neither Steve or I were brave enough to try anything, as we hope to see more than just the bathroom for the rest of our trip. :)
A thought for anyone preparing to adopt an older child. Definitely send a photo album to your child before you come and then bring more with you. The photo albums have been great for us. It was obvious the someone had shown her the photo album before we got here, and she has loved looking at them here in the room. She also loves the Disney Princess play cell phone we brought her.
And knowing chinese probably is not a necessity, but it sure does help. Steve and I knew a few words and phrases before we got here, which have greatly helped, and we have learned more since we have been here. We also have a couple of phrase books and chinese dictionaries that have been very helpful.
Xue Zheng continues to do very well, and is mostly a very happy little girl. She has smile that lights up the whole room. We are seeing little signs that she is bonding with both of us a little more every day. We know your prayers are with us as the terror alert has been lifted and we have seen the the tropical storm/typhoon is
weakening. Guangzhou will probably still get some rain, but hopefully not the flooding that was once predicted. Please continue to keep Xue Zheng's transition and safe travel and good health for all of us in your prayers.
Emilie, mommy and daddy love you very much and we miss you terribly. We will see you in 1 week.
Love in Christ,
Steve, Lisa and Xue Zheng
19:16 Posted in Blog | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: China Adoption
Originally posted Thursday, November 10, 2005
Thursday, November 10, 2005 6:57 AM CST
Subject: Zoo and Temple of Heaven
Hello from Beijing. It has been a busy couple of days. Yesterday Lisa was not feeling well, so she stayed in the hotel room while Steve and Xue Zheng met with our guide around 10:00 am. Our guide took them to the Beijing Zoo and Aquarium. Steve said they went to the aquarium first and while there they saw an indoor show which
featured dolphins and sea lions. Steve said the Beijing aquarium was huge and one of the best he had ever seen.
After the aquarium, they took a quick trip to the zoo to see the giant pandas. Steve said the zoo felt more like a park and that the animals he did see were in pretty poor shape compared to our standards. The panda house was neat, but the outside area for the panda looked pretty ragged.
Since Lisa had not been feeling well, our guide then had lunch sent to our room. After failing to be able to get Xue Zheng down for a nap, we decided to go for a walk. We walked quite a long ways and saw lots of interesting sights. We even found an out food market where everything smelled wonderful, but looked very exotic. We found
one booth that was selling sea horses and scorpions on a stick. We even got watch them thread the live scorpions on to the stick. (Yummy) We had our dinner at McDonald's and then came back to the room.
Today our guide picked us up at 10:00 am and took us to see the Temple of Heaven. It is a place where the Emperor would come to pray to the Jade Emporer in Heaven asking for good weather, etc. for a good harvest for the year. It is a beautiful place, although it is currently under renovation, so we could not see everything.
Surrounding it, the grounds have been made into a park where the local Chinese gather, to play cards, checkers, chess, musical instruments, exercise, sing chinese opera, etc. It is a very interesting and colorful place.
After the Temple of Heaven we went to a Hot Pot restaurant, outside the south gate. It was a bit different than the hot pot we had the first night we were in Beijing. Instead of each of us having our hot pot to cook things in, there was one large hot pot for the entire table. It is essentially the chinese version of fondue using boiling
water instead of oil.
After lunch, we returned to the hotel where Zheng Zheng, Mommy and daddy all took a nap. We woke up and played here in the room for a couple of hours, then went to dinner at a restaurant here next to our hotel. It was very good as usual.
Xue Zheng continues to do well for us. She is amazingly happy most of the time. However, she does still throw a fit when our guide leaves, but the crying bouts get shorter and shorter each day. She has also begun to test us a bit and tends to pout when told no. Even with the language barrier she is basically a very good child.
She is currently singing a chinese song and looking at books while we write this post. She the only words we recognize are Mama and Baba (daddy). It is very cute.
Now we would like to ask for your prayers. Many of you may have heard the U.S. Embassy here in China has issued an alert to all U.S. citizens because the Chinese government has told them of some terrorist threats on 4 and 5 star hotels frequented by U.S. citizens. We are not terribly concerned about this hotel, because we
are one of the few westerners here in this hotel. We are however, slightly concerned about the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou where we will be staying beginning Sunday.
Also, a tropical storm/typhoon is threatening Guangdong Province where Guangzhou and the White Swan Hotel are located. It is expected to make landfall on Sunday, the same day we get to Guangzhou. They are expecting lots of rain and flooding. Please keep us and our travel group in your prayers with these possible threats to our
safety, that we can complete our adoptions and make it safely home.
One last prayer request. Last night was not as good a night for Xue Zheng. She was awake 2 or 3 times crying in the night. It almost appeared as though she might be starting to have night mares or night terrors. As we went through this with Emilie, we know what a traumatic experience this can be for these poor girls.
Hope this finds you all doing well. We will try to post more photos soon.
Emilie, mommy and daddy love you and miss you very much. Your sister still can not wait to meet you. She is as goofy as you are. :) We will be home in one week. :) Trust me, we would come home tomorrow if we could.
Love,
Steve, Lisa and Nikole
19:13 Posted in Blog | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: China Adoption
Originally posted on Tuesday, November 8, 2005 - Evening
Tuesday, November 08, 2005 10:51 AM CST
Subject: Photos and Update
Ni Hao from Beijing!
Today was a nice relaxing and fun day. We started out by have a slow relaxing morning in the room and taking our time getting ready. We went down to breakfast around 7:30 am and then met our guide at 9:30 am. She took us to Wal-Mart where we shopped for clothes, a stroller, DVD's, CD's and books for our girls. After getting everything we wanted for rediculously low price, we headed off to lunch at a traditional Beijing Noodle Shop. This was quite an experience. When we first walked in, all the waiters started yelling something in Chinese. Once we were seated, our guide explained to us that whenever someone enters the noodle shop, the head waiter announces you to the restaurant, something like "4 people entering". Then the rest of the waiters respond to him, by yelling something back. The food we had was all very good. But we didn't look very good trying to eat noodles with chopsticks. :)
After lunch, we came back to the hotel where our guide dropped us off. Our guide Annie help Xue Zheng out of the van and when Lisa got out, Xue Zheng started reaching for Mama. We thought this was a very good sign. Then when our guide got back in the van to leave and we didn't go with her, Xue Zheng had her first melt down of the day. She was so extremely sad to see our guide go. We think part of this was that she was tired and hadn't yet had her nap for the day. But we think it is also partially due to her knowing that Annie is her only link to communicate with us. She seems to understand the fact that we don't understand Chinese. It only took us about 5 - 10 minutes to calm her down today instead of the 30-60 minutes yesterday.
After Xue Zheng calmed down, housekeeping came, wanting to clean our room, so we decided to go for a walk with our new stroller. Xue Zheng enjoyed that very much. She seems to love being out and about and she is very observant, watching everything and everyone around her. We made our way to a mall a few blocks from our hotel. It was the same mall we visited 2 years ago when we were here for Emilie's adoption. We returned to the hotel around 4:00 pm and Xue Zheng and Lisa took a short nap.
Around 6:00 pm we headed to a restaurant next door, where our guide had made reservations for us and had already pre-ordered everything for us. It was the same Peking Duck restaurant we went to in 2003. Everything was very good. In fact, we both thought the duck was better this time than it was the first time we tried it.
Finally we headed back to the hotel and gave Xue Zheng her first bath. This brought about her second melt down of the day. She definitely did not like having a bath. I'm sure that will change soon enough, as we know Emilie didn't like baths to begin with either, but she loves them now.
After playing in the room for a bit, Xue Zheng went to bed by herself and is now sleeping soundly. Besides for the two melt downs, she really has been a very happy girl all day today. She has even started giving Mama hugs. :) She also laughs uncontrollably when daddy asks for a hug and gives one to Mama instead. :) I think she
is going to be just as much of a clown as her big sister.
I have spent a good share of the evening catching up with the pictures and have finally gotten several uploaded to the group. I hope you all enjoy them.
Emilie, mommy and daddy miss you and love you very much!
Hope you are all doing well.
Love,
Steve, Lisa and Xue Zheng
19:01 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: China Adoption
Originally posted Tuesday, November 8, 2005
Monday, November 07, 2005 6:08 PM CST
Subject: Our first morning
What a blessing we have!!! God is so good! We have really felt everyones prayers and appreciate the support from all our friends and family.
After a two hour nap yesterday evening, Zheng Zheng woke up very happy! She has been giggling and laughing ever since. Our guide had dinner delivered to our room last night. It was all very good and apparently Zheng Zheng thought so too. She had three bowls of noodles. :) We are finding that she loves to eat. ;)
After we ate, we spent some time playing with Zheng Zheng with some of the toys we brought and the photo album. She loves dolls and she loves looking at the photo albums we have brought. She is also repeating many English words for us as well.
When we got her ready for bed last night, she just snuggled up with her towel and went right to sleep. She only woke up one time in the night and cried a little, but went right back to sleep. And this morning she has woke up very happy again. We are praying this continues. :)
We will try to get some pictures posted later today. We have heard from some of our travel group that the pictures are very slow to upload here, so we will see how many we can get up.
Thank you again for all the prayers. Hope you all are doing well.
Emilie, mommy and daddy love getting to talk to you everyday because we love you and miss you very much. Your little sister liked talking to you too! You two are going to have tons of fun when we get home.
Love,
Steve, Lisa and Zheng Zheng
18:59 Posted in Blog | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: China Adoption
Originally posted on Monday, November 7, 2005
Monday, November 07, 2005 4:44 AM CST
Subject: Gotcha Day!
Emilie, you have a little sister!!! ;)
We started out this morning by meeting our new guide, Annie. We met her at 8:30 am this morning in the lobby of the hotel. She first took us to the Bank of China, to exchange money since all of our fees today needed to be paid in Chinese Yuan instead of U.S. dollars like our last adoption.
From there we proceeded to the Beijing Childrens Welfare Institute where we were taken into a meeting room and Xue Zheng (Nikole) was brought into the room. She is beautiful!! She looks just like her pictures that we have been looking at for the last few months. (Including the shaved head)
We then spent the rest of the day going from office to office doing paperwork to complete the adoption. It has made for a very long day for Xue Zheng, as she didn't even have time for a nap this afternoon.
When Xue Zheng was first brought into us she was a little bit shy and quiet to start out with, but immediately latched on to the little chinese doll we brought for her. Once she realized she was leaving with us, the expected melt down started. She has had moments on and off all day of crying, but we have also had a few smiles and laughs as well. The crying mostly came when the chinese officials or our guide would leave us But through it all, she continued to clutch her new doll.
Today Xue Zheng has let both mommy and daddy hold her and does not seem to show a preforance. When Steve got up from the lunch table to use the restroom, she even asked our guide where her baba (daddy) was
going? We have been showing her pictures of our family and she has been extremely excited to see pictures of her jie jie (big sister), Emilie. She has even squealed in excitement a couple of times when looking at the pictures. :) She has even been extremely excited to see the pictures of our Yorkshire terrier, Gizmo. And has taken to calling her Mo, just like Emilie did.
When we got back to the room today around 4:00 pm, she began to cry once our guide left the room. She was pretty much inconsolable until we got out the potato chips. Snacks have worked wonders for her all day. :) We knew she needed to sleep and after about 20 minutes of trying we remembered they told she slept with a bathroom towel as her comfort object at night. That did the trick. Once we gave her a towel, she went right to sleep and is still sleeping now. Our guide has had dinner delivered to our room, and we plan on just taking it
easy and relaxing in the room this evening.
Tomorrow, we meet our guide at 9:30 am and she is taking us to Wal-Mart to do a little shopping. We were orinally scheduled to go to the Forbidden City, but asked if we could bow out of that one since we have been there before and thought it would be a bit long and boring for Xue Zheng. Then on Wednesday we are going to the Beijing Zoo to see the Panda bears.
All in all, so far the transition for this adoption seems to be going pretty well. I'm sure we will still have some moments of tears, but hopefully a good nights sleep will help.
Just in case many of you are wondering, we have named her Nikole as planned, but since she is older, speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese, all she knows right now is her Chinese name. So for now, we will be calling her Xue Zheng or Zheng Zheng (her nickname here) and will transition to Nikole when the time is right.
Thanks to one of the families in our travel group, we do now have our laptop up and running. So hopefully, either later tonight or sometime tomorrow, we will be able to post a few photos.
Emilie, mommy and daddy love you and miss you very much. And your little sister can not wait to meet you!!!
Best wishes from Beijing,
Steve, Lisa and Xue Zheng
18:54 Posted in Blog | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: China Adoption
Originally posted on Sunday, November 6, 2005
Sunday, November 06, 2005 7:40 AM CST
Subject: Day 2
Today was a day filled with sight-seeing and touring here in and around Beijing. We started out this morning with breakfast in our hotel. The breakfast was a very good buffet style, that featured both American and Chinese dishes.
We met our guide and our group at 8:30 am and we were off to the Summer Palace. We were able to see a little more of the grounds of the Summer Palace this time than we did on our first trip. It is a very beautiful area and if we get our laptop working we will share a few photos with you.
After the Summer Palace, we went to the Pearl Factory near the Summer Palace where you can buy fresh water pearls that were raised in the lake on the grounds of the Summer Palace. We then had lunch at a nice buffet style restaurant beside the Pearl Factory.
In the afternoon we toured the Great Wall. Although we have been to the Great Wall before, we got to tour a different section of the wall this time, so it made it even more interesting. We were at one of the most popular sections of the wall called Badaling. Since there are so many tourist that visit this section of the wall, there
were many souvenir shops around this area.
The weather has been very nice today, yet just slightly chilly. It was sunny all day and very clear for viewing the Great Wall. I'm guessing the temperature was around 55 degrees farenheit, which was very nice, but a little chilly since there was a brisk wind all day as well.
On the way back to Beijing, we visited a Silk factory. We got to take a tour and see how they harvest the silk. And of course had a chance to purchase many silk items after the tour.
We then ate dinner and arrived back at our hotel around 8:00 pm. We are all pretty tired and ready for bed.
Tomorrow our group will be touring the Forbidden City or Tianamen Square and then heading to the airport to fly to Nanchang. We, however, will be meeting our new guide at 8:00 am tomorrow morning, who will be taking us to the Beijing Childrens Welfare Institute to meet our new daughter Nikole (Xue Zheng). Please keep us in your
prayers and pray that Nikole's transition will go smoothly.
Emilie, mommy and daddy love you and miss you very much. We will be meeting your little sister tomorrow. :)
Hope everyone is doing well. When we post our next message we will be parents of two. :)
Love,
Steve and Lisa
18:46 Posted in Blog | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: China Adoption
Originally posted on Saturday, November 5, 2005
Saturday, November 05, 2005 8:10 AM CST
Subject: Ni Hao (Hello) from Beijing
Hi all,
Well, we made it. We left our house at 3:30 am on Friday morning. Our flight left Fort Wayne on time at 6:00 am. Steve says he now knows what it is like to land on an air craft carrier. We had one of the hardest landing in Chicago that we have ever experienced.
We met up with three of the families in Chicago who will be with us for a portion of our trip. They all seem to be very nice people. I'm sure we will enjoy sharing our trip with them. The flight from Chicago to Beijing was about 13 hours. It was long, but uneventful. Our guide, Helen, met us at the airport and got us all settled into our hotel rooms here at the Wangfujing Grand Hotel. When we walked into the lobby of our hotel Mei, a member of the CWA China program, was here to meet us. She is so nice and will be accompanying the rest of our group to Nanchang, while Steve and I remain here in Beijing with Nikole.
We all met in the lobby at 6:30 pm to go to dinner together, and got to meet another family who will be with our group for the next two weeks as well. They flew by a different airlines, so they arrived in Beijing last night.
Dinner was at a restaurant in another hotel which was about a 10 minute walk from here. We got to experience the popular Hot Pot dinner which is very popular here in Beijing. They supply you with a small burner that has a small pot of vegetable broth boiling in it. And there are various vegetables and meats that you cook in your
boiling broth.
Now for the bad news. As we were unpacking our laptop to post this message, we discovered that the power converter will not accept the plug for our laptop. So we are currently posting this message from the business center of our hotel. We are going to see if we can remedy this problem tomorrow, but if we can not, we probably will not be able to post any photos until we get home.
Tomorrow we will be going to the Great Wall, the Summer Palace and the Pearl Factory. It should be a very busy day.
Hope you are all doing well. Emilie, mommy and daddy miss you and love you very much!
Steve and Lisa
17:26 Posted in Blog | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: China Adoption
Originally posted on Monday, October 31, 2005
Monday, October 31, 2005 10:13 AM CST
For our family and friends who may still be watching this website, here is an update on our current upcoming trip to China. We recently received our detailed itinerary, which tells us where we will be and what we will be doing each day we are in China. I posted a copy of it on our yahoo grou last week and will copy that same post to this website as well.
In case you are not aware, we have started a yahoo group for everyone to follow our trip to China this time. We are going to post to the yahoo group as often as possible while we are there and hopefully even upload a few pictures. If you want to view the photos we post from China you will need to log on to our yahoo group to see those. I will try to copy all of our post to this site as well, but to make sure you don't miss anything, you might want to check out the yahoo group. You can find it at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hammellfamily
The first time you visit the yahoo group, you will have to create a yahoo login and password and request to join the group. Once your request has been approved you will be able to see all of our past posts to the group, view links I have added and view the few photos I have already put up. Some photos of Emilie and the only referral photos we have of Nikole at this time.
Here is our itinerary. I have added a few website links so you can check out some information about the
hotels we will be staying in or find information about the tourist attractions we will get to see while we are there. Here it is!
Nov 4 = Fly from Fort Wayne to Chicago - Flight UA7255 - United Airlines (D: 6:00a - A: 5:55a)
Fly from Chicago to Beijing China - Flight UA851 – United Airlines (D: 12:05p)
Nov 5 = Arrive in Beijing at 2:30 pm (Beijing time) and stay at the Wangfujing Grand Hotel.
Here is the website for our hotel: http://www.wangfujinghotel.com/english/ssfw/xxsg.html
Nov 6 = Tour the Great Wall and the Summer Palace
The Great Wall Info – http://www.crystalinks.com/chinawall.html
http://www.thebeijingguide.com/great_wall_of_china/
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/china_great_wall/
The Summer Palace Info -
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/cityguides/beijing/summer.htm
http://www.thebeijingguide.com/summer_palace/index.html
Nov 7 = Meet Nikole!!!! Go to adoption registration and notarization appointments
Nov 8 = Tour the Forbidden City
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/cityguides/beijing/forbidden.htm
http://www.thebeijingguide.com/forbidden_city/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_City
Nov 9 = Tour the Temple of Heaven
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/beijing/heaven/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Heaven
Nov 10 = Tour the Lama Temple
http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Asia/China/Beijing_Shi/B
eijing-1024960/Things_To_Do-Beijing-Lama_Temple_Yonghegong-BR-1.html
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/beijing/yonghe.htm
Nov 11 = Get Nikole's Passport
Nov 12 = Go to Hutong Tour
http://www.cbw.com/tourism/hutong/eindex1.htm
http://www.sinohotelguide.com/travel/beijing/hutong.html
Nov 13 = Fly to Guangzhou – Flight CZ3102 – China Southern (12:05p – 3:00p)
Stay at the White Swan Hotel
http://www.white-swan-hotel.com/eng/Public/index.asp
Nov 14 = Take Nikole for her Medical Check and get her Visa Photo taken in the afternoon
Nov 15 = Go to 11:00a Visa Appointment at the U.S. Consulate
Nov 16 = Get Nikole's Visa
Nov 17 = Fly from Guangzhou to Hong Kong – Flight CZ301 (8:30a – 9:30a)
Fly from Hong Kong to Chicago – Flight UA896 (11:35a HK time – 11:40a Chicago time)
Fly from Chicago to Fort Wayne – Flight UA6828 (3:45p
Chi time – 5:45p Fort Wayne time)
Lisa Hammell
17:12 Posted in Blog | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: China Adoption
Originally posted on Monday, September 26, 2005
Monday, September 26, 2005 5:07 PM CDT
Just a quick note to let you all know that we received Travel Approval to go to China to get Nikole!! We don't have exact travel dates yet, but expect it to be the first couple weeks of November. We will post again as soon as we have travel dates and our itenerary.
Blessings,
Lisa
17:09 Posted in Blog | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: China Adoption