Where in China?

Many of you have been messaging me or asking about when we are going to China and where we are going to be travelling. Well, we now know when we will be travelling, so I thought we would share some information about where Ailee is living right now and where we are headed.

Ailee is from the province of Guangdong, which is in southern China, along the south china sea coast. Guangdong is very close to Hong Kong, which means the climate is much warmer than Canada's climate.

She is living in an orphanage in the city of Dongguang, very close to the civil affairs office where will meet our little monkey for the first time and officially become a family of four! Dongguang is a city that is situated around the Pearl River. The province of Guangdong is quite industrialized, which is vastly different from Maelyn province, Jiangxi.

Guangdong is the province right below Jiangxi, which makes travel between the two provinces during homeland tours in the future much easier. In fact, we will be heading back to Jiangxi at the beginning of our trip for a mini homeland tour with Maelyn.

Guangdong is inhabited predominately by a Cantonese-speaking population, but over the past few decades, the use of Mandarin has increased.

We will be staying in Guangzhou, the capital city. Dongguan, where we will meet Ailee,
is very close to Guangzhou.

We are so looking forward to this new adventure and to meeting our daughter -- our Ailee.

Oh.my.goodness -- LSC!!!

I honestly cannot believe that I am writing this post!! If you would have told me that we would receive our LSC (approval to travel to China) only six weeks after receiving our referral, I would have said that you were crazy! But -- the miracle of a quick approval happened and we are so very happy!

Normally, the wait between referral and travel is about six months. With Maelyn's adoption, we waited just over seven months. So, you can imagine my total and utter shock when I came home from school on Tuesday, hit the play button on the answering machine and heard our agency coordinator's voice, congratulations us on some good news for our family.

My first thought? That we were able to get new pictures of our Ailee. I kept listening and almost fell off my chair when I heard that our LSC had arrived. In fact, I had to listen to the message once more, just to make sure I heard it right. Then, I went into shock. An all-over-body, hyperventilating, barely able to talk kind of shock.

I didn't even know what to do with myself. I walked aimlessly around the main floor muttering to myself and then somehow calmly told Maelyn that we would would be going to China soon to bring Ailee home. Maelyn was very happy and said, "One more sleep, Mama?" Ummm...no, not quite. :)

I then called Paul and shared the news -- and he was equally shocked. I called my mom to surprise her with the news that we would be leaving shortly and that she had better let her head nurse know so that she could get the time off to join us on the trip. My mom was very excited! I called a few of our adoption friends, including AM, who helped to calm me down a little. All I could think about was that I had just started teaching Kindergarten and now I was going to leave the students and be letting their families down, the fact that her room and any preparation for Ailee hadn't even been started, so on and so on. That night, I didn't even have the head space to think about all the positives of going early -- such as bringing Ailee home earlier!

That evening, Paul and I sat down to madly put together a list of things that we needed to get done and prioritized them in order of importance. That helped to calm us down a little.

The next day, Paul did a fantastic job of booking our tickets and we are now officially booked to leave on November 20th! We return to Canada on December 7th. Once our tickets were purchased, the entire situation felt more real to us and we began to get very excited about meeting our little girl in 10 short weeks!

Here we come, Ailee!

Happy Birthday, Maelyn!

My big girl turned 4 years old yesterday. I cannot believe how big she is getting and how quickly the past two years have gone by, but I am loving all of the four year old fun we have been having together. This age is such a blast!!

Our family got together to celebrate Maelyn's birthday and Maelyn was very excited for her 'birthday cake' -- I cannot convince her that it is called a birthday party.

In the past, Maelyn hasn't shown much interest in opening gifts. On Saturday, however, she really got it and was very, very excited for her party.

Our family loved watching her open gifts -- especially when her reaction was absolutely precious. She would say an unprompted thank you for each gift, shouting, 'Thank you, everybody!'

After opening a few gifts, she declared with a sigh, 'Now I have everything!'

It was a moment I won't soon forget. I watched my daughter truly enjoy her special day and feel very loved by her family.



Showing off her new shades...



Checking out the reflection of her new sparkly shoes in the fireplace...



Enjoying her new outdoor playhouse...



Rockin' out with her new microphone from Auntie Kara, Uncle Cam, and Ian...



Singing to Glee songs...

 

Happy Birthday to our sweet, independent, confident, loving and precious four year old. We love you very much!

First Day of Kindergarten!

 

This past July, Maelyn participated in a program to help her get ready for Kindergarten. She loved every minute of it! I was worried she would have difficulty adjusting -- nope, not at all! Instead, she now complains about having to go to daycare. She would rather spend all of her time in Kindergarten! Below are some pictures from the summer program.

 

Her first drawing that resembles people. Her cousin Ian is on the left, Maelyn is on the right.

Maelyn kept adding more family members in her drawing...

 

At Kindergarten orientation...



First day of summer Kindergarten program -- with her friend, Genesis.



Hand in hand -- walking in to meet her teacher, Mrs. Tout.

Hanging out with her new friend, Brenda...

 

Today was the first official day of Kindergarten -- for both of us. I taught my first day of Kindergarten in eight years today. I was grateful that I got to take Maelyn to school in the summer because I won't ever really get that first day experience as a parent.

 

This morning, Paul walked Maelyn to school and was there to pick her up. I was thinking about her all day -- or at least, while I wasn't dealing chaos in my own classroom. :) He was able to take some pictures so that I could see how her day went. My child, who more often than not refuses to smile for pictures and runs from the camera, decided to be a ham today!

 

Ready for Kindergarten!

With her friends, waiting to go to her classroom. Can you see the worry setting in??

Waiting for Daddy at the end of the day...

All in all, it was a great day. We all survived and Maelyn can't wait to get back to Kindergarten!