Oh. The. Irony.

Jason is driving now.



Jordan is driving now.



2 teenage
b.o.y.s
d.r.i.v.i.n.g. 

But I love em.
They  make me laugh.

And they always seem to have food....holla!

But back to my story....

So they drive.
And they are pretty good at it.
But nonetheless....this is new to them.

So it was inevitable. 
That ummm...
well....
see for yourself:

Like a good neighbor State Farm is there. 

Yeah.
Awesome. 

Here's the problem though...
Jason and Jordan didn't....
well....
let's see....
how do I say this....

ummmmm.....

They weren't the ones that.....
Well...



Yeah.
It was me.

Times I have ever dented a car in my life: 0.
Well.
Now it's 0 + 1
Which equals.....
ummmm i dunno.
I don't do math.
You can use a calculator if you're really curious how many times.

But I digress.

Now at the risk of sounding oh so cliche'
it really wasn't my fault.

Or maybe it was totally my fault.
One of the two.

There are these annoying stump things at the baseball fields that just sort of arise from the earth and impale themselves into people's cars.
I even took a picture when I was back there today picking up the teens from practice so you could see the stupid things and validate my assertion that this is not my fault.

So there you have it.
That's my story.
Stupid stumps: 1
Sonia: 0

I gotta go crawl under my car now and try and pop it back out.
Mind you I have no real idea how to do such a thing,
but I've seen it on TV and it doesn't look that hard.
Plus I stayed at Holiday Inn Express last night so I'm totally qualified.

Oh, and PS: This is the part of the story where you regale me with stories of how you dented your own cars way worse to make me feel better.
And it's also the part where you teach me how to spell "regale".....that just doesn't look right.

In Which I Tell You My Airplane Story

5.
5 flights it took to get to China and back.

Fiiiiiivvveeee.

After the first one I seriously considered just staying in NYC and living at JFK or in the surrounding area. My family would move up there with me at some point, maybe when the kids all graduated college, I would get a job at a pizzeria with Vinny & Carl(the guys I met on the elevator), it was a solid, fully rational plan.

Alas however, as I researched apartments for me to live in in NYC I eventually decided to just go ahead and get on the next flight.
Mainly because Lori had arrived and I didn't feel entirely comfortable clinging on to the nearest security guard's legs wailing and screaming that he couldn't make me go.
Besides, Lori and Jesus convinced me I was being ridiculous.
Hrmph.
So I called the realtor back and told her nevermind.

Anyhoo, the flights were actually fine.
I've decided once we take off and find our crusing altitude I actually do quite well.
I force myself to not think about the fact that I am a bajilliion feet above the earth and instead I pretend like I am on a train....which.....in case you didn't know, they run on the ground. 
Where normal people should be.
This fantasy makes me happy. without needing to be medicated.

So as I trained to China I did notice this.

And it's evil cousin this:

Where to even begin with these two stupid features on board.....
Lori LIKES watching the plane make it's way across the world.
She.
LIKES.
It.
Weirdo.

I...
as you can imagine. 
Do not.

It completely ruins my train fantasy.

She was constantly turning it on
and I was constantly shooting daggers into her with my mean looks.
As soon as she would fall asleep I would kindly abruptly reach over and turn it the heck off.

As for the outside view....
Ummmmm...
let's see.....
how do I put this nicely....
Are you freaking kidding me?
Do you REALLY think I want to see that there is nothing below my feet?
Do you know what I am going through over here?
Do you care?

Are you looking for the next airplane freak out to upload to YouTube?
Because people.....if you keep showing me these things....it's gonna be me.

But I digress....
Ahem.

Fast forward we get to China....we have a great trip...blah, blah, blah....we begin to make our way home...I consider just staying and living in Hong Kong and begin dialing realty numbers again....blah, blah, blah...I check and see if Carnival cruises to China to get me home(they don't, let me save you the trouble)....I research ways to get home on a container ship....also, turns out...incredibly difficult....I surrender and get on the plane.
And two flights and one great weekend with my brother and his family it's time for me to leave DC and fly home.

So at this point it's 4 flights down,
1 to go.

And there wasn't any way I was getting on that plane a single M.I.N.U.T.E. before I had to.
So I waited.
And I watched.
I watched and waited.
And here's what I noticed.
Why does everyone get up and stand in that long line the minute they call for boarding?

People of the world, explain this to me.

I mean seriously?
The plane is not leaving without you I assure you.
(Believe me, I tried. I thought, well......if I don't get on it....they will have to come find me and drag me on board.)
So why does everyone stand there for half an hour in a long line that hardly moves just to board the aircraft and stand again forever and a day while people fumble with their bags?

These are things I do not understand.

So anyway, I was {shockingly} the last person on board.
Told you. Not a minute before I had to.
I didn't intend to be the last one mind you.
It just kinda worked out that way. By the time I had downed my tall shot of whiskey and gotten my feet to move one in front of the other....I just happened to be the last one.

{Which btw....was a little disconcerting. I can't tell you enough how much I hated them sealing and locking that door behind me was....as if to say, "So long suckers!" I'm pretty sure I heard them laughing....}

So there's me, the last one and I go to my {window} seat and find a little boy sitting in it.
To which I say, "Yo Punk. You have exactly 3 seconds to get the heck out of my seat." {Whiskey brings out a dark side to me}

Ok.
I didn't say that.
Nor did I have any whiskey.

What I did say to the stewardess was, "I believe I am supposed to sit there but I don't mind switching." 
She thanked me, said the family was trying to sit together, I told her I understood and then a nice male stewardess came up behind me and said, "Maam, here is the last remaining seat. You can have this one."

And it was a middle seat the width of my iPhone.

And I smiled.
Because that's what I do.

And then I used humor.
Because that's what I also do.

And I said something to the effect of, "Dude! You gotta hook me up! A middle seat?"
And then he was all like, "Go stand at the back of the plane, give me just a minute."
And then I was all like, "No problem"

And so I took my walk of shame to the back of the plane.....in front of everyone....who was already seated....on account of me being the last one on board.

About 2 minutes later I look up and there was stewardess man standing at the front of the plane giving me the come here head nod.

What??
Seriously??

So I walked to the front of the plane.....in front of everyone....who was already seated.....on account of me being the last one on board...


TO FIRST CLASS!!!!!!!!

I've never flown in first class!!

And if you are saying to yourself, what's the big whoop, I fly first class all the time in seats like this:

with beds like this for that 15 hour flight: 

I will punch you in the throat.


Ok, no I won't.....
that was the whiskey talking again.
Sorry.

I was pretty excited with myself in my leather seat with lots of leg room.

I was listening to train noises in my headphones.

I had a great view from my seat in the front row:

Ok....not such a great view.
But I didn't care.
There was a course a window there too.....
but I didn't photograph it....
nor did I look out of it
or acknowledge it's presence. (Ref. previous dialogue in this post)

And I had first class water and first class cookies:

Which tasted remarkably like regular water and cookies.

So that's my story.
My first time...and probably only....time in first class.

Love the way God blessed me with that.
I'm pretty sure it was a reward for not losing my ever loving mind on those 5 flights. 

Thanks Lord.
You amaze me.
...and the cookies were delicious.

In Which I Tell You We Had A Bad Day

Whew.
For something so incredibly tiny he can melt down like nobody's biness.

But.
But there is redemption here.
Here.
And now.
And always.
And forever more.
Repeat to myself 8 gazillion times......ahem.

He was sent to time out/time in/insert adoptive politically correct term here
And I left the house.
My sanity,
and his well being 
depended on it.

I came home and found out that he had,
after awhile.....
handed his dad the following:
Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Oh gracious.
Love him.
And yes baby, I "for get" you and I know you didn't ming to hert his hart.

Portrait of A Chinese Child's Lunchbox

If it were up to them there would be an entire trout stuffed into their lunchboxes everyday.

No seriously,
a trout. 
With the eyeballs still intact.....
apparently they are tasty.
I'm going to go ahead and take their word for that.
Much like the chicken feet. 

So the trout is out and alternative....not going to make your classmates hurl.... Chinese food is in.

Since a few people have asked me what we feed them(pretty much what we feed the rest of our families with some alterations here and there) I thought I'd show you what a day in the life of their lunchbox looks like.

Water bottle
An orange
Shrimp Chips
Wasabi something or other
And Tofu beef stick kabobs of an unknown origin. I cannot tell you how much they love these things. I threw the package in the picture in case you want to pick some up for your little Asian sensation. I buy them for $1.39 at our Chinese grocery store.......and I bought about 700 packages of them while in China for 0.29 a package.
Score.

Not pictured was this which also goes in but I was half asleep and sipping my coffee at 6:30am when I was making this lunch.

Some kind of rice cracker thingamajig with sesame looking seeds in it.

And a banana....which also didn't make the photograph. Again....sleepy.....early.....half caffeinated.....

So there ya have it.
Our Asian sensations lunches look remarkably different than our bio kids lunch boxes which are filled with Americanized cr....errrrr.... garbage......but that's a whole nother post.

Worship. Ain't Nothin Like It.

Yesterday we went to church.
In China.
Yesterday we went to church in China.

Oh.
My.
Goodness.

Sob.

Nothing like it.
There is no thing like worshiping with other believers in the country where three of your children were born.
Three children who had never heard the name of Jesus before they came to us.

Sob.

It was all I could do to look around when they were singing in Mandarin and not just lose it right there.

I had some great conversation about Christianity here with a guy sitting behind me.
I had a rather odd conversation with our guide when she was saying that the government of this country said the people have free religion.
Ummmm yeah.

The harvest is plentiful folks.
P.L.E.N.T.I.F.U.L.

He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Mark 16:15
All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. Matthew 25:32

He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Luke 10:2

Here I am Lord. Send me.

This & That & Intimacy With a Giraffe.

Well hello there!
It's been a busy couple of days.
I have lost all semblance of time and when we did what or who or where or whatever.
The days are just blending together, it's a bit like being on vacation.....
except you don't understand anything anyone is saying
there are chicken feet and live frogs at the Stuff Mart
and there are signs warning you about the rules of being intima*te with a giraffe.

Ahem.
So yep.
Just like vacation.

I did visit the spot where we lost Justin two years ago.
Ahhhhh memories.

I'm still traumatized.

 I purchased some seahorses from a lady off the street.

Because I have a policy that when I encounter sea horses on the street I should buy them.
Just kidding.
I have no such policy.
But if I did it would involve seahorses and the subsequent exchange of money I'm certain of it.

A little farther down were two women sorting live scorpions with chopsticks.

Hold on.

I'm not sure you heard me.

THEY WERE SORTING LIVE FREAKING SCORPIONS WITH CHOPSTICKS!! &*$%!!!!!!!!

We had tea with Dong.

And then today we went to the Safari Park
and it rained.
And I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to say something like how enchanting the rain was and how the Chinese rain was so endearing compared to American rain. How we all frolicked along the path laughing at the downpour.
But it wasn't.
So I won't.
It was wet.
It was kinda lame.
It was....well.....blech.

Tonight we head to dinner at 5:30 with about 40 other people.
It's party week here at the Garden and man alive, it's a good time.

Next post: How Good I Am At Ignoring My Schoolwork While I Am Here.

In Which I Tell You The Funniest Adoption Story

EVER.

Meet Katie. 

Katie is here with her Duck & Llama addicted husband adopting Simon.

Katie's pretty normal.
Funny.
Smart.
Loves Jesus.
Kind hearted.

But here's what Katie is not:
She is not good at Mandarin.
Nay.....
she's AWFUL at Mandarin.

Katie knows this.
So, like all good adoptive mothers she thought ahead and purchased some translation cards to help her communicate with Simon during these early days.
You go Katie.
That's awesome.

Now it's at this point I'd like to pause for a quick lesson in Chinese.
This:

is water.

The Chinese word for water is shui.
Pronounced shhway.

This:

is a bed for sleeping.
The Chinese word for sleep is shuijiao.
It is not spelled nor pronounced like shui.

Enter poor little Simon. 

Every night the sweet boy has gotten ready for bed as his mother stands nearby and says, "Shui! Time for shui!"
At which point Simon dutifully gets up and goes and gets water as his mother asked.
Weird American woman wanting me to drink water at bedtime.
To which  he gets a resounding "Boo!"(no) "It's time for shui!"
Ummmm, ok.
I'll go get some more water.
Head to the water bottle.
"No Simon....it's time for shui, not water!"
"Shui! Shui! Shui!"
Water! Water! Water!

Oh my goodness how I wish you could here Katie tell this story.
Bless her.
So. Stinkin. Funny.
She's confused the poor kid to no end every night since he arrived.
I'm telling ya.....it's pee your pants funny to hear her tell it. 

Katie only realized the error of her ways when out at the Noodle House last night when one of her friends asked the waiter for some shui and she leaned over and asked her friend why she just told that waiter to go to bed.

Oh the horror when the realization of what she had been doing descended upon her.

Cracking.
Me.
Up.

So in sum,
Don't believe every Chinese pronunciation card that you order.

You just never know what you may actually be saying.
Now go get yourself a cup of shui and then go install Llama Duck on your iPhone.
You can thank me later. 

A Post I Like To Call

Riding the Subway With Hundreds of Chinese People.

One word:

F
U
N

I've found a bit of my adventurous side lately.....hence the climbing under sheets with old men on airplanes, and nearly getting into cars voluntarily with strangers at JFK.

And most recently knocking on hotel room doors alone in Asia to meet another person I met on the internet. 

Don't hate.
I'm still alive.

And besides, she's as awesome as I thought she'd be see:

But I digress.

So yesterday I braved the subway system.
Ohmygoodnessitwassomuchfun.

Ok.
Crowded beyond belief at 6pm on a Friday night.

Oh my good nigh

But still fun.

That's me in the orange. In case you were confused.

Anybody wanna snuggle?

I'm going to visit my brother, his wife and thier brand new bundle of GIRLY sweetness on the tail end of this trip.
I'm pretty sure I'll be using the DC metro system at some point in those few days....
and I'm pretty sure it's going to feel downright spacious compared to this.

So to recap:
Foreign subway systems = not scary.
Roasted suckling pig however = terrifying.

The Thing I Can't Get Right in China

My hair.

Oh peoples
my haiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Allow me to refresh your memory of the great hair debacle of 2011.
I melted my curling iron in the sink the morning before we met the boys. 

Yep.
Good times.

This time I have managed to keep my flat iron from melting but just barely.
Each morning I plug it in I pray that this will not be the day that I will be held responsible for burning down a 5 star hotel.
I plug it in and .8 seconds later it is hot. hot. hot. 
I'm pretty sure it needs a converter for the voltage.
I'm also pretty sure I didn't bring one.
I'm also pretty sure I don't care and I keep using it anyway in the name of taming the wild beast that is my hair right now.
I'm also, also pretty sure I am taking my life in my hands by using it this way.
But alas, don't care.

Even with the flat iron though I walk outside to the weather that is Guangzhou and I look a bit like this

only worse.

Someone said to me today, " I feel like I know you. I recognize you from somewhere." and I wanted to say,
"It's me! It's Sonia!! I just have REALLY bad hair right now! For the love help me please!"
but I didn't.
I just smiled.
And nodded.
And cried a little on the inside about the hair injustice of it all.

In unrelated news,
It's so weird being back here.
2 short years ago I stood in the same room I was in today

and met my two sons, having no idea that 14 hours from that spot there was another little boy that 7 months later would become our son as well.

Faithful, faithful God.

Raindrops on Roses

Whiskers on Kittens.
Doorbells. Sleighbells.
Schnitzel. Noodles.
Orphans getting a family.
These are a few of my favorite things.

Today.
Oh gracious today.

I think know when I was here last adopting Jacob & Joey it was all so new, so emotional, so overwhelming, so incredibly exciting that there was no way I could possibly take it all in.

Well today letmetellya
I took it in.
........and I was about 20 seconds away from some massive ugly cry.

Mycah has a family.

Simon has a family.

Toby has a family.
All 3 of them and about 20 other families were created today.

Boo.
And a Hoo.
It was something else.

Just looking around that room today at all those sweet little faces and knowing what is to come for them and it's
HOPE.

It was everywhere in that room today.
Hope for a new beginning filled with love.
Hope for healing.
Hope for a future.
Hope.
Hope.
HOPE.

And it was beautiful.

A Father to the fatherless, 
A Defender of widows,
is God in His Holy dwelling. 
Psalm 68:5

Tomorrow is adoption finalization and the book store(my fav!)
and Wednesday is Edward & Percy day!!!!!

Standby

The owner of this blog is experiencing extreme sleepiness.
She will be back in the morning after sleep.
Much
Much
Sleep.

Oh jet lag how I hate thee.

Ni Hao Hong Kong!

Ahhhhhh my feet are on solid ground once again
and better yet....
I can stretch out my legs.

Flight was great!
Who knew that travelling by yourself is a whole lot less work than traveling to China with your 6 children.
Huh.
Learn something new everyday.

Lori and I are currently sitting on the floor of the lobby of a hotel in HK(cuz we are classy like that) getting our dose of technology, skyping our kiddos and blogging like all normal people would.

It has occured to me that in the past two weeks I have:

• Picked a person up(Wassup Jennifer!) at the airport that I have never met before and brought her to my home.
• Met a family for the first time in the parking lot of Wal Mart and had them follow me to ice cream that I have never met before.(Wassup Roe family!)
• Almost gotten under a sheet with an old man. (Ref previous post)
• Nearly gotten into a car at JFK with a lady I have know for roughly 1.2 minutes. 
• And tomorrow we are meeting up with Katie and taking in some Hong Kong sights. Never met Katie before but man alive does she ever sound nice online!

.......I am beginning to think I have issues related to the absence of stranger danger. 

But nonetheless tomorrow we hang out in HK in the AM and train to GZ in the PM.

Next post: Guangzhou!

Nighty-night