Author: kristi

We have known Aili for 2 months now. I know it’s ridiculously cliche to say, but it seems like she’s always been with us. It seems impossible to love someone so much in such a short time. When we were going through the process to bring her home, I had a thought every once in…

I know i’m waaaaay overdue for a post. It’s much easier to post away from home without all the responsibilities of home. I’ve also been sick and feeling like crud. Raleigh and Aili got it too. Sam  swears that gulping a large Gatorade in a short amount of time when he feels like he’s getting…

Well, we are home, my family of four. Traveling home was 29 hours of hell. Aili took it better than any of us. It started with a terrifying 3.5 hour van ride from Guangzhou to Hong Kong. Our driver scared us to death and made Raleigh sick. Sucked big time. We got to the airport…

Today we had a free day. No appointments. We stayed on the island and walked, shopped, and ate. First, after breakfast, we had to stop at Starbucks of course. While we were in there, the craziest thing happened. I saw this American guy in there with what appeared to be his mom, his 4 year…

Ok, I spoke too soon about the well slept nights. Aili had a rough night last night. At about midnight she started whimpering. I didn’t know if she had a bellyache or what was wrong. I touched her face and her hair. It was all wet. She was crying. I’ve read about this many times.…

Raleigh has been waking up super early, as usual. But Aili has been the last to wake. We actually have to wake her. Heaven. So far, every time she wakes it’s with a smile. Can it really be this easy? She slept really well again. There was still head banging, but less. After breakfast, we…

We had no idea how Aili was going to sleep through the night. We thought for certain that she’d wake up scared to death. This child went right to sleep when we put her down, and didn’t wake up until we woke her at 7am. Awesome. I slept with her and Sam slept with Raleigh.…

I’m lying here next to my new sleeping daughter. Today was amazing. She is amazing. This morning we met our rep, Michael, to go to the bank to exchange some money, get all of our paperwork together, and prepare for meeting Aili. After that we had about an hour and a half in our room…

Today, after a two hour train ride, we arrived in Guangzhou. Aili’s orphanage is in Gaozhou, which is about a four hour car ride from here. This is Guangdong province. The civil affairs office for Guangdong is here in Guangzhou, so all adoptions from orphanages in Guangdong happen here. When we arrived at the train…

We had a full day in Hong Kong today. All of us were wide eyed and awake at 6am. After hanging out in the room for awhile and Sam hitting the hotel gym, we got out and found a Starbucks. Then we spent some time exploring the city. HK is a very busy city, and…