We're here and we have the baby!

I'm so sorry to leave everyone in limbo the last few days. We didn't have internet while we were in Beijing and are now having problems getting it working in our room in Nanchang so I'm in the business center.

Our flights over from the US all went well. The flight from Detroit to Tokyo was 13 hours...that was SO long to be on a plane, but we lucked out and had a row of three to ourselves. By the time we got into Beijing and were settled in our hotel it was midnight Friday night here so we crashed. Yesterday we went to Tianamen Square, the Forbidden City and the Great Wall. All were awesome and we loved Beijing. We'd love to go back someday and spend more time there. It was a bit of a whirlwind. Josh was a stud and hiked up the section of the Wall we were at and then ran back down. If you saw how steep it was and how uneven the steps are you would be so impressed!!! I'll get some pictures up as soon as I can.

We took a two hour flight to Nanchang today around lunchtime and got here at about 1pm and were in our hotel by 2pm. It's beautiful here. Everything is really green. You can tell that we are out of the international hub of Beijing because now everyone who sees us just stares. Our group is quite the site. We had just enough time to get checked in, unpack and get our stuff together to go downstairs to a conference room. There are seven families here in Nanchang from our travel group and we were getting babies from three different orphanages in this province. They brought the first three babies in from one orphanage and then they brought Katelyn in to us. She was screaming! She did not want to be handed over to these strange looking people. She just cried and cried. They said she got a bit carsick on the way up from Zhangshu (probably the first time she had been in a vehicle). So after screaming for a few minutes she proceeded to throw up all over me...so now I smell bad.

We took her up to our room (which is fabulous by the way) and I just sat and held her while she cried and then she just fell asleep (based on the schedule they gave us all this stuff was happening during her afternoon nap time.) I sat there and held her for about 45 minutes while she napped. She is so cute. She looks just like she did in the video the Laubachs got for us so we knew her right away when they came in with her. It was so unreal to be in a conference room in a hotel while 7 babies were brought in to their new families. It's really hard to take it all in.

When Katelyn woke up she just looked at me and looked all around and started crying again...as if to say, oh my gosh, you weren't just a dream...I'm still with you, strange lady....and why is your hair that color...and what the heck are you saying to me.

She finally calmed down and our group all met downstairs to have dinner in the hotel... the food was awesome and we started to see more of Katelyn's personality. She loves noodles and ate a few and part of this soft chicken meatball thing and she drank half of her bottle. She was grabbing at stuff at the table and rolling a Cheerio around her plate with her little pudgy finger. She was cracking everyone up and our guides really thinks she's funny. Josh sat and fed her and did great. She seems to do pretty well with both of us.

We headed back to the room and she started fussing and rubbing her eyes so I held her and she fell right asleep at 8pm on the dot...just like the schedule says. So now our little girl is upstairs in her crib cute as a bug.

The updated paperwork said she weighs about 22 pounds...her legs are so squishy...it's really sweet. She's got the longest eyelashes I've ever seen. The schedule says she wakes up for a bottle at 2 or 3 and then sleeps until 6. We'll see how all that goes. We have appointments at the civil affairs office tomorrow where we finalize the adoption on China's end. We don't finalize on the US end until Guangzhou.

We love you all. I"m not able to get any pictures up yet, I'll try to figure it out tomorrow. We'll try and get the laptop running from our room so you can see our cutie patootie!!!!