the Wausau life of Gracie, Monkey Girl, Schmoopy and co.

Hi!

Things continue to move smoothly here in southern
China. The weather has given us a break today, with
some clouds, light rain, and cooler temps. The
humidity continues to be impressive, but our outdoor
adventures are, quite honestly, fairly limited. Today
we ventured to an open air flea market of sorts, and
saw everything from various animals (cats, dogs, fish,
birds, chicks, bunnies) for sale to trinkets, jewelry,
pottery and plants. Obviously a troop of americans
coming through get plenty of extra glances from the
locals, but a bunch of "big nosed" americans with
chinese babies in tow draw stares. Some are brave
enough to come up and start 'conversations' with us in
broken english, and smile and touch Mia and the other
kids. Mia responds in turn by starting to cry :( but
actually this is good as I feel she has really bonded
with us. Lisa is definitely the point person in the
Mia care, and I'm doing more bottle washing etc, but
we can pass her back and forth now without a fuss. She
has pretty much kicked the upper respiratory
infection/ congestion, but now has a little heat rash.
Baby benadryl (for the itch) last night had her conked
out in minutes.

Yesterday included some fun for the 'boys' in the
group. Myself and another dad ventured off to find
some recordable discs for his camcorder and grabbed
takeout from China's version of McDonald's. It was
amazingly similar in menu choices and taste to the US
version - and the place was simply packed. For better
or worse, greasy US food seems to be catching on big
here. We also took the babes to a local "park" which
actually turned out to be an amusement park with games
and rides, etc. I jumped into this tent with two other
dads and we took control of air cannons launching nerf
balls back and forth at each other. The Chinese kids
in the tent thought it was hilarious, and immediately
took aim at the 'crazy' Americans.

We also saw a local village yesterday, about an hour
out of town. They have electricity and propane for
cooking, and plenty of mopeds/motorcycles/trucks. But
otherwise it was what you might have expected the
village to look like a few hundred years ago. I
suspect if the village was a bit further from the big
city (Nanning) of the province, it would be even more
primitive. 3 harvest times a year (rice, soybeans,
corn, etc) means exceptionally hard work. Very few
little girls running around...which is clearly to be
expected here, but it seems that the 'one child' rule
is somewhat more lax if you are a member of a minority
ethnic group here. One village woman I talked to
actually had 3 boys. The kids were cute though,
running up to us with hands palms up, expecting candy.
(they weren't disappointed).

Anyway, tonight we're on the town for another group
dinner and some ethnic dancing and singing. Our guide
told us that the women dancers pick a few men from the
audience and we are included in the performance, which
apparently includes us actually carrying the women
around for a stint! (I'll try to keep a low profile,
but fortunately it doesn't look like any of the women
here weigh over 100 lbs. Still looking for my first
sighting of an obese local...don't think it is going
to happen). Tomorrow - off to Guangzhou! the last
stage of our trip....I'll hopefully be able to send
some pictures from the famed White Swan hotel's
computer station. Until then, take care, thanks for
the support,

Mark & Lisa & Mia

Lis and I were beginning to wonder if it was ever
going to happen, but yes the most notable update from
China, although a seemingly small thing, has us
feeling very upbeat today. Our daughter smiled! I
would like to lie and say that I coaxed it out of her
with my crazy daddy antics, but alas, it was another
of her 'sisters', actually one of Mia's former
roommates that tickled her funnybone momentarily. A
crack in her otherwise somewhat somber persona, but
we'll take it! Otherwise she is an awesome baby -- it
is funny to refer to a 14 mo old that way, but she is
such a little peanut, it definitely fits. No question
that she personifies the 'hard knock' orphanage life.
We have the sense that she has a 'quiet' personality
to begin with, and that does not serve you well when
you're at an understaffed orphanage in rural China.

Walmart was interesting, very much like that in the
states. Very popular with the locals... It was funny -
I asked where the antipersperant area was and there
was some confusion. Eventually we found the spot -
only one brand, and only one 'scent' for men - whole
area took up about 8 inches of shelf space - although
given some of the body aroma of the hotel staff, I
guess this fits! Overall, merchandise especially
shoes, are extremely cheap, most kids shoes are less
than 4 bucks.

Tonight we have a group dinner with the rest of the
families. They promised they were taking us to a
restaurant where they try to 'westernize' their dishes
somewhat. When we asked what this meant, they said
that they would chop the head and feet of the chicken
before serving! Reminds of the end of Christmas Story
movie.

There are some very intersting things, to me anyway,
that I find interesting enough to try to remember...

- the fire extinguishers, even at '5 star hotels' are
just literally laying around. No cubby in the wall
with a glass door, or shelf, or anything. There's a
few here , there , wherever. Fire safety a relatively
new concept perhaps.

- Unlike the cyclist in Beijing, the moped and
motorcycle riders in Nanning all wear helmets...and
are somewhat more obedient to traffic signals. The
helmets look wimpier than the helmets I wore during
Little League baseball, but at least it is something.
I cannot believe that Mia and I haven't witnessed and
accident looking out the hotel windows, which we like
to do. The bikes and mopeds and cars and buses swarm
back and forth and around each other like some kind of
crazy dance...I think it is the relatively slow
traffic speed that saves the day.

- Air conditioning is a relatively rare thing in
general it seems. I mean, we are traveling like kings
and queens, riding in AC equipped buses, etc. But all
the government building, monuments, and museums that
we have visited, including the Nanning airport are fan
cooled only (if they have remembered to turn them on)

- Using a chinese version of windows XP isn't bad --
thanks to icons which are universal.

- I can't say enough about the staff that are helping
us and guiding us. They translate, coordinate, and are
extremely friendly. Heck, they even organized a local
massage therapist to come by tonight (one hour massage
= 8 bucks!). And apparently pediatricians here still
make housecalls....

I will populate the blog with a bunch of pictures when
I get home; hopefully will post again in a couple
days....
Mark

We've got her!

It has been a pretty darn amazing couple of days. I
was simply to exhausted to post last night (morning
for you all).

Mia's 'handover' down here in Nanning (a city of
nearly 2 million just north of Vietnam) was
incredible, but remarkable for its calm. We learned
just before receiving her that she has been fighting
off some upper respiratory crud for the last several
days. She has been a combo of simple antibiotics and
IV TCM (traditional chinese medicine) 'something'. Why
it has to be given intravenous = ???. Anyway, she no
longer has a fever and is now on some broad sprectum
bug drugs we brought with us and doing fine -- she is
amazingly quiet and reserved. Barely a peep out of the
poor thing...her care givers were able to tell us that
she is the quietest of the orphanage bunch, but
interacts and smiles all the time when she is with
someone she knows. So we'll have to wait a while for
the smiling and giggling; but she has a good appetite
and already has a favorite toy. :)

OK, so we're ready to come home now!! :) Not a chance.
Still more bus rides to government offices today to do
paperwork and notarizing before flying to Guangzhou
later this week to do the same at the US consolate.

The agenda tonight is pizza from Pizza Hut, if you can
believe it. Most of us are finding the food
experimentation fun to be wearing off a bit, so this
is a big deal :) Tomorrow, shopping at WalMart - yes
very popular here in China too. Mia is such a little
thing that our 12 mo. clothes are not fitting, so I'm
sure we'll be getting a few new outfits.

We miss Grace terribly and everyone else for that
matter, but are quickly befriending several couples in
our group which helps alot. Several from Wisconsin
area if I didn't already mention that.

So much more to say, I'll post again tomorrow.

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:)

write more soon...off to the Forbidden City this
afternoon

M & L

We survived the long plane trip over the big pond in
good shape, although it's never good when you hear an
anouncement over the intercom "Is there a doctor on
board?" (no kidding). Another woman, actually another
soon to be adopting Mom, passed out in the bathroom
(for those of you with medical background looked like
a bad combination of underlying WPW syndrome, too much
wine on a long plane ride, and a bit of Verapamil
thrown in for good measure). Fortunately she was
actually quite stable when I got there AND I was
quickly relieved of duty by a SECOND doctor on board
who happened to have a much more appropriate specialty
(E.R. doc)! I was all too happy. :)

The hotel where we are staying in Beijing (Kunlun)
also is hosting the very popular Real Madrid soccer
team, and you would have thought that they were
hosting rock stars! The young chinese boys and girls
were out in number. It is an AWESOME hotel, but seems
a little overstaffed (they have a young woman swing by
each evening for a 'turndown' of our beds, thank you
very much)...just not used to the 5 star treatment I
guess.

Anyway, after sleeping for about 12 hours (no
kidding), we headed out for a ricksaw ride around a
historic area of old Beijing, encountered some very
interesting locals (and some even more interesting
smells, poor Lis!) and took a bus trip up to the Great
Wall. A-mazing.

We dined tonight at the Hard Rock Beijing...and
realized that jaywalking in a city of 14 million
people is not to be performed lightly (yikes). We have
hooked up with many other couples, one of which is
from the LaCrosse area. Some of the children we adopt
may have actually been crib-mates, and we may be
forming some lifelong friendships, which is a very
exciting thing.

We can't wait to meet Mia, but alas that's not on the
program for until Tuesday. Will obviously be emailing
a pic then...

Things are really going well so far, talk to you soon,
take care and thanks for your support!

PS : I can read email sent to our beetle4bug account
at yahoo, but I don't think I can respond to blog
comments (filter issue) -- chinagirlmia.bognet.com

Pudgy cheeks and bundled @ 6mo. 

This post is simply a test to see if I can email text
without logging on to blogspot. :)

Wow, an amazing download. Google allows free download of its 'earth' program which has to be seen to be fully appreciated....wow! Zooming in from outer space right on to the roof of my house! And then spin the globe 180 and boom, I'm in the Forbidden City of Beijing.

All in an effort to stay up late tonight and gradually switch my body over to CHINA TIME. Ugliness.

I won' t be able to email pictures to this blog unfortunately, but hopefully will get a 6mo. old picture of Mia up soon.

By the way, Lis and I celebrate our 10th anniversary on the day of our departure...craziness.

Out, m

Welcome! Since I've never blogged before, this might be a little rough around the edges...so hang in. I thought now was as good a time as any to start as we head to our adoption (a first) over in China (another first) while leaving our first biological daughter Grace for 2 weeks (yep you guessed it) to meet our new daughter - Mia Jane FuGuan. Actually Lis has travelled internationally before, and Grace will be in the excellent care of grandparents and aunties, so things are going to be great.....if I could only stop blogging and finish packing my suitcase. :) We leave Friday AM. Will post more soon.