Amanda is SACKED OUT!!!

One tired baby, sleeping on Mommy and Daddy's bed. Where are they going to sleep tonight?

We're HOME!!!

Wow, what a long plane ride! We spent the night in LA last night. Amanda slept on the plane for several hours so when we got to the hotel she went to bed after dinner, but I think she thought it was nap time because she laughed at all of us when we went to bed too. Then she woke up about 3 am and was ready to go.

When we got to the airport in Albuquerque we had a great home coming reception with the Traegers and the Millers and Dad and Grandma Barb holding a big sign that said, "welcome home, Amanda" and it was signed by students and teachers from Prince of Peace School.

Here's Amanda checking out her new room and new bed!

It's great to be home, and now Amanda is a US Citizen!

My first swim.

Amanda took to swimming like a fish out of water. She loved it, and especially wanted to play with the ball like Shane and Pakat were doing!

My first swim.

Piggy Back

My brother is the coolest!

Bathtime Fun!

She loves the bath. The first night she splashed and got water in her eyes. I thought she was going to cry and instead she laughed. Now she gets her cup and throws water at herself and laughs. She's crazy! I hope to take her swimming before we leave. She has a cold right now so I'm waiting to see if it clears up a little first.

orphanage!

Yesterday we went to her orphanage. It was a 31/2 hr. drive, one way. Half of the road was paved and half was really bumpy. Amanda was a great traveler. She just sat in my lap and looked at books and ate crackers. It turns out that we had an unusual situation. We were the first foreigners to adopt from her orphanage. They just got the papers to proceed with adopting to foreigners and then they put Amanda up for adoption. Because we were the first we got a lot of attention. When we showed up all the 'Big Wigs' in charge took us out for a huge lunch. The food just kept coming!! Then we went back and got to tour part of the orphanage. It is a very small place with only 20 kids. All of the children there have some sort of special need. You could tell the care takers were doing there best for the kids, but it was heartbreaking to see. My dad said it best when he said it would have felt better to have someone rip out his heart and stomp on it, than to go there again. The place was sweltering hot. The children had no toys that we could see. Many children were without pants on because they were potty training, and the beds consisted of a wooden board. There wasn't even a sheet! Seeing the hard, hot bed, where Amanda had been only a couple of days before just about broke my heart. Boy did we feel bad, because we had all been complaining about how hard our beds were at our 5 star hotel!! Amanda did give her primary care taker a hug, but she wouldn't let her hold her. She wanted me! Our lunch was nice but, we wish the money spent on our lunch would have gone to the kids instead! It was hard to see, but it was important for us to see what her life had been like.

Big brother

I love to feed myself!

I'm learning how to use a spoon!

Happy Baby!

What a difference a few days have made. At first she cried when I held her, now she cries if I leave the room. Peter gets lots of smiles and laughs out of her and she likes to play teasing games with him, but she doesn't let him hold her. She is really warming up to Shane and thinks he's pretty funny. Today she let Shane pick her up out of the crib and she loves for him to push her in the stroller! My dad got her to say hi today. They said "hi" back and forth for about five minutes. She loves my mom, surprise-surprise, and she loves for me to read to her, while she tries to mimic. It's sooo cute when she babbles! Well of course we think just about everything she does is cute. She already has us wrapped around her finger!

Happy Baby!

Amanda on First Day!

Here is Amanda's first meeting of our family, YIKES!!!

Scared Baby!

This picture was two days ago when we first got Amanda. As you can see, she was very scared!

Amanda's Gotcha Day

Amanda was pretty scared to see all of us. She cried for about an hour while we were at the Civil Affairs office; especially when she saw her caretaker. She calmed down in the car on the way back to the hotel. We had a great dinner at a Thai restaurant close to the hotel and she ate TONS!!! We were all in bed by 8. Amanda slept until 7!

We've tried to add some pictures, but the webserver seems to be unable to load them right now. We'll try again later.

We've arrived!

We had a long flight, but arrived safe and sound. The hotel is awesome and we got some great pictures from our room. Tomorrow we get Amanda at 3:30!! Now we need to get some rest so we aren't so scary looking when we see her! P.S. Amanda's Chinese name (Fang Fang) means beautiful flower!

Look at all of those bags!!

How am I going to carry all of these bags? YIKES!!!!