Happy Birthday!

I can't believe it's been 14 years already. I love you Liz!

Indianapolis Colts

The photos with Coach Dungy were taken July 2007 These are the best shots I can get going 55 mph, with one hand on the wheel. The stadium is almost done. Taken July 2008

These photos go out to my new friend Ryan, in Orrville, Ohio. I was born a Washington Redskins fan, and for a short time, while growing up in Glendale, Arizona, I strayed and rooted for the Los Angeles Rams (they had yet to move to St.Louis). But eventually, I forsook my backslidden ways and returned to the fold. By the time I reached high school, I would wear Joe Theismann's jersey to school while a buddy wore John Riggin's jersey. We were such dorks, but hey, these were the 1980's, and the 80's rock!

Fast forward 20 years...I work for the publisher who somehow wins the contract to publish a book by Tony Dungy, the winner of the 2007 Superbowl. I admit, during the game I was pulling for Da' Bears, but my loyalties can easily be swayed, so I quickly got on the band wagon as Colt fan, especially since I service accounts in Indiana.

Long story short, I was able to secure a book signing at one of my accounts, my parents are able to come to it, we get a quick 2 minute one-on-one with Coach Dungy,
and I am now a semi-converted fan. Actually, I'm a big Dungy fan, and now, every time I go by their stadium, there's a stirring in my heart for the Colts, one which I must suppress, just in case the 'Skins make a comeback.

A mother and her two sons

A day at the Hospital

Today was Sean's first visit to the heart doctor, Dr.Lane. Where do I start...maybe keep it simple. All in all, Sean did pretty well with having doctors and nurses probing him, measuring him, clipping electrodes to his chest. If there's a highlight, it was watching Sean get an Echocardiogram (?). It's like the one pregnant women get, but this one took a look at his heart. Fascinating to see a human heart pump and girate.

Here's the bottom line: Sean is operating on 2/3 rds of his hearts capacity. He has three things wrong with it:
1. Transposition of the Great Arteries
2. Ventricular Septal Defect
3. Pulmonary Stinosis
(may not have gotten all the spelling right).
Oddly, the doctor said that having the three defects has actually helped him, that if one of those problems did not exist, he would be in a graver situation. Normal hearts operate with two arteries, but Sean, having had one surgery in China, is operating on one artery. I could show you this on a diagram I have, so my explanation here will be lacking. Once Sean has surgery, he will still be operating on one artery and primarily one atrium. Not uncommon for those who have had this problem. This however means he will never be an athlete or compete in vigerous activity.

Dawn asked about the lifespan of people who have had this done, and the doctor said most people they have been able to track are now in their 40's. That doesn't mean Sean has only until his 40's. It just means they've been doing this surgery for 40 years, so their first patients are now in their 40's. Sean will always have to have regular checkups on his heart, and may have to take medicine all his life. Not sure yet on that though. You and I operate at 99% oxygen levels, whereas Sean is around 83. When he cries it drops to the 60's, and that is a more dangerous level. If he can stay at the 80 level, he will not need surgery until he's 4. This allows his heart to grow and there is more room to operate and make corrections. He will have three month checkups until then.

So, for now, we live life as normally as one can with a toddler running the house. I'm sure I will have more on this as I get educated and we learn more. Thanks for your prayers, and as you think of him and our family...continue to pray that God heals his heart as I know He can.

Hand Painting

Dawn and I bought a print by this gentleman, probably one of the few things we saw that wasn't a knock-off. When you come to our house we'll show you.

Poll: When flying, what seat do you prefer?

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

Home

Adjustments

Sean seems to be fitting in quite well. We were told in the beginning before we got him that he had a laid back personality. That has held true. When we go for a stroller ride, he just sits there, chin on his arms which rest on the front bar, watching the lines go by on the pavement. Cute.

We're not sure what went on in the orphanage when it came to bed time. That and nap time. This is the one time of day he reallybreaks down and cries, with an almost angry cry. Tonight was not too bad. When Liz and Will were toddlers, they moved from a crib, to the side of our bed At one point, they were both in our room, one on each side. I remember thinking, this won't last for long. They will soon be grown and want their own space. That held true also. Now we are trying it with Sean. We noticed while we were in China, Sean seemed to fall asleep faster when the TV was on-noise. So we are not as cautious to tell everyone, hush!

Oh yea, I do have other kids, so I will mention Will is dealing with a staff infection on his heal, something he had before going to China, and it never went away. Doctor gave him the next dosage higher today. Friday we go to Akron Childrens Hospital for a two hour, plus, appointment to find out about Sean's heart.

Photo Editor: Picnik.com

I came across a site that allows you to play and edit your photos. Until now, I've only been using Picasa (from Google)to play with my photos, but this site has a little bit more. It's called Picnik.com. If you like that sort of thing, check it out. This photo hardly represents what you can do, but I need to get back to work, so not much time to play with it

Our home for 11 Days

Somehow we managed to put up with each other for 11 days in this room. It makes our house seem like a mansion now. I guess that was a good thing

Home

We are home now. Our flight from New Jersey was uneventful other than we were the only people sleeping on the plane. Today is a day of adjustment, as will Sunday. I was able to sleep last night, and felt good this morning, but it is now 8:30pm and I've been fighting to stay awake. Dawn had less sleep than I, adn the kids have taken naprs, so I think they will be turning out the lights. 9:oo is fast approaching and I don't think we'll make it past then.

We all ventured out to the store to get Sean a booster seat and groceries. He's cool with the car seat.

Friday we go to the heart doctor to find out what is ahead if us. Liz will be able to visit a friend at the same hospital who is battling cancer.

Ok, more later. Sooooooooo tired.

Almost home

I had so much more to blog about the end of our time in Gaungzhou, but things got really busy right at the end, and we had to catch a train right after a swearing in ceremony at the US Consulate (more on that later), barely had time to say good bye to XiXi, and all the while lugging 5 pieces of luggage onto a train.

Anyway, I can come back to all that later. I write while sitting in the New Jersey airport, so I don't quite feel at home yet. They do speak the same langauge here, but with a different dialect, and it is very international here as well.

God has really given us a gem in Sean. There were several moments on the plane when he cried, but it didn't last long. This guy is a traveller, so he fits right into our family. And he's a deep sleeper. Once asleep, noise doesn't seem to bother him. He has other than the first few days, he is attaching to Dawn-which is good, but that means she gets to do the holding of him quite a bit. Also, for those of you who will see him in the near future, he doesn't like stuffed animals...don't know why, but he kind of fusses at that. He does like to imitate things like talking on the phone, playing with buttons that light up, ect....

Well, the mind is starting to fog over so I better sign off. More thoughts, highlights, and photos coming soon. Thanks for following our journey to China to adopt Sean, and for praying for us, we certainly appreciated that.

A day at the park

 

 

Red Couch

 

There's a tradition here that adopting families from the same agency get together and have their kids pictures taken together. Yea, mine is the one crying. His passport photo will look the same.

Lost In Translation

I've been to three different countries that speak something other than English. So I am always appreciative of those who make the effort to learn my language, and end up speaking a pretty good amount of it. I may learn a few phrases in their language, and that seems to be enough to make them happy. So far, we've gotten by really well here and the people we've met usually communicate with us well. There was once when I thought I got a good deal on something when I heard the girl say the item was 17 (yuan), when it ended up being 70. Oh. Still a good deal.

Tonight, someone in my clan was able to plug our toilet. It wasn't me. But it was I who had to go to the front desk and ask for a plunger. I went back to the room and soon enough, the housekeeper knocked on the door. Good, she's here. Now we can all get back to business, or doing business. When I opened the door, the housekeeper was standing there with a surge protector. What was I supposed to do with that? I wonder what you get when you ask for a surge protector?

 

 

The finest Italian Restaurant I've eaten in

 

I mistakenly order a pizza with anchovies...won't do that again. However, we had a lasagna with the freshest ingredients... and a tarimasu with coffee dripping out of the layers...oooooohhhhhh...and Liz ordered a "lemonade" that ended up being freshly squeezed melons of sorts. Very good!

 

 

 

Man,this lemon is good

 

 

Keeping a low profile

 

I'll have my people call your people

Concrete

 

This is where all your concrete is going. So many buildlings look like this one. You need to put 10 million people somewhere

 

Many people have bikes, and most aren't any newer than this one

 

Help me w/ English

 

Kids are encouraged to talk to westerners to help with their English

Contrasts

XiXi took us to a bookstore today, and things couldn't be more different at this store than the ones I work in. Some of you reading this may not realize that the independent bookstores I work with have been struggling to survive the last several years. One issue stores in the US face is generating foot traffic. There are times I walk into one of my accounts and there are 6 staff people and me-that's it.

What I experienced today was crazy. First, you need to picture a Borders Bookstore. Now make that store have 5 stories to it. Now fill it with so many people, you can only "scootch" along. Add a stroller in front of you, and an 11 year old behind you getting shoved from his behind and you might get a feeling for what I'm talking about. I have never seen so many people looking and buying books. You literally could not walk, but had to do a sort of tip-toe through the crowd. Now granted, this store is also the supplier for text books, and today is the start of summer break. So being Sunday, parents are bringing their kids to buy books so they have something to do for the summer. Here is the other contrast-what are our kids looking to do for summer break-it sure isn't reading and studying. Dawn reminds me they have no balance. True enough. And, I just read that 5.5 million kids are graduating from college this year in China, and will be competing with 700,000 kids who could not find employment last year. Still, is was interesting to see so many people buying so many books. I wish the stores I see saw even a fraction of the traffic I saw today.

Most of the books were obviously in Chinese, but they did have bilingual books and had a pretty good section of English only books. I saw the book I bought in the US for $7.00, here it was $11.00. Howver, Dawn was able to buy quite a few books that are bilingual for $20, and would cost maybe, $50 in the US. We also bought 10 DVD's of the good and legal quality for $30. At home these would have cost between $250-$300. We watched CARS and were able to watch it in English, but I was unable to get rid of the Chinese sub-titles. That's ok, it will help us learn Chinese.

Happy

For those of you who do not have high speed interent and cannot watch the video, this picture is for you.

Getting some smiles

I think Sean looks at Will and thinks, "Entertain me boy!"

Eating w/ Chopsticks

This was from our time in Hong Kong. I'm only now figuring out how to post videos.

Phewww!

From the front page of Saturday's CHINA DAILY newspaper:

"Restaurants told to take dog meat off menus"
Beinjing's 112 officially designated Olympic restaurants have been banned from selling dog meat during the Olympics, the city's food safety administration has said. Non-designated restaurants have also been encouraged not to serve the meat, a notice drawn up earlier by the administration said.

'Dog meat sales are being suspended as a mark of respect for foreigners and people from ethnic groups....' But some locals have said the ban is an overreation, aimed at pleasing Westerners. Wei Wei, 30, who lives in Beijing's Chaoyang District, said most Chinese people do not eat dog. 'Dog is only a tiny part of Chineses cuisine,' she said. The Olympic Games should be a platform to show cultural differences and tolerance, she said.

A day at the zoo part 2

See blog below for details about photos

These pandas came from the earthquake region