Bamboo Sprouts

Bella sweet Bella.

Four years ago, we were in Hubei China meeting our sweet Isabella Jiao.  She was feisty from day one.  Somewhere around day three, I came clean with my thoughts.  What had we DONE??  LOL  Sweet Bella cried and cried and cried her heart out for days on end.  Every now and then there was a smile that lit up the room, and then suddenly, more heart breaking tears.  She grieved hard for the foster family that had obviously adored her during her year in China.  But those little glimpses of her joy gave us hope and eventually her joy took over her grief and Bella would be Bella once again. 

Four years ago, we arrived in China a family of three.

So did our good friends!  We met this family from Florida while in China adopting Sophie in 2003.  We all knew we wanted to return, so we planned to submit our paperwork and request to be matched “together”.  Sure enough, China granted our wild wish!  Our oldest girls are just a couple weeks apart and are both from the same town in China and our youngest girls are both from the same town AND share a birthdate!  We love them like family. 

We all arrived a few days early and toured around Hong Kong a bit since on our first trip, we flew in to Beijing and missed Hong Kong.  We saw lots of sights, including the new Hong Kong Disn*y.

I am always amazed by the BAMBOO scaffolding!

A Chinese pharmacy.

Hong Kong

While there, we visited some friends in Hong Kong and one of my favorite things was seeing their Hong Kong high rise apartment.  MUCH fancier than typical Chinese apartments, but so fun to see how they used their space.  This is their ENTIRE kitchen.  About 2′x4′ floor space.  You are seeing the whole thing.  No oven because most cooking is done stir fry style on stove top.  There is a small fridge, a washing machine and a sink.  The whole house was like this.  Compact and brilliantly designed.

After a few days in Hong Kong, we headed to Wuhan to meet sweet Bella Boo.

Here she had just been handed to us and this is our first photo as a family.  Bella had turned one three days before and was well cared for by a foster family for her entire first year.  She was not nearly as thrilled to see us as we were to see her. 

Back at our hotel room with my TWO girls!  Lucky MaMa.

I love love this photo.  We had just had our Bella for a few hours and that little tear hanging there tells it all.  Our girl grieved and grieved which at the time, was so so hard.  But it turned out to be such a good thing.  She got it all out and once she moved on, she really moved on.  She had clearly been bonded to her foster family and once she grieved, she bonded fiercly to us, particularly to her MaMa, which of course I loved.  I remember just a couple days after she was handed to us, she and I were sitting on the floor in the hall outside of our hotel room.  I was holding her and Sophie came over to talk to me and when she did, she put her hand on my shoulder.  Bella immediately batted Sophies hand away as if to say this is MY MaMa.  Sophie was shocked and put her hand back on me and this went on for a few rounds.  Eventually, I told Sophie that Bella was nervous as she doesnt know us well and we are going to allow her to be a bit naughty for awhile and then she would follow the rules like everyone else does and have nicer manners.  Sophie seemed to think I was nuts but understood and went with it. 

She loved her sink baths so much that we let her have bunches of them in those first days!

We saw lots of sights that week but since we had been to the same town 2 years before, we also skipped some tours and went out and about on our own a lot too.  We were much braver travelers the second and third trips than we were the first trip!

We also spent Halloween in China!  Yes, we packed and drug Halloween costumes in our luggage.  heehee.  The funny thing is that we had also spent Halloween there two years previous when there adopting Sophie.    They dont celebrate Halloween in China and find it to be a very funny holiday but both times we have planned trick or treating with our travel group in the hotel and our guide who stays at the hotel brings her daughter to participate too.  Very fun.

My friend Dawna and her new daughter Mackenzie, me and Bella all ready for trick or treating in the hotel.

Sophie and her friend Madalyn.  Both girls were adopted Oct 27, 2003, also in Wuhan, China and we loved traveling to meet baby sisters together.

Isabella Jiao.  I love that both Sophie and Bella are from Hubei and have the same Chinese name.  Jiao means beautiful in Chinese.

With our guide in China.  We also love her like family.  She helped with our first two adoptions and has even come to visit us at our house when she was visiting Denver once. 

If you are traveling soon, you MUST order the fruit plate at Lucys in Guangzhou!  Spectacular. 

Lucky MaMas with all our girlys.

And we left China a family of four.

Going home with my treasure of a girl. 

Ok I know these posts get so long.  The thing is, I just adore China and our times in China are just the best times of my life.  Meeting my children and getting to see their home country, it’s all just the best, best gift in my whole life. 

So here is Bella now and a bit of our celebration tonight. 

Bella chose make your own banana splits for her treat and a cash register toy for her gift.

Oh how I love this girl.  Four years with this kind of beauty and joy has flown right by for this lucky MaMa.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 25th, 2009 at 10:33 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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