It's final . . . she's ours!

Today we had to go back to the Civil Affairs Office to do a bit more paperwork and have two short interviews. We were asked by the officials questions such as:
Why did you want to adopt?
Why did you want to adopt from China?
Are you willing to adopt her?
Are you satisfied with her?
We sort of chuckled (afterwards of course) at some of the questions because the wording seems a little funny but of course we told them we're satisfied with her - so yes, we passed the interviews and we get to keep her! :) Here's a picture of the three of us after we were done finalizing everything.

And here are some more of her just because she's so darn cute!

As you can see Denise, the outfit just fits her - and we thought we'd be rolling the pants and sleeves! Not this chunky monkey. She started out as one of the smallest babies and now she's one of the heaviest babies in our group! Gives us more to squeeze. I was tickling her chunky belly today and she was just giggling away. Very contagious.

Yes, the referral was right . . . she does love to sleep face down! And she puts her bum in the air too - so cute.

Answers to some of your questions:

Yes, we did get our care package back that we sent to the orphanage when we got our referral and we know it was opened and out because it all has the orphanage smell on it. The disposable camera says there are 0 pictures remaining so I assume they took some of her over the last two months. We'll get it developed when we get home. The orphanage also gave us all a little photoalbum that they put together with three or four pictures of Samara - not sure when they were taken but they're really cute and it's a neat keepsake.

Regarding food, I haven't eaten a lot . . . being the picky eater I am. The room service we ordered last night was Chinese -the menu for room service is limited and I actually didn't eat it - I'm glad I brought granola bars. Breakfast is good though and the food is definitely a lot better here in Guangzhou than it was in Beijing (maybe a personal opinion). There are four McDonald's within walking distance from our hotel - haven't gone there yet but I know some people in our travel group have. Tonight we're venturing out to find the Pizza Hut that's fairly close by here - should be ok.

Yes, we are going to visit Samara's orphanage next week. I'm looking forward to seeing where she's been hanging out for the first part of her life. I also have some more questions for the director. In the excitment of the "gotcha moment" you tend to forget specific things you wanted to ask.

Anyway, that's it for now. Thanks again for all your comments and emails. It's been really nice to hear from so many of you.

Sleeping Beauty

It's a little hard to see in this picture but here she is fast asleep with her middle and ring fingers in her mouth. That's what she does when she's tired and then she just lies down on her own and falls asleep. She was really stuffed up yesterday but before bed we gave her some decongestant and it worked like a charm. She fell asleep shortly after 10:00 pm last night (only because it took us forever to get her bathed and she didn't seem impressed with the bottle either). Anyway, she slept right through and she's still sleeping now at 7:15 am. We're off to do the final paperwork to make her an official Carmody today. We board the bus at 8:30 to go to the Civil Affairs Office again where this is done. I think it's an all morning thing. Looks like we may have to wake her up to get her dressed and to get breakfast for us all if we are going to be on time. I'm hoping to do a bit of shopping this afternoon too because most of the onesies (undershirts) I brought for her are too small. Who knew she'd be such a chunky monkey?

SAMARA!!!

She's here and she's precious! She's absolutely perfect. Wow. What a great day. We headed over to the Civil Affairs Office at around 2:00 this afternoon. We had to gather in this room and one by one our names were called and babies were placed into our arms. What a feeling - to finally hold this precious little one that God has chosen for our family. I was really surprised to see how much weight she's gained - she's such a chunky monkey! She didn't cry at all when she was passed to us. She kept looking at us and studying our faces. We had a chance to speak with Ms. Tang, the orphanage director, and ask a few questions and find out a bit about her schedule. When we got back to the hotel, we fed her a bottle with formula and congee and she literally downed it in about 30 seconds! She's been playing happily ever since and even had a short nap. When she's tired she just puts two fingers in her mouth, lies down and falls asleep. We've already had many smiles from her and even a few giggles. Man is she cute!!! Anyway, we just ordered room service and I'm starving so that's it for now. We have some good video too but I'll have to wait until we home to Canada to post those.

Thanks to Liz who posted a comment about how to blog in China so that it's in English - very helpful.

We're here!!

Hello everyone. Wow . . . that was the longest day ever! Our flight left Toronto airport at 8:00 am (actually it was about an hour late but still gave us tons of time to catch our connecting flight in Vancouver. We boarded the plane finally at 4:30 pm (January 30)and touched down in Beijing at 4:00 pm local time (January 31). Isn't that insane? I think the flight was about 11 1/2 hours from Vancouver to Beijing and honestly about halfway, I had had enough. Did I mention how long that flight is? Our guide, Shirley, met us at the airport and everything went very smoothly there. It was about an hour bus ride from the airport to our hotel because of rush hour - and I mean rush hour! Traffic is crazy here. :) We then checked in, organized our luggage, had a bite to eat at the hotel here and finally crashed about 9:00 pm. We slept great . . . until about 2:30 am and we've been awake ever since. It's strange because you're so exhausted and think you could sleep for days but 5 1/2 hours later we were wide awake. I think our clocks are a bit messed up. So here I am blogging at 4:30 am (Thursday morning - not sure what happened to Wednesday). I hope I can figure this all out because Blogger is all in Chinese.

Our wake up call this morning will be at 5:00 - obviously no need for that. We're going to meet downstairs for breakfast and then board the bus at 6:20 to go back to the airport. What a whirlwind! We catch our plane to go to Guangzhou at 8:45 and I think it's a 3 hour flight. By the time we get there, we'll have just enough time to throw our bags in our room and we'll be out the door again to get Samara. Can you believe that? It's so soon now. And the funny thing is that it still doesn't seem real. I suppose it's gonna take having her in our arms finally to make it very, very real. We were looking out our window last night saying, "I can't believe we're in China!"

We had a chance to call home quickly last night. It was nice to talk to the kids (and you too Peggy). They sound like they're having a lot of fun.

Thank you to everyone who has left comments and emails. When I opened my sympatico account this morning, I had 48 messages! Awesome. It's so nice to hear from everyone.

For those of you who had problems leaving a comment, this is how you do it: Underneath this post it will say 5 comments or however many comments there are for this post. Just click on that and you should be able to leave a comment without a blogger account by just signing in as anonymous.

We're here!!

Hello everyone. Wow . . . that was the longest day ever! Our flight left Toronto airport at 8:00 am (actually it was about an hour late but still gave us tons of time to catch our connecting flight in Vancouver. We boarded the plane finally at 4:30 pm (January 30)and touched down in Beijing at 4:00 pm local time (January 31). Isn't that insane? I think the flight was about 11 1/2 hours from Vancouver to Beijing and honestly about halfway, I had had enough. Did I mention how long that flight is? Our guide, Shirley, met us at the airport and everything went very smoothly there. It was about an hour bus ride from the airport to our hotel because of rush hour - and I mean rush hour! Traffic is crazy here. :) We then checked in, organized our luggage, had a bite to eat at the hotel here and finally crashed about 9:00 pm. We slept great . . . until about 2:30 am and we've been awake ever since. It's strange because you're so exhausted and think you could sleep for days but 5 1/2 hours later we were wide awake. I think our clocks are a bit messed up. So here I am blogging at 4:30 am (Thursday morning - not sure what happened to Wednesday). I hope I can figure this all out because Blogger is all in Chinese.

Our wake up call this morning will be at 5:00 - obviously no need for that. We're going to meet downstairs for breakfast and then board the bus at 6:20 to go back to the airport. What a whirlwind! We catch our plane to go to Guangzhou at 8:45 and I think it's a 3 hour flight. By the time we get there, we'll have just enough time to throw our bags in our room and we'll be out the door again to get Samara. Can you believe that? It's so soon now. And the funny thing is that it still doesn't seem real. I suppose it's gonna take having her in our arms finally to make it very, very real. We were looking out our window last night saying, "I can't believe we're in China!"

We had a chance to call home quickly last night. It was nice to talk to the kids (and you too Peggy). They sound like they're having a lot of fun.

Thank you to everyone who has left comments and emails. When I opened my sympatico account this morning, I had 48 messages! Awesome. It's so nice to hear from everyone.

For those of you who had problems leaving a comment, this is how you do it: Underneath this post it will say 5 comments or however many comments there are for this post. Just click on that and you should be able to leave a comment without a blogger account by just signing in as anonymous.

Sleep?

Was I supposed to sleep last night? It's 4:20 am and I'm blogging! Can you believe that? Didn't sleep too much - I'll crash at some point I suppose.

So we're off. That's it - see you in Beijing!



P.S. - Happy Birthday Scott!

Specific Prayer Requests

We know that so many of you will be thinking about us while we are away and here are a few specific requests to add to your prayer list:

- pray for safety and good health for us (including my mom) as we travel and during our stay in China
- pray for health and safety for Samara and also pray for her as she goes through a huge life change
- pray for health and safety for Victoria and Austin and Grandma and Grandpa Carmody as they stay behind and that all may go well with that

Thank you so much for your continued thoughts and prayers.

Stay tuned . . . the best is yet to come.

2 more sleeps . . .

Before:
(yes, my eyes are closed for a reason . . . perhaps a tad overwhelmed and not wanting to look!)





After:


Ok, that's only the two for Guangdong . . . now to work on the two for Beijing!

The Cute Canada Outfit

Ok, ok Kathy, I'll tell you. I found out where my sister got that cute Canada outfit for Samara. Are you ready for this? No, it wasn't Roots (although it's cute enough to be from there). It's from The Bargain Shop. I had never heard of this store before but they're actually all over Canada. There's even one in your small town Dawn! Check out the website and you can see if there's one where you live. I'm not sure if all stores have the same merchandise but it's worth taking a look. And the best part is there are a whole bunch of different ones. I really wanted another one but my sister wasn't completely sure which one I'd want so she bought a few and let me pick. (she's going to return the rest by the way). So here they are:

Thursday

Well I feel like I should post something today but I have nothing to say. Here's what I'm up to today:

and this:



So that's it - not much happening here.

Oh ya, one more thing:

5 more sleeps!!!!

Oh Canada!

Here's one of the outfits Samara will be wearing in China:




How cute is that?? She'll have no clue what it says and she'll have no clue how cute she's going to be in it but I'm tellin' ya . . . I'll be one proud mama!! (thanks Aunt Dees)

Nine more sleeps!

We've reached single digits now! Only nine more opportunities to sleep . . . I hope I'm able to sleep for all nine of them. :) So far so good in the sleep department. I think because my mind is so busy all day long with a hundred and one things all at once, by the time bedtime comes around I'm so exhausted that I fall right to sleep (last night it was 8:30 pm!) Hopefully I'll continue to have good sleeps so I feel rested when we board that plane in nine short days.

Dear Samara . . .

XOXOXXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO . . .

11 more sleeps and we're on our way!

In China Itinerary

We received our itinerary yesterday and now it's getting even more real. I can't believe we're leaving in 13 more sleeps! It's coming so fast now and we're so excited.

We leave Toronto airport on Tuesday, January 30 and have a short stop over in Vancouver. From Vancouver, we fly direct to Beijing and arrive there (with the 13 hour time difference) on Wednesday, January 31. We will stay for one night in Beijing and on Thursday, February 1, we will fly from Beijing to Guangzhou and that same day is GOTCHA DAY!!!! For those of you who aren't familiar with adoption lingo, that's the day we actually get Samara. We will stay in Guangzhou until February 9. Here's the hotel we will be staying in:



During our stay in Guangzhou we will be busy sightseeing, shopping, and just trying to get to know our daughter. We are scheduled to see things like the Six Banyan Temple, the Guangzhou Zoo, the White Cloud Mountain in between all the paperwork that needs to be completed such as the final adoption paperwork and Samara's passport. So needless to say, we'll be very busy!

On Friday, February 9 we will be flying from Guangzhou back to Beijing and will be staying in this hotel:



Again, we will be very busy touring around and taking in as much of China's culture as we can. We will be seeing thing such as the Great Wall, Tian’an Men Square, Forbidden City and again more paperwork and a medical for Samara.

Between caring for Samara and all the sightseeing that's scheduled, I have a feeling this trip will go by very fast. On Thursday, February 15, we will be flying directly from Beijing to Toronto.

Wow, it's still so hard to believe that we will finally be united with our little girl. Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we get all the last minute details in place.

Carmody Pharmacy

I think I pretty much have the medicine part of our packing covered! We could seriously open up our own pharmacy with all these drugs. Can you believe how much we need to bring? Apparently it's good to have everything covered because you never know what is avaiable in China.

Chinese Lanterns

Look what I found! Can you believe the dollar store sells Chinese lanterns? I was so excited when I saw them there and of course I couldn't resist. We probably won't get too into Chinese New Year this year since we'll only be home from China for a few days when it begins. But party or no party, we'll have some pretty cool lanterns to hang up!

Packing . . .

Ok, it's been a long time since I've posted on this blog. What have I been up to? You're looking at it. Packing for the trip of a lifetime!!!

I can't believe what a big job it is. I haven't even attempted putting it in a suitcase and weighing it yet. Apparently Air Canada will let us check in two suitcases per person, each weighing no more than 50 lbs. (100 lbs per person). But then when we arrive in China we will need to leave some of our luggage in storage in Beijing. when we fly from Beijing to the province where Samara is (Guangdong) we are only allowed to take one suitcase per person, each weighing 44 lbs. That's a huge difference! So we'll have to get it all figured out here and have it all weighed so we know exactly what we're taking to Guangdong since I'm sure the hotel room in Beijing won't have a bathroom scale. Just typing about this is stressing me out!!

Ok, that's not all I've been up to. I went shopping with my sister yesterday. We met at Vaughn Mills and shopped till we dropped. I took Austin with me and my sister took my 3-year-old neice along too. Shopping with kids isn't always recommended and can often lead to frustration and cutting the trip short . . . however, they were great and had a lot of fun together. We arrived at 10:00 am and left at around 7:00 pm. (that includes playtime breaks and two meals - lunch and supper). But it was a long day and Austin crashed pretty much as soon as we got into the van to drive home. But being a prepared mom, I already had him in his pj's and transferred him right into bed when we got home. What a great day we had - and probably my last outing for a long time. I bought a few things for Samara - The Children's Place had some great deals and I really couldn't resist. The best deal though was at Please Mum where I got two pairs of tights for Samara for a grand total of $2.10!!

A few of my shopping deals . . .

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Please pray

Just before Christmas I found out that one of my good friends was diagnosed with breast cancer. I do not want to print her name on this blog but I'm asking that you please pray for her and her husband and children. She is the same age as me, which is way to young to be fighting this dreadful disease. Today we got horrible news that she also has a spot on her liver which is cancerous.

I do not understand this at all and I'm having a hard time dealing with it. But I do know that God is in control and He has her life in His hands!

Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits- who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, - Psalm 103:3-4

Congratulations!

Well referrals are pouring in all over the world right now. We just want to say congratulations to all those families who are seeing the faces of their little ones for the first time today (or perhaps tomorrow). We know exactly the joy and excitement you're feeling right now. I love looking at all those pictures on the blogs - so cute!

It's only been a month ago since we got our referral phone call about Samara but man does it ever feel like forever ago! C'mon January - are you almost done??

China from the Inside

In case anyone is interested, PBS will be airing a new documentary on China. It's a four part series starting on Wednesday, January 10. Here's what the website says about it:

Debut: Documentaries about China, focusing on topics like women, nature and freedom. First up: the Communist Party's control over 1.3 billion people. Included: village elections; corruption and people's trust; comments from citizens.



Think they'll give us any tips on what to pack for an adoption journey??? (ha ha!!)

Beautiful City Names

When we named our first two children, Victoria and Austin, we realized that their names were names of cities. This was totally not an intentional thing - we just liked the names.

Victoria, British Columbia, Canada:

Victoria, British Columbia is always in season! Victoria has the mildest climate in Canada, and is a place so green all year that flowers fall out of the sky and even the lamp posts bloom. It is no wonder that it is called The Garden City! The wild beauty of the Pacific coast and the adventure of the great outdoors are within the city limits and ocean and mountain vistas will follow you wherever you go. (taken from the Tourism Victoria website)

Austin, Texas, USA:
Austin is the seat of Texas' state government. The Texas Capitol is the largest state capitol(taken from the City of Austin Website).

Austin is just simply not like the rest of Texas. From the quirky cast of characters that populate Congress Avenue to burnt orange-clad University of Texas students, bats to Longhorns, four-star restaurants to down-home barbecue joints, corporate CEOs to struggling musicians, Texas' capital city stands apart from the rest.

It's hip and trendy, yet in a vintage sort of way. It's high-tech and laid-back. It's politically charged and culturally rich. It's eclectic by nature and creative by design. Most of all, it's a place where people like to have a good time (taken from the Austin, Texas website).


Well, guess what? Samara is also a city - in Russia:


Samara is located on the left bank of the Volga river. Most of the city area occupies the country between the Volga river and its left tributaries — Samara and Sok. The city length down the river front is 50 km from the north to the south, its northern boundary is formed by Sokolyi Hills ranging on the bank of the Sok river.

The city stretches out from the Volga to the east for 20 km and adjoins limitless prairies (known here as steppes). The land within the city boundaries covers 46 597 ha. From the heights of Samara one can see one of the most picturesque places of the Volga bend. Most of the Zhiguli Hills area is situated on the territory of the national park Samarskaya Luka.

Samara is situated in the zone where climate is of continental type characterized by hot summer and cold winter. The average temperature of the warmest month (July) is +23.2°C. In summer the temperature can be as high as +39°C, and in winter it sometimes drops to -43°C. (taken from the official website of Samara)


And Samara is also a beautiful beach!

Samara Beach, Costa Rica:

Costa Rica's hidden tropical paradise on the Pacific coast.

Samara has a superb coral reef and its own picturesque wooded island in the bay - Isla Chora. It's popular with swimmers and windsurfers, and it's an ideal beach for your kids. Samara is not only a charming beach resort, with a wide choice of friendly and attractive hotels, restaurants, bars and discos, but, unlike other Pacific Ocean resorts, it is also a thriving fishing and farming community (taken from the Samara Beach website).

How cool is that?

Boxing Day deals

It's kind of tradition to hit the stores here right after Christmas for those Boxing Day sales. This year we thought perhaps we'd look to see if there were any good deals on a video camera. We really want to take one to China but of course they're not cheap. Anyway, Mike's parents surprised us and bought us one for Christmas. Wow! (thanks Barry and Peggy!!!) One more thing off the list.

Well we decided to go shopping anyway just for fun. The first thing I found was this Leap Frog doll "Lily" for Samara.

I've thought about getting one for her before because I think it would be a good way to teach her colours, numbers and letters. When I saw it on Boxing Day at Sears it was a good price and I couldn't resist. Then when I went up to pay for it, it was even cheaper than I thought - gotta love that! We plan to give this to Samara for her 1st birthday and I feel good that I will have something to give her because we will only be home from China for two weeks when she turns one and I can't see myself getting out to do a lot of shopping in that time.

After we left the mall, we headed over to Chapters bookstore just to browse. When I walked in the door I saw a large display of Robeez slippers and was immediately drawn to them. I had a pair for Austin when he was little and they're great. Since I've never seen them go on sale, I was so surprised to see the "50% off" sign. That's right . . . 50% off!!! Can you believe that?

I think they were on sale because they're part of the 2006 Holiday Collection. So despite the fact that Samara's footwear will be outdated, I think they're cute! In fact, I liked them so much, I got a blue pair for my little nephew too (now you know how much I paid for them David and Christel!)

Referral Party

Last night we finally had our official referral party. Let's face it, we've been celebrating our referral since Dec 1st but last night we got together with our travel group. These are the greatest people in the world. We are so lucky to be part of CB group #244. We will be travelling and hanging out with all these people in China. We all get along so well and have a great time when we get together. Thank you to Brian and Andrea who opened their home to all of us (over 20 people including four children!) and were great hosts. Their house is beautiful and little Emma has the cutest room all ready and waiting for her. They did a great job on it. Brian and Andrea also gave us all a little gift of stickers for our lifebooks. How thoughtful. Thank you so much.



We also received another gift from Paul and Angela. I'm telling you, these people are so thoughtful. Angela put together little personalized packages for all of us. She made her own fortune cookies with personalized messages for us. There were gold coins (chocolate) and the best was a little red beaded bracelet for Samara with a ladybug on it. So cute. Thanks Paul and Angela.



It was so nice seeing everyone again last night. You could just feel the excitement in the air. It was great! We feel blessed to be part of such an awesome group of people.

See you all in China!!!!

From our home to yours . . .