Girls Doing Well, Parents Tired

The girls are doing great. They are full of life, crazy for food, having tons of fun, and are generally adjusting to their new life well.

We are doing fine, too, but we are TIRED! These kids are on-the-go non stop! They are so curious about everything.

They are beginning to form a few English words, including mamma, dadda, cat (much to Ophelia's dismay), and do/go. At least that's what we think they are saying!

They *really* like to rock on their rocking horse.

Anyway, time is limited. Gotta run for now.

Nice Trash

Breaking from the twins topic for a moment, I thought I would post this picture of the Valdez family trash pickup locale. This has to be one the nicest trash pickup areas I have ever seen.

Nice work Valdez. ;^)

Cheerioholics Anonymous

I think we're going to need the 12 step plan for our daughters' Cheerios addiction.

They LOVE the O's. We are now conditioned to always have a steady supply on-hand to avoid any "incidents".

It's a good thing they are cool with the plain, non-sugary variety.

Hmmm...I could even picture the twins on the cover of a Cheerios box, mouth stuffed full of O's of course.

China Pictures

Check out my Flickr site. I've added a bunch of photos from the trip.

The girls are doing awesome except for the irregular sleep schedule. This makes for tired parents. I have gotten about 12 hours of sleep in 3 days.

Jet Lag

The kids are jet-lagged, and we are too. They've had a difficult time getting some rest this last two nights. Olivia is up now, and it took about 3 hours to get Vivienne to bed.

I tried to stroller them around the hood this afternoon while Shell trekked to Target, but Viv cried until I picked her up. At least Liv sacked out within the first five minutes or carrying two kids and pushing a stroller would have been challenging.

I did managed to get my front lawn mowed this evening, and I installed another baby gate since the girls decided climbing the stairs was really fun.

Through all this craziness, the cat is being surprisingly calm.

I wish I had one of these Chinese PBRs right about now. Oh and the beer/soda cans in China all have the old skool pull tab style tops from the 1970s. Odd.

Home With the Girls

Well, after 15 days we made it home. I didn't get to blog from Hong Kong, but it was great. OK, HK is just simply amazing.

I will try to add pictures of HK plus many photos of the girls and other sites in China on my Flickr site so stay tuned.

The girls were very grumpy on the flight from HK to Tokyo, but they slept most of the way thru the flight from Tokyo to Seattle. We are all a bit jet-lagged, but feeling fine.

Our neighbors and friends had our house nicely decorated for us when we got home today (or is it tomorrow, I dunno). Thanks again to EVERYONE who helped keep our kitty, and our house functioning (i.e. my grass is still green) while we were away.

I was going to make a longer post tonight, but I am seeing double, and require additional sleep. Plus, the girls are cranky and need some attention so I must go and help mommy and Grammy Robinson put them to bed.

We had a wonderful trip overall. China is a really interesting country, and I look forward to going back when the girls are a little older.

The picture attached to this message is from the second to the last day at the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou.

Guanzhou

We are in Guangzhou now. The city is very cool, and much more modern than Nanchang. We are staying at the White Swan Hotel. The surrounding city is full of shops, and old trees, and lots of water.

The girls got their medical checkups today. They are normal, weigh 17-18 pounds and are perfectly healthy. They didn't like the exams. :)

Every day they smile more and more, and we think they are calling us mamma and dadda, but it could just be baby talk or Mandarin. LOL!

Kids need a nap and so do I. I feel a cold coming on, so I need some rest for the city tour this afternoon.

Anyway, more later. We leave here in 3 or 4 days for Hong Kong.

Cheers,

- Chris

Crazy Storm, Crazy Flight

Just after my last post, the sky erupted and a monsoon descended upon Nanchang. Lightning was cracking everywhere, and literally at the same instant the thunder came. It was sort of scary, and a little surreal. We had a great time in Nanchang.

Our short one hour and ten minute flight felt like a five hour flight since we were split up, and little Vivienne cried and squirmed the enitre time (no joke). We got into Guangzhou late last night.

All is well.

Trouble with MSN Email

If you have tried to contact me using my MSN account (chriscastleberry69@msn.com) I have not been able to access it from here. You can use my Google mail account ( chris.castleberry@gmail.com) instead.

Oh and btw, I wanted to expand on the Walmart experience. It was like nothing I have ever seen. There was literally a sea of people in the store, and the store was HUGE! I would normally have had a bit of anxiety in that sort of situation, but I felt very calm. Odd.

Anyway, gotta get back to Rachelle and the girls.

Bye...

Nanchang With the Girls

Wow. We've been in Nanchang (Jinfeng Hotel) for a few days now, and it's been wonderful. On the first day, we had about 2-3 hours from the time we got off the plane to the moment we met Feng Chushuai and Feng Chushuang (now Olivia Chushuai and Vivienne Chushuang).

We were the first in our group to meet our babies. They looked a little older, more hair, and they cried a lot at first. They are SO BEAUTIFUL, and SO SWEET. We are in love!

Vivienne took to me and Olivia to Rachelle. For a couple of days, they would not go to the opposite parent, but that has changed. They laugh a lot, they play, babble in baby talk, and fight each other for toys, which means they are pretty normal babies.

We've seen many sights so far here in Nanchang. Nanchang is much different that Beijing. It is wild, with traffic going all ways with pedestrians bicycles and scooters zooming in between. Even though there seems like a constant state of chaos, it just works.

We have met many locals on the street, and they have all been very nice, and really happy to see our little girls with happy parents.

Rachelle found a little shop that made the girls a bracelet. While at the shop, the owner asked about the birthday of the girls. When Rachelle told her 7/20/05, she smiled and produced two small newspaper ads with their pictures taken the day they were found, 7/26/05. Amazing!

The weather here is hot, and the humidity is so bad that it feels like you are in a very large sauna. We've had some local food, and it was VERY GOOD, not like the crud they try to feed you in some Chinese restaurants in the states.

We are leaving here in about three days, and heading to Guangzhou for four days, then Hong Kong for two, and then home.

We are having a ton of fun with these kids, but it is WORK! Our travel group and some other groups here have been awesome, and so helpful. We went to the Walmart in Nanchang, and got a little carried away so our new friends had to help us carry all our baby stuff back to the bus.

All the babies in our travel group seem happy, and healthy. All are VERY adorable.

Oh, the local beer here is great, but I couldn't resist buying some PBR at the market across the street.

OK, probably forgetting something, but I need to sign off for now. I will try to blog again before we leave Nanchang, but if I don't look for a post from the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou.

Bye for now...

- Chris, Rachelle, Vivienne, and Olivia.

P.S. For Michael, Lynda and Aunt Tiffer, please say hello to Ophelia for us and tell her we miss her. To the new grandmas and grandpas, you are going to adore these little kids. They are loads of fun!