Memorial Day

Today we took a drive around some neighboring country towns since it was a beautiful day. Here is the sight from the front seat of the van... as you can see, we nearly fill it up now! After our drive, we headed to the mall for a few little things, lunch at Chik Fil A, and a quick stop at the indoor playground. Gracelynn and Tommy both played very well on the playground while Ben and Reagan helped Mommy do a little shopping.

On the way home, we stopped at a local park. It was very busy, but it only took Grace about 20 minutes to ease her way from our legs to venture around. She loved the slides! I'm not positive what the official temperature was, but our car showed it at 92 degrees most of the afternoon. Here are some pictures of the kids at the park.

After the hot, hot park, we came home and the kids relaxed in the sprinkler. All in all, it was a nice, relaxing day with the newly expanded Hollar family.

Home For a Week Now

One week ago, we were arriving at the final airport. Whew! What a week. Gracelynn is adjusting just fine to our home. She's quite comfortable with our family, as a matter of fact. She just goes with the flow and does whatever we're doing. She sleeps in her bed just fine (and now has learned to leave the bed when she awakens... not sure that's a good thing just yet...LOL), she naps each day in the afternoon, she finds food when she's hungry (which is ALWAYS), and she loves to explore. Grace eats so much these days (mostly fruit)... I'm having a hard time keeping up with the pull-up changings. The orphanage workers assured us that she is indeed potty-trained, but I'm not sure their definition meets my definition. She will "go potty" whenever we set her on the potty. However, two and a half weeks later, she is still not telling us when she needs to go. I've tried signing and teaching her the English words and even commented on the fact that Tommy goes whenever he needs to, but so far to no avail. So, although Mommy was so ecstatic thinking that she had all children potty-trained, but sure enough, it's not quite true. We're blowing through Pull-ups these days, considering how much she eats! Hopefully we'll get there soon enough.

When she is in the mood, she'll repeat all sorts of words for me. Her favorite three words now (which she can and does say often on her own) are "Tommy", "Mama", and "Reagan".... with surprising clarity too! We've been working on colors and names and other words, and although she can repeat them, so far they aren't committed to memory yet.

Grace has had three days of meeting all sorts of people! On Wednesday, she was met by lots of preschool moms and kids at Tommy's school, and then all of the Brownies after Reagan's meeting. On Thursday, Tommy and Grace rode up in the double stroller to the school to wait

for Reagan and Ben. (BTW, they LOVED that, especially when I had to lift the front wheel to turn... it was like a roller-coaster.) So at the school they met more neighborhood moms and kids. Today she wandered outside for a few minutes to meet the neighbors. Everytime she gets this little furrowed look on her brows as if to say, "What are you all looking at?"

Today was another horrible medical day. I thought I'd take her to the lab to finish up the pediatrician's requests for bloodwork and stool samples. First of all, the pediatrician's office gave me the wrong container for the sample, so we have to do that over again. Secondly, the two nurses took 20 minutes playing with her arms and poking her (twice, while moving the needles all around) just to say they couldn't get the blood. Ugh. The poor thing was soaked from sweat and crying (and so was I from holding her the entire time). It was awful. She was still screaming as we left the office... I can only imagine what the poor people in the waiting room were thinking. Now we get to go back and try again!!! I think I may wait another 1.5 weeks to try again... once Tommy is back in school camp so that I don't have to take him again. He was good, but it's tough enough to hold her while always watching to make sure he's being good too!

We're looking forward to a very UNeventful weekend here. Nothing planned for three whole days... not even sports! YAY! I get to bum around and clean up a little (oh, the house is a mess) and maybe even take a daily shower! We are also SO SUPER fortunate to have a great bunch of friends. My neighbor Joanna organized a meal plan for us. We have people bringing meals nearly everyday for 2 weeks. Wow! So far we've received from the Garmans and Pasqualones... thank you so so so much! It's been wonderful. By afternoon, I've been beat, so the meals have been fantastic!

A last hello to my family... if they can read this from Alaska! Mom, Dad, Tracy and Tim all boarded their Alaskan cruise ship this afternoon and called to say it's going fine so far. I guess Dad survived another 8 hours or so in the air! I envy the relaxation they are enjoying... but not the weather. They said it was in the 50's in Seattle. I'd much rather have our 70's. Oh... but as in tribute to you... I watched 4 episodes of Gray's Anatomy today (Seattle Grace Hospital) to catch up on all the weeks I missed. :-) Everytime I saw the Space Needle, I thought of you guys. Have a good trip! Wish I could be pampered like that! Heck, with 4 kids, I doubt we'll get on another cruise ship till Grace graduates from college.... or we hit the lottery.

A Chinese Folk Song

This was sung to us at the Northern Chinese restaurant we visited (where we sat on a raised-up round bench with our feet under the table in the corner).

Photo Journey Part Three: More Guangzhou

And, our last series of photos for now....

Grace took a photo of Mike. Sorry, Mike... you were the photographer on much of this trip seeing as though I had a 3-year-old attached to me. I don't have many of you!! I'm sure PapPap has more.

Mommy and Gracelynn leaving KFC. It was a normal KFC... no chicken feet there.

Mommy and Gracelynn awaiting Grace's medical exam. Other than not wanting to stand on the scale and get measured, she did great!

Mike blowing bubbles in the room at the White Swan. Grace loved these! See all the packages in the background... we bought a LOT.

The famous "Red Couch" photo of the little girls from our group. The two to the left (Grace and Hannah) were 3. The others are between 1 and 2 years old.

This is our traveling group from CWA. We all had a great time in China and met some wonderful people! Five new US citizens.

During a visit to a Bonsai Garden (of which Christy and Grace stayed home), Mike found a little piece of color in a very green garden... a lotus flower.

This is a view of the lights along the Pearl River, from the BBQ restaurant at the White Swan Hotel.

This is very typical in China... deliveries made on bicycles. Sometimes the bicycles were carrying 2x as much as seen here. Amazing.

The Guangzhou Opera House, as seen from the dinner cruise ship.

Some carvings on a bamboo plant at the Bonsai Garden. Apparently it was a curse, literally translated as "Big Turtle". ooooh!

Alien eyes? Nope. Phone booths. Unlike America, these are found everywhere!

Mommy and Grace posing on the dog statue. Aunt Tracy, it's not a bulldog, but it's close enough!

Our favorite restaurant in Guangzhou... Lucy's! I think we sat at this table three of the five times we visited.

Lucy's, from outside.

Gracelynn, posing all sweet at the airport on our way home. Yep, she's ours!

Photo Journey Part Two: Guangzhou

Here are more photos from our China trip in Guangzhou:

Christy, anxiously awaiting the moment we meet Grace. We're sitting in the Registration Room of the Civil Affairs office until they bring the girls in.

Christy and Grace moments after leaving the Civil Affairs Office. Grace came to me just fine when it was time to go. Maybe it had a lot to do with that lollipop she was so happy to have.

PapPap and Gracelynn on her first morning with the Hollars. She is newly bathed and dressed and ready to go.

Christy, looking at the McDonald's menu before being waited on. :-) You could, of course, order at the registers. But with our big group, this was easier.

Okay... I SWEAR IT! Behind that awful reflection of a window blind, is the Olympic Torch! I waited and waited at that window, hearing the roaring chants outside the restaurant. Just when I caught a glimpse of the torch itself, I snapped the camera. Darn that reflection!!!

This is in a garden courtyard inside the Family Chen Temple. There were very intricate carvings along the roofline. This temple was built by the Chen Family as a way to record their history and preserve their heirlooms.
This is a group of middle-aged women playing something like Hacky Sack, only with a feathery shuttlecock. We bought a shuttlecock to bring home. We may have been "robbed" with the fee of 10 yuan... but that translates to $1.40 or so. Anyone wanna play?

This is the famerse Guangzhou guide Elvin. He is explaining the various dried herbs and creatures that the Chinese use in their foods to promote health. His wife is working on her MD and is specializing in acupuncture. When he mentioned that she gets this stuff free at the hospital, Mike decided he never wanted to visit the hospital.

This is a pedestrian street. It's like Times Square on acid. Lights, flatscreens, and thousands and thousands of people everywhere!!! The green umbrellas were a promotion for a new bottled green tea. We tried it (figuring I was beginning to like tea in China)... and I quickly decided green tea is NOT for me.

Mike bought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers on Mother's Day! Gorgeous! Here is Gracelynn and I on Mother's Day.This is one of my favorite local shopkeepers on Shamian Island, Jordon. His shop was easy to navigate... NO PRESSURE. Whew! Most places had no prices and people following you around, trying to get you to buy more than you intended. I hated that. Mr. Jordon is a Christian and was so easy-going. He made this beautiful sign for me with Gracelynn's name and some Chinese symbols on it. He also described her hometown to me, since we couldn't go. Needless to say, I bought a LOT here.

This is PapPap in front of Starbucks! I love Starbucks. The pricing was pretty comparable to back home. And the Caramel Macchiato was just as wonderful!

Here is Gracelynn on the Shamian Island Park's playground. She pretty much stayed in this position the entire time... had no desire to move or play. Just watched the others.

Photo Journey

Well, we've promised photos, so I'll post a bunch. I was planning to just go back and insert photos to previous posts, but that may confuse too many people, including myself... so here goes. These are from Beijing:Here are Mike and Christy in the new terminal at Beijing Airport. We just passed through Immigration and are heading down for the luggage. This terminal was huge and beautiful.

This was our first dinner in China at a local restaurant to the hotel. We met up with 3 of the 4 other families that night for dinner. Everything was served family-style on a large Lazy Susan. Pretty much the only drinks served at any of the restaurants in China were: tea (of course), bottled water, Sprite and Coke (sometimes), and Chinese beer. And in China, it's unusual to refill drinks. Sometimes one 8oz. glass was all you got, unless they were kind to us Westerners and gave enough for two glasses. A typical Chinese napkin is about the size and consistency of a Kleenex. Really... they must not be a messy folk.

Mike took this photo... thought it was funny to see a normal Budweiser sign in Beijing!

PapPap, Christy, and Mike in the middle of the Forbidden City. What beautiful architecture! If you want to learn more, grab the recent copy of National Geographic featuring CHINA. On the back of the map of China, there is a huge map of the Forbidden City with lots of neat information.

Relic protected. No scratch. Apparently in their long exhaustive restoration of the Forbidden City, people are still putting graffiti on the walls. How sad.

This is a 4 star rated toilet sign. Ha! I beg to differ. They were Squatty Potties! Learned real quick to avoid those... and to always bring along my travel Charmin pack. Our hotels were well stocked... but no restaurant or tourist place ever had toilet paper.

Christy and Mike in the Imperial Garden.

Just a look at a very common means of transportation... bikes.
We found this interesting. See the birdcage in the tree. Older men would come to the parks with their caged birds and hang them in the trees. The men would then play various games and talk. The parks were always loud with birds chattering. Sometimes the birds would even be allowed out of the cages to sit on the men's hands.

What I was so looking forward to seeing: The Bird's Nest (National Stadium for the Olympics). This is as close as we could get. All Olympic venues are still in the works and are heavily guarded by military. I'll just play Wii's Mario vs. Sonic at the Olympics to see what it probably looks like inside. :0) Sorry for the cloudy photo... it was taken from inside the bus.

Ah.... the Biggee! The one thing everyone must see when they visit China... the Great Wall. And Great it was! What you see here is not even the height to which Mike climbed... it continued on another several hundred steps.

Here are Mike and Christy at the bottom, after just entering. Little did we know what we were about to encounter. Unfortunately it was with this shot that our camera battery died!!! PapPap has the only shots from higher up... we'll have to get those loaded someday soon.

See this tiny little bottle and the tiny little cup. I almost died when I thought this was all the wine you were allowed. Ha! This is Chinese Rice Wine. 56% alcohol! One little swig and it cleared up everyone's sinuses. That was it for us!

Isolation Room

Friday night went fine.  Surprisingly, Gracelynn took to her new room and her own bed just beautifully!  I laid her down and allowed her to play with a book and her "JingJing" (the Olympic Panda mascot) with only the soft nightlight on.  She fell asleep just fine with no tears.  That was one of our biggest fears was that she wouldn't like to sleep alone.  Whew!  After just 3 hours of sleep for myself (felt a cold coming on plus had jet lag), I went in to check on Grace at 6am.  She was lying there awake.  I encouraged her to get up.  She did and started to play at her little desk with her Color Wonder markers and books.  Tommy came in and joined her.  Then Reagan.  It was like they'd all known each other for years.  She blended in beautifully with the kids.  We got dressed and came downstairs for some muffins. 

A short time later, my mom arrived to meet Gracelynn and pick up my dad.  Only she also surprised me by bringing my sister Tracy and brother-in-law Tim.  I was so excited... I really had hoped they'd come soon to meet Grace.  Grace took well to everyone... at least on a casual basis.  She did have a minor fall (down 3 steps outside) when she slipped on bubble mixture that had spilled.  Uncle Tim and my mom were able to pick her up and bring her inside to me.  She was fine... just a little shook up.

During my 29 hours of travel, I sneezed a lot.  I figured my seasonal allergies were just aggrevated, so I blew it off.  By the time we got home, I started in with a runny nose.  So I took Nyquil at 2:30am on Friday.  By 6am, I was wide awake and took more cold medicine since it wasn't getting better... and began Zicam every 3 hours.  A few hours later, I started with a wicked sore throat, so I started on Zithromax (a prescription I had gotten for our trip... just in case) since it was a Saturday morning, and I knew I couldn't get to a doctor till Monday.  Within another hour, I had serious chills, a fever, and felt sick to my stomach.  After a few false alarm runs to the bathroom to throw up, I finally gave in.  Mom took me to the emergency room.  I was really sick.  

We got in quickly... fortunate that no one else was in the waiting room.  The nurse took my vitals and got the story from me.  After a few tests (flu and strept), she put me in a bed in the back.  Within a few minutes, another nurse brought me a mask.  "My prize" for having flu-like symptoms, she said.  I laughed.  Next thing I know, I was being wheeled away from that main room.  Isolation!  All it took was me saying I just arrived from China to scare everyone.  So, I was placed in a solitary room.  The doctors and nurses from then on out arrived in my room wearing masks and gowns.  They even gave my mom a mask too.  I told my mom, "If they return wearing the spacesuits from ET, run!"  The doctor said he was calling the Infectious Diseases Department to see what tests they needed to run.  Next time a nurse came in with a rolling potty (oh what fun) and a table full of blood cultures, needles and bandages.  They inserted an IV, took two bottles of blood and had me pee.  Since I wasn't allowed out of the room, I had to use the rolling toilet.  I told my mom.... "Geesh... I can't get a normal toilet to save my life.  First the squatty potties, and now a non-flushing one!"  

The Xray technician brought the Xray machine to my room and did a chest Xray in the room (since I wasn't allowed to leave).  Oh man.   I asked the tech if I was giving them all some excitement today.  He laughed.  I said, "Now how often does a scare like this occur?"  He said, "Oh not often.... maybe once a year."  I told him I really didn't want to be in the papers!  

I think I had told 4 people that day my story.... 2 weeks in China.... in Beijing, in Guangzhou, stopover in HongKong, etc., etc.  No, my daughter wasn't sick.  No, I wasn't in rural China... only major cities.  No, I didn't come across anyone who was sick at least not like this.... blah, blah, blah.

About 2.5 hours after I arrived, I was sent home.  The flu test, RSV test and strept test were all negative.  The other scary tests were still not back, but they didn't think there was a problem.  The doctor said it was probably just some virus I picked up on the plane or from someone in China.  No biggee.  My fever had dropped a little with the Tylenol, so he said to just keep up with a fever reducer and cold medicine to help me feel better.  

So, I finally was allowed to leave my little isolation room.  LOL

I called Mike on our way home to say that they were transporting me to the nearby bigger hospital for more tests.  He didn't like my little joke.

I came home to find Grace filthy from playing outside so much.  Apparently it didn't bother her one bit that I was not home.  She played just great with the kids and her uncle, aunt and grandparents.  We decided it was best not to introduce the neighbor kids just yet... maybe today or tomorrow.

Today I'm feeling rather miserable.  Nothing bad, just a cold or something.  Mike's parents took the three kids to church.  Mike and I and Grace slept pretty much non-stop from 4pm yesterday till about 6am today.  I guess Mike was up for a couple of hours last night... but all in all, we got a lot of sleep!  Whew!  

The kids are taking well to Gracelynn.  At 6am, Tommy crawled into bed with me and said, "I love Gracelynn."  It was so cute!  Oh, how I missed his little hugs and cuddles!

Thank you to everyone for the good wishes and prayers.  It seems as though we're going to do fine.  Gracelynn obviously has a long way to go to be 100% comfortable and to get the hang of our American ways, but she's doing great so far.  She's been little Miss Nosey lately and getting into all sorts of things.  She just knocked all sorts of papers on the floor... because she can, I guess... and she's eating an apple.  She has successfully gotten apple juice all over our coffee table.  How can one even do that with a little apple?

She's quickly learning that Aspen (our Westie) is not a child-lover.  :)  Aspen is a good dog... don't get me wrong.  But her tolerance for kids is long gone.  If a child approaches her while she's trying to rest or touches her while she's eating or pulls on her fur, she snaps at him/her.  Grace happened to bump Aspen (accidentally) while Aspen was dozing off on the sofa, and she snapped at Grace.  That's good... she'll learn quickly to leave her alone.  Grace has been fascinated by Aspen, but doing things like throwing toys at her and such.  Maybe this will calm her down.

She still takes to Mommy more than the others at certain times (bedtime, baths, potty), but she plays well with all the family.

Feel free to comment or express your wishes for her.  We plan to print out this blog one day for Gracelynn to keep as her adoption story.