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We made is home into Madison last night.  We are all exhausted!  I slept about 5 hours last night and then woke up wide awake at 4 am with Huahua and started unpacking suitcases (all six of them)  Then by time time we were feeling tired again Jordan and Justin awoke.  Justin said he was so excited he could not sleep because she was home with us!  He is so sweet with her.  Everyone wants to care for her and play with her all the time.  Problem today was she was so tired.  This morning of course she did her favorite activity--bath with big brother and enjoyed splashing and playing around! Sihua is not found of the dog and calls him gou (the chinese word for dog)   She finally warmed up and petted him today while sitting on my lap.  Things will probably improve in a few days as she has never lived with a dog before. Our travel journey began on Friday night in Guangzhou went we left for Chongqing.  We swung by the US Consulate to pick up her Visa and unto the airport.  Everything was seaml

December 26 will always be a day of new beginnings for our little girl.  One year ago today she was given a new breath of life when she was wheeled into a hospital operating room in Chongqing China and was given her life saving Glenn Shunt procedure.  I begin to cry when I think of the hundreds, maybe thousands of people who stood behind her and said her life was worth saving.  Only the Lord knew at that time she would become our daughter one year later.  Today December 26, 2013 Jessica Sihua walked into the US Consulate with her Mom and Dad and applied for her Visa to enter the United States!  Praise God!  Celebrating with some good Thai food!  The Oehlhof girls love Thai noodles.  One is better with chopsticks! Yesterday we went to to top of the Canton Tower in Guangzhou.  It's the third tallest building in the world and has the highest lookout observation platform.  As the sign says-No jumping!  They have a ride that orbits the perimeter of the building.  I got a kick out of the

In China there isn't enough room for everything,  inventory, the people, so things are just piled on top of each other.  Here the inventory for the sidewalk stores just spills over into the street.  Notice the bus traffice is a mere few feet from it.  These large bags might be seen on top the back of someone's bike.  Today we noticed there was an extraordinary amount of trash laying around and the trash cans were pulled out and spilled all over.  I thought maybe there were celebrations last night.  But we learned the city trash workers went on strike today.  We saw some of them walking around holding signs.  Not sure how long this will last or what the ramification of a strike in China are.  Apparently they are asking for higher wages. Sihua is into shoes and prefers to wear my shoes.  While we were out she was trying to get me to take them off so she could wear them.  She is very forceful about her opinions.   How do you explain in Chinese she can't wear my shoes while out

Last night we went on a dinner cruise with the Lifeline group.  If you have not experienced Chinese culture, it's everyone for themselves!  There is no order to things or at least not to what I have figured out.  So we were warned when they say it's time to eat get yourself up to the buffet right away.  Apparently the announcement was made and within 15 seconds you look around and all you see is 20 tables of Americans looking at each other.  So we just waited a bit and then headed up to see what was left.  There was plenty of food to go around and the buffet was quite good.  Plates , yes actual plates, were limited, and kleenex were used for napkins.  And small, small forks, because we were suppose to use the chopsticks.  Huahua is the only that can do that well enough to feed herself! We saw the 3rd tallest building in the world (pictured here) called the Guangzhou Tower from our dinner tour.  It lights up with florescent lights, changing colors ever few seconds. The children