NotQuiteQuints

Today we celebrated Tyler’s NINTH Birthday!!! And his Milestone of THREE (3) Years as a Lockhead. It’s been a little while since we’ve visited here, but we’ve been updating the world with highlights of Tyler’s life through FaceBook. The Garden Hotel is half a world away but it seems like we just checked out on …

Hi all, just a quick drive-by post tonight to mark our little man Tyler’s SEVENTH birthday.  It was just a few days ago (or so it feels) that we were celebrating Tyler’s 6th Birthday with his cake at the Garden Hotel in Guangzhou, before returning from his Adoption journey. As a SAHD (for the time …

Greetings again, Dad here, on the evening of Tyler’s ONE YEAR Anniversary of joining our Family. Coincidentally, today was also the First Day of School for all of the children.  We survived our crazy summer, having checked off many of the things we’d wanted to do.  There were a few items we hoped we would …

Wow, I knew that we were behind in blog postings on Tyler, but didn’t realize that the last post was made in October as he was just starting school.  Time flies when you are having fun…busy all the time…life is chaotic but so fun. It’s hard to even remember all of the things that have …

So I guess when you increase the size of your posse to five children, your blogging starts to drop off a bit, and it becomes weeks between actual posts vs. days!  Tonight, I, Mom, am sitting here typing while one is sleeping to Kidz Bop “Rotten to the Core,” two others are playing electronics and …

The last few days since we have been home have been a blur.  We started out today heading to Tyler’s doctor appointment that is actually scheduled for Monday (not today!)  We figured that out half-way to the appointment. We left Shanghai (luckily before this week’s typhoon hit) on Monday September 12th.  Security at the airports …

Friday was Shanghai Disney day. We were not sure if we were going to be able to shoehorn this trip into our itinerary, but mom always seems to work the magic. When the dust settled, we had survived and managed to have and enjoyable time; but we were completely exhausted. Yin…Yang. Our driver showed up …

Our last days in Guangzhou and then back to where we began our odyssey…Shanghai. On Monday, we went to the clinic (the CanAm Clinic – right in the hotel) to have T s stitches removed. Once the doctor was able to assure T that things were ok, he calmed right down. He sat remarkably still …

It was last year when we were here for Ryan’s trip, but in some ways it seems like yesterday.  We also stayed here for Ashley’s trip, but I can’t say that we remember it very much as Lisa, Rita and I shuttled back & forth to the hospital.  But still, there is comfort in a …

We left the Hotel for the airport promptly at 4:30, allowing 3 hours lead time before scheduled flight departure at 7:30.  Maggie, our guide assisted us through check-in and Security (as close as she could without going through herself).  Tyler was holding up as best we could expect in the terminal – he was exhausted …

Dad here reporting from the field… Wednesday was a sightseeing day.  We visited a local Park along the River.  The kids enjoyed some time in the “Sand Beach” area.  It was more a hard packed “Dirt Beach” than a sand beach.  That didn’t seem to matter to them.  They brought a few pounds of the …

The Incident It was a dark and stormy night…….only kidding, the day was bright and sunny for our first morning with Tyler. We got up very early (like 6 am for an 8:30 appt) to make our way back to the Civil Affairs office to finalize the adoption paperwork. Today, the construction area was even …

Monday was our Forever Family/Gotcha Day. As we were not meeting Tyler until 3 p.m., we had several hours to fill before we headed to the Civil Affairs office, so we walked to a local park in the morning, which was very pretty – filled with plants, a small lake with tiny fish and some …

Catching up on blog posts from the past few days. We arrived at the Guilin airport on Saturday night luckily about 2 hours early. When we handed our flight info to the “gate agent,” she looked beyond perplexed and just kept staring at us. As that doesn’t translate into easy feelings, I just looked back …

Our final sightseeing day in Guilin was one of the most jam-packed that we have ever attempted, either with just Lisa and me or with the kids. The schedule was very aggressive, so hang on: Reveille was 6 AM, and we departed promptly from the hotel at 8 AM. We made it to the wharf, …