Today is the Day!

Good morning! We just had a wonderful buffet breakfast and are off to rediscover the Shamian Island in Guangzhou.

Yesterday we left Hong Kong on the train. The photo is of the Train Station. Also, Megan enjoyed her very first McDonald's experience in Hong Kong of all places! She had a Happy Meal and it was GOOD! (She even shared french fries with mommy - I think McDonald's fries are tops....must go back to my high school working days :o)

We arrived in Guangzhou mid afternoon yesterday and got settled into our beautiful suite at the White Swan. It is nice! Plenty of room to spread out but something is missing (we get her today!) We met up with our travel group, took a brief tour of the island and then all had dinner at Lucy's. There are 3 other 5/6 year olds in our group and they hit it off immediately. We couldn't get over how quickly they bonded. It was great fun and we finally got to meet our new friends face to face. We have been emailing for months and here we are!

We meet at 2:30 this afternoon to board the bus for the Civil Affairs office. We will meet the babies there. We are so excited and apprehensive, we can hardly stand it. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. A flood of emotions are running wild and I know it will get even more intense as the day goes on. It was so fun to see all the families and babies at breakfast this morning. They are all so precious and tomorrow morning we will be one of those families!

Our next post will have the pictures you have all been waiting for! (Us too!!!) Hopefully there will be smiles among the tears but it usually takes a couple days for everybody to "be one big happy family". We know that it will happen.

We continue to covet your prayers.....especially for good health. We cannot wait to send you all the good news. Again, thank you for sharing this with us. It is hard for me to see clearly through the tears that well up when I think of how many special family members and friends are along this journey with us. It is truly overwhelming and we are SO BLESSED!

We love you......have a great day and we will be in touch again soon!
~L

Hong Kong Disneyland!

Good EARLY morning!

We had a great day at Disney yesterday. We are still so tired that Meg and I crashed just after 5pm so here I am typing at 3am! We will get adjusted!!!













Yesterday we had breakfast in our room followed by an excursion around the hotel. It is beautiful. There is a Mickey Maze cut into the shrubs outside. We had fun following and chasing each other. The hotel looks out at the South China Sea with hills all around. It truly is gorgeous.


After some adventuring, we boarded the Disney bus for Disneyland. It is strange to have people looking at us as the foreigners! The entry is the same as Magic Kingdom in FL and CA. It is pretty cool. We ventured down Main Street and took in all of Tomorrowland. We rode rides, drove cars, played with Buzz Lightyear and had a blast!













We had lunch at a little cafe - some of the best french fries we have ever tasted! All the comforts of home. Then history was made.....we all shared real, spun cotton candy. Oh my goodness....it didn't last long. I have a feeling there is more of that in our future!!! After our sweet treat, we went to Adventureland for the Lion King show. It was fabulous! The costumes, dancing and singing were great! Megan knew every song and loved every minute of it. By mid-afternoon, we were ready to head back to the cool of the hotel. It was HOT and HUMID!

We look forward to another great day! We will go back to Disney and we are planning to go swimming. The pool has a cafe and a slide and is really nice. Let's hope we can stay awake long enough to enjoy all of it!

Tomorrow (Sunday), we head for Guangzhou. We will be taking the train. It is just under 2 hours. We will then get settled into the White Swan for our 12 day stay. Madelyn will join us on Monday afternoon. We cannot wait!

Thank you to everyone for your well wishes. It is so fun to get messages from you.
We love you all,
~L

Ni Hao! We have arrived...

After a thirty hour travel day (door to door), we finally arrived at the Disneyland Hong Kong Hotel around midnight, local time. Megan was a real trooper even though she only slept a few hours the whole time. The personal AV systems with lots of kids movies on demand was a lifesaver (especially since the volume on my iPod wasn't loud enough to hear on the plane!).

Lynne bought a great gizmo off the Internet - a folding seat that attaches to a rolling suitcase. Megan rode it for fun at first and it was a lifesaver in the Hong Kong airport last night.

We have a beautiful room at the hotel. The beds felt AWESOME last night and we all got a good night's sleep. The shower felt GREAT this morning, too! We enjoyed a wonderful breakfast in the room and are heading out for a fun day at Disney, starting out with and adventure through the garden maze at the hotel, over looking the China sea.

Megan enjoyed the Disney channel on TV with her Ariel blanket we bought at the Apple Festival a few weekends ago.

The Home Stretch...........

Well, we are in the home stretch! In less than 24 hours we will be boarding the plane in Atlanta headed for CHINA!!! At last! The bags are packed, the frig is cleaned out, our papers are in order and we're ready to go! I don't know that we have ever been ready for a trip with hours to spare! Makes me think we are forgetting something. - let's hope not. We keep reminding ourselves that if we do forget something, we will be in the shopping capital of the world.........Hong Kong! We should be able to find whatever we might need when we get there.

We will arrive in Hong Kong at 10:05 pm (10:05 am here) on Thursday. Friday and Saturday will be spent at Disneyland and Sunday we head to Guangzhou on the train. We should have Madelyn in our arms at about 3:30 pm (3:30 am here) on Monday. Searfoss, family of 4 .....FINALLY!!!!

We love you all and thank you for joining us on this journey. We look forward to sharing our experience with you. Remember, we will be across the world so email us and let us know what is going on around here. We will miss you all.

With love,
~L

An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but will never break.


- Chinese proverb

Birthday Party in Guangzhou!

We feel so fortunate to have found our friend, Ann, in Guangzhou. She sent the birthday care package to the orphanage for Madelyn on our behalf. I had been sent a photo of the contents of the package and was told it would be delivered in time for the celebration yesterday.

Well, this morning we unexpectedly received pictures of the birthday party just yesterday.... cake, playmates, nannies and all! The cake is just beautiful (wish I could have had a piece) and look at that precious one year old birthday girl. She is smiling for us! I must say, she is pretty cute, don't you think? We are so grateful we will have these memories forever. We also look forward to having our own birthday party with some of our new friends when we get to Guangzhou. Only six more days......but who's counting???

Love and hugs,
~L

Happy Birthday, Madelyn!

It's a Celebration Day! Today is Madelyn's first birthday :-) We celebrated literally across the globe.....Grammie had a birthday luncheon where her friends not only celebrated her birthday but also Madelyn's. Matt bought a cake and balloons to commemorate the occasion at work. Madelyn received a special birthday care package in the orphanage including a birthday cake, a Hello Kitty doll and tea for the nannies. It was all wonderful and brought us one day closer to being face to face. I cannot wait to see that little face up close......to touch her, hold her, squeeze her for the very first time. We can't believe we will be in the air this time next week.

Happy birthday, precious girl! We will be there soon.......
I love you,
Mommy

Packed and ready (Almost)...

We made our list and checked it twice, three times, four times... OK, so we're a little uptight. We are trying to pack two weeks worth of stuff for two adults, one child and one baby in two suitcases and a carry on. Knowing the tight weight restrictions on international flights, we decided to do a trial run this weekend. We got everything packed with room (and pounds) to spare, but not a lot to spare! We decided to go ahead and leave everything packed since it is all warm weather clothes (good thing there are irons in the hotel rooms). That is one less thing now to worry about (other than all the odds and ends still to be bought, made, laundered, etc.).

Megan is excited about "Trunk or Treat" this coming Friday. She is dressing up as a friendly ghost even though she has no idea who Casper is. We attended her first Fall Festival at Tate Elementary school this past Saturday. We got to meet her classmates, teachers and even watch the principal kiss a pig. We went down the "Haunted Hall," which was pretty scary and Megan loved it. She even helped one her little friends get through.

I am doing my best this week to prepare the office for my absence. If all goes well, we will have our best sales performance of the year and they will kick me out for weeks at a time more often :)

This will be a busy week of wrapping up details and making final preparations. We hope that two weeks from tonight, we will be cuddling our new baby! We continue to covet your prayers and will keep you posted as we get closer to the "Big Day".

Peace
Matt

We're Booked!

Happy Monday! After hours......and I mean HOURS on the phone and Internet with Delta Airlines over the course of 4 days, we FINALLY have our airline tickets booked through Delight Travel! We were hoping to use Frequent Flier Miles and one road block led to another. I keep waiting for the phase of the process that will go smoothly and easily, without a hitch! We gave up on FF Miles and then turned to the Travel Agency that Great Wall (our agency) uses for their travel arrangements. And, here we are! We are booked....we'll be ticketed next week.....and on our way on November 5.

In our travel planning, we were hoping to include some special time just for Megan. We will depart Atlanta on Wednesday, November 5 and fly to Hong Kong (arriving on Nov. 6). We will then stay at the Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel for 3 nights enjoying Hong Kong Disneyland together for 2 days! Their Castle belongs to Sleeping Beauty - what fun! Megan is beside herself excited and we have already checked out every ride and attraction on the Park Map. It will be a fun time for the 3 of us to share. As we looked at the photos and the map on the Disneyland website she kept saying, "Look, there are China people like me!" She will be amazed when most everyone looks just like her!

We will then depart Hong Kong on the Train bound for Guangzhou on November 9. We will get settled into the White Swan Hotel and have Miss Madelyn in our arms on the 10th or 11th - I am hoping for the 10th :-) We will then take care of daily paperwork and processing, some shopping and touring and head back to the States on Friday, November 21. We should touch ground in Atlanta at 6:05pm. Searfoss, family of 4 headed to Big Canoe, Georgia! That will be a truly blessed day!

We thank you for your continued thoughts and prayers and will keep you updated as we have more information.

Until then......God bless and much love,
~L

What an Angel

Hi. We are still waiting on our US Consulate appointment dates so that we can make our final travel arrangements. We hope to have that information tomorrow. We are so fortunate to have a new friend in Guangzhou named Ann. She is going to take us shopping while in China and show us some of the places most tourists don't get to see. She also has a connection with our orphanage and was able to get some updated pictures for us. What a blessing this is. The wait at every turn has become so frustrating but looking at this precious face makes it all worthwhile. We are not sure exactly when these were taken, but they are recent. One of the pictures shows Madelyn with one of her caregivers. These are amazing women that really love these children. We are so thankful for them. We cannot wait to get there and hold this sweet little one for ourselves.

We continue to covet your prayers as the journey continues!

We're Almost There!

We received our Travel Approvals and Passports complete with Visas this week. We are really close to making our actual flight and hotel reservations. The Government offices in China have been on Holiday this past week so no official appointments could be made. (Really......one more hurry up and wait!) We hope to have our final Consulate appointment scheduled this week so that all other arrangements can be made. We have been working on our packing list and made great progress on Madelyn's room yesterday. The crib is back together and it's looking like a baby will soon be here! Not soon enough!!! We continue to be anxious, excited and filled with anticipation as we await this new chapter in our lives. Megan can't wait to go get "her baby"! Thank you for sharing this joy with us.