What a cutie! 

Piper's Close Up 

Piper's First 4-Generation Photo 

Babies, Dads, and One Brother! 

Babies & Moms 

Red Couch 

Baby Blessing 

Pagoda--at Buddist Temple 

Bowling with Babies 

Park Day 

Mom and Piper 

Piper's Birthday Cake 

Home Safe and Sound!

Well, sorry this message is a few days late, but we have been so busy! Getting adjusted to the time zone change again has been hard for all of us, especially Piper! The second night we were home, she wanted to stay up and play from 12:00 midnight to 5:00 a.m.! She was laughing and giggling the whole time!

Anyway, we had a smooth trip home other than it took 29.5 hours! We were right on schedule and were met at the airport by a lot of Laurie's family and mutual friends. Piper did so great on the flights home, she is an awesome traveler! There were about 25 babies on the flight from Hong Kong to Chicago, mostly American families returning home with newly adopted babies from China. Many of them cried, but Piper did not!

We are settling in at home, and she is getting used to her new environment. She has been a little scared sleeping in her own room for the first time in her life. She had 3 baby roommates when she lived in the orphanage and we were her roommates at the hotels in China. Being alone in a room is a first for her.

She has changed so much physically in the last 2 weeks, it has been amazing. She could not roll when we first got her, and now she is a rolling machine! She still has no interest in crawling, but she is interested in walking. She likes to stand and have something to hold on to. We think she will be walking in about 2 months.

This Friday (April 22) she has her first pediatrician appointment and she will be getting a lot of shots. She is not looking foward to this and neither are we.

Please continue to check back for updates. Thanks for following our story.

Rob, Laurie, and Piper Pressly

Rob, Rie, & Piper at a park in Changsha! 

Piper's footprint! 

Paperwork for Piper! 

Daddy's Girl 

Great Wall 

Orange and White Photo Op at Great Wall 

Rob at Forbidden City 

TianAnMen Square 

Sample of Ornate Work from The Forbidden City walls 

Our First Family Photo--On "Gotcha Day"! 

Monday and Tuesday Update

Dear Friends and Family,

Hello this is Rob. It is Tuesday night here 9:45 p.m. and 9:45 a.m. for you all on the east coast USA. I know all of you are working hard!!

We have had a busy two days, and sorry we did not post on Monday. Sunday night, Piper came down with a nasty cold. We have been giving her some baby dimetapp for treatment. Monday we woke up and had to get ready to head to the airport to fly to Guangzhou. She was feeling really bad. Lots of snot and a low grade fever which we treated also.

Anyway, we got to Guangzhou no problem other than she felt really bad. She was not happy most of the day and Monday was a bad day. We landed and our guide in Guangzhou took us immediately to McDonald's which was the highlight of the day! We then headed over and got checked into the White Swan Hotel. This hotel is also very nice. It is on Shamian Island adjacent to the Pearl River. Very beautiful here, and the hotel is quite amazing.

Once we got checked in we had to go get Piper's visa photo taken. She did not take a good photo because she felt bad, but it was good enough. Then we had to get her medical checkup (not because she was sick, but because it is required for adoption). It was also very hot and muggy outside. Then we finally got back to the hotel and she took a nap from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. Then dinner and bed for all of us and we were glad Monday was over. We also made the executive decision on Monday night to start her on anitbiotic just to be safe. Our pediatrician wrote one for us before we left.

Monday night I had to go to a paperwork meeting with our group and we got all of our docutments together for the US Consulate office which we will go to on Wednesday to get her travel visa stamp for her China passport. That was not too bad. Our guide Dave helped us fill out the forms and is handling all of the paperwork for us.

Today (Tuesday) was a MUCH better day. She is one tough kiddo. She felt 80% better today. Still a little runny nose but the medicines are kicking in and she was all about laugh and smiles again all day! The weather has gotten unusually cool for this time of year here. Yesterday was in the 80's and today rainy and in the 50's.

We had to wait in our room from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. in case the US Consulate had to call with questions. They did not call so all is fine with our paperwork for the travel visa for Piper.

Wednesday we will all go to the U.S. Consulate here in Guangzhou as a group for the swearing and visa pickup at 10:30 in the morning. It should only last 30 minutes and then we are DONE!! We will do some shopping Wednesday afternoon and pack up. We leave the hotel Thursday morning at 5:30 a.m. for the start of our 29 hour journey back home.

We are ready to come home now. China was good to us and we had a lot of fun, but it is time to come home. We want all of you to meet the new member of the Pressly family. You are going to love her!

I think this will be the last post in China. Thank all of you for reading about our journey and for sending us e-mails. You made our trip very memorable and I hope it was fun for all of you to follow our journey.

All our love,

Rob, Laurie, & Piper

Sunday Update...

Hello all, it is Rob and believe it or not the two princesses in my life are both napping. Laurie is enjoying having a napping baby!

Not too much new to report today. We went to an interesting museum this morning and saw the corpse of a woman who is 2100 years old! Pretty wild stuff. It was a very nice musuem with many artifacts and history of the Hunan Province. The Chinese have so much more history than we do - almost 3500 years I believe.

It is still cool outside today, probably 50-55 degrees again today. Tonight is our last night here. We are leaving the hotel at 8:15 in the morning here to go to the airport so we can fly to Guangzhou. We are both ready to see the next city. 7 nights here was maybe 1 day too long, but we had to wait this long to get Piper's passport. We will have it this afternoon sometime, Peter will get them for us.

Piper is still an apple in our eyes. You all at home are going to want to eat her with a spoon!

More later from Guangzhou.

Love,

Rob & Family

Saturday Update - from Rob!

Happy Saturday to all of you. 3:00 p.m. here.

The weather today has finally changed gears. It is rainy and quite cool outside, it feel like 50-55 degrees here in Changsha today. A very nice change of pace, I am tired of sweating! That will not be happening today.

Laurie does not feel 100% today, but she is not too sick. Her stomach is a little queasy, I think all of the Chinese food has taken a toll on her normal Chick-Fil-A diet! She stayed in the room and rested this morning and is already feeling better. Our guide Peter took our group on a ride out into the country side today. It was a little sad to see how so many of the people here live. We really did not get to see a lot because it was raining and I was with Piper by myslef. She fell asleep on the bus, and so I just leaned the seat back and let her take her 45 minute morning cat nap on my chest. We are so fortunate where we live. The farmers out in the country are all very poor and work very hard. We saw a lot of rice fields and poor housing mostly.

Piper slept 10.5 hours last night, so she is still scoring A+ in that category. She will occasionally make a small squeal in her sleep for 2-3 seconds, but I think she is just dreaming. She is an awesome sleeper. She also loves to eat and we have introduced her to a lot of new foods. She loves bananas now, so she is getting a small banana for her 4:00 snack. She eating schedule has been:

6:30 a.m. Bottle of formula
8:00 a.m. Breakfast
10:00 a.m. Snack of a few cheerios
12:00 p.m. Lunch
4:00 p.m. Snack of fruit or jar of baby food
6:15 p.m. Dinner
7:45 p.m. Small bottle of formula

The birthday party was a lot of fun as you read on the last post. She loved the cake and got 4 presents from friends in our group as well as 3 more from mom and dad! It was a special and very memorable birthday for sure. We will always cherish the memories of spending her first birthday with her in China, her birth country. Hopefully one day she will really enjoy seeing the photos, video, and stories about her first birthday.

She continues to blossom more and more every day. She has become quite the little entertainer now. She thinks it is great when we laugh so when she does something funny and we laugh, she keeps doing it over and over. She is already picking up on sign language. My neice Sophie was a master of sign language, and Piper has learned the sign for milk pretty good. She is smiling and laughing all the time. We are getting a lot of compliments from our group members on her personality. We are so proud of her and could not be any happier. There is no doubt that God chose her to be our child, and for us to be her parents.

She is also very flexible we have noticed. She puts her legs out in front and puts her head on the ground. Then she will grab her foot and pull her leg up right next to her head (so that her foot is right next to her head and her leg is straight). I think gymnastics are definitely in the future for this kiddo.

The hotel has loaned us a stroller, and she loves to go for a ride. It seems to sooth her and she has a lot to look at I suppose. Yesterday we went for a ride in the stroller through downtown (and managed to avoid all the crazy drivers). We went to a local department store and bought her one more outfit to get us through the trip. Laurie has been washing out most of her stuff here in our hotel room and we have been hanging it up to dry. Laurie has done more domestic type work here in China than she has at home in her life!! She has done a great job washing bottles and nipples also. She is a great mom, and Piper loves her a lot. Our guide Peter has taken the adult laundry for us and had it cleaned twice now. He is an awesome guide!

We are supposed to get Piper's passport either tonight or on Sunday. Our guide Peter will be picking them up for us. She is still a citizen of China and will travel as her Chinese name home on her passport, visa, and airline ticket. Once she is home in the USA she will be a citizen of the USA. Normally in China when you apply for a passport in your home province it takes 3 weeks to get one. With this adoption, they get them processed in 5 days. This is the main reason we had to stay here in Changsha for 1 week.

We leave here Monday morning to fly to Guangzhou. Our flight leaves at 11:10 a.m. I believe. It will only be a one hour flight. Guangzhou is on the very southeastern tip of China. It is in the Guangdong Province, and this is where the United States Consulate is where we will get Piper's visa. We will be at the Consulate on Tuesday for our interview and visa appt. There is also a medical exam for her scheduled in Guangzhou which is requried for her to leave China and come to the USA.

We cannot thank all of you enough for all of the e-mails you have been sending. We would love to respond to them all, but there is not enough time. It is so nice to log on everyday and read them. We have probably gotten over 125 and we are grateful.

We are still really enjoying China. The hotel is so nice and the staff here bend over backwards for you. Oh, by the way, my massage yesterday was awesome! Definitely worth the $12 U.S. Dollars it cost for 1 hour here at the hotel spa. Peter ordered a special lunch for us today which was club sandwiches and french fries. We looked like scavengers eating those sandwiches as a group!

Well that is all for now.

Our love to all of you back home. We are looking forward to coming home and showing off our little angel!

Rob
(Laurie and Piper too)

It's My Party

How exciting! My first birthday.

Tonight, I was able to celebrate my 1st birthday with all of my friends and their new parents. Miss Jane and Peter got me a great cake--a sort of angel food with fruit and whipped cream icing with chocolate!! It was so delicious (messy--but delicious!!).

Some of my friends also bought me some great presents. I am having so much fun playing with my new clothes and toys and things! That really helped to make my first birthday complete.

I had so much fun on my first birthday--I can't wait to celebrate again when I get back home!

Thanks for all of the birthday wishes that many of you sent to me. I am so glad to hear from all of you and so are my Mom & Dad.

Thanks again. And much love to you all!!!

Piper Kay Pressly

Friday Update form Rob (Again!)

Hello friends and family back at home. It is about 2:00 p.m. here.

Today is Piper's birthday! We have had a good day so far, and the party is tonight. We wish all of you could be there. Peter (our guide) and Jane (who works for our agency and is Chinese) have made arrangements to bring in birthday cake after dinner for Piper. All of our friends in our group are excited about the party and some of them have already told us she is getting gifts tonight!! They are all so nice to us. We will take lots of pictures and video. We do not think Piper has had cake yet, but tonight is going to be her night. We are going to cover her in a trash bag and let her go to town! We cannot wait to watch it! We will try to get some photos of that e-mailed out again. Then we can get the e-mail chain going again for you all.

This morning we loaded the bus and Peter took our group to the Changsha Embroidery Factory. It was pretty interesting and we saw some amazing art work. It is kind a like cross stitching in the U.S.A but not crossed (if that makes any sense). These women make some very interesting things and they also make a lot of the silk Chinese products. We bought several things to take home with us and some early Christmas shopping as well!

The temperature here today has been slightly cooler than yesterday so far. There was some cloud coverage and a nice breeze when we were visiting the emboidery factory. It was mostly indoors anyway. We have noticed with everything here that all the Chinese take great pride in what they do or make. They have a lot more rituals and meaning behind what they do than we do at home.

As far a Piper goes, she could not be doing better (knock on wood...again)! Yesterday after my post, she was so full of herself. She is now constantly laughing and giggling! She has learned how to day "DADA". That was so awesome and Laurie is jealous!!

Her smile will just make your heart melt and she definitely has daddy wrapped around her finger (and I think she has already figured that out as well). We have noticed that when she throws toys and things like that she tends to do it mostly with her left hand, so maybe she is left handed? Kinda interesting. She slept for 10 straight hours again last night, and is still taking a morning nap (45 minutes or so) when we are out sightseeing and about 2 hours in the afternoon. That is what she and Laurie are doing right now.

Tomorrow Peter is going to take our group out of the city for a ride in the country side. We are kinda looking forward to that for a change of pace with all of the hustle and bustle in the city. I think we will see a lot of farmland and rice pastures mostly. You really feel the population here in the city of Changsha. People, people, people - everywhere.

Peter has picked up a significant amount of our adoption paperwork and has given it to us. Many of our documents had to be notarized here and many were prepared here in Changsha, Hunan Province. We got her birth certificate, immunization record, and certificate of abandonment. It blows my mind to think about how someone could have abandoned Piper, but we are glad they did now! She is so awesome and more than we could have ever imagined.

Well, that is all for now. I did not get a chance to get my massage yesterday, but I am going to do that right now once this post is on the page. I never get them at home, but here at the Huaitian Hotel it only costs 10 U.S. Dollars for an hour massage, so what the heck? To them, 10 U.S. Dollars is a lot of money however.

Hope all of you are doing well. Thanks again for all of the e-mails. Many of my friends at Brenntag Southeast, Advent U.M.C., many of my customers, and friends from college have been sending a lot. Please keep them coming, it is so great to hear from all of you.

Take care, and we will write more (and send more photos) later.

Love,

Rob
(Laurie and Piper too!)

Thursday Update - from Rob!

Happy Thursday to all of you. 2:45 p.m. here, hope all of you are sleeping well!

It has been quite hot and humid today. I would guess the temperature is around 90 with high humidity. It is hard to guess with all the celsius thermometers around here!

Piper is doing so well, we could not all 3 be happier. She has really blossomed even more in the last 24 hours. She smiles and laughs all the time. She loves to be held and likes to play games. She is very smart also, she has learned to shake her head no already! It is amazing how this bonding has taken place so quickly. All the stories we heard about grieving, no sleeping, no eating, crying for 3-4 days has not happened at all (knock on wood).

She is a great eater and a fantastic sleeper. She usually takes a cat nap in the morning when we are doing site seeing with the group for 30-45 minutes. Then a 2 or 2.5 hour nap in the afternoon. Last night she slept from 8:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. without a peep! 10 hours is great for us!!

Some of the other families are dealing with other issues, but most of them are not severe. Some of our friends come down in the morning a little bleary eyed, but that is all.

Last night our guide Peter made arrangements for a great dinner for us here at the hotel. It was an american style dinner and was quite good. Beef tenderloin, fried chicken, salad... stuff like that. It was a nice change of pace. Today he got pizza for us for lunch, so he is really spoiling us. He just wants the group to be happy, and we are!

This morning we got on our bus and Peter took us to the park here in Changsha. It is a very nice park and quite large. There was lots going on. Chinese people singing, playing musical instuments, people fishing. It was very crowded and again all of the locals were so interested in us Americans with the Chinese baby girls. They all came up and spoke (as much as possible), smiled, took our pictures, video taped us. It was great. Piper slept through about half of the stroll in our stroller. When she woke up, she enjoyed what she saw.

Then we went to a Chinese Art School where the make and sell art. We bought several pieces to take home and hang in our house. We got a sign with Piper's name on it in English and Chinese.

Laurie and Piper are taking their afternoon nap. I am getting ready to go buy some more baby clothes, and then I think I am going to get a massage here at the hotel.

Tomorrow is Piper's birthday. Our guide Peter has made arrangements for us to have a party here at the hotel. He has a birthday cake coming and all. It will be great and we will take more photos and video. We have been taking a TON of video and pictures and we cannot wait to share with all of you.

Well that is all for now. We are still having an awesome time here in the Hunan province and are not in a hurry to leave to be totally honest! Our group members are great and we have made some great friends. We will definitely be getting together with a few of these families that ilve in Charlotte and Charleston, SC area.

Hope all of you are well.

Rob

P.S. Thanks for all the e-mails. We are getting them all. Some of you have told us you are getting a rejection back, but we are still getting them so please keep sending!

Also, I hope you have gotten some photos by Thursday night. If not, please e-mail Mellisa Gravitt. mgravitt@brenntag.com

Piper Update!

Oh this little girl is fabulous!

Here's some more Piper trivia!

She had her first french fries the other night, and she loved them.

She bit her mom (twice) already--so yes, those teeth work!

She is so strong--the other night she moved a restaurant chair by herself!

She took her first trip to Walmart today where she got a new rattle. She loves it so much. She's hardly put it down.

She has blossoming personality.

She's already responding to "Piper"!

She played beach ball today!

She is fantastic!

Now for a few fun facts about China--

Beijing was so much fun. You can see pictures of the Great Wall, but you will never understand how awesome it is until you stand on it.

Crossing the street in a Chinese city is like walking into the video game Frogger. You've got to be fast!!!

You can put sweet and sour sauce on anything and it will taste good.

Willing to pay BIG MONEY for Chick Fil A!!!!
See you all soon, and thanks again to everyone for all of the messages!

Lots of love--
Laurie (Rob & Piper too)

Wednesday Update # 1

Hello all, this is Rob writing. It is about 4:15 p.m. here on Wednesday as I write this message, I hope all of you at home are sleeping well as it is 4:15 a.m. on Wednesday for you!

First of all, the two lovely ladies in my life are napping right now. Laurie was jealous that I was going back to the business center to update the website, so she told me I cannot tell you all the wonderful things about Piper in this post. She wants to brag on our daughter later today!

I will just say a few things about her anyway. She weighs about 17.5 lbs. which is slightly smaller than we were told. We have a scale in the bathroom here in the hotel and she weighed about 8 kg (the scales are in kg) which is about 17.5 lbs. She does not walk and she is not interested in crawling yet. We do not think she had a lot of time on the floor, and spent most of the day in her crib when she lived in the orphanage. She is an awesome little girl, and I will let Laurie tell you more about her later!

The weather here has been nice. When we were in Beijing, it was about 65-70 degrees in the city, maybe 55 or so when we drove out to the Great Wall in the mountains. Here in Changsha, it is a bit warmer as we are much further south. About as far south as South Carolina or Georgia. It is humid here, and shorts are a must. It is about 80 or so, but it feels like 85 plus. Tuesday was windy, but today (Wednesday) is quite muggy and hot.

The city of Changsha is very nice. It is big and reminds me of Atlanta. There are 1.9 million people that live in this city, and we are in the heart of downtown. Our room in the hotel is on the 11th floor, and we can see about 40 or so scyscrapers out of the window that are anyware from 30-50 stories high. The locals here are very friendly to our group, and very curious about the babies. The like to come up and touch them, and take our pictures. Many of them just stare at our group when we are out in the city.

The drivers here are crazy!! Pedestrians do not have the right away here, so crossing the street with a baby in your arms is a scary thing! Most of the time, a police officer will help our group cross near the hotel.

We have eaten A LOT of Chinese food here. Laurie has done remarkably well, and has eaten a lot more than I would have guessed. The breakfast here at the hotel is the best meal. Made to order omelttes, bacon, fruits, pastries, cereals, ... the whole 9 yards. It is very good. Lunch and dinner has been tradtional Chinese and food here in Hunan is quite spicy. It is also hard to get them to give you more to drink. You have to beg the server, and even then they only give you a splash or two. We have bought a lot of bottled water to keep in the room to stay hydrated!

We could not be more pleased with our adoption agency. They have really rolled out the red carpet for us on this trip. Yes it did cost a lot of money, but we are being waited on hand and foot. We have a great guide here in Changsha, Peter. His real name is not Peter, but that is what we call him. He is Chinese and lives here in Changsha. He is always with the group when we have planned activities or places to go. We have a very plush chartered bus we ride around and all we do is just get on! The driver takes us there, and Peter makes it all happen. We also had a great driver, bus, and guide in Beijing. Helen was what we called her and she was excellent. Our agency has this thing planned down to a tee. We really feel like we are on a vacation now. Most of the paperwork here in Changsha is done, and we just have mostly leisure activities planned for the next few days. I think we will get Piper's passport on Saturday or Sunday. We leave Monday for Guangzhou.

This morning our guide Peter took us shopping. There are 11 families in our group, which is 23 adults and 11 babies. We went to a baby store to buy some needed things like more diapers, wipes, formula, ... you know, baby stuff. It was a small store and you should have seen the workers eyes pop open when a chartered bus pulled up and in came 23 adults and 11 babies! They were like, "We have hit the jackpot!" I bet they sold more stuff in 30 minutes than they do in a week because all of us needed stuff!

Then we went to Wal-Mart. Yes those of you who know me know how much I hate Wal-Mart! It was quite an experience. Wal-Mart is very different here than it is in the States. The meat department has live turltes and some other very questionable meat selections! Stuff here is SO cheap. We bought quite a bit more at Wal-Mart like another piece of luggage, more bottled water, a few new baby outfits, and it was about $30 US dollars. We needed another piece of luggage, we are definitely leaving China with A LOT more than we came with.

Many places here only take Chinese Yaun money. We are easily able to exchange US Cash at the hotel for Yuan. Right now $100 US Dollars = $821.44 Yuan.

We have some other fun things planned the next few days, like going to the park, visiting the embroidery factory, seeing some museums. The mornings are fun things, and the afternoons are nap time.

Thank all of you for the e-mails that you have been sending to piperpressly@yahoo.com
We really appreciate reading them and yes we are getting them. It is so nice to hear from so many of you, and please keep them coming. We do not have enough time to respond to them all, so please just check the site for updates.

Also, we are starting an e-mail chain tonight that will include photos! We have not been able to upload photos on the site here, but we have a group member who brought her laptop with her. She took some photos for us today with her camera and saved them on her hard drive. Then she is e-mailing them to us and we will forward out the chain. We have several contact people at home to forward, so please be patient, the are coming soon! If you have not received the photos via e-mail by like Friday morning, please e-mail Mellisa Gravitt. Melissa works with me and will send them to you if you have not gotten them. But please wait until Friday morning to ask her.

That's all for now. We are thoroughly enjoying ourselves, and of course the new joy in our life, Piper!

We love you all.

Rob

Mommy's Take

Oh this little girl is so special. I can't believe how much I love her.

I know you've all been getting updates from Rob; I've been staying in the room and watching her sleep. So here are some details.

She likes to play peek-a-boo.
She loves this egg custardy like stuff.
She is a good eater.
She is a trooper--her first bath was no big deal.
She loves to pull her socks off of her feet!
She likes this congee stuff which as far as I can tell, it's watered down grits. (So Gramma says she is a Southern Girl!)
She's already smiled and giggled for us!
She sings to herself.
To comfort herself, she sucks on her pointer finger instead of her thumb!

She is such a brave little girl. She has done so well! I am amazed by her.

Thank you so much to all of you who have been emailing and posting. We love hearing from you and we are so very blessed to have so many people thinking of and praying for Piper.

We love you guys!
Piper's Mom (formerly Laurie!)

Tuesday Update..

Hello all, this is Rob typing this message. Sorry the message did not go through yesterday.

It is about 2:30 p.m. here on Tuesday, all of you at home are sleeping right now as it is 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday EST in the USA. As you can imagine, the last 22 hours have been crazy, but great! Piper is an amazing little girl. We have bonded so quickly to her and she seems to really like us a lot. She is laughing and giggling and loves to be held.

Last night, Laurie put her to sleep at about 8:00 p.m. (I had to go to a paperwork meeting Monday night for what we did today back at the Civil Affairs office) because we really did not get back to the hotel until about 7:15 after dinner. We gave her her first bath as daddy and mommy. She really liked it okay, no crying at all really. She slept well last night. She makes a sucking sound like the Simpson baby when she sleeps. We both slept with one ear and one eye open since we are paranoid new parents! She slept until about 5:15 a.m. That was very good for new conditions!

She was tired. On Sunday night here, the babies were taken to Changsha via train with some of the caretakers from her orphanage. The train ride was about 7 hours from what we were told.

At 5:30 we gave her a bottle and she sucked it down no problem. We all went to breakfast today at 7:00 a.m. Piper eats a lot of rice pourridge, steamed eggs, rice, bread, vegetables, and chicken or pork. I think for now we will give her a bottle of milk / formula in the morning and right before bedtime.

The hotel here in Changsha is VERY nice! It is the Huaitian hotel and is in the busy part of downtown Changsha.

We had to go to back to the Civil affairs office today at 9:00 a.m. and we were there as a whole group unitl 12:00 p.m. We had to turn in more paperwork and get her adoption registration, notarization, apply for her passport, pay fees, ... the list goes on and on. We also got to meet the director of her orphanage and have an question and answer session which was very helpful.

She is full of life and has a cute personality. Being a dad has been a lot of fun so far. Right now, I am in the business center of the hotel using the internet access, the two princesses in my life are napping. Laurie wanted a baby that naps in the afternoon and she got one!

Piper is not walking yet. She has crawled some, but we will have more time to let her crawl around beginning tonight. We have a lot of down time for the next few days. It takes 5 days to get a passport for her and that is why we will stay here in Changsha until Monday, April 11. On Monday we will fly to Guangzhou so we can go to the U.S. Consulate to get her travel visa.

Well, that is all for now. We are really enjoying China. Changsha feels a lot more like China than Beijing did. Nobody here speaks English, many in Beijing did. There are no signs in English on the street and bulidings here, most in Beijing had it in both.

We have gotten close with many of our travel mates since we are together all the time. I know we will make some lifetime friends out of this bunch.

That's all for now. I hope all of you have a good day at work on Tuesday.

Take care.

Rob / Daddy

P.S. We hope to get some photos on the site. The internet connection here is a little different than it is at home.

We got Piper Today!!

I understand there was not any text on this originally! So I am doing a one day post edit!!

On Monday, April 4th, we flew out of Beijing on time at 11:10 a.m. and arrived in Changsha at 1:30 p.m. We got to the hotel at 2:15 p.m. and then left the hotel at 4:00 p.m. to go to the Civil Affairs office here in Changsha, which is the capital of the Hunan Province.

It was an unbelievable experience!! We got to the Civil Affairs Office at 4:30 p.m. and it was mass chaos!! They called the babies out by their Chinese names one by one and Piper was the second one called out of our group of 11 families. "Huai Fu Rong" the director announced and we came forward to receive her. We got video of the experience live and it was a feeling we cannot put down in words.

All of the babies were given out to their new families in about 10 minutes total! It was a very small room and there were babies crying and parents crying. We are pleased to tell you that Piper was not one of them!!

We left the Civil Affairs office at about 5:00 and came back to the hotel for dinner. She ate well and we put her to bed at about 8:00.

She is an angel and has attached to us instantly, as we have to her. It is amazing how quickly we all love eachother. We cannot wait to bring her home to show her off!

We love all of you back at home!

Rob & Laurie

We're here in China!!

Hello all! We made it here safely yesterday after a long flight!! It is 8:30 p.m. here on Sunday night, which is 8:30 a.m. for all of you.

Today on Sunday, we went to The Forbidden City,Tiennaman Square, lunch, a silk factory, The Great Wall of China, and a pearl market. Needless to say, it was a very busy day and we are still fighting jet lag in a big way!

Tomorrow on Monday, we are leaving the hotel in the morning to fly to Changsha. We will get there around 1:30 and probably have Piper in our arms by 3:30-4:00. Tonight is our LAST night of a kid free life!!

Thanks to all of you who have sent us messages already. It means so much to us to hear from all of you.

We are signing off now. Next time, it will be from Mom and Dad!!

Take care. We love you all!

Rob & Laurie