Officially a MacKinnon!

We had our adoption of Evan finalized today so there is officially another MacKinnon son! Because we were the only family there (the rest did theirs yesterday) the whole process went quickly and smoothly. They asked us some questions about why we wanted to adopt, did we know he was "special needs", did we want him even though he is "special needs", did we promise never to abandon him, etc...Then at the end they asked if we were satisfied with the child and did we want to adopt him. We answered "Ummm, can we think about it?" Ha ha ha...of course we answered "YES!". After all this time and all the struggles, we were more than happy to officially make Liu Yang Jun our son, Evan Jun MacKinnon.

When went to the Civil Affairs office to finalize the adoption and a nanny and the Director (one of them) of the Liuzhou SWI was there as well. When Evan walked in he said (in Chinese) "What are you doing here again?" The nanny laughed and said "Don't you want me to come" and Evan shook his head no. It really amazes me how these children come to us so willingly, so full of trust and so brave. How did he just not break down and beg to be taken back to his foster mother? Why does he want to stay with us?

Well, he has been absolutely amazing today. I have to be honest and say Caleb is a BIG reason Evan is having such a great time with us. I would like to say he loves his mommy and daddy and that's why he's so happy but in reality, it's his new biggest brother who plays with him, teases him, chases him and lets Evan do pretty much whatever he wants to him!!

Evan is an expert Kung Fu fighter - he has been demonstrating his moves all day :-) He is also beyond brillant - like, I'm seriously not kidding. You show him something once and he gets it! You don't ever have to show him again. He repeats (and remembers!) all our English words and can already count to 4 in English. We were on the elevator today and he knows what button to push so we were waiting to go to floor 12. The elevator stops at floor 4and he looks at us and holds up 4 fingers and shakes his head "no". He was telling us it wasn't the right floor. When the elevator hit floor 12 he shook his head "yes" and went to the front to wait for the doors to open.

He runs around calling "Caleb" which he says like "Cala". When Chinese people say "Ni Hao" to him he says "Hello" back to them in his British accent! For some reason he says some English words with a british sound.

Caleb is still suffering from jetlag and we have to do everything we can to keep him awake in the afternoon. If he does fall asleep, it's almost impossible to get him awake again. If he sleeps, he wakes up around 3:00 am!!!

We took Evan to the Walmart Superstore today and it was so fun. I wanted to buy some snacks becauase we don't have anything in our room or for when we go out and about on tours. I took Evan to the snack isles and he pointed to all kinds of different things he likes (and make yucky faces if I pointed to things he didn't like). Hopefully when we open all the packages it won't be desserts and cookies! We are told his favorite foods are gum and suckers. That would explain the black stains on some of his teeth :-)

So, all in all, a really great day. He is doing fantastic and we are having a lot of fun getting to know him. We are being stared at everywhere we go...we don't know if people are thinking "oh, how sweet" or "those people are crazy". Evan will be chattering in Chinese and it's very obvious we are not understanding them so the people are probably thinking we don't know what we're in for! (and they're right)

So far there have been no tears at all. He comes to both Chris and I (and Caleb of course) and I have even been able to snuggle him and kiss him and he just smiles and hugs me back.

I could write forever because there are so many funny stories and lots of great things happening but I must go get the boys ready for bed and clean up the hotel room!!!!

Enjoy the pictures from today.

Our family photo just after we finalized the adoption!The orphanage gave us a photo album of Evan. There are lots of pictures of when he was a baby/toddler, before his lip was repaired. It was such a gift! Here we all are looking at the photo album. The people include the nanny from his orphanage, one of the directors, the Civil Affairs person, our agency director and our local guide, Hannah.

Caleb in front of McDonald's and a big shopping center

Evan swimming for the first time. He loved it!!

Dad and Evan...I love this pictures!

Shelly and Allan Butler with their children. They wanted me to let you all know they are doing very well...Little Lily is settling in pretty good and we found out that her and Evan are good friends from the orphanage. Lily is tiny and so very pretty! When they first received Lily, she was quite upset and cried for a long time but yesterday and today she is doing much better. At breakfast yesterday she was laughing and very happy.

Adrienne, Malcolm and their daughter (sorry, I don't know how to spell it). They are doing fantastic and their daughter is amazing! She was happy to go to Adrienne and Malcolm and is happy every time we see them together. She is very beautiful, too!

Tracy J and her son, Sam. Sam is such a sweet little boy! He is doing very well and is happy, cheery and very busy! He is keeping him mom pretty busy, I think! As you can imagine, Tracy is thrilled and they are having a great time together.

Also, I didn't get a chance to get a picture of Tracey and Robert with their children but they are doing well. Their little guy is also very busy but is adjusting well.

He's Here!

This has been one of the most difficult adoptions I have ever heard of. Even our agency director said she has never encountered the problems we've had with any other family (and she's done over 80 adoption trips with multiple families each!)

Today we left for the Civil Affairs Office believing we would receive Evan. That did not happen. We hoped and prayed we would finally get to meet him later in the day. We received a call at 4:56 pm that we could finally go and pick up Evan. Well, the three of us tour through the hotel room getting our stuff ready to take and were waiting anxiously outside when our guide arrived.

The "gotcha" moment was not like we imagined as things moved so quickly. We knew when we got to the Civil Affairs office we would be the only family there and Evan would already be there waiting for us. Sure enough, we went upstairs and went directly into the room where Evan was playing. He looked up at us and we just started saying "Ni Hao Jun Jun". I was smiling from ear to ear, Caleb was trying to videotape (didn't work out so well though) and Chris just didn't know what to do with himself. We couldn't believe we were actually seeing him in person - he looks just like his photos. He is tiny (I think he may even be tinier than Alyssa) and so adorable. His eyes are huge and serious. He kept looking at me but I could tell he didn't know what to think of me. When we first walked in the room and knelt down beside him he said "hello mommy", "hello daddy". Could he be any sweeter? We had brought him some dinosaurs to play with so Caleb helped him get them out of his backpack and he set them up perfectly and played - all the while still looking at Chris and I and checking us out. He let me touch his face and hold his hand but I didn't try to hug him or pick him up.

We stayed in the room with him for only about 10 minutes as the Civil Affairs office was closing for the day. On the way to the elevator I held out my arms to him and said "mommy?" and he came to me and let me carry him downstairs and outside. He didn't say much at all until we arrived at the hotel. And then, boy did he come out of his shell!!!

He loved the hotel room - loved Caleb and was jumping on the bed, playing with cars, playing with a beach ball we brought, talking, laughing and just having a really good time.

He found the clothes we had brought him and immediately wanted his new sneakers so we put those on and he walked around proud as a peacock!

We went to supper with a couple of the other families in our group and all went well. He took lots of photos with our camera - he would only take pictures of Caleb and of course Caleb obliged by making lots of funny faces and being silly.

He drew a picture of a sun on his magna doodle and said "Mommy!" and showed me the picture. It's incredible how well our first few hours are going. We put him to bed and he didn't cry. We let him watch a bit of Toy Story and gave him a flashlight to play with and then he started to fall asleep.

It's unbelievable that I can look over at his little bed and he is actually there! You dream about this moment for months and you play it over and over in your mind and then all of a sudden, it's a reality. I don't know if I actually ever thought it would happen but now that it has, we are so happy and thrilled with this little miracle!!!

Some other info...he was wearing a spiderman shirt that we had sent him in our care package back in Feb. He also brought a little backpack with him and inside was a package of dinosaurs we had bought him and a coloring book. Inside the coloring book, his foster mother had "hidden" 4 pictures of her with him and some of him at Kindergarten.

We saw the inside of his mouth and his palate is not fully closed. The orphanage director said we had to be careful with feeding him as some large things can get stuck in the hole. He is definitely going to need surgery to repair it. His lip looks good although our agency director says he will definitely need surgery to make it look better. I'm kind of partial to that lip!!! He is also missing one or two teeth on the side of his mouth and some others are growing in crooked but I don't think it's going to be a big deal. The good news is he speaks exceptionally well - both with his Chinese and when he mimics English words. He speaks very clearly.

He is also very smart - he has memorized his foster mother's name and her phone # so hopefully we will be able to touch base with her when we return to Canada.

We are so happy to finally be with him...what an absolute blessing!!!!! As soon as we came back to the hotel from meeting Evan, we were able to SKYPE with Dylan and Alyssa before Dylan headed off to school for the day. Evan yelled out "Hello!" "Ni Hao" "Dylan". He was cute. The kids got to see him via webcam as well so it's finally real for all of us.

Enjoy the pictures...

Dad, Caleb and Evan at the first meeting

Evan with his dinosaurs just minutes after meeting him

Evan at supper

Evan and Mom together

Mom, Caleb and Evan outside the Civil Affairs Building

Caleb and Evan walking together as we head to supper

One of Evan's camera photos - Caleb acting silly for him!

Caleb and I giving the orphanage donations to the Director of Liuzhou

Caleb and Mom outside of hotel...really beautiful gardens

Still No Evan

Still no Evan. We went back to the Civil Affairs with the rest of the families today (they were finalizing their adoptions) but things were still not ready for us. We are back at the hotel waiting to hear if we can go back this afternoon.

Off to go swimming - it is so hot here - around 31 degrees and the sun is shining. Hot, hot, hot!
More later....

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly!

I know you are all dying to hear if we got Evan today. The simple answer is "no"! But, the day was so full of emotional ups and downs it's amazing I'm still functioning! We were told this morning that we would not be receiving Evan today. Well, we had been expecting that so we were "okay" with it. As we were heading out to our 3 hour flight to Nanning, our agency director told us Evan would be at the civil affairs office today and that even if we didn't get to bring him back to the hotel with us, we would get to at least visit with him. Okay, I could definitely handle that. Caleb and Chris were excited over the chance to see Evan in person. So, off we go on our flight...unbearable flight, but at least we made it to Nanning safe and sound. We arrived at the hotel with 10 minutes to get ready to go meet the children. I got little Evan's backpack ready - it has some coloring, stickers, play animals, magna doodle, etc.. and off we went to the bus. The anticipation in the bus was amazing...all the families were just in shock that the moment was finally coming for them to meet their children. On the bus, Chris and I were told we would most likely get to take Evan back with us today! We were so excited. We prepped Caleb on how to use the video on the camera and I started to cry (naturally). We were all ushered up to Floor #4 and we could hear the children talking and playing in a room right across the hall!!!! We knew our Evan was in there. Some of the kids kept peeking around the corner as we were waiting but not Evan.

Just before the children were brought in to meet their parents, our agency director came in and told Chris and I that our paperwork wasn't ready and we would NOT be getting Evan. Even worse, we were not allowed to see him either! Oh my goodness....I wasn't prepared for that news at all. She ushered us out of that room and we had to go in a room by ourselves while the other children were brought in to meet their new mommies and daddies.

I had a good cry and then Chris and I just sucked it up and thought, well....we know he's real, he's safe and he will be ours very soon! Our agency director was amazing and she offered to get some video of Evan playing in the room. So, we do have some cute videos of him from today and we are watching them over and over and marveling at how absolutely adorable and perfect he is!!! He seems so happy and outgoing - he was sticking his tongue out, pretending to be superman and giving the "peace" sign. He told our director he was waiting for his mama and baba and that he was going to Canada. How sweet is that?!!

We are praying that all goes well and we will get Evan tomorrow morning around 9:00 am.

So...all the other families came back to the hotel and ate but we decided to enjoy our last "Evan-less" night and went to Walmart to buy him some dinosaurs (he told our director they were his favorite toy!), we walked around a bit (Nanning is beautiful!) and then we went swimming in the amazing hotel pool.

So, all in all....we are still upbeat about getting Evan tomorrow and we feel good to see him talking about meeting us and knowing we are waiting for him!

Here are some pictures from today...

Caleb BEGGED us to let him eat these for supper! Hee hee (chicken feet - Dylan what do you think of these????)

Caleb and Mom enjoying the night lights in Nanning

Caleb on SKYPE talking with Dylan. We are having so much fun with Skype and being able to see and hear everyone

Dad and Caleb at KFC

Dad and Caleb on the bus as we headed out to the airport

At Last!

YAY! We arrived safe and sound in Beijing! What a relief. We spent 14 hours and 15 minutes on the flight from Toronto to Beijing! It was sooooo long! We did each have our DVD players and could choose our movies. I watched "27 Dresses", "Mad Money", "Vantage Point" and a bit of "Definitely Maybe". Caleb watched a couple of movies and watched TV as well. I think Chris mostly watched comedy TV. Poor Chris didn't sleep at all on the trip - I finally gave Caleb 1/2 a gravol and took one myself and we were able to sleep!

Now we are at the Hotel (Oriental Culture) and we took Caleb out for his first Chinese meal - he got to choose...guess where he wanted to go? You guessed it - Micky D's!! (McDonald's). We did go to an authentic restaurant to meet the rest of our travel group but Chris and I weren't hungry and Caleb said he wasn't ready to try the food!

We came back to the hotel and used Skype to call Dylan and Alyssa (and the MacKinnon gang they are staying with!). It was amazing - we could hear them perfectly and we both had webcams set up so we could see the kids and they could see us. It felt so good to know they were safe and happy!

We are just so relieved to finally be in China! This means we are so close to Evan. I still can't believe it...Chris and I feel like we are replaying when we adopted Alyssa - Evan still seems so unreal to us at this point. We are waiting to hear what happens tomorrow with "gotcha day" - we don't know if we will receive Evan or not. We also found out when we arrived that our Provincial Adoption Coordinator did NOT send a very important document that needed to be faxed LAST week. This is so infuriating! This is part of the reason we are not sure of what will happen tomorrow!

Anyway...the positive news is we are NOT leaving China without Evan so we're here now and will enjoy China as long as we are here!

More details tomorrow....I so hope it includes meeting Evan! Some pictures from our day(s)...

Caleb and Mom waiting to fly

Dad and Caleb being silly...there wasn't much else to do

Finally safe and sound at the hotel...no sleep for 3 days straight so hopefully we'll sleep well tonight!

At the Airport!

Well, we are at the airport waiting to fly out! I woke up this morning and I was so overwhelmed. I rolled over and said to Chris, "I don't want to go anymore!" I think we 've waiting so long for this moment and now that it's here, I'm terrified. I'm still feeling sad about not being with Dylan and Alyssa and the whole uncertainty of our trip and what will happen in China is freaking me out! We have found out that we won't be getting Evan on Monday and there is no information on when we might get him. So, we are heading to China and waiting for more paperwork to be completed. PLEASE, let us get the paperwork ASAP!

Caleb is beyond excited and hasn't stopped talking since 4:30 am this morning! This is his first big trip and he has had "butterflies" for days now! He and Chris are off at the arcade and I'm spending time checking out my friends' blogs and emails. It seems familiar to me - I mean, I've been addicted to this for more than a year! Hee hee!

More when we land in Beijing!

LOTS OF LOVE to Dylan and Alyssa!!

Bittersweet goodbyes...

We just returned from Chris' brother's house (Dean and Stacy's). Dylan and Alyssa are starting their stay there tonight as we are leaving at 5:00 am! Oh man...it is so hard to say goodbye. Dylan gets really emotionally anyway so it's extra hard to leave him when he's crying and sad. I know he will wake up tomorrow excited to be with his cousins and will have full, fun days!!

So...next time you hear from us should be Sunday morning or evening and we will be in Beijing!!!