Gotcha Day!!! Merry Christmas!!!

Good evening/morning everyone,

Today has been a long day - just like BIG days in Life tend to be.

It's Christmas Eve here in Nanchang, and we're settling in for the night.

So first, we wish everyone checking in a very Merry Christmas.

We arrived early here in Nanchang after rising at 5AM & catching our flight from Bejing.

We had some free time and then Kathy took us shopping at a Chinese grocery near the hotel.

This was an experience - we got some bottled water, and some snacks that weren't quite what we expected.

The weather here is very mild and today was actually quite nice with temps in the the 50's by my estimation.

We are excited to report that Gotcha Day has brought our son Kyle safely to us!

At around 2:30 this afternoon we went by bus to the Civil Affairs Office.

When we got to the Gotcha Room, we saw Kyle sitting off to the side with his escorts.

He has been driven by Bus about 90 minutes from his orphanage.

He looked a lot like his photos, and was dressed in a traditional Chinese red outfit.

He was escorted by a woman and man along with an official of the provincial government form the area of the orphanage. We're not sure who these people were and we'll try to find out tomorrow.

We've got a lot of pictures and some video, so I'll include a picute or two here, but will probably share the rest of the photos separately.

When first got to hold him, he wasn't as enthisiastic about the idea as we were. In fact, it wasn't pretty!!!

He cried a lot and wanted to go back to be held by his Nanny/Helper. He seemed to be quite attached. It was a little difficult for us at first, but we knew what to expcect and knew also that this might be a possibility. Nonetheless, we Gotcha'd him and he cried quite loudly the rest of the afternoon, until we were able to get him home and get him changed. He seemed better after that.

The rest of our group did well. The little girls in our group did very well, except for one or two, who cried. Kyle was clearly the most vocal - no wonder since he was so grossly outnumbered! Lisa tried to get some pictures of the other little girls so we'll have that for later.

The whole "ceremony" didn't take but 45 minutes and then we were on our bus back to the hotel.

Once back in the room Kyle got progressively better, and seems much more interested in us. After his diaper change, he and I hung out while Lisa did some of the local Nanchang papaerwork. It seems that Kyle is a whiz at stacking cups. He enjoys the sight & sound of the TV, and he also likes his "Knotty Blanket". His hand eye coordination seems very good and he had no problem understanding the cup-in-a-cup concept. He caught on quickly. He also found out that he could make noise by banging his cups together!

As expected he doesn't walk and doesn't seem able to crawl much yet either. We'll further test that theory tomorrow. He is a bit of a peanut for being 15 mos, but does seem to have a good number of teeth. He hasn't eaten much and will be hungry in the morning.

After Lisa returned, we gave him a bath. He seems to be OK with this and liked to splash around with his feet. The hotel gave us a small baby wash tub for him, which worked fine. We also have a small crib for the room. I'll have to report on this tomorrow.

After his bath, Lisa played more stacking cups with him while I went to fill out paperwork (lots of signatures and lots of red-ink thumbprints).

Right now he's sleeping comfortably on the bed. When I sign off, we'll try to place him in the crib. This should be fun!!

I guess that's it for now. Sorry for making you read all of the story before we got to the pictures.

Here's the moment we've all been waiting for!!!!!

Kyle:

Master of Stacking Cups

Again, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

C