Earthquake Photos Series 4

BBC Reports From: Hanwang

All major buildings including several schools and three hospitals have been destroyed in the town of 70,000 people.
• Parents anxiously waiting for bodies to be pulled out of the wreckage of one school said they heard voices coming from the rubble just after the earthquake which got fainter as time went on.
The BBC's James Reynolds, visiting one of the schools, says none of the parents is prepared to leave the scene until every child has been accounted for.

Wall Street Journal Reports Rescue Effort Overwhelems China

BEICHUAN, China -- A man dangled upside down in a crevice, his left leg pinned under a car-size boulder amid the toppled buildings and giant stones that have covered this town since Monday's epic earthquake.
He was alive and rescue workers knew he was there, yet he dangled. There were so many other victims, the workers said, and not enough heavy equipment.
"I feel like I'm already dead," the man said in Wednesday's gathering darkness. All that could be seen of him was his gray pants leg and a black-and-white sneaker.

China quickly mobilized one of the largest relief operations in its modern history after the magnitude-7.9 earthquake rocked southwestern China, but, as a trek into one of the worst-hit areas showed, even that effort was falling short for many victims of the vast devastation.

The official death toll had risen to 14,867 as of Thursday afternoon in China, according to the official Xinhua news agency. More than 14,000 were missing in the hardest-hit province, Sichuan, with nearly 26,000 buried in debris there, and 64,746 injured, many of them severely. The number of dead seems certain to rise.

The earthquake dealt rescuers an especially cruel challenge because much of its damage was done in remote, mountainous areas like Beichuan. The town, a mile hike from the nearest functioning road, sits at the heart of a county with the same name that accounted for an estimated 5,000 deaths -- more than a third of those reported so far.

China's government reacted rapidly in the hours after the quake, the country's worst natural disaster in more than 30 years. And by all accounts, the relief effort has been enormous -- including the largest airlift, Xinhua said, in the history of the two-million-member People's Liberation Army, which is running the campaign. Nearly 100,000 military personnel have been deployed to the disaster zone. Beset by inclement weather and a series of aftershocks that have complicated relief efforts, soldiers have in some cases parachuted into areas too isolated to be reached in other ways.

China's top-down style of governing appears to have helped it eliminate many of the type of bureaucratic hurdles that defined Washington's slow response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Beijing has also rushed in expertise and equipment by leveraging state ownership in airline, communications and resources companies.

Yet, the relief work across the disaster zone has also at times appeared disorganized or of limited effectiveness. On Thursday morning Beijing said it would permit an unidentified team of Japanese rescue experts to join the effort, a possible acknowledgement from China's government that it requires emergency assistance.

The destruction in Beichuan, a market town whose growing wealth can be measured by the cars crushed on its streets, was overwhelming. Huge parts of the town, nestled in a valley, were now buried under the collapsed mountains around it. The rubble-strewn streets were littered with bodies, some crushed under rocks, others twisted in cars smashed like soda cans. Some corpses lay by the side of the road with blankets thrown over them. One woman sat on a giant pile of rubble, sobbing and saying the same name again and again.

Rescuers dug frantically through the rubble of a wrecked kindergarten, still pulling out survivors. Children found alive were carried in the arms of rescuers out of the town and up a steep muddy slope to safety.

Further into town, there was a forlorn silence punctuated by the cries of trapped survivors who weren't being reached as handfuls of rescue workers wandered aimlessly, useless without heavy equipment to move boulders and chunks of ruined buildings. On the road leading into the valley, a traffic jam six miles long kept hundreds of trucks and perhaps thousands of rescuers at bay.

"This government is a real shame," said Yang Gang, who traveled hundreds of miles from Inner Mongolia, where he works, to his home in Beichuan to search for his son. Dressed in army-surplus clothes and carrying a woven basket packed with supplies, he dug through the rubble of his son's elementary school, unsuccessfully. "Where are the officials? They all ran away? Who was there to help us? What could we do -- there were only a few of us with no tools."
On Wednesday, reporters from Xinhua reached Wenchuan County, the site of the quake's epicenter, for the first time. Bad weather and landslides had kept relief workers from reaching the town for about 24 hours after the quake. The Xinhua reporters found the situation "worse than expected." In one town, Yingxiu, local officials said that only 2,300 of the 10,000 residents appear to have survived.

Thousands Homeless
Even some more-accessible areas wanted for relief workers or essential equipment more than two days after the temblor struck. Homeless victims have had to sleep uncovered in the rain for lack of tents. Bottled water and gasoline are already running out in places. Poor sanitation in refugee centers threatens to exacerbate the misery with disease.
Among the dangers that could further aggravate the plight of survivors is damage to 391 of the disaster area's many dams and reservoirs. Of particular concern is the Zipingpu dam, which sits upriver from the battered tourist town of Dujiangyan, and which was cracked by the quake. An official at the Ministry of Water Resources said that a team of experts sent to examine Zipingpu has reported so far that the dam's structure is stable and safe. But the official said that the inspection work is continuing.

Officials said they don't yet have plans for what to do about the homeless, who may number in the hundreds of thousands. "It's right to consider rebuilding upfront, but we don't have specific plans yet," said Wang Zhenyao, director of the Disaster Relief Division at the Ministry of Civil Affairs. He said the priority is still rescuing survivors.
Foreign aid agencies agreed that rescue efforts are paramount. "The next 24 to 36 hours will be the most critical time," said Kevin Chiu, chief executive of the Hong Kong chapter of the international aid organization World Vision.
Financial donations and offers of assistance have poured in from foreign countries and international relief groups.

On Wednesday, the first large shipment of foreign aid -- 24 tons of tents and other materials from Russia -- arrived in Chengdu, the Sichuanese provincial capital about 55 miles from the epicenter. Two representatives of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies accompanied Chinese aid workers to Sichuan this week, and Beijing has accepted about $230,000 in emergency funding from the umbrella organization to replenish its stockpiles of relief materiel.
China's government has expressed gratitude for the offers of assistance, but until Thursday had not invited foreign emergency-response teams to participate in rescue efforts, despite signs that medical personnel and other resources are becoming strained.
That has proved frustrating for some foreign aid agencies eager to help while their expertise could still save lives.

The Japan Rescue Association has offered to send in its team of rescue dogs, trained to find survivors in the rubble, but said Wednesday it had so far been rebuffed."We wonder now if our rescue dogs will ever have an opportunity to help, because chance of survival of people buried under debris is said to drop after 72 hours," said Yumi Kurata, a spokeswoman for the association, which was formed after Japan's deadly Kobe earthquake in 1995.
Japan learned the hard way that turning down expertise can prove painful during its Kobe quake, which killed more than 6,400 people. Instead of being deployed immediately to deal with the quake, foreign rescue dogs were quarantined and medical-licensing bureaucracy kept U.S. doctors from treating patients for three days after their arrival.
Even though they have visas, 10 members of a specialized search-and-rescue team from the United Kingdom's International Rescue Corps were stuck in Hong Kong, awaiting permission to enter China.
"All we can do is offer our help," said Paul Baxter, a spokesman for the group, which isn't affiliated with the U.K. government. "If it's not taken, that's unfortunate. Right now it's a waiting game."
The IRC's team has specialized equipment for locating buried survivors: an acoustic device that can detect faint sounds in the rubble, a carbon-dioxide detector that can pick up higher concentrations of the gas from people trapped in confined spaces, a video probe, and thermal equipment that can help find people by spotting their body heat.
China, which has demonstrated its own such technology in state media reports, has said conditions in the disaster zone make it impractical for foreign-aid teams to come at this point. "Now even our military troops are not able to get there," said Mr. Wang, the Disaster Relief Division director. He said authorities are still discussing overseas offers.

Criticism of Myanmar
While Myanmar's military government has come under intense criticism for its refusal of foreign aid after this month's devastating cyclone, some foreign experts said the Chinese decision is understandable. Language and cultural factors can make it difficult to accommodate foreigners in the chaos of a relief effort. In the Kobe quake, the Association of Medical Doctors of Asia lost valuable time arranging interpreters, transportation and accommodations for a team of French doctors who came to assist, said Shigeru Suganami, the Japan-based organization's chief.
Kate Redman, a spokeswoman in London for Save the Children, a nonprofit aid organization, praised China's efforts so far: "In this particular case this is definitely the right way to go about it."

The Limitations
The limitations of the official response, however, were evident Wednesday night in Pengzhou, a town about 40 miles from the epicenter, as waves of military trucks arrived carrying thousands of people from their ruined homes in the nearby mountains. Deposited in the dusty town center, they waited for periodic distributions of food, with no instructions about what to do next. Some were starting to get sick, and unable to get medicine because they have no money.
Storefronts in Pengzhou were soon labeled with handwritten lists of villages on them, so people could find their neighbors.
Deng Jun, 24, helped guide over 400 people from his village of Yinchangge to the nearest town in order to get rescued. The group had to spend the night outside in the rain, and Mr. Deng said his 9-month old son has gotten sick. "His nose is running, and he's been crying for days. We didn't have anything to feed him since Monday," Mr. Deng said. "I took him to the hospital but they turned us away because I don't have my identification card." Mr. Deng said he tried to buy medicine in the pharmacy, but couldn't afford it. The price had been raised by a third.
Another several hundred people stayed behind in Mr. Deng's village, he said, because they were injured or too old to walk out with him.

China's Famous Panda Preserve Reported Safe by AP

CHENGDU, China - All the pandas at the world’s most famous panda preserve were reported safe late Tuesday, more than a day after China’s worst earthquake in three decades closed off the remote, mountainous area. The Wolong National Nature Reserve and panda breeding center is the only place in the world where the rare animals can be seen in such large numbers. But Chinese officials and zoo officials overseas had worried about the fate of the center’s 86 pandas since Monday’s devastating earthquake rattled nearby areas in central Sichuan province.
Late Tuesday, officials at Wolong used a satellite phone to contact the State Forestry Administration and report that the pandas were safe, the official Xinhua News Agency said. It said all panda cubs had been taken to safety.

Pandas are a national symbol for China. They are loaned to other countries as friendship offerings in what has become known as “panda politics.” They are so rare and so slow to breed that any large-scale loss could have been critical to the population. More than 60 pandas at another breeding center in Chengdu are safe, and the center reopened to tourists Tuesday morning, Xinhua said. Another eight pandas at a preserve in Ya’an, about an hour’s drive west of Chengdu, were reported safe as well. But the Wolong center is deep in the hills north of Chengdu along a winding, two-lane road that reports say has been wiped out in places by the quake. Earlier phone and e-mail contact had failed.

Rarest of Animals

Pandas are among the world’s rarest animals. Both the Wolong and Chengdu centers are part of efforts to breed giant pandas in hopes of increasing the species’ chances of survival. About 1,600 pandas live in the wild in China’s mountainous west and another 180 live in captivity.
The Wolong center offers visitors the rare chance to play with young pandas, while wearing sterile gloves, booties and gowns for the pandas’ safety.

“It’s magical. It’s a beautiful place,” said Suzanne Braden, director of U.S.-based Pandas International, which gives medical equipment and supplies to Wolong. “It’s high, clean, pure, where you’d like to think that wild pandas would be.”

It is also difficult to reach, even in the best of times. Rescue workers only reached nearby areas by foot Tuesday, a day after the quake struck.

Half the Sky Earthquake Report

As of now, Thursday afternoon in China, there are 14,866 people confirmeddead, 14,463 in Sichuan Province. There are 22,438 people reportedmissing – 21,020 of them in Deyang alone. There have been 3,300aftershocks and they continue. Here is the confirmed information we have regarding children in welfareinstitutions: Chengdu: The city continues to experience aftershocks and the institutiondirector is afraid the water supply will be cut off again, so hasrequested disposable diapers. They are having trouble finding sufficientsupplies of milk and formula. All children in foster care have beenlocated and are fine. The institution has structural cracks but was builtto current earthquake standards and is fundamentally solid. All thechildren remain on the first floor of the children’s building, mostly inthe cafeteria, and, weather-permitting, outside while awake. Chongqing and Yibin orphanages are fine – no building damage, no shortageof supplies.





The orphanages below report problems. However, please note that not asingle child has been injured; all are fine:- Zigong CWI needs bedding, powdered milk, crackers and disposable diapers- Neijiang CWI has suffered some structural damage; one or two children’sdormitories, office building and laundry room have cracked walls.- Nanchong 2nd SWI has cracks in walls, substantial damage to the ceilingof a staff building, needs tents- Mianyang Zitong CWI has severely damaged walls. Children have beenmoved to a military base. Urgent need for diapers, bedding, powdered milkand purified waterHanzhong CWI (Shaanxi)- Quite a few water pipes burst, the water tower hadcracks. Children have been evacuated and there is need for more tents,bedding and purified water. We’ve posted a few photos on our website.Dujiangyan SWI has evacuated all children. They have no tap water orelectricity in their temporary shelter. They urgently need food, purifiedwater, diapers and powdered milk.We are still unable to reach these institutions: Deyang CWI (78 children),Abazhou CWI (52 children), Guangyuan SWI, Mianzhu SWI

BBC Reports from BEICHUAN CITY

• Television pictures from the city have showed near total devastation. Soldiers who were parachuted in to help found survivors lying alongside the dead
• The death toll in Beichuan County is estimated at 3,000 to 5,000, with nearly 10,000 injured

BBC Reports from WENCHUAN CITY

• The earthquake has blocked many roads leading to the city, one of the closest to the epicentre, and rescuers are struggling to reach it

BBC Reports from CHENGDU

• 959 are reported to have died in the provincial capital
• 19 British tourists are reported to be missing in the region
• Australian businessman Les Lothringer in the province told the BBC Chinese buildings are often clad with ceramic materials which would have peeled off during the quake and rained down on those fleeing
A resident of Chengdu, Zhu Tongtong, told the BBC said people were ignoring official advice to return to their homes and that a system of text messaging was being used by the authorities to ask for help.
"There are many people still on the streets. Although the government has asked many of them to go indoors, but many of them are still anxious about the aftershocks. And they prefer to rent a tent and go into the government shelter and sleep in the open space... The government has used their system of mass text messaging and they sent messages to us and asked us to respond if we have any umbrellas because it's raining¿ and they've asked us to give food and water and whatever we can to help people in the countryside," Mr Zhu said.

BBC Reports from MIANZHU

• 3,000 reported dead
• Up to 4,800 people remain buried, but about 500 people were pulled out alive from destroyed buildings
Xinhua told the story of Qing Qing who was one of an estimated 1,000 school children trapped in the ruins of four schools in Mianzhu county.
"When Qing Qing saw a ray of light again after 20 hours in the wreckage of her school, she cried desperately for water. She was fed small mouthfuls of mineral water, with the lid of the bottle, in case excessive intake might worsen her internal injuries. Apparently still thirsty, the girl took out two yuan out of her pocket and asked 'Can you sell me a whole bottle please?'," Xinhua said. Qing Qing was later rescued from the rubble.

BBC Reports from SHIFANG

• About 600 people were reported dead and up to 2,300 buried
• Two chemical plants collapsed, releasing a huge toxic cloud
Whilst visiting Shifang, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said a big effort was under way to clear roads and restore electricity. He warned that food supplies needed to be delivered more quickly to feed hungry children.
"We will save the people. As long as the people are there, factories can be built into even better ones, and so can the towns and counties," Mr Wen told survivors on a loud-hailer. "The transportation of food must be faster, children are short of food," he added.

BBC Reports from DEYANG

• 2,648 dead and hundreds still buried
• Many of the dead were school children - at least six schools collapsed in the earthquake
At Yinghua Middle School in Deyang, 12 children have been pulled out alive. Zhao Xiuling of the armed police rescue force told China's CCTV that the children on the top floor of the school are safe at the moment because the upper part of the building was still standing.
"We can hear the kids are still shouting on the ground floor; our people are endeavouring to move the upper part of the building so we can save the kids," Mr Zhao said.

BBC Reports from YINGXIU

• About 7,700 dead out of a population of 10,000
• Almost half of the survivors were reported to be badly injured
• Rescuers had to trek to the town as roads were blocked by landslides and they found the place "much worse than expected", Xinhua reported
• Hundreds of soldiers have been sent in by helicopter and boat
Reporters from Xinhua travelled with soldiers by boat to Yingxiu and arrived shortly early on Wednesday.
"Powerboats were busy bringing soldiers into the town and sending injured villagers out when the reporters arrived¿ A photo sent back by the reporters showed a dozen local people, with their luggage, waiting anxiously at the river bank where the soldiers' boats landed¿ In [another] photo, soldiers with huge backpacks were trekking through the mountainous region, where long and deep fissures were seen in the ground," Xinhua said.

BBC Reports from DUJIANGAN

• Population of 60,000 people about 50km (32 miles) from the epicentre
• Some 2,000 troops have been sent to the Zipingku Dam above Dujiangyan over fears for its stability. The official Xinhua news agency quoted the Ministry of Water Resources as calling for the dam to be protected, as surrounding area would be "swamped" if it collapsed
• More than 1,000 staff and students are trapped in a Juyuan Middle School, in a township of Dujiangyan. Bodies are reported to be stretched out in the playground as parents wait for news. One girl has been pulled out alive
The BBC's Dan Griffiths at Juyuan school says rescue workers have been bringing out the bodies of children all day as hundreds of relatives weep:
"The school at Juyuan is a pile of rubble and twisted metal. Hundreds of distraught relatives are crowded round the entrance waiting for news about the children, many of them in tears... Rescue teams are using cranes, but progress has been slow and hampered by heavy rain overnight. The bodies of those already found lie in a corner of the playground. The signs of the earthquake are everywhere here - buildings collapsed, many places without electricity or water, people living in makeshift tents, their possessions scattered around them."

Update on Deyang County SWI

From Love Without Boundaries:

What I heard was that everyone was safe and they had
moved, but all the stores are closed and there is no
power. There have been 400+ deaths in Deyang so it
must have been bad there. Our nutrition director is
calling Ms. Wu to see if there is anything we can
do...for now I think the Red Cross will be taking care
of things, but I don't know yet when they will be able
to return to the SWI. I'm sure they would have told us
if there was any problem with the school kids, but
will know more tomorrow. Ms. Wu said they were getting
gasoline to run a generator, but I don't know yet
where they are. But they are okay. My guess is that
they will be able to return to the SWI when the
aftershocks are over.

China Earthquake Photos Series Three

China Earthquake Photos Series Two

China Earthquake Photos Series One

Here are some photos from Chinese websites showing the devastation in China due to Monday's horrific earthquake. We at the Gladney blog are interested in any information regarding SWIs in the regions affected by the quake. Please email any information about this to sbrueckel@gmail.com or lebonchien@aol.com. Thank you.

Letter From Gongzhan Wu Re Earthquake In China

Dear Families & Friends,

As you all know, the biggest natural disaster since 1976 occurred with the earthquake yesterday in China’s Sichuan province. I am deeply saddened by the reports and photos. The earth quake has already caused severe consequences. More than 12,000 have been killed with 26,000 plus wounded. Hundreds of school children in Dujiangyan city are still missing when having classes. Yinxiu town near the center of the earth quake, has 12,000 resident, but only 3,000 survived, according to a local report.
I am in touch with people living in the area hit by the earthquake. Here is the latest news:


Chengdu – the provincial capital city of Sichuan, which is 90 kg away from Wenchuan, the center of the earth quake, has some damage, but is manageable. Chendu airport is closed, and all the flights go through Chongqin now.

Changsha is fine. They felt the earthquake, but there were no severe consequences.

Beijing, Tianjin, and Nanjing also felt the earthquake, but not on the same scale as Shihcuan.

The Shanghai Children's Home is closed for volunteers. It was first closed in March and April due to an epidemic of Measles and Flu. It was going to reopen, but it closed again due to an epidemic of the EV71 hand-foot-mouth virus. The good news is that none of the children at SCH is infected.

Communication is still down in many of the affected areas, but so far the Half the Sky Foundation is reporting that the children in the SWIs in Chengdu, Chongqing and Yibin are all safe.

Two Gladney mom, Stephanie Bluckel and Beth Ann are trying to collect information about the regions where our families have adopted from and post the updates on the blog at www.gladneychinaadoption.blogspot.com.

Although children living in the SWI's seem, so far, to be safe, there has been tremendous loss of life and damage in the earthquake affected areas of China. Gladney's China Initiative will be collecting donations to help in this time of great need. Checks can be made out to Gladney Center with earmark to China-earthquake, and sent to the New York office at:

Gladney Center for Adoption

363 Seventh Avenue
3rd Floor

New York, NY 10001


The donation is tax deductable, and I promise every penny of your donation will go to the children from the earth quake hit area in Sichuan.
For more information about Gladney's China Initiative, please visit http://chinainitiative.org

For the latest news and pictures, please visit http://www.nytimes.com

Thank you,



Gongzhan Wu

Asian Program Manager
& Director, New York Office
Gladney Center for Adoption
363 Seventh Avenue, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10001
Tel: 212-868-4561
Fax: 212-868-4566

Spring News from Whitney

We have had a great few weeks. Not only was Whitney accepted into our first choice nursery school, but she was accepted to every school to which we applied! This is not an easy accomplishment in New York City. We accompanied Whitney's father, Jeff, on a business trip to Palm Beach. Jeff didn't have much time to spend at the pool and beach but Whitney and I sure enjoyed ourselves! We continue to endure the long, long, long wait for Whitney's mei mei. Fingers crossed that things start speeding up again soon.

Amanda Is Growing Up So Fast!!!

Dad Eric writes:

She's now 8 and 1/2 and is finishing up 2nd grade. She just had her Catholic 1st Communion ceremony this past Saturday.

Springtime At Kathryn and Sarah's

We are having quite a busy spring in our family! Within a month we celebrated Easter, Stephanie went to a week-long conference in Minneapolis, and we moved to a new apartment in Brooklyn. The kids handled the move very well and we are proud of them.

James continues to do very well in school and enjoy his afterschool program,Saturday German school, playdates with friends, and other activities. Kathryn and Sarah will start a three morning a week program in the fall. The sisters continue to be inseparable and we marvel at the strength of the bond between them. They love James very much and he is a great big brother!

I'm attaching a few pics from the last month or so. Happy Spring everyone!

Ma Fu Li Then And Now!!!

Ma Fu Li's mom writes:

"I thought you might enjoy seeing the latest picture of Ma Fu Li. Her hair is actually down to her waist, but in this picture , her hair was caught up in the jacket ... BUT it made for a very good picture I think ! "

In the picture in Central Park with Gongzhan Wu and the group of people, Ma Fu Li is the little girl happily singing away, in the blue dress to Gongzhan's left. She certainly has grown!!

That group picture was from a Little Angel Camp, which was a China Initiative function. For more information on Gladney's China Initiative, an organization providing charitable support to children remaining in China, and information on how you can help, please visit here.

Eliza Li Performs For Earth Day!!

Eliza Li , Age 7, participated in her Elementary School's Musical production called Jubilee: The Earth is our Kingdom.
She was in the number: North, South, East and West.

A Heart Bigger Than Her Years!

Mom Cathy wrote.

Sofia is making the news !!! The place that had her classroom birthday party has sent this press release to all of the local papers. (as long as her hair was in place, of course !!).

Sofia was adopted from Shanghai in 2001. She turned 8 on April 8th. She has a big sister, Mary Rose, from Jiangyin City. Read the press release below about her wonderful donation, which is sure to bring some sunshine into the lives of other children!


TWO 8-YEAR-OLDS DONATE BIRTHDAY GIFTS

STERLING... Horizon Elementary second graders Sofia Lunde and Cecilia Rivera decided that their joint eighth birthday party on April 13th would be a bit different.

Instead of getting and keeping the usual abundance of presents from friends and classmates,
they donated everything brought to their party to a worthy cause... children who become patients at INOVA Loudoun Hospital's pediatric unit and pediatric emergency department.

"We told our friends, their parents and our teacher, Mrs. Sanders, what we wanted to do," said
Sofia, "and they thought it was a good idea. Even without us getting to keep a bunch of gifts, it was the best party ever!"

"The hospital will give one of the gifts to any kid who is feeling scared or sad," said Cecilia, "and the kid can keep it. It may make them feel better."

Some 19 classmates brought presents to the party, held at the new Fitwize 4 Kids in Regal

Center. Fitwize 4 Kids is improving the quality of life for children and their families by offering a fun and safe place where kids learn how to stay active, build strong muscles and become empowered to make better decisions about their physical and nutritional well being.
********************************************************************

We at Gladney wish Sofia a very happy 8th birthday and are very proud of her!

She is full of laughs!

Hello All,

So we arrived in Guangzhou safety, Ann was great on the flight except at landing her ears must have been hurting her. We are staying at the White Swan which is really nice and the area is great. There is so many families here that are adopting. We have our US Immigration interview on Monday and get our visa on Tuesday afternoon. The swearing in is at 2:45 pm and then we leave for Binging, and return back home Wednesday.

We cannot believe the time is nearly up, it has gone so quickly its been quite an eventful week. But we are truly looking forward to getting home, its difficult living out of a suit case and staying in a hotel room. We cannot believe the changes in Ann in the last few days, she is so full of laughs and just loves the camera. Dimi and her had great fun today in the play room while I filled out the paperwork for Monday. She loves the computer so needless to say she is helping me write this email, she is sitting in my knee helping we write this.

Anyways got to go and get dinner. We have to have early dinner so Ann can get to bed on time, we feel like we are going for the early bird specials :))) Talk to you all soon Enjoy the pictures.

Mary, Dimi and Ann

With Megan in Hands, A Waiting Mom No More

I'm typing with one hand as Megan doesn't like to be put down at nap time. And silly me, I put her to sleep in my arms rather than the Bjorn so I could have both hands. Oh well. Megan (and us) slept better, but she still insists on going to bed at 5:30pm. Consequently, she was up to stay at 4:30am. Of course that doesn't count the several other times she woke up.She woke up with a 100.3 degree fever, which is likely from teething...her bottom 2 are finally coming in. So the girls stayed at the hotel and DH went to the history museum. Click here formore some photos & stories. Kris

Adoption Registration in Changsha - footprinting

The next day after Mary and Dimitrios met their daughter Ann, they found themselves in the Children Adoption Center in Hunan province, Ann doing footprint!

For more pictures, please click here.