AMERICA!

Hi everyone, I need to make this really quick because we need to go
board our plane to Atlanta. We just arrived in Seattle and have 2 more
flights until we are finally home. So sorry I didn't blog while we are
in Beijing. It was so much fun, but we were just so exhausted after
the end of each day. I will probably be posting all of my pictures on
my Facebook account this week. It will be easier to do them all on
there instead of here since there is 400-500 pictures.. so check on
there for pictures later this week. And thank you so much for all of
the comments and prayers while we were there. They were greatly
appreciated and we all had so much fun!

Thanks again,
Elyssa

Temporary Goodbyes

Ok, let me start off by saying we are all alive! No cars or bikes
have hit us or anything we are just all so exhausted! So, I will start
off with what happened yesterday and then move on to today.
Yesterday was pretty normal, we woke up went to breakfast and had all
of our usuals.. plus Lily got us PIGEON EGGS, I passed. Haha, Molly,
Bliss, and Susan said they were pretty good, but those were the only
ones that had the guts to try them. After breakfast we went to the
orphanage and went to the 5th floor where the babies are and where the
older kids play in the morning (so they don't have to waste the one
downstairs and the one upstairs is broken, but it is cooler in the
morning). We played with the babies and toddlers for a little while
and then most of us (except Susan, Katie, and my mom, they were
exchanging money for the orphanage gifts) went to the older kids to
let them dance around. Megan and Charlie made little tutus for all of
them and matching headbands, it was so cute to watch. (They had music
too). They did the Chicken Dance, the Tootie Ta, and some other dances
I don't remember. All of the girls LOVED dressing up and getting to
dance around to the music. When they were finished we had to leave so
they could all take their naps, so we went back to the hotel for
lunch. It was the usual lunch except with some other pork dishes which
were really good! After lunch Susan, my mom, and I all went to the
supermarket to look around while everyone else went and had naps. We
got a bunch of chocolates and cookies (they have peanut butter and
chocolate mixed oreos! DELICIOUS :)) Haha, at about 2:45 we headed
back to the orphanage for the second half of our day. We all went to
the baby room (to cool off & to play with the babies for a little) for
about an hour or so and then went downstairs where some of the group
was painting the little girls' nails. It was precious and so fun to
watch them light up when they saw their nails. :) When it was 5 we had
to leave and we went back to the hotel until dinner. Dinner was at the
KFC across the street from our hotel. I must say it wasn't like the
KFC in America.. haha. Mostly all of the chicken was spicy, and they
even had tacos (no biscuits though). :( However, while we were waiting
for Lily to order our food Megan, Charlie, and I all saw a balloon man
outside of the KFC. Megan and I decided we would get a balloon and
share it. So we got our money and walked out to the guy (who was about
to leave) and chased him down. However, us being ever so smart didn't
think of how we wouldn't be able to ask how much. So, we had to wave
Lily down so we could find out how much it was. It was only 8 Yuan
(about $1.50) and it looked just like Gumby, but blue... so we named
it Gumby. :) After we (Megan, Charlie, and I) all ate our popcorn
chicken and fries we decided we wanted ICE CREAM! :) Haha, it was
soooo good! Anyways after dinner Charlie and I decided to get our own
balloon and we both wanted the balloon that walked.. it had feet and
no helium so it stayed on the ground. She got the pig and I got the
dog, it was quite funny walking through the city getting even more
stares than before. Once we all got to the hotel we all went straight
to sleep (except Katie and my mom, they went to look for our laundry
that never came back). Short story short, it was pretty funny trying
to communicate and say that they didn't have their laundry, haha.
Ok, today was pretty much the same as usual, breakfast at 7:30, leave
at 8:15. This morning we spent a lot of time with the babies, just
playing and rocking them. When we only had about 30 minutes left we
went downstairs and played with the older kids until we had to go.
They just ran, jumped, and played with all of the soccer balls and
toys. They were crazy this morning, it's like they had all just had
Red Bulls! Haha. We came back to the hotel for lunch again and took a
few pictures with the employees. We also gave two of them a dollar
bill and our signatures on it, because they wanted it for a memory, we
all thought it was a pretty cool memory. By the way, during the
morning my imom, Susan, Lily, and some of the directors of the
orphanage went to get the gifts for the orphanage. We ended up being
able to buy them a big air conditioner, and a TV. I think they were
very happy and thankful that we were able to get them something they
needed. Okay, so back on track, at 2:45 we went to the orphanage for
the last time (on this trip) :) and played with the babies for about
an hour. We went downstairs afterwards and they decorated the foam
visors with stick on foam stickers that we brought. They loved
decorating them. Susan also got some of her pictures developed so that
the older kids could have a picture of themselves in their foam
picture frame that they made the other day. We put all of the frames
in a collage sort of thing on their wall so they can always see them.
We also brought face paint and we painted most of their faces. Katie's
secret talent is face painting, haha, she was really good. Some of us
also brought them glow stick bracelets that they wore and thought they
were the coolest things ever! Sadly, we were told that it was 5 and
that we needed to say our goodbyes and take our last group picture out
by the orphanage. It was so hard saying goodbye to all of the precious
ones that we have come to love; however, we all hoped that if we are
fortunate to come back again that most of them will be gone to live
with a family.
For dinner the orphanage directors were taking us out to a restaurant
in the city. The head nanny, and the two oldest kids got to come too.
One was a girl that is 12 and one that is a boy who is 11. They both
have a problem with the left side of their body. However, they have
nothing wrong with their brains and are just the happiest kids ever.
They have gotten one surgery and they have healed and recovered very
well. We just pray that they will find a family soon and be able to be
adopted, because once they turn 14 they can not be adopted anymore.
Anyways, dinner was very good and it was kind of nice to eat somewhere
other than the hotel, even if their steamed bread wasn't as good ;).
We said our goodbyes when we were done with dinner and it was very sad
to know that we won't be able to see their shining faces every morning
and afternoon anymore. Tomorrow we have a 5 hour (very bumpy) bus ride
back to Changsha and then a 2 hour flight to Beijing. The team will be
there for 2 days and then my mom and I are staying another day to do
more sightseeing. Well, I better go pack because we are leaving at 7
tomorrow and I am tired enough as it is! Love you all, and see you soon!

New Places & Faces

Our day started off at around 3-5 am... that was when most of woke up
and couldn't go back to bed. We went downstairs in our hotel to have
another Chinese breakfast. We had most of the same stuff: chicken
feet, mushrooms, steamed bread :), bread filled with veggies, soy
beans, sticky rice, pumpkin bread, some fried pumpkin & banana, and
then they brought us a donut type food. It was covered in sugar and it
was absolutely delicious!! However, at breakfast you just choose what
you want from the carts they bring around and they only give you 3 at
a time. It's a little hard when you have 10 hungry people! Haha, but
they ended up making us 3 more batches especially for us, since the
Chinese don't like too many sweet foods. After we had breakfast we
headed to the orphanage for day 2, part 1. When we got there all of
the older kids were upstairs playing in the playroom and watching
Spongebob Squarepants on the TV. We brought some of the toys and
crafts for them today so we decided to let them see the bubbles while
we were in that room. They LOVED them!!! They would blow them for each
other and then run around chasing after them. There was one little
girl that I noticed though that only had 2 toes on each foot. She
couldn't walk very well, she would take a couple of steps and then she
would fall or would try to grab something to support her. All of the
kids were running around chasing the bubbles, and she was trying so
hard to but she still couldn't. So I picked her up and took her to
where all the bubbles were and she loved catching and popping them, it
was so fun to watch her smile and laugh because she is usually very
shy. After a little while the kids had to go, so we went into the baby
rooms and held and played with them for a while. Katie and I got to
feed some of the infants and rock them until they all went to sleep,
and then for the rest of the time we played with the toddlers in the
play room. After we left the orphanage we went to a new restaurant
(actually the only restaurant we have been to besides our hotel and
the service stop). It's specially was noodles and they had supposedly
been famous for 100 years or something like that. The noodles were
quite yummy, they had some lemongrass in them and were much better
than the rice noodles from the service stop! When we were done with
lunch we went back to the hotel and took naps and played cards. Lily's
nephew Carrey played (or tried to) cards with us. It was quite funny
because he doesn't speak English so it took awhile to explain the
games! At about 2:40 we headed back to the orphanage. Megan, Charlie,
and I went up to the newborns and held them for quite a bit. Both
Megan and I found two little girls that had a really bad cough and
would cry hysterically if you put them back in their cribs, so we held
them for about half an hour until they got really sleepy and would
finally go to sleep. After all the babies were asleep we went and
played with the toddlers for a while. Of course I went straight to my
little crazy haired girl and played superman with her until she was
laughing so hard I thought she may choke! Haha. Also, I got to hold
the little boy (we thought it was a girl) who doesn't have any eyes.
He loves to be held and laughs so hard when you lean him down so his
head is towards the ground if that makes sense. After a little bit we
all went down to the big kid floor and they all sang and did
introductions for us, it was so cool and sweet. Susan had brought some
foam picture frames and stick on foam stickers for the kids to
decorate and they loved it! (As I type this I think that may have been
in the morning, but I'm so exhausted everything just meshes together,
but I do know we did that today, haha). We also gave the big kids some
Silly Bandz which the nannies used to put little ponies all over their
head (for the girls). We took lots of pictures and they loved looking
at them afterwards and saying that it was them in the picture. It was
too cute! Some other big hits for the older kids were the jump ropes,
stickers, tattoos, and soccer balls. I truly think they had a lot of
fun today, and I can't wait to go back tomorrow morning. When it got
to about 5 we had to leave and we headed back to our hotel. Some of us
went to the supermarket and some of us just stayed at the hotel to lay
down for a while. At 6:30 we went to dinner at the same place we went
to for lunch. They made us a salty/spicy beef, delicious green beans,
HUGE steamed bread (like 20 of them... and we took some back with
us :)), rice, a scrambled egg type dish, seasoned tofu, and some type
of leafy type thing. We were all so tired we weren't even that hungry
(except for the steamed bread of course!) and it was really quiet most
of the time. Tomorrow we're going to the orphanage like usual, but
Susan, my mom, and probably Lily are going to get some gifts for the
orphanage. Alright, well I probably need to go to bed because I can't
even think straight while typing this (sorry for any mistakes, or if
it doesn't make sense)

P.S. I am going to post some pictures on another blog in a minute...If
someone could just email me at elyssamapple@mac.com saying if you saw
it or not that would be great! Thanks so much and we'll see you soon!

Pictures from yesterday...

Chicken feet, Tongue, Intestine, Stomach, and Pig Ears

 

My crazy haired little one :) (her hair doesn't look that bad here!) & she already has her peace sign, haha.

 

She is precious, and she loves to blow kisses (begos)

 

Curious George(ina) :) she loves to look at everything and everyone, wondering what you are doing.

 

New Adventures...

Today was our first day in the orphanage. We woke up (for most of us
around 4 and couldn't go back to sleep) and went downstairs to have a
Chinese breakfast. We had steamed bread with sweet condensed milk (SO
GOOOD!), sticky rice, bread with vegetable fillings, mushrooms, and
CHICKEN FEET! (and yes, I tried one, it wasn't that bad, but
definitely not my favorite). After breakfast we walked to the
orphanage. It was about a 10 minute walk and throughout the whole
thing we just got stares like we were aliens and had five eyes. :) We
also got to finally encounter the craziness of the cars and bikes on
the street. There are no stop signs or stop lights so they just go
whenever they feel like it, and the people, well the locals, just walk
straight out when they want. The motorcycles and scooters usually
never stop for you, but the cars will occasionally. We finally got to
the orphanage and had a meeting with the directors, and we got to try
a fruit called liches (sp?) they were pretty good, I have a picture of
them, but it's hard to put pictures up since it takes so long. After
our meeting we got to go look at the rooms, first we walked into the
older kids rooms (4-12 probably) and they immediately went crazy! They
were so happy to see us it was precious. :) Then we got to go up to
the newborn room and we got to hold and rock them for a while. Right
away my mom found a little girl that sucks on her middle and ring
finger, just like I used to and immediately started crying, and the
little girl absolutely loved her, it was so cute! When we were
finished looking at the newborns we got to go into the toddler room
where they were playing. We all went in to sit down and play and hold
them. Right away I found a little girl that absolutely LOVED doing
"superman" she would laugh the whole time, and stick out her tongue so
I could see it. She had so much hair and it was just going EVERYWHERE,
it was crazy. We got to play with them for a little while longer and
then we had to go back to our hotel so that they could take their
naps. When we came back we had lunch in our hotel again. We had
eggplant (our favorite), green beans, beef, rice, steamed bread (of
course), and lots of other foods that I can't remember right now.
After lunch we all went back to our rooms and Charlie, Megan, Molly,
and I all went to Carissa's room to play cards until we were going to
go back to the orphanage. At about 2:4o we met in the lobby and headed
back to the orphanage for part 2 of our day. We got to go back to the
toddler and baby rooms and play with the little ones. One of the
little girls that I was playing with would just watch me everywhere I
went, she was so curious. She would also do the "eyebrow pop" when you
did it to her, then she would do it back. After we were in there for
about an hour we got to go down to the first floor to play with the
older kids. Once again they went insane! When I was sitting with them
on the floor they were drawing on chalkboards and the boards where you
can write then erase it. One of the little girls I was sitting with
would give me her marker type thing and I would draw her hearts,
stars, and a bunch of other things. Then she would try to do it by
herself. She also LOVED to get her picture taken so I would take a
bunch of pictures of her and then she would get to look at them all,
it was so cute to see her reaction to seeing herself. While we were in
the older kids room my mom found a little boy who was 11 years old. He
was very shy and at first wouldn't even let her look at his drawings.
Towards the end Lily (our translator) told us that he has told them
that he was taken when he was 6 years old. He said he was going to
school, or coming home and he was taken, so he is very traumatized and
nervous around a lot of people. He also keeps saying that his parents
are going to come back and get him, it's heartbreaking knowing that he
thinks that and that we know that they probably don't even know where
he is. He started showing my mom how to count and was drawing pictures
with her and Lily by the end of our time there. The nannies were
surprised because he usually doesn't interact with anyone so it was
really cool. When we were leaving he let my mom hold his hand and even
give him a hug. By the time we actually left he was outside and gave
her 2 more hugs. It was really sweet to see how he warmed up to her.
We had to leave at 5 sadly, so we said our goodbyes and headed back to
the hotel. My mom and I needed some bottles of water so we went to the
supermarket by our hotel. While we were going there we saw the outdoor
market by the supermarket so we went down to look around. It was quite
the experience, I will have to put up pictures later. Mostly
everything was live, except for some of the cow parts etc. if you
know what I mean.. haha. Anyways, we saw: eels, ducks, chickens,
pigeons, frogs, turtles, crayfish, crabs, and all types of fish (all
live) & we saw: duck, tongue, intestine, stomach (we don't know what
animal they were from) and a bunch of other animals that were already
cooked. It was so funny because for some of the meats they would just
have a cut of it on the dirty table and they would stand there with a
fly swatter to keep it out of the way, it was very different. We
finally went into the store and got all of the stuff we needed. One
thing that was quite interesting was the potato chips and pringles.
They had seaweed, lime, cucumber, chicken, and a lot of other flavors
to choose from... I stuck with the original pringles. :) Okay, well
this blog is getting pretty long, so basically after we went to the
store we came back and had dinner and now we are in bed about to go to
sleep. So Goodnight or Good morning to you all. We love you and we'll
see you soon. I will try to post pictures but I am just not quite sure
when exactly it will be. So, just keep checking back.

P.S. sorry for any errors I am very tired and had a long day!

Here at Last...

We made it!! We landed in Beijing at 10:30 on Thursday night and then headed to our hotel for the night and got about 3-4 hours of sleep. The next morning we had to get up at 5 and be on our plane to Changsha by 8:30. By the way, I must say the Chinese must LOVE yogurt! haha, we have already been served 3 cartons of it! Anyways, back on topic, after our 2 hour plane ride we got into the bus and started driving to Chen Zhou. About 2 hours into the drive we stopped at the service station to have lunch at a small restaurant. We feel like rockstars here, everyone comes up to us and asks for pictures, and of course they do the signature peace sign =) For lunch we got rice noodles with beef and tea. All of the people in the restaurant stared at us and watched us try to attempt to use our chopsticks, it was quite funny. After lunch we jumped back on our bus and started the 2 & 1/2 hour drive to Chen Zhou. We are finally here in our hotel and figured out how to get internet, even though pretty much none of the employees here speak English :\ The orphanage director met us at our hotel today so we got to meet her and found out that we get to go to the orphanage tomorrow from 9:00-11:30 & then 3-5. We are all very excited and can't wait to see what is in store for us! 

Ahhh! I'm trying to type this and can't even here myself think (so, sorry for the spelling/grammar errors, I'm running off of little sleep & lots of noise!). The people drive like mad men! haha They don't even have lanes (well, they don't follow them) and they drive on whatever side of the street they want, even if another car/bike/person is coming. So all I here right now is horns, horns, horns!!! (I'll try to put up a video later of them driving)

    Well, we are about to go to dinner, I'll try to blog tomorrow night, or maybe the next morning depending on how I feel. 

P.S. I don't know if I will be able to put up pictures since the internet is pretty slow... Also, my website www.youarebigenough.com is not letting me update my blog so I will just do it here from my email. And if someone could comment on this saying you saw it, or send me a message on Facebook that would be greatly appreciated! Goodnight, or good morning to everyone in the states!! =)