Our Boy and His Cricket

As much as I wanted to close my eyes on the drive back to the hotel I couldn’t, if I did I was sure I would miss something.  The landscape was filled with plots being prepared for future gardens, tall buildings being built in droves, and housing tracts that reminded me so much of home I thought for a minute that this has just been a wild dream.   But it’s not.  This is not a dream.  This day was not a dream.  Today I am in China and I walked through Tiananmen Square, followed my son through The Forbidden City and sat on The Great Wall waiting for my husband to complete a goal.  So intense and so, so poetic.  The pictures will tell you a better story than I think I ever could. (with over 400 taken today, we tried our best to narrow it down a bit.)

Tomorrow we will be connected to our Jennifer Lee Xiaocheng.  We will wake up without her and fall asleep (maybe) with her in our arms.  We will hold her heart in our hands and bring her into our lives forever.  We can not wait!  Until then....we love you and thank you all for your prayers for us and for the girl we’ve dreamed about for four years!

Love and joy!
Mike and Kayce


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On this day I remember being really surprised by my emotions.  Maybe it was the thought that I only had one more day of waiting to be connected to my daughter or just the sheer magnitude of where I was when those tears fell. Most likely it was the accumulation of four plus years of waiting for these moments to transpire.  It was and still is intense.   


On the bus ride to Tiananmen Square I was wowed by the streets and the grandeur of the surrounding neighborhoods.  It was beautiful and very formal.  The streets, if I remember right were paved marble...is that right??  All I know is that it was breath taking, literally.  Within a few minutes of walking into the square I was bawling.  I couldn't and still can't explain it.  As for walking through the Forbidden City, it was too quick and way over the top touristy for me.  I could have easily walked away from our guide and just spent the day wandering through each of the 999 rooms.  It was a blur unfortunately.  


The Great Wall again was powerful to me, yet too short lived.  We had an hour and that was it.  Again it dampened my adventuresome spirit to be alone and explore.  So I made the most of my time and went to the first tower and just explored each brick.  Each step there I stopped and looked around.  I laughed with some of the Chinese tourists who were trying hard not to fall down the steep steps.  I tried to spot Mike who wanted so badly to reach his goal of getting as far as he could before the time ran out...he made it to the seventh tower.  He couldn't have done that a year earlier and 80 pounds heavier.  After a while I just ended up sitting and I just prayed and absorbed.  Jake soon found me and we sat together and shared how amazing it was that we were sitting on the Great Wall of China.  It was a God moment for both of us.  I remember holding hands and praying together.  


On the way back to the hotel we were "briefed" on what was going to happen the following day.  I remember not wanting to listen to anything being said and told Mike to remember it for me yet I also wanted him to see what we were passing on the road.  All the while the panic that had gotten lost somewhere between Ditan Park and The Great Wall came crashing back inside me.   My controlling self crept back in and fears of inadequacy as a mother to the daughter to be placed in my arms overwhelmed me.  I went into my "panic" mode, aka: OCD!