Home and the first 3 days!

Joshua on his new trike!
Joshua opening a present of a handmade blanket and a tooth fairy pillow from Joann and Bud Albers.






Chase and Olivia touching some wall in the Forbidden City. It is said in China that if you touch this wall it means marriage in your future! William did not think he wanted to touch it. He is not really interested in marriage!! - YET!

Sorry I havn't posted in the last few days, but with jetlag, unpacking and catching up it has been too much.





Thursday morning we took the subway to "The Forbidden City" and Tienam Square. Went back to the hotel and packed up to go to the airport. We had to take two taxis!! We made it fine and the taxis stayed together - believe it or not.



Our trip home was uneventful. We left Beijing at 3:45 in the afternoon and got to Newark at 5:20 the same afternoon!! Is that weird or what? It was a 13 1/2 hour flight in which Joshua slept about 9 hours of that! Benadryl helped a little!! It did not work for the rest of us though! We got to Newark rechecked our luggage and made it to the next gate with about 1o minutes to spare! Enough time for Lawrence to go and purchase two small pizzas and one large drink for all of us to share and guzzle down quickly before boarding our next plane! Our flight to Nashville was a little late leaving (about 40 minutes), but we still arrived in Nashvill at 9:10 p.m. on shedule. We collected our luggage called the hotel to come and retreive us and we got in our car about 10:30 p.m. Thursday night. We were all starving and we got some fast food and started home. Joshua did not mind getting into the car seat at all! He adjusts to everything so easily.





We got home around 11:30 p.m and were welcomed by balloons, cards, gifts and most importantly food!! We were blessed to have several families purchase milk, bread lunch meat, drinks and snacks for us and some other families bring us casseroles ready to bake!! They have been really helpful to us as we have struggled with jetlag the last few days! We went to bed about 1:30 am on Friday morning. I got up around 10 and everyone else got up around 12 or 1 p.m. Lawrence went to the office, I ran some errands which included adding Joshua to our medical insurance and buying him a tricycle. That night we all went to bed around 10 p.m. Some of us slept well (Joshua - 15 hours and Chase - 10 hours) the rest of us had a hard night.





Satuday night again - Joshua and Chase slept well and the rest of us did not!





Today - Sunday- was great to be with our family in Christ! Joshua did really well in bible class. I stayed with him and he wanted to do everyting everyone else did. Lawrence preached a lesson on the spirit of adoption and we came home ate lunch and took a 2 hour nap!!





When we first got home Joshua was terrified of the dog! We have made great strides in the past 3 days! Yesterday he saw me throwing the dogs toy and Gigs bringing it back and he decided he wanted to throw it to her. He still did not want her to touch him, but he did want to play with her.





Today he is petting her and playing with her a lot. He is still a little afraid of her but is adjusting quickly!!





Tuesday we will take him to the pediatrician. We will hopefully get a referral to an orthopedist (Doc. John) and hopefully go to Shriners soon to have him evaluated. He is a clumsy walker and has a hard time going up and down the stairs. We are teaching him to crawl up and scoot down. He is sleeping in our room at night. He starts out on the floor and ends up in our bed by around 2-3 a.m. We will eventually get him in his room, but need to make sure he is comfortable with his surroundings and can get up and down the stairs easily.





Thanks for all of your comments. We have enjoyed going over them and reading them! Joshua will be glad to read them as he gets older!! He will be glad to know he has such a wonderful family - both spiritual and physical - and that they were all praying for him and waiting for his coming to the US!





As our plane landed in Newark, NJ, I was struck by the fact that he was now a US citizen and the freedoms that will bring in his life that he otherwise would never know. However, I am more grateful and struck by the fact of the freedoms he will have in a relationship with Christ that otherwise he may not have ever known. We rejoice in his coming into our family and are so appreciative of everyone accepting him so joyously!! Praise God for his mercy, compassion and goodness.

We love you all and thank you for your support throughout this journey! We will still be updating photos and stuff about Joshua's medical progress periodically so keep checking!!

Take care! Love, All 6 Kelley's