Our Little Gymast

Maya had her first two Level 4 gymnastics meets while we were gone and she did really well. The first week she got 5th on floor, 6th on vault and was 12th all around. She did even better this last weekend and ended up with 3rd on floor, 3rd on vault and 5th all around. It was too bad we had to miss them, but there will be plenty more for us to see, I'm sure. She ended up with a trophy and 6 medals. She has this weekend off and then Chow's, the gym where Gabby Douglas and Shawn Johnson trained, is hosting the next meet so we will get to see her compete then. Can't wait!

Sleeplessness and Spit-Up!

Jeff's sister, Lisa, gave Ciana a jumperoo that she can sit in, so Maya and I put that together last night. Ciana loves to sit in it and bounce while playing with the toys and bouncing. Ciana must still be on Taiwan time, because she was up most of the night again last night. Taiwan is 13 hours ahead, so I'm not sure how we're going to get her on Iowa time. Luckily Maya was able to sleep through it this time, because she has a busy day of school, gymnastics and dance today. Jeff and I were up most of the night however. This morning she was pretty fussy and fell asleep while playing in her jumperoo! Then she had a short nap and woke up fussy again. I had her raised over my head playing with her when a waterfall of spit-up came pouring down on my hair and shirt. All Jeff and I could do was laugh! Jeff said he wished he would have had it on video. It was pretty funny, but gross at the same time! Welcome to being the mother of an infant again, I guess!

Home Sweet Home

Our flight home went pretty well. Jeff was totally stressed about it and didn't eat the night before or most of the day of the flights home. When we brought Maya home from China she didn't sleep at all and Jeff was worried that she was bothering everyone else on the plane. This time both of our flights were shorter than expected, so that was good. The flight from Taipei to Tokyo was 2 1/2 hours instead of 3 1/2 and the flight to Minneapolis was 10 1/2 instead of 11. Ciana was still sleeping when we left the hotel and slept in my arms the entire 40 minute taxi ride to the airport. The rest of the day my arm ached so bad it was killing me! She did great on the flight until we started to descend and then she cried until we had landed. The long flight we were seated all the way at the back of the plane, which was good so we didn't bother that many people. Ciana slept through take off and landing. She was awake in between, of course, and we had to stand with her in the aisle a couple of times, but for the most part she was pretty quiet and did really well. We were able to get a little sleep too, while she was sleeping. When we landed in Minneapolis we went through immigration and Ciana became a US Citizen! Then we put her in her carseat and began our 3+ hour drive home. She slept the whole way and luckily Jeff didn't, since he was driving. When we got home Maya greeted us in the driveway with a big hug. She was anxious to see her little sister. Dad and Cindy were there too. It was great to finally be back home. Maya got to hold Ciana right away. She keeps saying how much she likes her, but I know it is going to be hard for her to not have me all to herself anymore. She was really starving for some mommy time after being away from me for 9 days. Ciana didn't sleep well at all the first night home and she woke Maya up too, so we all had some together time in the middle of the night. After Ciana finally fell back asleep Maya snuggle in bed with us, because she missed us so much. Our first full day home we had more visitors. Dad and Cindy had stayed over the night before and Jeff's parents and two nieces came in the afternoon to meet Ciana.

Last Day in Taipei

Our last day in Taipei was very hot!!!! We went to tour the Sun Yat Sen Memorial and saw the changing of the guard ceremony. Then we went to Hello Kitty Sweets restaurant for lunch. I had heard about this online and had to go see it, but we should have never gone. They didn't speak english at all and the menu wasn't in english either. After waiting forever for someone to wait on us we tried to order and couldn't understand what the waitress was trying to ask us so we finally just gave up and left. Then we saw a McDonalds so we went there. As soon as we sat down Ciana started to throw a fit and a worker came over and shushed us a couple of times! I couldn't believe it and Jeff decided we should leave. So I grabbed my food and ate it in he taxi! We spent most of the rest of the day just hanging out in our hotel room getting ready to leave early the next morning.

Taiwan AIT

Yesterday we went to our appointment at AIT, the American Institute in Taiwan. We gave them our paperwork answered a couple of simple questions and that was it. They told us to return later in the day to pick up Ciana's Visa. This is the final step in the adoption process, so it's complete! Now we just need to get her home! After that it was raining so we had to change our plans a little bit. We decided to go to Taipei 101 to wait out the rain. This is the buiding that was the tallest building in the world until recently. We went up to the observatory when we were here 2 years ago so we decided we needed need to go up there again. We just had lunch at McDonalds in the food court and walked around a little bit. Then we had to leave to go pick up Ciana's Visa at AIT. It had stopped raining so we took the bus to Chang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. The buildings and grounds were beautiful. It was very hot! After returning to our room for a brief rest we went to Din Tai Fung for dinner. This restaurant was named one of the top 10 restaurants in the world in 1993 and has won numerous awards since. They are famous for their steamed pork dumplings, Xiaolongbao. They have a statue of a dumpling guy holding a tray of Xiaolongbao in front of the restaurant. The one we went to is the original location. You can see men making the dumplings in the first room you see. There are normally lines to get in, which we had witnessed several times already. We went at 5:00 and got right in. We ordered the Xiaolongbao, fried rice and shrimp and pork potstickers. The Xiaolongbao were delicious! The rice was good too. We should have gone with my initial instinct and ordered more of the dumplings and skipped the potstickers, however. Then it was back to the hotel for a good night's sleep. Ciana had a crying tantrum right before going to sleep, so hopefully she had a good night's sleep and will be back to herself this morning.

Goodbye to Taitung

Well, this is the second post I've made in the middle of the night. We are not able to sleep again! I think we've had maybe two decent nights of sleep since we left on Friday. Yesterday SanSan took us to the airport for our flight out of Taitung, Ciana's home for the first 5 months of her life. WeiLi and Judy from Hanna's Hope came to say one last goodbye to her too. It has to be hard for them to care for her all that time and then have to say goodbye. They are all going to miss her so much. Ciana's first flight went pretty well considering she had filled her diaper right before boarding the plane. There wasn't much we could do about it since we literally getting on the plane when we realized it and on Taiwan domestic flights you don't sit in the plane for a half an hour before taking off. You get on and go. Then the flight is so short that you pretty much go up and come right back down. Luckily she likes her pacifier and she sucked on it the whole way to Taipei. Once we got to Taipei we had lunch at a cute little restaurant on YongKang Street called "Eating Time". We walked in and they asked if we had reservations. Since we didn't they sat us in sort of a casual seating area right by the front window, which worked out better anyway because Ciana had room to sit and look out the window. We order cheeseburgers and fries. When the burgers came we took one bite and blood poured out of them and turned our buns all red. We told the waitress and after they cooked them a little more they were really delicious. Fries too! In the afternoon we hung out at the hotel while Ciana took a nap. Then the translator came to drop off our paperwork for our AIT appointment today. We looked at it and noticed they had Jeff's name and birthday wrong, so he had to go fix it and bring it back later. After that we went to SOGO. SOGO is a huge department store that is pretty much a mall in itself. There are actually two of them right across the street from each other for some reason. Each one has about 10 to 12 floors. It was a little out of my bargain hunting comfort zone, however. I picked up a pair of shoes, yes I love shoes, and they were around $9000 NTD which is around $300 US dollars. Yikes! Earlier in the day I was playing with Ciana. She was standing on my lap and I was holding her hands, raising them up and saying "Big Girl". She would smile. Later, before bed I was holding her, but not by the hands. When I said "Big Girl" she would raise her hands up in the air and smile. We couldn't believe she remembered that from just the short time we did it earlier in the day. Then when I stopped she would raise her hands up and want me to say it again. It was really cute.

Sleeping Beauty

They call her Sleeping Beauty and now we see why. The beauty part was obvious, but this girl likes to sleep! I think she slept for 9 hours last night and we finally slept too. Then she was awake for 1 hour before falling asleep again for another hour. This morning we bought a postcard to send to Maya. When we were all done getting ready to mail it they told us it would get there in about 1 month. We figured it wouldn't get there before we got home but 1 month! After that we went to get the Household Registry changed. We also went to see the hospital where Ciana was born. They told us that the hospital is known to perform a lot of abortions and they think it is a miracle that the doctor referred Ciana's birthmother to Hannah's Hope to consider adoption. After lunch at the hotel, we took a 2 hour drive to Hualien to meet with Ciana's birthmother. It was an emotional meeting, but I will save the details for Ciana when she gets older. Then it was back to the hotel after a long day on the road. Ciana is doing well. She's been pretty quiet, but tonight she started "talking" quite a bit. She is very smiley. She likes to stand up, with help of course. Our stay in Taitung is now over and tomorrow morning we fly back to Taipei for the rest of the week.

Gotcha Day!

Today was Ciana's Gotcha Day!  We didn't sleep at all last night.  I went to bed at 8:00, woke up at 11:30 and I think I might have slept about a half an hour after that.  It was terrible and Jeff was almost as bad.  We had a short, but bumpy flight to Taitung this morning.  We were picked up at the airport and since we couldn't get into our hotel room yet we went straight to Hannah's Hope to receive Ciana.  It was an awesome experience.  Very different than when we got Maya.  The staff sang a song and played the guitar as they brought Ciana out to meet us.  She loved listening to them sing.  She was wearing the outfit we sent to her.  She looked adorable.  They handed her to me and they were all talking to her and calling her by her nickname "Cuh Cuh", "Cuh Cuh" they would say.  They were all really sad to see her go.  You can tell that they love her and have taken really good care of her for the last 5 months.  They showed us around the home and her special nanny showed us how to bath her, put her to sleep, prepare her bottle, etc.  She had tears in her eyes, because she loves her so much she didn't want to see her leave.  Before we left the staff said they wanted to pray over Ciana and us.  It was really moving.  Then they took us out for beef noodle soup for lunch.  Ciana fell asleep in the car on the way to the restaurant, but didn't stay asleep long.  She has been very quite and peaceful.  After lunch we came back to the hotel and she had a bottle before laying down for a nap.  Tonight they are picking us up to go out to dinner.

Day 2 - Taipei

This morning started out with a walk thru Daan Forest Park.  It is a nice green park with lots of trees and walking paths right across the street from our hotel.  There is a really nice playground there too.  Lots of people were there doing their morning excercises.  Then we went to the Flower Market and Jade Market.  This is held every weekend right under the freeway.  Hundreds of vendors were there to sell their merchandise.  After that we took a walk down YongKang Street to try and find something to eat.  It wasn't an easy task.  Finding a place to eat has been our biggest challenge so far.  There don't seem to be that many restaurants, but lots of roadside stands.  If you do find one it is hard to know what they are going to serve you.  We finally got pulled into one by the lady standing outside.  We had pineapple shrimp since it was the only thing on the menu that looked edible, in our opinions.  It was pretty good.  There were lots of cute little shops on YongKang Street too. I found the cutest little shoe store with lots of really awesome shoes. The only problem is Asians seem to have smaller feet and it was really hard to find a pair that fit. The girl working in the store was so funny and tried her hardest to find a pair that would work.  The pair that I really loved was on clearance so they definitely didn't have that one in my size. 
Then we took a taxi to WuFenPu Garment Market.  It was alley after alley of little shops all selling clothes and shoes at discounted prices.  After that we were worn out so we went back to the hotel and ordered Pizza Hut.  We ordered a medium pizza and when it came it looked about the size of a personal pan!  And our last adventure of the day was coming up the elevator to our hotel room.  We got in, pushed the button, the doors closed and Jeff's biggest fear was realized.  The elevator shut off!  He was freaking out.  I pushed the call button a couple of times.  Then we finally found the door open button and it worked.  We took a service stair up to our room.  Jeff has vowed never to use another elevator in his life.     

Taiwan Day 1 - Flights

We made it to Taipei, Taiwan!  Yesterday was a LONG day.  We started out at 8:00 am with a 3+ hour drive to the airport in Minneapolis.  Then we had a 12 hour flight to Tokyo.  Immediately upon arriving in Tokyo we switched planes for our 3 hour flight to Taipei.  When we landed we took a taxi to our hotel.  We arrived at the hotel around 11:30 pm local time.  The day was long, but we couldn't have asked for better flights.  They were smooth and easy.  I watched the movie "What to Expect When You're Expecting".  Seemed sort of fitting given our situation.  It was really good.  I would highly recommend it.  We didn't get much sleep.  It was daylight the whole way here.  So, after our 26 1/2 hour journey we hit the bed.  We both had difficulty sleeping, however.  We woke up around 3:00 am and then went back to sleep for a little while.  Today we have a free day to explore Taipei before heading to Taitung tomorrow morning to receive Ciana.

5 Months Old

Ciana is 5 months old today! We have tickets bought and are ready to leave this Friday to head to Taiwan and bring her home. We will spend one day in Taipei before flying to Taitung to meet her on Monday morning, September 17th!


There is a woman who has been instrumental in Ciana’s referral. She and her husband adopted their daughter from Hannah’s Hope in Taiwan in August of 2010. After learning about the culture and challenges that women are faced with in southern Taiwan she felt led to go back and speak to doctors and social workers to try and save babies lives. She has made numerous trips back in the last year or so and Ciana and another little boy, Samuel, who was born on the same day as Ciana were the first two referrals that came as a result of her work. They hold a very special place in her heart. She saw Ciana when she was very young and since we were in Taiwan in May of 2010 I’m sure that we would have seen her daughter at around the same age. So, we each saw the other’s daughter even before we got to see our own. We also have another unique connection that only God could have planned. Her daughter’s name is Elise and Ciana’s middle name is Elise. We had no idea when we gave her that name that it would hold such a special connection. She also saw Ciana more recently so I asked her to share with me any observations she had of her and this is what she said. “Ciana is a sweet little girl. She is very calm and has a quiet personality. She smiles easily, enjoys being held and has the most beautiful skin. She seems very tender and is perfect in every way. Her eye contact is good and when she’s not being held she enjoys watching you.” From the conversations I have had with her through email she sounds like a super sweet lady with a wonderful heart. We will be forever grateful to her for following where God was leading. Who knows where Ciana would be today if she hadn’t answered the call.