Welcome to Emmaline Anne Ding's adoption website. This blog details our family's adoption of this beautiful little girl from China in 2005. While the focus of the blog is to record our trip to China, you can also find more about her adoption by clicking on the links to the right.

Tucked in bed, ready to get our girl tomorrow

Since we gotta get up early tomorrow morning to head off to the train, I''ll just post one more ditty before heading to bed (the kids & Lois are already in bed). Our bags are mostly packed and ready to go.

Tonight we had dinner with a couple friends of Lois' family, Anselm & Sharon (the latter of whom had helped us get to our hotel from the airport when we arrived). The dinner was at the very nice YMCA International House restaurant. Unfortunately, the mealtime experience was rather difficult. We had to rouse both kids from deep sleeps in order to head off and neither had an appetite nor a pleasant disposition. The jet lag, I think, is wearing most heavily on them because they haven't the wherewithal to understand why they need to force their bodies to be awake or asleep at a given hour. Fortunately, I think we've only got a day or two more of this and they should be adjusted. As difficult the experience, so too are children good at adapting.

Tomorrow morning we take the express train into Guangzhou, where we'll have to get a taxi ride by ourselves (no "old contacts" in town) and get to the hotel. While the station is supposedly not so far (about 6 miles I think) from the hotel, this is very much strange and less "lawful" territory than what we're accustomed to in the U.S. Therefore we ask your prayers for safety in travel: that we'd neither be pickpocketed, ripped off, nor in any other way taken advantage of in this next leg of our journey.

Thanks so much again for your partnership in this journey and your prayers.