Instant Karma

When we were at the temple of the 6 banyans our guide, Connie, said something to us that was so sweet it made Tina and me both cry…

She was telling us about the pagoda tower in the center of the temple grounds. The pagoda is 17 stories high inside, but is designed to appear 9 stories high on the outside. This is because the number 9 has special meaning to the Chinese. It is considered the biggest, and therefore, the most auspicious number.

Connie told us that building a 9-story pagoda to honor Buddha is considered an act of great virtue, and will insure much happiness in the next life. The only act considered more virtuous is that of saving a life. Then she told us that she believed people who adopt orphans with special needs into their families, have in fact saved a life, and so in affect have built a 9-story pagoda in their hearts.

We did not begin this journey in hopes of attaining any rewards in our next life or even this one. We set our feet to this path with the wish of bringing another child into our lives. It’s funny though how life works out. We didn’t even have to wait for our next lives. This has truly been the most miraculous event we could ever have imagined. Who would think that you could travel halfway round the world and find the very child meant for you waiting there?

Tina, Cam, Ben and I are all so in love with him. It will be another miracle if he doesn’t end up spoiled rotten! We are trying very hard to convince Cam and Ben that when he misbehaves (ie: throwing cups of milk!) it’s NOT funny! Teenage boys may not be the best influence on toddlers.

Ben is determined to teach him all the necessary skills though, beginning with skateboarding!


Hui-Hui seems less affected by jet-lag than the rest of us, but he was still up at 4:00 AM. Once he got going in his ‘Squeaky Shoes” The rest of us all got up with him too!


I brought Daisy the dog back from the kennel today, but we have kept her in the garage or in the back yard. Hui-Hui knows she’s here, and has seen her, but he is very afraid of her. We are taking it slow and hoping he desensitizes quickly.

Other than that, it’s been a quiet day, and he just keeps warming up more and more to us.

Back Home At Last!

We are HOME!!!

I wanted to share with everyone how our China adventure came to a close...

Our last "day" began at The White Swan. Cameron and I got up early and went out to the park together before breakfast. We wanted to take pictures and video of people exercising.











This is how many people in China begin their day, and it's fascinating to see so many people out in public together.








It was a beautiful morning on the Pearl River


And there were people fishing...


and even swimming in it!


After breakfast the 2 big boys and I adventured into downtown Guangzhou via taxi to find a music store outside of the tourist district to shop for cymbals. The music store we went to had both western and traditional chinese instruments...






You see people on bicycles in Guangzhou


But there are way more motorcycles here...


Then we napped and packed, and spent the last of our pocket money on a few more trinkets from the merchants on Shamian Island, before heading to the airport. We flew out of Guangzhou at 9:00 PM Wednesday night, and arrived in Los Angeles at 6:15: PM Wednesday night after a 12 hour flight.

Based on our first flight with him last week, we thought Hui-Hui would do better than he did. But he wasn't happy about being belted down for take-off this time, and we just couldn't find his rhythm. There were a number of things working against us. The seats we were in had armrests that wouldn't fold down, and Hui-Hui doesn't like to be held while he sleeps. Ultimately Tina and I took him in shifts and let one another try to sleep while the other of us held him. He did get some long sleep spells in, and was better for the second half of the flight. On landing he was asleep.


if you look out the window you can see the ground approaching. The moment the wheels touched down, Andrew Kai-Hui Ocheltree became an official U.S. citizen!

We landed in L.A. a little bit early and got through all the customs and immigration stuff. We rechecked our bags and got our boarding passes. Our flight in had made good time, and they told us we could actually get an earlier connecting flight to Seattle. This meant we had no wait at LAX. We checked our bags and immediately got on the plane and flew to Seattle. An amusing bit here was that as we were clearing the last security checkpoint the guard looked at our boarding passes and held one out, "Who's this?" he asked. I looked at the boarding pass and saw that it said "Danghui" on it. "That's this guy here," I said holding up Hui-Hui for him to look at. He looked back at the boarding pass with a puzzled expression. "Why would they do that?" he asked. "What," I asked anxiously. "He's been selected for a random search," the guard told us. We all started laughing at this. Welcome to America Hui-Hui! He pointed to where we needed to go, but they didn't actually put him through the process, in fact it was a pretty easy security check for all of us.
Tina let me sleep the whole flight since I would be driving when we landed.

This flight went easier for Hui-Hui, and we were all so happy to be back in Washington State! Amazingly I was able to find where I had put my car keys in my carry on bag, and we remembered what hotel we had left the car at. You may think I'm joking about this, but I'm not.

We finally got in the front door of our home at about 2:00 AM. Which was (and felt like) 5:00 PM China time. We unpacked, and checked out the house.

Tina, Cam, and Ben and I were all pretty funny. We were trying our best not to overwhelm Hui-Hui with all the cool stuff we wanted to show him in the house. Tina gave him a bath then we showed him his room. Right now his crib is next to Tina's and my bed in our room, and will be for a while. So his room is just a playroom right now. He was very interested in checking out all the things we had prepared for him...






The last time Ben played at this table he was the little brother!


Our cat was at the back door meowing for attention. When Hui-Hui saw this he confirmed what the people at his S.W.I told us. He is extremely frightened of dogs and cats. This is not good news. The cat is an outdoor pet so she's not a problem, but our dog, Daisy, will be home from the kennel on Friday. hopefully we will be able to make a smooth adjustment with her for him. He wasn't happy with the stuffed animals we had in his room and in his crib either, but for some reason the stuffed Winnie-The-Pooh seemed to be a good thing, and was put to use as a "lovey".



Cam went to bed "early" at 4:00 AM because he wanted to head to school for the afternoon and catch up with friends. The rest of us didn't go down till nearly 5:00 AM. We woke up at about 10:00 AM and began to understand what "jet lag" is. We got Hui-Hui up about noon and we are hoping he'll go down okay tonight.

Our new life together is really just beginning now. I'll try to keep you posted as to how it goes.

Zaijian!

We are packing up and checking out! No photos now but I couldn't help but post one last blog entry from China. Our flight home is MUCH easier than our flight here. It's still 12 hours on a plane, but we are all feeling up for it.

I will continue to post when we get home to keep you all updated as to Kai-Hui's progress so please stay tuned!


Much Love From The Ocheltrees:
Scott, Tina, Cam, Ben & Hui-Hui

Coming to the End

But really just another beginning!

We have one day left in Guangzhou. We have had a wonderful adventure in China! Kai-Hui is more wonderful than we could have ever hoped for and this experience has not only increased the size of our family, I think it has strengthened the bond between "The First Four" of us.

The most important part of today took place where I could not use my camera: The U.S. Consulate In Guangzhou. Kai-Hui, along with about 60 other babies, was "sworn in" as a U.S. Citizen. This part of the process is just a technicality, but it is the culmination of much work that went on before. Connie, our guide here in Guangzhou, did a ton of work behind the scenes for us to ensure that all our paperwork was properly completed and submitted. For us, we basically needed to just do as we were told. this is a good thing, as we are pretty much useless, what with timezone shifts, sleep dep, diet changes, and oh yeah, trying to figure out how to parent a toddler again!

It was really meaningful however, and again, I am very grateful that our older boys have been able to be a part of this. We can get pretty cynical about the United States' politics, and foreign policy, but being here in China and seeing this part of the world has given all four of us a different perspective on the meaning of our citizenship, and feel thankful that we are able to share this wonderful gift with Kai-Hui.

After the process was finished we rode back to The White Swan hotel and took pictures with the other two families traveling from our agency. This was really a great group! There was us, the Oppligers, and the Matkins. The Matkins live in Bellingham. right by the Waldorf school, and the Oppligers live near my sister in Marysville. We really have a lot in common. Besides being from the same area, we all have other children traveling with us, and we are all adopting "special needs" children.



A tradition here at The White Swan is to take pictures of the "New Babies" on The Red Couch. So we made our pilgrimage to this little shrine too. The Matkins new daughter, Elena, was done at this point and didn't want to play, but we caught her in the picture too.



We are all ready to be back home, and for dinner tonight we voted "American" and ate at Lucy's next door.



We sat outside and enjoyed our last warm evening in Guangzhou. It's very humid and tropical here, and while the hot, sticky feel is very different for us, the locals are complaining that it's a bit too cool for them at night. We all find this so amusing, as for us this has been a beautiful (if wet) extension to our summer!

A Few More Pictures...


To feed Hui-Hui in the hotel room we have taken to stripping him down and seating him on a towel, then staying out of his way. The nickname has changed from "Monkey-Boy" to "Monkey-King"!


The Trip to the consulate came at naptime.

These are pictures of Guangzhou that I took on our bus ride from Shamian Island to the consulate's new location...





The last two are out opposite sides of the bus at the same time.


This picture was taken from in front of the consulate and is of the tallest building in Guangzhou


This is "Susan's Place" on Shamian Island. Very friendly vendor close to the hotel who took most of my money. She is very good at what she does, and our whole family enjoyed visiting her store.

Actually she did leave me with a few of these little bills - fractions of yuan.
Hui-Hui's the only son I have who will take these from me...


We will soon be on our way home. Thank you for following our adventures, and for all your kind email messages!

A Busy Day With Hui-Hui

Our life has taken on a dream-like quality. This might be partially because it all takes place when we should be sleeping, but really it's more than that. Tina and I talked today about the timeless quality there is to this trip. I feel sort of like the children in The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe at the end of the story when they can hardly remember their real lives back home. We have no idea what day it is, or how long we've been here. There is hardly any connection to our lives back home except through email messages. And even these are timezone shifted by 15 hours, so suddenly email communication feels like traditional mail.

Now that we have video-conferencing stuff working we have broken out of this mode a couple times and actually had a few phone call type experiences. Today when Hui-Hui was having lunch we managed to hook up with my sister's family (just before they went to bed the night before). This was fun because they actually got to see a bit of what we call his "Monkey-Boy" behavior. We were feeding him hot cereal in the hotel room and he was pretty focused on the task at hand, but as he got towards the end of his third bowl he began to get pretty playful. I don't know what he thinks of them on the computer screen exactly but they did get him to play one of his games with them. It's sort of a "call and answer" thing that basically consists of yelling "Aye-Ah!!" back and forth. The object is to yell it louder and with more gusto then your companions! He went back and forth with them for some time until they were all laughing in hysterics! It was very funny!

We finally had to call it off, as he had apparently gotten full, and mealtime had morphed into a sort of impromptu science experiment involving instant baby cereal, lots of water, and some expensive looking hotel room furniture.

The rest of our day was quite busy. We began by getting up a little earlier and all having breakfast together here at the hotel.



Then we walked across Shamian Island along the canal



To the Physical Examination Clinic.



This is where Hui-Hui had his medical examination which is required for him to get his U.S. visa.



After the exam was over we had to return to the hotel and wait in our room until we head back from our guide, Connie. She was taking all our paperwork to the consulate to apply for the visa. She has been wonderful to us, and makes sure we do everything we need to complete the adoption successfully.

So while we were waiting I thought I'd show you some of the stuff they provide for us here in the hotel room.

Here's some photo's of the mini-bar

that little bottle of Hennessy XO in the top center is $30 USD. We're not touching that!

They restock the tea supply every day with 6 types of tea.



And give us little chocolates at bedtime every night



The complimentary toiletries are nicer than I've ever seen. They even give you toothbrushes, shaving kits, and these fancy little wooden combs.


I don't usually take stuff like this from hotel rooms, but these are really nice! The only problem is that there's so much of it I knew I would need an accomplice, er, I mean "assistant".

I got out some of the hotels complimentary "Loot Bags" and asked Hui-Hui if he'd mind giving me a hand...


We started in the bathroom...




Then we went next door and cleaned out the Big Brothers' room...


After we finished I let Hui-Hui glean through the take anything he wanted...


We still had time to work with the stacking cups...


and we spent some time coloring too...




Hui-Hui likes looking out the hotel room window...


At the boats on the Pearl River


After Connie finished our paperwork at the consulate she took our family to the Six Banyon Buddhist Temple in the center of Guangzhou. We took two taxi's with Connie, Tina, Hui-Hui and me in one, and Cam & Ben in the other. When we got the temple it was very hectic getting out of the cabs, as I had to pay both drivers and we were approached by a number of beggars, many with physical defects. I am a pretty easy mark for beggars with hand problems on this trip, and so I started putting a few yuan into their bowls. When we finally made it inside the temple Tina suddenly turned to me and said, "Where's the backpack and stroller?"

They were left in the trunk of the taxi.

Tina, Connie and I all started to get a bit worried. The stroller is borrowed, so we'll have to pay for that, but the backpack. What was in the backpack? We've had to have the airline tickets out for confirmation, and our passports for the medical exam! No, Tina had thought to put all that back in the safe in our room. The only document in the backpack was our adoption certificate. Connie explained that this was no longer needed for anything else in the process, and we do have 3 notarized copies of it in the hotel room. We're bumming because it's a beautiful keepsake, but we decided that if it's gone, it's gone and we can't do anything about it now. Connie called the hotel and cab company so we might get it back. But we'll be okay without it, and we decided to relax and enjoy our temple visit.

This is the "Laughing Buddha" you see at the entrance to every temple. His big belly can hold all of your troubles, so I gave him an offering and asked if he'd look after our certificate.


These are the 3 main buddha statues of the temple. They represent the past, the present, and the future.


We gave an offering here and had the monks bless Kai-Hui. It was a very moving experience, especially since our family was all alone there at the temple. Cameron was able to videotape this for us as well.

The main feature of this temple is huge pagoda that houses the relic of an historic monk.



Cam and Ben both climbed to the top of the pagoda. It appears to have 9 "stories" on the outside, but actually has 17 stories inside when you climb it's steep stairs. Here's a picture of the vie from the top...


This is a statue of the goddess Pusa. I have felt a very strong connection to her on this trip and really liked this statue...


When we returned to the hotel we finished our busy day by taking a Pearl River dinner cruise with a bunch of other adoptive families from the hotel...