China greeting!

Good morning, It's about 10pm here and we have had a busy couple of days. So many of you have written. Thanks. Here's some answers to some of the most asked questions. On Monday, when we went to the civil affairs office, Maximus came with us. We have had him with us now for two days. He was taken care of amazingly well, I think. He is very smart and observant, always watching everything and everyone. He is enjoys putting things where they go, using utensils at meals and running across the beds in our hotel room and smacking into...well anything. He's basically in physical danger 22 hours of every day. He sleeps the other two in an afternoon nap.
He is a joyful kid and has an infectious smile and happy eyes. He know mama, daddy, sissy, esther , 'come in' and 'time to sleep' and where's your juice?, and so many other things already. He's smart and mimicks a ton. Max has warmed up to us so quickly, such an answer to prayer, and he started today to really talk and ramble in Chinese babble as well.
Yesterday we went to a really nice zoo here in Hangzhou. Esther volunteered and was lifted up on the elephant's trunk! and she and lauren got their picture with the seal at that show too. Max was wide eyed. Everything is so new.
He seems very healthy. He had a major surgery on his heart for those of you that don't know. And he has a big scar to prove it. He does have some skin pocs that I'm pretty sure are just a viral thing, and they don't seem to bother him. His hair is fine and soft and his teeth are healthy and seem well cared for. He know what to do with a tooth brush, and I have a sneaky suspicion that he's been potty training a bit too, though we havent ventured there quite yet. We are having a great time getting to know him.
tomorrow we get Max's visa and Friday we fly to Guanzhou for the second week of our adventure. You're going to love this guy!'
Oh year tonight Joe ate chicken head, I had octopus and Esther tried duck and marinated Bamboo, which she loved. She is trooper! It was awonderful dinner with friends of Joes with traditional dishes, most quite tasty.

Hey Family and Friends,

Today we went back to the Civil Affairs Office where we first met Maximus, to get his Visa processing started. Then to the Police Station for more signing and paying and process. Our coordinator, May, is very sweet and today she will get our tickets to Guangzhou on Friday. Apparently we have found a %60 discount somewhere and she came quickly to the room to snag Joe from his afternoon run workout to go and secure it.
Every thing is going quite well here. Today we will go to a Chinese zoo with the kids, and back to the silk market to get.... something we must have forgotton......Love the shopping. Karen's on the hunt for authentic Chinese coats and clothing. Bright and flashy.

By the way Karen and Lauren say a big hello to all that are thinking of them and dropping us a line or two. They have seen them all and say to tell you they are having a wonderful time. They miss family and Karen says she may try to call you Dwain, on what will be your Tuesday night, maybe between 8 or 9pm. We haven't figured out the phones quite yet but stay tuned.

Hi Aunt Heidi and Olivia from Esther. she says tell them "I'm doing this big sister thing really good."

Thanks for all your messages we get them every day and it's fun to hear from you. Also we just learned that you have to have a blog to reply to ours so, if you don't we are checking our email everyday too, at Joep@rivershores.com
P.S.
Saw the pics from Wednesday night youth group and were highly impressed at the creative talents of tape and wall art. Very nice Dave. Have fun sledding and enjoy all that snow. We're sunny and *60 here. I want to see a picture of someone going down backwards and standing. My money's on Matt or Dave B.
More Later,
the Joes

Lots of pretty sculptures here!
Dinner at Pizza Hut. We actually saw a Papa Johns too!
Walking downtown to the department store for some grocerys.
Some fun time at West Lake. We were just in time for a water fountain show complete with lights and music. Grand Haven, eat your heart out.
Waiting for our Pizza. We really like our host from our agency.
Checking out the fountain show. Esther is an awesome big sister. he loves her.

Hello all, thank you so much for all of the comments. We love them, please keep them coming. Things are going great! Right now we are all up in our little hotel room starting our day at 5:30 am. I will post some more pictures later on. If you can't comment on this blog, just go ahead and click on "View my profile" and send us an email. We can get those here as well.
Love you all,
The Joe's

The Pleune family united for the first time.
Lauren and Esther with our friend Pecker.
We're getting funky at the Banana Leaf restaurant.
The girls are a fashion statement after our visit to the silk market.
Our walking tour of famous West Lake.
Our arrival at the airport at Hangzhou was very welcomed!

Hi All,

So I've been up since 4am today. Not really on purpose, obviously for those who know me. But today, Monday is the day we will meet and function as a family of four. I have been awake thinking about God's master hand in family design and feeling dreamy about this little boy we get to call our own today. We walked around West Lake yesterday morning and saw so many beautiful things. We may go out on a gondola type boat for a ride across the lake. The paddle boat men that lined the walkway, all with their own boat seemed more than anxious to take out the Americans. The archetecture is great, and people dress with so much color and creativity. And the children, more boys than girls, are bundled up so much they look like miniature sumo wrestlers as they waddle around. We've tasted some great chinese things already. Last night I had eel and Karen tried the chicken feet. Esther is partial to egg rolls, but hasn't had any that she considers better than Master Chan's. (her Tae Kwon Do master). He should be proud.

People are very kind here, and they love to look at and talk about us Americans. Lauren, our adopted neighbor is particularly popular when we're out and about. The locals call her "lucky girl" and want to know what province she is from. They love to look at her and touch her hair.

Friends of Joes took us to the silk market yesterday and we had a lovely time shopping and talking. Esther and Lauren met a young friend who taught them some easy Chinese street games and Joe found a wonderful fried egg tortilla treat. We are having fun and looking forward to adding Maximus into our adventure today. Stay tuned for pictures.

The joes

Hello everyone, we made it here to Hangzhou, China where we will pick up our son Monday Morning! It's 4 am here and I can't sleep. A nice young man let me into the business center at the hotel a whole 3 hours before it opens. The trip over went very well. The girls did so good and were so patient. 18 hours in the air is a bit much at one time. We almost wished we had had a little layover on one of our stops, but we had to keep moving! My wife and Karen joked about me being the "Airport Nazi", but we barely made each flight and ity was really tight. We sat right next to a nice young couple from Memphis, TN. on our long flight from Detroit to Tokyo, who were headed to Beijing to adopt their little girl. they were so nice and we exchanged many stories. We are hoping to meet up with them on the last leg of our trip next week in Guangzhou to see them and meet their little girl. We spent the night in Guangzhou (by the airport) Friday night and then then flew to Hangzhou yesterday morning. We will tell you later about our funny Chinese breakfast at the hotel in Guangzhou. We had a serious language barrier thing going and we ate some interesting things. One thing I have learned from a fair amount of travel is that eggs are always the same wherever you go and you can count on them.
When we arrived in Hangzhou yesterday, our coordinator was not there to meet us. We did not panic and kept our cool and found someone to interpret for us and get us into two taxis to take us to our hotel. It turns out that over here they don't use AM and PM. But when people do use it, they interpret PM to be after midnight. So, she was set to pick us up after midnight instead of 12:30 in the afternoon. It all worked out fine and we are here now and loving it. We met with her yesterday afternoon and she is a very nice young lady. She apologized for the mix up and felt bad, but we had moved on and told her everything worked out fine. We went over our plan for the week and we will pick up Maximus tommorow morning which is Monday morning. We are 11 hours ahead of you in the US. We are staying in a very nice hotel, right by West Lake, where they have alot of walking trails and parks. Last night all of the travel and jet lag caught up with the girls and they crashed and burned at about 6 pm. We walked about 10 minutes to a McDonalds and got a quick bite and came back. It was about 7pm and we all crashed out!
We have met so many nice Chinese people already in our travels and already here at the hotel. We are all very excited and the week promises to deliver much adventure. I will try and post some pictures tomorrow. Thank you for checking in with us. We would appreciate your prayers and any comments you might want to leave us. We know from past experience, it is so awesome to communicate with loved ones back home.

Talk to you soon.
Love
The Joes

Okay, heres a new test of the Blogging picture system.
Oh yeah, it worked! Stay tuned for a fun adventure as we show you China.

Hi all. It's a bit early for me. I figured I'd play around with sleep deprivation and odd hours in practice for my new mom position. Stay up late and get up early and expect the unusual to become my usual. Suitcases are scattered about the house, Chinese teaching tapes are playing in the background as we hope to osmos the language, and we are armed with peanut butter, diapers and this incredible depth of love again for the unknown. I think about this boy, dream about this boy when I sleep and find myself locked in a dreamy gaze with his picture on a regular basis. And so our big moment has begun. Thanks for sharing it with us. Our flight leaves at 11:50am on Thursday. I for one am not a flyer. Never have been, and would appreciate your prayers for our travel. We will have access to internet at our hotel and plan to update prayer requests and loads of monumental praises I'm sure. So stay with us. Joe and I are packing extra Bibles, in hopes that God will provide some divine encounters and make the trip all the richer. I was excited to hear of full hour massages for under $10.00 american dollars given at the hotel having had one on my visit to Romania, until I reviewed the comments and found one rather in depth review of one man's shocking experience in what he described as a brothel, and was warned NOT to visit the saunas. Yikes and bummer. Have a great day and thanks for reading. Oh yeah, first response to this blog receives a free pair of custom chopsticks upon our return.

The Joe's

This is a test blog that could very well end in a successful picure download. I am experimenting without the help of my blog mentor, Dave Roberts. Here goes.The Joe's

Hey, it's my first big post...Joe wants to share the excitement and the responsibility of staying current and being interesting to the outside world...so here goes! Big news in the Joes home today as we received our long awaited call from AGCI. It's official, we will be flying January 26th to Shanghai China, where we will meet our Maximus, our 'great one'. We are very pumped for the trip. More pumped than prepared probably but hey, high adventure and partial preparedness really gets us psyched, so we are right in step. We'll be in China until February 5 or 6. That's crazy. I will be in China picking up my son. You know, the biggest moments in your life are truly surreal. They sneak up on you even though you've been expecting and watching and waiting for them for what may seem like your whole life. Then, there it is, the thing you've hoped and you walk through it trying hard to simply relax and take in the details and the sights and sounds. So that's what we're doing as we pack and prepare for our trip. Thanks for checking in..... If anyone has any grand travel tips for adoption abroad or for travel, please do tell..
The Joe's

Happy New Year everyone! We hope God blesses your socks off this year. We are anticipating a call from our adoption agency any day now telling us that we will be heading to China very soon. As soon as we get that call, we will make our travel arrangements and prepare to leave 2 weeks later. We are starting to pack a little right now. It is such an exciting time for us. We had a great New Years and Christmas. It all seems to go by so fast now. I am wanting this year to go extra slooooow because I will be hitting the big 40 this Spring. Wow, this blog post is a bit of a rambler. Went bowling last night with Esther and her best friend Lauren. It is such a riot to bowl with kids. They get so excited. You gotta love those lanes with the bumpers too! You are always assured a few pins down. It was a bit smoky in the bowling alley, so I asked the manager if he could make an anouncement to all 200 blowlers there asking all of the smokers to please extinguish their smokes. He was quite amused. Why does it seem that 50% or so of bowlers smoke? Bowled a 166! Yeah, that's right Dave. Take that. i won't mention my second score though. Please stay tuned in as we get closer to our Chinese adventure. We will be posting any developments as they come about.The Joe's