The Wall of China avec nos amis québécois

The last two days have been wonderful, second time over.  Many of the things we are doing this week in Beijing we did three and half years ago when we came to China for Amélie; however, it is very different this time.  Perhaps it's because we are less stressed than our first trip to China or that we are seeing things through the eyes of Amélie and Élise, who are 5 and 4 years old respectively.  We are happy to be traveling with another family from Sherbrooke, Quebec.  Suzie and Richard are traveling with their 4 year old daughter Élise, the grandmother Jocelyne and the newest member of their family Myriam.

Famille Mailhot - Lessard et Latour

A magnificent view of the wall of China

Les mamans et bébés

Camera shy camel

The girls are happy to have each other to play with, especially with both mothers devoting most their time to the new babies.   On Sunday Afternoon, following a morning of shopping and bargaining at a Jade store,  we spent a couple of hours walking a very small portion of the wall of China.  The wall covers nearly 6000 km and the section we visited provided us with a magnificent view of the mountains and valleys below.  This was truly a test of agility climbing and descending the stairs with nine and half kilo’s strapped onto me.  Two days later I am still feeling the effect on a select group of muscles.  The girls enjoyed the view atop of their papa’s shoulders and we could not have asked for better weather conditions.

The ultimate stair workout

Huifan is biting papa's finger....oops he thought it was a cheerios!!

Mimi's beautiful smile

Pics from Shanghai

Visit at the Old Town God Temple of Shanghai

Our Family of Four Strolling around the Old Town

Ornamented walls with Starbucks getting richer by the second...

Part of Old town with fishes ponds surrounding it

At the Yutuan Garden

With gorgeous carved stoned walls and entrance ways

And dragons....

With our sympathetic guide Mingming

And Stoned warriors

And beautiful roofs

And carved woodwork outside

and inside

The Antenna Tower of the CCTV the National TV station (s) of the Pudong

Our family with one player taking a nap!

Blogger being a bugger... Day 7-8

Hi all,

We have been quite busy sight seeing and getting accustomed to the new member of our family. We are discovering lots of things all the time. Feeding, drinking, acting up, playing, sleeping... all with a little cold that we hope he recovers from quickly. We are all very excited, Shanghai is a beautiful city with lots of people speaking English.  We visited the Pudong area (East and West of the famous Bund river). The old and new Shanghai are respectively on each sides of the Bund. It's very beautiful.  The city is very cosmopolitan with it's mix of architectural styles.  One night we met with an ex-colleague of Martin's from Montreal who is not living and working in Shanghai and had a magnificent view of the TV tower at night time.

Huifan is a great sport and is adapting very well to this jetset lifestyle.

Our guides Mingming and Alice are very nice and so is our driver. We eat very well in all different restaurants. Amélie is trying new food but Huifan is sticking to rice, eggs and fruits. He is discovering the bottled food we brought from Canada and he likes it a lot. He is still glued to his mama and Amélie enjoys the swimming with Baba (aka papa). All is all, we are having a great time in Shanghai which ends tomorrow since we have to fly back to Beijing at 9AM Saturday. Blogspot has not been working the past two days and as such we are updating our blog today. Hopefully you can read this text and pictures will follow.
Cheers! And as usual with all our love.
Martin, Sonya, Amélie and Huifan xxx

It's Official, Huifan is now adopted and part of our family!!!

Dearest All,

En route to the Official registration office of Shanghai, Mama with Huifan and Amélie!!

In the bus before getting to the wedding and adoption office of Shanghai. Amélie

Huifan is getting his first bottle of the day. It was Baba's first prep! A success

At the adoption bureau, after the "official" photo and posing in front of the World Expo of Shanghai mascotte 2011

Sitting in the stairs at the Notary office... it's no official- Zheng Huifan is now: Jacob Huifan Latour

Celebration Fried fish at the Number 1 Restaurant of Shanghai.

It's official, we went in front of the notary and finalized all the paper work for the final steps of the adoption process of Huifan from China. Everything went well with the little hiccups of having to exclude Amélie from the "official" picture they needed to take to finalize the paperwork. Boy, Amélie did not want to be excluded... It was a very emotional moments once more especially when Huifan started to cry a little. Amélie is very perceptive and express lots of feelings. 

We are going to post more later.

Love you lots!

The Latour family.

More picts!

Photos from the Meeting Day - 2nd attempt

Le Grand jour est arrivé!!

Le plus Grand Jour de notre voyage – Un succès sur toute la ligne!!

Cette journée est finalement arrivée où je rencontre mes parents adoptifs, mais ce sans l'absence d'émotions. Ma grande soeur ("jie-jie" en mandarin) a également été très émotive. Mon papa ("baba" en madarin) nous a filmé en continue avec Amélie dans les bras, alors attention à ceux qui ont le mal de mer lors du visionnement... Maman ("mama") quant a elle m'a gardé dans ses bras chaleureux toute l'avant midi et ceci m'a plu énormément. J'aime bien les dames... J'ai été littéralement "scotché" ou "velcro" à mama. Nous avons également rencontré d'autres familles et notre "cérémonie" s'est passée sans embûches. Nous avons fait notre don à l'orphelinat et payé nos factures. On nous a remis un livre relié avec des photos de Huifan, ce livre est magnifique. Mon papa vous le montrera sous peu. J'ai aussi reçu une estampe de ma signature en signe chinois.  Nous nous sommes ensuite retournés à notre hôtel où il était temps de dîner. J'ai découvert les vertus des petites bouchés au patates sucrés, ceci est bien meilleur que le congie (bouilli de riz). À bientôt, bisous, 

Jacob Huifan.

It's 8:30pm and we are listening to a quiet symphony of deep breathing from two very tired kids.  We the parents will soon follow.  It's been 12 hours since we left the hotel this morning for the orphanage but feels like 24.  We were all very excited to meet Huifan but could not possibly be prepared for the wave of emotions that would be felt by Huifan and Amélie.  Huifan cried the minute he left his nounou's arms, which we anticipated, but Amélie, seeing how upset her brother felt, was also overwhelmed with sadness and a flood of tears.  Papa consoled Amélie in his arms as mama held Huifan in hers singing soft songs to calm him.   Once we left the orphanage Huifan slept in mama's arms exhausted from the first encounter with his new family members.  As the day progressed we all became better acquainted and Amélie enjoyed being a big sister and helper with changing his diapers, preparing his milk and feeding him yummy snacks.  The highlight of the day was watching Amélie and Huifan playing together in the bathtub.   Huifan had no objections to his big sister washing him and showing him how to fill and empty cups of water, this was the first time we saw Huifan smile and laugh.   We are very happy to have these two wonderful children in our lives.  We know they were loved before we ever met them and we are being given this gift of a family and this we are very grateful for.  I can hear that one more person has joined this blissful sleep and I will now join them, since tomorrow will be another day filled with official meetings and signing of papers.