Carving Pumpkins

We decided to carve pumpkins in the States before we left, just in case we couldn't find pumpkins over here. And because I saw this cool Star Wars carving kit and thought the boys would love it!

Well, they LOVED the idea of Star Wars pumpkins, but neither one loved the cleaning of the pumpkins and the carving was WAY to hard for them to do, so Matt and I did most of it :)

But the boys were VERY pleased with the results!

Nai Nai and the boys with their pumpkins

Anakin and the Clone

Saying Good-bye (part 3)

We had another fun weekend at Aunt Andi and Uncle Scotty's house celebrating Everett, Reid, and Scotty's birthdays!

KK with Everett and his new Action Bible. SO great for boys. Highly recommend it! 

KK and Reid with his new Legos!

The Birhday Boys!

Saying Good-bye (part 2)

 E and Nai Nai on his birthday--thanking her for his Kindle!

side note--e got to pick where we ate for lunch and dinner on his birthday. he picked mcdonalds and pf changs. tried to tell him we were moving to china where they have a mcdonalds and chinese food. he couldn't be swayed.

 We stayed with my mom for the last couple of weeks we were in the states--with visits to other family--and we did LOTS of fun things!

 Reid picked Bennihanas (japanese) for his birthday. Yummo!

Snuggling with Aunt Caroline watching football while we did some last minute packing the night before we left.

Saying Good-bye (part 1)

Before we left, we tried to spend some good, quality time with each of our families--in the middle of moving, packing, and finishing raising support!

We had a great trip to Augusta, where we spent time with Matt's family. 

Everett and Papa---apparently Everett is getting ready for China. Chinese people always sneak a peace sign into the picture at the last minute.

The boys played some football.......

 

it was Matt and Everett against Papa and Reid, and paying for dinner was on the line...... 

 

Rylie wanted to go explore the playground with KK......

but soon the game was over.

 

the game ended in a tie....and somehow the girls were responsible for dinner....hmmmm..... 

but luckily the girls had gift certificates that took care of it! (we ate at Outback....i would love some Outback right about now.......)

Reid's Birthday in China!

We arrived in our city at 8 pm on Reid's 6th birthday. After traveling for 28 hours. Happy Birthday to him. 

Our sweet friends had this fun sign in our apartment when we arrived and made him cupcakes that we waiting for us!

We sang happy birthday to Reid 

and then the kids ate up!

Enjoying his birthday cupcakes made by our sweet friends the Todds!

Ry shared in the celebration too!

It was definitely the most adventuresome birthday he has ever had.....I mean flying to another country for your birthday.......quite a birthday present :)

And we are here!!!

Well, we are here!!!! Sorry it has taken a bit  to post. It took a couple days to get our computers and internet set-up and then yesterday we were "ting dian" (which means no power) ALL day.

But, after packing up a room that looked something like this

into LOTS (10 checked and 10 carry ons to be exact) of these....

 we were set!

We said our good-byes all weekend long, and on Sunday morning we packed up 2 SUV's and headed to the airport.

Here we are waiting  to check our bags. It took almost an hour. We almost missed our plane. We could feel your prayers as we made it on (we were flying stand-by) and had 6 seats all together!

(these are just our carry-ons--we were quite a sight to be seen going through security)

When we got on the plane we did a lot of this....

eating and watching movies.....

a little bit of this......

yes, Reid actually slept like that for a while.

and after being hurled through the sky in a tin can for 16 hours, we made it to our country!

We had to gather ALL our luggage and recheck it in Shanghai. We kind of felt like we were foreigners on parade as we walked through the airport. Matt, Kadie, Everett, and Reid were pushing a cart FULL of luggage, and Ry was being pulled in the stroller. We had more stuff with us that day than most Chinese people would ever travel with. 

Here we are in the Shanghai airport

We then caught another 3 hour flight to our city. It was not documented because the main camerawoman proceeded to fall into a coma-like state before the plane took off and the back-up cameraman was very busy trying to console 3 WAY overtired, starving children. You can probably picture the plane ride pretty accurately in your head. 

And then we landed in our new city! Home!

Some friends picked us up at the airport and helped us get all our stuff up to our apartment. 

our super fun welcome HOME sign!

Here are the kids with all our luggage in our new apartment! 

(a post with pics of apartment coming soon!)

We are so happy to be here and are so thankful to all of you who helped us get here! We are excited to start this new adventure!!