.....and now its November!

Its been 5 long months since we've come home with Hannah and it feel's like years have passed. She love's her brothers and walks around kissing them all day and when she's not kissing she's biting :(

It took a little while for her to sleep well and get used to her crib and now that she has we've sold our home (in just two weeks) and are moving to Trumbull. Packing sucks! I've been here since December of 98..... alot of time to accumulate garbage! We're gonna miss this place..... a whole lot of memories of starting our family, the kids first big parties in the back yard, lots of good stuff!!

5 years ago today

After 5 long years on the anniversary on our log in date we have signed our final document and should be receiving Hannah's visa tommorow. She will be our newest American citizen the moment we hand her immigration paperwork over to customs in LA.
We've met some amazing families here with some even more amazing stories. We traveled to immigration with 8 other families this morning. Beautiful children and families.
We met a family yesterday who adopted a 14 year old girl. We were unaware that here in China, once a child turns 14, they can't be adopted anymore. She just made it :)
Tommorow we will visit the jade market on our final sight seeing adventure and we will be on our way home on Thursday morning CT time.
2 more sleeps and a long trip home and a long trip home and my dream comes true!
We're coming home boys :)

Guangzhou is beautiful

It's been a lot different here in Guangzhou than it was in Fuzhou. Rachael is loving the little shops that are full of dresses and shoes for Hannah. Her closet will be full in no time at all. As a matter of fact it was pretty full when we left.
Our guide, Jack Mao, is awesome. He gave a pretty intense history on China from uncivilized China through the dynasty's and into modern China. We took a long stroll through a park and visited Sun yay-sen Memorial Hall who is a person Jack compared to George Washington for us.
We have another day of sight seeing tommorow and our Consulate appointment on Tuesday.
Happy Memorial Day everyone!

Last day in Fuzhou

We have a couple of hours away from leaving Fuzhou for Guangzhou and are waiting for a police officer to deliver Hannah's passport to the hotel. It has been another week we will never forget. The second part of our trip has been something special we've been waiting for ever since we started this journey over 5 years ago. We will be staying at the White Swan Hotel and will be there other adoptive families and children who have gone through a long wait just like us.
We hope you guys have been able to view the pictures and video on Sky Drive. They are adorable and I'm not just saying that because I'm her daddy :)
Let's see if this link below works.

Fuzhou day 5

We've got a couple of days left here in FuZhou and we found an excellent restaurant in the hotel. It's a Japanese restaurant that makes Ichiro look like McDonalds so we'll be eating there until we leave for Guangzou. Today we visited a tea house and we have a new respect for Chinese tea. The Chinese people take their tea very serious. Excellent!
We also saw a pretty cool bear show. If the bears did this at zoo back home I would go every day. Tommorow we are going to a Buddist Temple and Walmart again for some supplies. A few things we've learned about Fuzhou is we stick out like sore thumbs and people are very curious a about Hannah. Our guide told us that a lot of people here are unaware that foreigner's can adopt their children and that 90% of the children adopted from the Fujian province are adopted domestically.
Skype has been an unbelievable experience with keeping in touch with the boys and everyone. It makes us feel like we are right there. We cannot thank you all back home who are helping with the boys, the two most special people in our lives. We could not have done this without you.
Now since we can't upload videos to YouTube I've found a backdoor by uploading video and pictures to my Windows Live account called Skydrive and I'm not sure how you can view them but it's attached to superiorelectrician@hotmail.com or my name James Grabowski.
Hannah has been amazing. She sleeps 10 hours a night and has a beautiful personality. We think she is a little behind with her strength and are working on it. Thanks for all your prayers and we know there are a lot of well wishes on Facebook even though we can't see them.
All the best!
Jimmy G.

Hannah Xia Grabowski

Hannah Xia Grabowski




Hannah is in our arms just like she’s been in our hearts for the past 5 1/2 years but now it’s a reality and can you believe it the world is still here! She has bonded well with Rachael and not so much Daddy but I’m good with it because it happened the opposite way with James. She is sooooooo beautiful and well taken care of. She is cutting her first tooth and is drinking her formula. We attempted to feed her bananas and some steamed rice but I think it was still to soon and she was still so scared.

It’s 1:47 am here and we are all awake. (Still on CT time) Tomorrow we adopt her at the Adoption Civil Affairs office in Fuzhou and we get her passport on Thursday and fly back to Guangzou on Thursday night for the US side of the adoption.

Skype has been a blessing. Seeing the boys and introducing them to their sister was awesome. They are being well taken care of and spoiled back home by family. It’s so awesome to be able to see and talk to everyone on Skype (and for free too)

I’m wondering if Facebook, Youtube, and Blogspot are going to be blocked in Guangzou? I emailed this to my bro to get this on the blog. Enjoy the pics!

We have arrived!

Hi everyone! We are here in Fuzhou, China. I'm updating the blog from my cell phone because we can't get on blogger, Facebook, or YouTube but we can go on Skype so we have been video chatting with the boys :)
The travel time from our doorstep to our hotel was 42 hours. We get Hannah around 3:30 am Connecticut time and we will be calling the boys in the morning with Skype to introduce them to their little sister.
The food is gonna take a little bit to get use to and I will be calling Vinnys Pizza from I95 on the way home.
We will try to get up video & pics ASAP.

Let the countdown begin!

We have our final approval and our trip is set. Rachael will be getting a very special birthday present this year. She will be able to hold and kiss our daughter for the very first time on her birthday. Our flight to China has two connections and should be in the range of about a 36 hour ordeal.OHHHH BOYYYY sounds like fun!

We will be spending the first week of our trip in Fuzhou, Fujian province where Hannah is from and finalizing her adoption there and then we fly to Guangzhou to get her visa and medical checkup for our trip home.
As always we'll be posting our experience and video links on here which will automatically post to Facebook.
We are hoping to use Oovoo and Skype to stay connected with everyone back home and from what I've heard they will both work.
Skype user name is jamesgrabowski1 and Oovoo user name is jamesgrabowski. So look me up if your on.

Stay tuned!!!

More paperwork

It never ends. We are again waiting for paperwork from USCIS (I-800). We were hoping to be in China by now but its out of our hands and at this point I think having Hannah home by Easter may not happen. We'll keep you updated.

A surprise email

We recieved a surprise email tonight with some updated pictures and measurements of Hannah and a 15 second video. I don't know how Amy was able to get this but I must say Amy Zajac "You are AWESOME!"
Hannah weighs 7.5kg (16.5 lbs) and is 27 inches tall. The video is sideways but who cares :)

So whats next?

Our letter of acceptance is on its way back to China. We will then be sent our travel approval so we can get our Visa's and set up our Consulate appointment (CA) which will be at the end of our trip. That will tell us when we can leave for China because our trip will depend on our CA. We will be spending the first week of our trip in the province where Hannah is from (Fujian) and then getting on a flight to Guangzhou where the American Consulate is located and where our adoption of Hannah will be finalized.......... and then its time to bring our little girl home to meet her big brothers :)

Hannah Xia Grabowski

Rachael and I would like to introduce our daughter Chen Gu Xia who we will name

"Hannah Xia Grabowski"

She was born on June 20, 2010

We want to apologize to all of our Rumor Queen followers for not posting this sooner but we had a surprise You Tube video to show our family on Saturday night during a birthday party for our neice and nephews. So now that it is done we would like to share it with all of you, our family, and friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-pwTEumwGY

Anthony's Gotcha Day

It was the scariest night of my life. I still remember not being able to sleep because Anthony was so sick that first day. I wrote an email to family to please pray hard for us that night. Well that was one year ago today and Anthony is all settled in and healthy. James and Anthony are best friends (sometimes)!
The other day James and Anthony were chasing each other around the house laughing and growling at each other when James ran into my arms and said " Daddy help me. Anthony is going to eat me." I thought I was going to pee my pants I laughed so hard.
We are getting the boys ready for Hannah. They know she's coming and that we are going on the airplane to get her. We got Anthony out of the crib this week and into his big boy bed and he's doing great.
We've brought down all Hannah's things from the attic and are setting up her bedroom again. We should be hearing something within the next couple of weeks.
On a separate note I am officially on the Jets bandwagon! Jets 24, Steelers 17.

NEXT!

We picked her name over five years ago when we started this long roller coaster of a journey. Her bedroom has been done for four years and after telling everyone for years " hopefully within the next year ". We are NEXT! We will see Hannah's face for the first time in the next set of referrals from China sometime next month.
The CCAA has sent out referrals this week for all those families logged in through 5/29/2006 and we are 5/31/2006. The wait for this last batch was a little stressful because there was a chance that we could have been included if they did a larger batch.
Merry Christmas everyone and God bless you all during the holidays.

It's getting closer!

Referals came out earlier this week from the CCAA and they have made it up to May 23, 2006. Once again we were logged in to the CCAA on May 31, 2006 so we are looking at an early Christmas present or a very Happy New Year. We will finally get to see our daughter Hannah's face.

We were fingerprinted again this week which is the 4th time in the last five years we had to get fingerprinted for our adoptions. We should recieve our I800 approval within the next couple of weeks.
It was New Year's Eve last year that we got word that Anthony's paperwork was complete and he was ready to come home.

China update

Anthony has been with us just over 6 months now and we are in the process of finalizing his adoption with our local probate court. A little bit of paperwork left and Anthony will be officially ours and the newest American citizen and with no time to spare because the CCAA is up to May 10, 2006 with referrals. That means we are just 21 log in dates away from our date for our daughter Hannah.
It will be 5 years next month that we started the paperwork for her adoption from China and that doesn't mean she is 5 years old. She may not even be born yet. The adoption process that we have gone through with James and Anthony is completely different than what we have gone through for Hannah.
We have to update our home study for the third time and file new immigration paperwork with the INS at the same time we are finalizing Anthony's adoption. Busy, busy, busy.
We anticipate that we will be traveling to China early next year.
James just turned 3 and is a big "Toy Story" fan.