Our first week back is gone...

Well we can hardly believe we have been home a week & a half. America your the best.

I told Mark this morning it was hard to believe our first full week is gone by. It's kinda sad. One more week all together at home before we are both back off to work and Reese goes off to daycare.

Reese is doing great. She's such a joy. We have nicknamed her our little monkey. If your met her already you know why. She's a card. We are so blessed. She takes a nap each day and goes down for night night time around 9:00 or 9:30 and sleeps all night long until around 7:00 or 7:30. Now you cant ask for much better than that. She's a great little eater and maybe one day soon she will love the doggies. ( We've still praying for that...) Please pray for her to adjust to daycare. She didnt seem to care to much for it today. We are going to try and go several times next week for a couple of hours so she can get used to it.

We want to send out a special thank you to all those who have been feeding us some terrific food. Thanks so much. I dont care if I ever see Chinese food again. Good old southern cooking is good enough for me.

Well I better go check on the monkey right now....

Home at last....Home at last... Thank God we're home at last!

Hello Cedartown,

It's great to be home. I knew I would miss my home. I just didnt know how much. I have to admit I shed a couple of happy tears... tears of joy to be home.

We survived the long 15 hour flight home from Hong Kong and missing over connecting flight in Newark to Atlanta. It's a shame our luggage made it back to Atlanta before we did. But hey it made it so I'm glad. We got home but not until about 11:00pm last night.

Thank you to everyone who surprised us at the airport. It was a pleasant surprise to see familiar smiling faces there to welcome us home. And thank you to everyone who came by the house and left us welcome home presents of balloons and banners. It was a great welcome home present .

And Sharon, thank you for doing such a great job house sitting and watching our babies. It was such a peace of mind not to have to worry about anything back here.

Well we are about to start day one of home with Reese.... so far so good. We did sleep to 5:00am hopeful it will be better once she get adjusted to her new home. Mark's off to the grocey store for some food... good ole country southern food.

Love you all,
Renee

We are coming home!! PTL, we're Georgia Bound!

Hello Everyone,

Praise The Lord, our paperwork is done, our little girl belong to us officially, and we are coming home. We are in the Hong Kong international airport awaiting to board our plane and begin our journey home. We are tired, mentally and physically but God is good and will give us strength to finish our journey. We look foward to seeing everyone again and can't wait to introduce Lola Reese to everyone.

Please continue to pray for our safe return.

Got to go, Reese is wound up and full of energy.

Mark, Renee, & Reese

Consulate Appointment..Final

Today was our consulate appointment. All is good and finally final. It is hard to believe only a couple more days and we will be on our way home with Reese.

Reese is coming out of her shell more and more. She still does not like being in crowds but we are making progress. She is very head strong.

We are headed down stairs to take group photos. Then we will be leaving for Hong Kong soon. Please keep us in your prayers for the 3.5 hour bus trip. Then on to our flights home.

Love from China,
Mark, Renee, & Reese

Prayer Request Needed!

Everyone,

Please pray for us as we were down to finalizing the last pieces of paperwork in order to come home and discovered that an important document has Reese's birthdate wrong. The Chinese document is correct but the English translation is wrong, pray for us that this is easily corrected. This document is crucial to us coming home. They are going to try and get the Chinese document translated again tomorrow with the correct date of birth.

We will keep you all posted as to what progress we have made as it takes place.

In the mean time:

Please pray that this error can be easily fixed and quickly.

Please pray that this will not delay our consulate appointment.

Please pray that this will not delay our return trip home.

We love you all,

Mark, Renee & Reese

Hi from Guangzhou!!

It's been a long day. Our flight got in last night around 9:30pm but we had to wait a couple of hours for some more families flights to come in. I think we checked in around 12:00 and then we had to get up early to be ready to leave again by 8:30am for medical exams. We are pretty tired and ill tonight. I cant wait to get home. We are awaiting on room service and I hope it's something eatable. I am over C Food for life. We did eat at Mcdonalds for lunch and that was nice. I taste of home.

I think all the babies got good medical reports and I'm glad. I know that the older children will have to wait for the results of their tb tests and I hope for their sakes all goes well.

We have been trying to find a weather channel to check out the storm heading over way. Please pray for us. We want the storm to be gone before it's time to fly out. We do want to leave on time. Wed should be a long but happy day.

I think Mark found out tonight at the paperwork meeting that our bus trip tuesday night is going to be about 3.5 hours to hong kong. That should be interesting with a baby. Then it will be a flight home. Yeah....

Love to All,

Mark, Renee, & Reese

One more Day in Hunan..then off to Guangzhou

It's noon here on Thursday. We have one more day in Hunan and then it's off to Guangzhou tomorrow afternoon. We have late flight out around 8:30pm and it will take about 1 hr. We are curious to see how Reese will take her first flight.

We have had a slow day today. Just one outing to the embroidery plant. It was pretty neat. I think since it's so hot here, we just get one outing a day usually in the morning. The remainer of the the day we just spend in the hotel room playing with Yuan Yuan Reese. We found out the nannies had nicknamed Yong Ningyuan.. Yuan Yuan. So we have been calling her Yuan Yuan Reese hoping this will be a good transition to her English name.
We did hear her say one word yesterday. She must have been watching Mark phone home and she took her toy phone put it to her ear and said hello. Then of course it flew across the room. I believe her favorite pass time is throwing things. I told Mark we better put the wooden blocks we bought up for a while. I am fearing the damage this little one is going to be doing. But she's a good baby it's just going to take her some time to trust us and us to learn how to take care of her.

Renee, Mark & Reese

PS. Enjoy the pictures

Smiles and Giggles from China!!

We are all doing ok! Today has been a much better day. Reese seems to be coming out a little more and praise God no more melt downs. I'm sure they arent gone for good but it sure was nice to see her personality come out some. She gave us her first laugh today. It was addictive. Her and Mark are napping and we are in for the remainer of the day. We went to the local museum and ate at a pizza hut for lunch. It was nice to eat something familiar.

Two more days in Hunan and then we are off to the next step... Guangzhou!

Sending all my family my love,

Renee, Mark , & Reese Denton

We Have A Daughter!!!!!!!

Today is adoption day. We signed bunches of papers but Reese is finally our daughter. Praise God. Today was rough. Reese's nannies were back at the office and she cried about 3 hours for them. It was pretty sad. It looks like she was well cared for and loved. This has been a tough couple of days. The food is scary to say the least. I didnt know C food could be so many different colors & sizes. Mark said he knew we were in for a treat when we entered the hotel and a little girl had a bag of chicken's feet to snack on. Luckly I missed that one. I never realized how good pinto beans and cornbread could be. I believe that is going to be my first home cooked meal. And hey we think Ga in the summer time is hot, we havent got anything on Hunan. Yesterday when we arrived it was about 40c and someone in the van said that was around 110. I dont know if that is so but I would believe it.The van we are traveling in this week doesnt have an air conditioner worth a flip. It barely works.
We have been frustrated that we havent been able to use our phone or get on the internet much but maybe that will change soon.
Please keep praying for us all. We need it. I am sending a couple of pictures of the sites and some of Reese. We havent taken too many of her yet. She's been so upset and doesnt like the flash. Maybe tomorrow will be better. She sure is a cutie pie.
Love you all Mark, Renee, & Reese

Tonight's the last night before lift off....

Well everyone tonights the last night before our big flight out. Boy am I nervous and excited to be finally in these last stages of the adoption for Reese. And as you guessed.... ( at least those who know us ) Mark is still not finished packing. As I am typing away, he's at Walmart getting something he just has to have before he can finish up. Please pray for us.....
Love you all and cant wait to be back home with little Reese in tow.

We have our Itinerary

Well everyone we received our itinerary today. Here is what we will be doing for the next 16 days.... hold on here we go...

July 7th tue : finish packing to leave on Thursday

July 8th wed : finish getting everything ready to be away for the next 14 days

July 9th thur : departing Hartsfield/Jackson International Atlanta, Ga 8:30am - arriving Newark, NJ 10:45am - then departing Newark, NJ at 12:10pm

July 10th fri: arriving Beijing China 1:50pm

July 11th sat: Beijing sightseeing trip: Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Summer Palace

July 12th sun: more Beijing sightseeing trip: International Church Service, Great Wall

July 13th mon: flying out of Beijing to Hunan, Changsha heading to meet Lola Reese "TODAY'S THE DAY WE MEET REESE"

July 14th tue: cival Affairs appointment

July 15th wed: paperwork, sightseeing & shopping

July 16th thur: more paperwork, sightseeing & shopping

July 17th fri: flying to Guangzhou

July 18th sat: medical exam for Reese

July 19th sun: US Consulate Paperwork

July 20th mon: US Consulate appointment

July 21st tue: go pick up Reese visa & take 2&1/2 hr bus trip to Hong Kong

July 22nd wed: flying out of Hong Kong 10:25am - arriving Newark, NJ 2:00pm
flying out of Newark, NJ 3:45 pm- arriving ATLANTA GEORGIA HARTSFIELD/JACKSON 6:21pm ... YIPPEE WE'RE HOME!

Whew... what'cha think..... pretty busy little people arent we?

Exciting 4th of July

Well it's the sparkling 4th of July 2009.
It's hard to believe half of the year is gone and in five days we will be heading to China to bring our daughter home.....now that's something to shoot off some fireworks for.

We finished up our shopping today and we hope we got everything. Now the next job is fiting everything into our suitcases...

Check out our new look

Our blog redesign got finished today and we cant be more thrilled. We love it Danielle. Thanks for the great job.... Now if we can just finish her room, our packing, and travel arrangements we will be doing great.