Chinese New Year - Iowa Style

On Saturday, Jan. 21st. for the first time in the history of the Pleasant Hill Schmitz clan, we 'celebrated' the Chinese new year. Heck, for all I know, it may have been the first time any of the Schmitz clan have acknowledged it... who's to say?

Robby and Calebs Aunt Doris sent us an email on Friday with a link to a web page about the Iowa Chinese organizations celebration on the campus at AIB on Fluer Drive in Des Moines.We thought it might be fun to check out even though Lesley had plans with Robby later that night and we needed to start cooking for a gathering at our house on Sunday for the same purpose.

I think next year we may plan to spend a little more time there.  There is food to be had, which was really good even though eating in such an environment with two young boys can prove a bit stressful.  There were arts n' crafts activities for kiddos to do, face painting and much more that we didn't delve into due to time constraints.

We did watch some of the shows/presentations while we scarfed down the aforementioned food. This first photo is just a shot of the Robby and Caleb in front of where the shows happened.  I've learned to get a pic early while they're still smiling.

A few of the tables with crafts and t-shirts for sale.

A table with some young'ins making bead necklaces and the like.

We first saw this instrument being played as a duet with a grand piano in the hotel lobby of the Shang Ri' La in Changchun.  I believe it is called a Zither and it's absolutely fascinating to watch them play.  I'm pretty sure that I was freaking the two ladies out in Changchun because of how I was staring at them, but it truly was fascinating to watch and beautiful to the ears.

I already forgot the name of this dance but it's done in the Chinese culture to ward off evil spirits.

This was the second or third part of what I called the dragon dance. It was fun to watch but not nearly as fun as the expression on either Robby or Calebs face!

As far as we know, this is Calebs first crack at a crab rangoon.  Happily, for dear ol' Dad anyway, he did not care for it and could not give it up quick enough. 

Some type of symbolic battle/dance. We noted that the weapon that the pony-tailed dude is wielding is one of them that was in the background of the photo of Robby and myself at the base of the Great Wall.

We didn't see this group of girls/ladies dance or whatever it was that they were going to do.  It appeared they were up next and Robby wanted me to get a shot of their costumes, for whatever reason...  8-)

This group of people were nerve wrecking to watch.  How somebody doesn't break their neck or back during these displays is simply beyond me.

Again...

On Sunday, we had Uncle Frank, Aunt Doris, Aunt Molly, Aunt Dianne and her kids Samuel, Jonah and Zoe and one of her co-workers from China, Jinying over at our house for a big lunch of Chinese new year dishes. Lesley and I made egg rolls, beef/broccoli/noodles, and fried rice while Jinying brought two different kinds of dumplings that were both beyond fantastic.  We went to a dumpling restaurant in Changchun that was pretty darned tasty, but Jinying blew'em out of the water!  Robby commented tonight as we polished them off, "She could make those for us again. Any time!".  I agreed. Enthusiastically.

Aunt Doris down in the trenches with a whole pile of nephews!

And the million dollar shot goes to this one of Caleb, who seems to really like babies, holding his cousin Zoe.  When he saw this picture tonight while I was posting, he shouted, "AAAHHH, BABY!!!!" while cradling his arms and rocking back and forth with as big of a smile as he has in this photo.

China - part 3 - The Jade Store

Greetings and salutations!

This post features one of my 'not favorite' things we did on our trip; shopping... again.

After we left the Great Wall, we drove to this place which I cannot recall it's name.  It was a rather large building with a jade store on the ground level and a restaurant on the second level. As you can tell from the upcoming photos, the place was really big and again, the photos don't do it's size justice.  The restaurant was the same size as the store, utilizing all of the second story.  About 1/3 of the second floor was being used for a wedding reception while we were there and we ate in the other area.  The singing from the wedding reception is something that I would like to forget, but through all of my efforts so far, have been unable too.

Onto the photos...

This ship carved out of a rather large hunk of jade took some crazy person(s) over 5 years to finish.  The chain links are all separate and move just like a metal chain.  There was no way to take a photo that would clearly show all of the detail on this thing.

Here is one of the workers carving what is called a Family Ball.  It's a ball, inside of a ball, inside of ba...  you get the idea. Somehow, they've mastered carving these things out of single chunk of jade. We bought one about the size of what she is carving plus two smaller ones.  I've spent a great deal of time that I'll never get back trying to figure out how they would do such a deed.

This is just a shot where I was trying to show the great expanse that this store covers.

We were shopping for probably close to 1/2 hour by the time Robby and I started to grow weary of it.  Yes, it's impressive to look at, but unless you purchase an over-priced item that is quite small, you're going to pay dearly trying to get some of these bigger items home.  That eagle that Robby is standing by was $1600.00, the items in front of him were around a grand each.  I'm not sure who is buying these things, perhaps hotels and businesses for their lobbies, but I can't imagine the average Chinese family living on $3000.00/year buying this stuff.

We find ways to entertain ourselves.

Again...

Yet again...  the locals were not amused, but my argument was that they shouldn't have such a big store if they want men to be in there.

And one more of us trying to find a cure for common boredom.

Ahhhhhh...  finally, back on the bus.   I took this shot in an effort to show traffic.  It didn't turn out very good but if you can see out the windshield of the bus, it's 4 lanes of bumper to bumper traffic and they are not in any particular lane.  Also note that out of the side windows there are fences to divide the major highway that we're on with more local traffic going both directions on the sides of the highway.  This is somewhat common in Beijing.

Once we were on the bus, we were headed to the Hutongs with a brief tour to drive through Olympic City. And that will be the subject of the next post.

China - Part 2 - The Great Wall

For part deux of our photo blog series of our trip, we're focusing on the Great Wall. It was captivating, mesmerizing, scary, awe-inspiring, daunting and probably 1000 other things as well.


Above all now that we're home safe and sound, it's a great memory! Let's get started, shall we?

This is a shot as you're leaving the highway on an offramp into the Great Wall parking lots.  There are multiple parking lots to house all of the buses for tourist groups as well as personal vehicles now that Chinese peeps are purchasing vehicles. If you look real closely at the photo, you'll notice the building at the top of the nearest peak. The wall goes up to that and you can see it, just barely through the fog, smog and snow of the morning, on the hill to the back left.

Another shot from the bus as we're entering the parking lot.  My guess is that this photo would have been far more spectacular if it were not for the aforementioned fog, smog and snow that was falling this fine morning in Beijing.

This is a shot from the first part of climbing the wall where you can see the parking areas... or at least a small portion of them.  That's the highway that we drove in on in the very bottom left corner of the photo. Take special note of the little "hut" looking things on the tops of the hills in the background. Those are the lookout points along that section of the Great Wall.  We didn't climb that side but if we had another six or seven hours there, we may have.

Our "official" family photo as we were preparing our ascent!  Notice that we all appear to be breathing easily yet at this point!  This is on the section I talked about in the earlier post about it being slanted and me not being able to get any traction with my likely Chinese-made-but-American-purchased shoes.  Notice the wall going up the upper left quadrant of the photo and the little "huts" that you can see on top of the hills behind us.  That's where we meet our doom...

I must admit at this point that I really don't know what this is...  It appears to be a small town based off of what I would have said was the North side of the wall, which wouldn't make much sense. The Chinese were most commonly attacked from the North side of the wall so it wouldn't make sense to have a town there, unless it was built much later than the wall itself. Regardless, there are some living quarters and temples and whatever else in this conglomeration of buildings.

This is Robby and myself on the slanted upslope portion of the wall where I could scarcely gain any traction.  I figured that with the wall to fall over the edge so low, that I should hang on to Robby's hand in a haphazard fashion so that when I fell over the side, I would not drag him with me.  Looking at these pictures and talking with my bride, it would be delightful to do this climb again in a warmer climate so a fella could look up while walking and to do so without the imminent face of death staring at me like a dog who really needs to go outside to pee!

This is a good distance up the staircase on the side of the mountain.  It's the first resting point that you reach and many, meaning most, of the people climbing turn around at this point.  You can see the wall portion that we've climbed in the lower right corner with the parking lot, highway, town and gift shops down below.

Should climbing the steps up the side of the mountain not be exciting enough for you, you could go into the town and climb the "donkey walking path" to the top as well.  That's the zig-zaggy line you see in the middle of photo. No thanks.

This is a little better shot to show everybody what we've just climbed.  The whole way up the mountain had me thinking about Robby's safety on the way back down. I have to be honest here. It was hard to enjoy the climb while thinking about our imminent deaths.  Parts of me were wishing we didn't agree to do this to begin with as I didn't plan to go to China to DIE a few days before we would meet our new family member.

Robby and I are on top of the first "hut" in this photo. It is a little better representation of the climb.

This is our family portrait on top of the "hut".  We didn't go any further up as we knew we had to go back down.

Mr. Robert in his Hillis Elementary t-shirt!  I wish we would have taken a better photo of him with the wall in the background but I was seriously concerned about us dying on the way down. Not kidding...

This is also from the top of the first "hut".  It's looking up to the point(s) where we could climb next if we did indeed have a death wish.  I sincerely desire another chance to climb the wall and would do it during the summer when the skies would be clearer.  It was a sight to behold but would be better if you didn't think of dying constantly.

This is me sort of hanging over the edge of the wall to get a shot representing how far a fella would fall should he hang over the edge too far.  Trust me when I say the picture doesn't do it justice...

This is out of one of the windows of the "hut".  The gray lines you can see on the ground to the left of the base of the wall is electrical conduit.  There's equally as much conduit on the other side of the wall too. What for??  I don't know. When you look at this photo, try to imagine how many dead Chinese men are buried in this section of the wall.  You see, they used the bodies of the men who died during construction as "filler" in the base of the wall.  They like to call it "The Worlds Longest Tomb" but having been raised in America and realizing the importance of maximizing profits, I'm pretty sure they were thought of as filler and not much more. I could be wrong...

Somewhat ironic since you do not encounter this sign until you're better than halfway up.  Such kidders...

This was snapped just outside of the "hut" as I was preparing my descent with Robby.  I figured it might be the last picture I ever took so it had better be a pretty good representation of how I died.  I think it is.

We lived!!  We're back down at the cafe's and gift shops at the bottom. 

I'm not really sure what Robby and I are standing in front of at this point. It's by the gift shops and appears to be a display of some of the weapons that they either fought off intruders with or confiscated from said intruders as they introduced them to their demise.  There was a sign but it was written in Mandarin, which I am a little rusty on...

A Letter to Caleb

There are some days in our lives where we look at where we are and wonder how we got here.  Being adopted I imagine that happens even more often.  If there is one thing I want you to know is that you became a member of our family by being wanted – and not only by us.  We won’t ever know the exact situation your biological family was in but I imagine it was heartbreaking when they gave you up.  They likely didn’t have the money to pay for the medical expenses you would require and they probably thought the best decision for you would be to leave you at the toll booth for someone to find you who could take care of you or get you to someone who could.  They left you because they loved you, not because you weren’t wanted. 

The man working at the toll booth who found you wanted you.  He wanted you so much he took you home with him.  He kept you and cared for you for two weeks.  Can you imagine going to work one morning just like you do every day and coming home with a 1 day old baby?  Most people have months to plan and to prepare to bring a new child into their family, but this man and his family didn’t.  Ultimately they realized that they weren’t going to be able to take care of you either and they gave you to the police. 

When we got your information from the adoption agency we knew you were our son.  We wanted you to be a member of our family and we weren’t all that fond of the waiting.  But rules are rules and as we waited we wanted you more and more.  We were so excited when we picked you up and we are still excited that you are our son.  You are wanted.

The day we picked you up, “gotcha day”, we had to go to the notary to do some paperwork.  While we were there the assistant director of the orphanage got a phone call from your foster mom.  She had been crying all day and was calling to make sure you were ok.  She didn’t send you off that day without feeling, she wanted you. 

So as you look back on your life and wonder why you are where you are – don’t ever think it was because you weren’t loved and that you weren’t wanted.  Loved and Wanted are two words to describe you, both when you were a baby and now.

China - Part 1 - Beijing shopping n' such

After going thru piles n' piles of photos from our retrieval of the boy, I decided that it might be interesting to do a series of posts focused on various things/people/places or whatever else. I wanted to do this because when we first started the blog, I had no idea how to put pictures in and certainly didn't know how to move them around if I did manage to get some inserted.  We had some good posts that would have been a little more interesting if there were photos to support the stories.

I want to do it in at least a somewhat chronological order and so in doing such, we start with a not so interesting subject; shopping in Beijing.

This photo is taken out of our hotel room window in Beijing. Notice the pointy roof near the upper middle of this photo.  That is the street where the rest of the photos in this post are taken.  It's a great big, wide street that is closed off too traffic all day, every day. It's a walking mall of various kinds of shops.  Also of note from this photo, although you can't really tell now that it's compressed for the fancy, hi-tech, world wide interweb, is that there are mountains in the far background (Great Wall) and also, the Forbidden City was visable on Sundays only. I say Sunday's only because that is when the smog would settle enough to allow those things to be seen.

This is shot #1 on the "walking mall" street.  I was amazed at this point (our first 8 hours in China) on how the shops are scrunched (yes, that's a word) together and it seemed that no matter what side street you looked down, they were packed in just as tight.  We didn't go into too many shops but we did go into a bookstore and the arts n' crafts emporium. The bookstore said they had cd's but we didn't see any and I suspected they were probably books on disc anyway.  The emporium was multi levels of stuff that I couldn't have cared less about. Lesley was happy as the proverbial clam but I was just appalled by the workers attaching themselves to us and following us around. I like to shop in peace and as we came to realize in China, that is simply not an option. 
I was very thankful that Robby had to eventually use the pot so we got to leave the store and hit up the local KFC for a potty. A squatty-potty no less.

This is in a shopping... oh, let's call it an alley.  It was just behind the shops in the walking mall so there are TON'S of independent vendors that lurked behind those shops and had a lot of visitors perusing there "goods" (a.k.a. junk/trinkets/tourist-y kinds of things...).



This is also in the "alley".  This is a bit of a representation of what it really looks like.  It was a little bit frightening for three Americans out of the country for the first time to be in something like this. This is prior to us meeting any of our guides and having them explain to us that the Chinese are a fairly helpful people and the crime rates are very low there. This alley-way is filled with the type of "goods" that we would see over and over again at every little tourist store from Beijing to Changchun to Guongzhou. No thank you, we already have enough of that kind of crap at home.

The next several photos are of the "walking mall" at night, which was our final night in Beijing while we were out looking for a specific restaurant that Lesley wanted to eat at to get some Peking Duck. We finally found the silly thing after what felt like about 3 miles of walking (with a whiny, tired Robby!).  They had no tables open, except for some seating at the bar. Then we found out that it would take nearly an hour to cook the aforementioned duck.  We were so tired that we still ate there, basically out of defeat. Poor Rob even fell asleep on the bar stool while we were waiting for our food. One of the waiters (owner maybe?) was very concerned for him but we assured him that he was indeed fine, despite how he must have looked!  Lesley had crispy duck sandwiches that were awesome but it wasn't Peking Duck. 
Back to the photo... Notice the golden arches at the top-middle of the photo.  The most common American restaurants in Beijing (and probably China overall) are KFC and McDonalds. The red sign with Chinese writing in the bottom left quadrant of the photo is the McD's, as is the second floor too.

Yet another shot, of what I'm not so sure.  I think I was just trying to take photos to demostrate how long of a shopping area the "walking mall" is.  At some point in our walking after we were done eating, I went out to the middle of the street to try and take a picture of Momma and Robby, and I encountered a "lady of the night".  I had no idea what she was saying to me, but her intentions were clear.

Notice the building on the left. It's not uncommon that the entire side of a building will be a light-up billboard for advertising shoes, make-up, jewelry or some other insignificant items.  When you're walking, there are so many billboards and banners and lights and posters and flashy things and whatever else that you can't focus on any one thing.



Yet another shot of stores and light up billboards and people and consumerism that is emulating our American behaviors.  I probably took this shot because of the clocktower but who's to say at this point. 

Yet another shot for which I have no comment...

And finally, one last shot. 


Hopefully I've been able to convey some of what we were feeling while walking down this street.  That is to say, it was pretty interesting at first but after you saw one block of it, it all started to look the same and wasn't nearly as fascinating as it had initially seemed. 

It's almost identical to shopping in America!

Timeline, Part 5 - Emails-a-flyin' and so are we!

Part 5

Early May, we receive the monthly update email from Holt stating how many families have been matched and other info along those lines.  At the bottom of this email was a beautiful little boy, whom they referred to as “Bo”.  The email went on to state that he had just turned 4 years old and that he had about 1 month left of exclusive rights within Holt. If you’re interested in hearing more about little “Bo”, send and email to, blah blah blah…

Lesley had me read it, I was interested in more info, as was she, so Les composed an email requesting more info on the little Mr. Beautiful.

We received a large email back with his medical papers, additional photos and a short video of him bouncing on a ball and working on some words with a teacher/foster parent(?).  It contained close-up photos of his repaired lip and the palette that will eventually need surgery once he arrives in the U.S. of A.  It also had his official name which was Chang RongBo. Chang, being his last name.

He truly is a beautiful little boy!  Oddly enough, his little grin in one of the photos and the shape of his head remind me of my dad as well as some other little traits that are sort of Schmitz-like too.  One cannot help but wonder how such a beautiful little boy got to be over four years old with nobody selecting him?

May 16^th, 2011 – Our 19^th anniversary!  We sent our LOI (Letter of intent to adopt little RongBo).  We heard back from Holt within an hour and they said that they received our log in date about 15 minutes prior to our email with the LOI.  Strange stuff, but really cool!

June 4^th, 2011 – final adoption class (Parents In Progress, Part 5) held at the Pleasant Hill Public Library.  Our social worker, Angela, was instrumental in getting us in this class when she realized that we weren’t on this list to attend (there were only two couples on the list) and she knew that we had been matched.  Much thanks to Angela!!  For lunch this day, we had Chinese food from Hy Vee in honor of Bo… okay, not really.  It’s because their egg rolls are FANTASTIC and it’s cheap and close to the PHPL.

July 5^th  2011 – receive a phone call from Angela, our social worker, that she is resigning and it’s effective immediately.  This shouldn’t affect us as far as the process goes but it will personally because she was awesome and very approachable with questions/concerns.  We’re not really sure, but it almost seems as if she knew it was coming and got us into the class before she left.

July 27^th 2011 – second physical for Lesley and I.  Thankfully, the good doctor kept his hands mostly to himself this time and it wasn’t too bad, well... it’s never good when you have to drop trou in front of dude, but relatively speaking, that is.

More agonizing waiting…  This period of waiting was the worst one because it truly seemed as if NOTHING was happening. If I would allow myself to start thinking down the wrong path, depression would be right there to jump on my back.  This period of inactiveness got me to the point of really trying to put the whole thing out of my mind, which was tough seeings how everybody still asks you how things are going and the fact that I have a picture of him hanging at my desk alongside of Robby’s picture.

End of August, 2011 – I made a decision to switch jobs prior to the adoption so that our insurance would be active by the time we traveled to China. All of that happened in a pleasing manner and so I left Farm Bureau at the end of September and started back at Nationwide on Oct. 3^rd.  I was previously under the impression that if I switched jobs or there were any major changes of any kind, we had to redo some amount of paperwork and there was also a fee involved. As it turns out, you can switch jobs and not have to do much of anything, paperwork wise, unless there is a substantial difference in pay either up or down.

Oct 12^th 2011 – Visa photos for all three of us.

October 24^th 2011 – Sent off our email to Holt Kristen asking 5 questions (it’s all we’re allowed…).

October 28^th 2011 – Received an email from Holt Amy stating that our Article 5 has been issued by the U.S. Consulate and is being forwarded to the CCCWA in Beijing, this week.  Big news here!

October 31^st 2011 – Received an email from Holt Kristen with Calebs sponsorship reports.

November 3^rd 2011 – received the most recent medical records of Mr. Fantastic, Caleb Rongbo Schmitz in email attachments from Holt Kristen.  Oddly enough, there was some new information in here that surprised us a little. Nothing serious but weird that we’re in the final stretch of it all and have an, “oh yeah, he had this problem and the surgery to correct it” moment.  And no, you don’t get to know what the problem was. 8-)

November 4^th 2011 – Received an email from Holt Steve stating that while Holt has still not received travel approvals, they are optimistic that they will receive them within a week!

November 7^th 2011 – Received an email from Holt Kristen with 5 new photos of Mr. Caleb Rongbo Schmitz that were taken in October!  He is gorgeous!  He’s grown so much since the previous pictures that were taken in December of 2010. 

November 9^th 2011 – Received travel approval email from Holt Steve.  No dates yet, but still incredibly exciting!

November 10^th 2011 – Received the actual travel dates email from Holt Steve. We need to be in Beijing on December 2^nd!!!  Woooooo-hoooooooo!

On top of that news, we had our final home study, pre-adoption, that is, visit tonight. Jennifer stopped by and we updated the home study document with Daddy’s new employment information

November 11^th 2011–28^th – slight panic and planning!!!  Oh, and some serious excitement!!!

November 29^th 2011 – Lift off…

Timeline, Part 4 - Home study's(cont'd), paperwork, waiting & a bit of hope!

Part 4

Oct. 19^th, 2010 - second home study visit. This one was a bit different from the first as we all had to be interviewed individually, Robby included. They do this not only to look for differences amongst the same answers as indicators that something is not right, but also so that if somebody is being abused in any way, shape or form, they can talk about it one on one with the social worker without the naughty person present. 

Nov. 4^th, 2010 - third and final home study visit. This one is more of a review and making sure that the facts and figures are all as correct as they can be before Angela writes up the final home study document.

Nov. 6^th. 2010 - Aunt Molly is moving out of our house.

Nov. 13^th, 2010 - received home study in email for proofreading.

Nov. 18^th, 2010 - Sent packet of info to the Holt office in Oregon thru UPS.

Nov. 23^rd, 2010 - trip to Walgreens for additional passport photos

Dec, ?? , received passports in the mail.  At some point that I can’t remember, we had to go up to the Altoona Post Office to get passport photos taken.  I believe it’s these photos that actually appeared on our passports but I’m not sure anymore.

January and most of February 2011 – waiting, waiting and waiting…  hearing nothing. No updates from anyone about anything. No emails, no phone calls… nothing.  This is the hardest part about adopting. You know who your little one is, you know precious little about their situation and there is absolutely nothing you can do but carry on with your day-to-day happenings while trying to hold on to the hope of one day meeting them.  What makes it harder is that EVERYBODY is always asking about the adoption and how things are going.  I don’t blame anyone for doing so as people are curious about it and they know that you’re going through it. 

Having said that, there are times when I was answering, hopefully with a smile on my face, where I just wanted to go to some dark room or basement somewhere and cry. Not just a little whimpering cry either, I’m talking a full-on wailing, let-it-all-out kind of cry! 

In case I’m not being clear, the periods of no news are nearly unbearable.

Feb. 24^th, 2011 - Fingerprinting for Immigration at the downtown office.  This went a little more smoothly than did my trip to the WDM police department.  Quick too!

While we were downtown, we decided to go across the street to the Polk County Heritage Art Gallery (111 Court Ave.) where they had an exhibit set up from that newly illustrated Bible called the St Johns Bible.  It was interesting but I’m not sure why it’s being hyped the way it is.

Mar. 1^st, 2011 - Robby’s 6^th birthday and we’re officially approved to adopt!   Ooonly… we don’t know it yet.

Mar. 4^th, Receive document stating that we’re officially able to adopt… now we know!  We thought it was pretty cool to see it’s stamp of approval on Robby’s birthday.  We got to show it to anyone who would look at it during Robby’s birthday party!

Yes, we’re simple folks.

…and now, for our families enjoyment, another month of waiting and hearing nothing…

Apr. 4^th, Received a call from Helen stating that our dossier is complete and will be mailed to China on Friday, April 8^th!!  Once the dossier is mailed to China and approved, you’re issued a “log in date”.  Once you have the log in date, you’re eligible to be matched with a kiddo.

Apr. 5^th, Voting on property tax increase for some type of school thingymajig.  No, this does not have anything to do with the adoption process proper, but Robby and I were in line right behind our social worker, Angela, so I told her about the phone call we received yesterday.  She was excited and said that, “things should move pretty quickly from here on”. 

So being the highly logical person that I am, I asked, “How quickly is that?”. 

The answer was that since we were pretty open on our application about what we’re looking for (boy or girl, medical needs, age and so on), that the matching process should happen quickly.  Then we wait for a bit while they arrange the travel schedule for us and start down that path. 

Things are moving again!!! 

I can’t wait!!! 

Our kiddo by the holidays?!  Sounds good to me.  As I said, I CAN’T WAIT!!!!

Late April 2011 - nothing happened yet with our log in date and we again hear nothing…  agonizing silence.