Karwen's voice.

This is a new video of Karwen. She wanted to introduce herself in English.

"Hi everyone! 

My name is Karwen Xiu Cogan. 

I like Florida but I don't like mosquitos.

 I like to play games. 

This is my fish 'Beta'.

 I like to play games, play babies (baby dolls). 

I have a lot of pengyou, friends. 

I love you everyone! 

I would like to see you soon. 

Goodbye! "

The longest, shortest, fastest, slowest 8 weeks!

It is our two month anniversary as a family. We wanted to take a bit of time to reflect on this amazing journey and to give everyone a glimpse of what we have been up to.

It's gone by in a blink, but it seems like forever. 

Enjoy!

September 7

The last day, trying to get ready to come home, leaving on the train to Hong Kong, getting in late and getting out early pretty much slowed us down. But, I thought we would take a minute to give everyone one last group update. After the consulate, we had one more night and most of the next day in Jinan. We did a bit of shopping and organizing and then hopped a train from Guangzhuo to Hong Kong. This was about a 2 hour trip. The kids all played and everything went fine. Then We got to Hong Kong and everything went at light speed. We must have been the last train and we were the last people, taking our time to make sure we had everything, and the customs people really, really wanted us out. They skipped a lot of steps and pushed us out the door as they locked the turnstiles. Then we got (or were gotten by?) a cab. He drove almost as fast as he talked and tried to short me 400 Hong Kong dollars. He was pretty funny. The hotel was in the airport (very helpful!) and we ordered a bit of room service and then crashed. The next morning was early, but probably not early enough. Delta was super helpful in getting us to the gate on time (Hong Kong is a big airport). Then we were off to Tokyo. That was fine and Tokyo airport was interesting. Next time we will schedule longer layovers - there was an origami museum and some interesting snacks. We said goodbye to Roseann there. She was off to Minneapolis and we were off to Atlanta. The Atlanta flight was less good - there was a passenger who was sick about 5 hours into the flight. Keely was caught in the crossfire and that was not pleasant (to say the least). She kept her cool even though she slept only about 2 hours the entire 23 hour trip home. It was crowded, fussy, and long - but it was half-way around the world. Got to Atlanta in a bit of a daze, crashed out on the 45 minute flight to Tally and got out, glad to be home. Karwen was a champ the whole time with only a bit of fussiness at the touch screens that were mis-behaving. We were met by several people from our church and I cannot express how nice it was to walk out and see some friendly faces. Michael Zhang picked us up and surprised us with a pizza dinner. Today we picked up the dogs, went shopping and met the cousins for a bit. Pretty mellow day - the kids played and played and played - kitchen set, play-doh, card games (or 'poker' as Karwen refers to it). We expect to take it mellow for a while, although we have a few things next week that will have to creep in. But mostly we will take advantage of this time and settle in to life here. Thank you for all your thoughts, prayers, wishes and help through all of this process. It already seems like the new normal, but we are getting ready for the next few steps which should present their own challenges. If we don't get pictures/updates out to any of you - just let us know! We all learned a lot during the trip - a bit more Chinese, a bit of the culture that I am not sure you learn unless you are there, how strong children are, how strong our family is... To represent this I am attaching a picture of Kolya's chopstick abilities with a peanut and KG considering his third bite of Jellyfish! Love to all, The 6 Cogans  

September 4

Ni hao! My name is Wen Xiu. I am going to come to America and meet you day after tomorrow. I am so excited to meet you. You are going to be my very good friends. You can call me Shoo Shoo. I like to swim - can you swim? Do you have bothers or sisters? I like to eat oranges. My favorite colors are pink and yellow (and a long list of other colors). Now we are going to go eat dinner! Zai jian! (Translated by our local guide - Kenley).

September 4

Well, we did it! Today we went to the US Consulate and signed our papers! No questions, no problems. We are very relieved! She won't actually be a US citizen until we step off of the plane in Seattle and they stamp her passport. She is very proud of it all. We just went for a swim and now the "big girls" are playing in the tub in their suits. It amazes me how fun an empty water bottle can be in there! Seeing her get sheer enjoyment out of something like that or a bead toy, or a pair of socks, is something I hope will never dim in my memory. I know that she will have so many more firsts and then they will become less and less. The tiny things that are no big deal to us will become less and less astounding. We take so very many things for granted. Seeing them through her eyes is a great lesson. We took the subway to the bookstore and stocked up on activities for the plane. We have the whole trip back during daylight hours- about 23 hours before the next "night". So, we wanted to be prepared. She is definitely a Cogan. She got airsick on the last flight and then just went on without a complaint!! Karwen is still very excited about the trip and she tells us frequently how much longer we have until we fly. Tomorrow we take the train to Hong Kong. We stay the night there and then fly out the next morning Thurs. at 8:45am and we arrive in Tallahassee at 7pm the same day, although it will actually be the next day for us- very confusing! We are looking forward to our last Cantonese meal this evening with the group. We didn't know how that part would be but it has been fantastic! The families are all so supportive and I think that it helps tremendously seeing all of the families like ours. We didn't really get to do as much local shopping as we would have liked but that's not really what this trip is for. It was so wonderful today to watch her walking. She is standing straighter and moving with much more ease. She has been kicking a ball back and forth and is trying so hard to swim that it is scary. She is completely fearless and tries everything that the other kids do. She saw Kolya go under the water and she promptly went under too- only she didn't see the whole breath in first thing. She figured it out with the next try though and never panicked. We love you and and miss everyone! We thank you so much for your support, prayers and positive thoughts!!! Keely

September 3

Sorry that it has been a few days since we updated. Guangzhou has been where we have done a ton of paperwork and running around. Guangzhou is where the US consulate is. It is a coastal city of about 13 million people. It used to be called Canton (hence our Cantonese dinner tonight). If Jinan was gritty like New York then Guangzhou is upscale like LA, but without the smog. The past two days were harder because we had the medical exam and tests (which took two medical visits), visa paperwork, the one week anniversary and the consulate appointment. Everyone is getting a bit tired, but we are having some fun too. We went shopping at Shamian Island and walked through the herbal medicine street. The former is quite nice and the latter was really interesting. We saw scorpions and centipedes (live and dead - all sizes), dried sea-horses, frogs and snakes, deer feet, fish bladders, caterpillars and much that we did not recognize or ask about. We have had a lot of good food (although Jinan was the best!). Guangzhou has more variety, less traffic (no motorcycles/mopeds allowed), less honking (there is a 10 year ban on horns in the city), and lots of glitzy malls. Karwen is asking daily when we are leaving to come to our home in America. She has been asking about friends there. It would be great if any of you have time to send a quick photo that we could show her. She started a letter today introducing herself to you all and seems very excited. She now knows about as much English as Nick knows Chinese, but with a bit less accent. She has fun counting and made us all laugh by spouting a long run of nonsense English words together yesterday (one, two three - teacher, hello, teacher, good-bye!, thank you, sister, brother, mother, father ...). She has a great sense of humor and fits right in with the kids. The pictures are of Karwen's first plane ride, the view from our hotel room in Guanzhou, Kolya and Karwen at a strange shopping mall (they love to ride together), the herbal medicine street and the small scorpions (as opposed to the really large ones in the bin next to this one) for sale

August 30th

We are getting ready to fly to Guangzhou in a few hours. Yesterday we had a 'free' day. We went to Damming Park, which is a huge park with a lake, classical pagoda and a few small islands. There have been several famous poets who stayed there and considered it one of the most beautiful places in China. We took the boat tour. It was a lot like Wakulla Springs without alligators. Karwen spent the afternoon trying to teach Keely's mom Chinese. There was a lot of laughing about mixing up the Chinese words for splash and frog which sound very similar. Actually, there was a ton of laughter yesterday. She got a kick out of swimming and splashing at the same time the big kids jumped into the pool. Keely had a classic outing to the police station, complete with a jam-packed bus, pushy man with a suitcase, rain and rush hour traffic. By the way, traffic in Jinan makes any other city we have been in look like a small jaunt. Absolute madness is the word that leaps out. I saved the guide from being smashed by a scooter going on the sidewalk around a bus going the wrong way to avoid the taxi that stopped in the middle of the street. Cars driving on the sidewalk are definitely something that we are not used to looking out for. I did see one parking ticket though! We have an enormous trek ahead - the mountain of luggage is still a mountain, but we do have helpers. We have been in China now for about sixteen years and only have a dozen or so left... so it is nice to see the end of the tunnel. Since the emailing/blogging stuff has been weird, if anyone would like off the email list just let me know. Also, if you all could look through the list above and if we missed anyone (how could we miss something in all this chaos?) please let me know. We have a few more days here. Love to all! P.S. The picture of KG with the corn ice cream is for the Churchills. It was pretty good. They also had pea and red bean flavors. We did not get those yet.