Prepping for a Big Trip

In 2 days my daughter Sophie and I will embark on a momentous trip – a Heritage Tour to China. We will take a tour all around China to many famous sites and cities, then we will go to the town where she was found on the steps of a city building when she was 2 days old. I will try to post daily on this blog, so you can follow along. If I can’t post during the tour, I will write and save my diary posts and post them when we return to the US.

Sophie is 16 years old, and a junior in high school. She is a very confident articulate young lady. Sophie is hoping to be an Audio Engineer and is head of the Sound Tech department at the Boulder High School Theater Dept. She also plays violin in the school orchestra, studies Latin, and loves animals.

I have one more day to catch up on a list of tasks at work, and then on Saturday we will celebrate our family Christmas gathering 3 days early… because we leave for the airport at 5 am on Sunday Dec 23. Our tour begins on Dec 24 in Beijing.

During the early 80s I lived in Hong Kong working as a fashion designer. During those years I studied Cantonese and lived the carefree and lavish lifestyle of a young single Expat. Then I moved to New York and worked on 7th Ave as an import design specialist. Later as we waited to adopt Sophie, I studied Mandarin. I’ve studied 6 languages formally but if you don’t visit the countries where the language is spoken, it is hard to retain. I am hoping that some of my Mandarin will come back in the first week that I am there. I will bring my Mandarin Phrasebook and study on the long flight I guess.

I really want to share this journey with our fellow adoptive families around the world, but also my friends, and our eQuilter.com customers….many of which have adopted from China or other countries. Sometimes people say that Sophie is a Lucky Girl, but truly we are the ones who were blessed with this baby girl 15 years ago.