Our Arrival into Denver Airport

We arrived into DIA at 12:30 p.m. on March 25th. We had quite the welcoming committee--my parents, our niece Carmen, my Aunt Vine, cousin Sara, Sara's two girls, John, Jared and Jillian and my faithful friend Jonette. Oh, how good it was to see everyone and have them meet Jaylynn!

Sight Seeing with Jaylynn

Update From Jason:

Today was a sight seeing day. We first went to a temple (that we are standing in front of in the picture). It is the You Min Temple, it was built in the 7th century (amazing). They had some huge Buddhas in the temple, like three stories tall.

We also went to a park that was very large, like a zoo without animals. Jaylynn slept through the whole park as I (Jason) held her. We ate at another local restaurant after the park. One of the new babies in our group had her first birthday today so we had cake at the restaurant. Jaylynn took a nap again back at the hotel and we relaxed. We are going to another local restaurant tonight. Gina and I like trying the local food as long as it isn't too crazy and spicy. I hit a spicy pepper yesterday, WOW! That is all or now.

Jason, Gina, & Jaylynn

Jaylynn Mae Lian Smits

Niece Carmen posting another update from the Smits:

Tuesday Morning: Today we left the hotel an walked to the adoption affairs office. We had our picture taken as a family and they did a short interview asking us some basic questions. What are our jobs? When were we married? Why we wanted to adopt? How many children we already have? We are the only ones in our group who have other children. After that visit we went right over to the notary office where we answered very similar questions and signed some papers. Our translator and facilitator, Echo is her name, has done an outstanding job making plans and taking us to the different offices. We are finished with paperwork in this city. The next two days we are able to sight see. Friday we travel to GuangZhou to do paperwork there before going home. In 20 minutes Echo is taking us to a local restaurant. Hope all is well with everyone in America. Love you,

Jason, Gina and Jaylynn

Gotcha Day

Hello-Jason & Gina's niece, Carmen, here...posting for them (they are unable to access Facebook or the blog in China).

An Update:

Here are some pictures of the big day! We went to a conference room on the third floor of the hotel and the foster moms and the orphanage director brought the babies to us. Our translator sat with us and the foster mom to answer any questions we may have. We have pictures the foster mom brought us, one of the pictures is of when Jaylynn was dropped off in a box! It took about two hours. Jaylynn drank two small bottles and took a small nap. When they came she had 4 layers of clothes on. So far she has been a great baby. I know it has only been a short time. She is a little congested. She has two teeth that are coming through so she is drooling everywhere. We have some paperwork to do at 2 pm in the conference room and then we are off to Wal-Mart to get some supplies. I know, I would rather go to Target but Wal-Mart will have to do.

Jason

We have a date!

We just got the email that we are leaving for China on Friday, March 12th! We don't have a set date yet as to when we are coming back but it will be the 24th, 25th or 26th. We're that much closer to getting Jaylynn. We'll be getting to China on Sunday and we get Jaylynn on Monday. We'll be in Nanchang for the first week and Guangzho for the second week.