Touring Lantau Island

Today was the first of two free days that we arranged in Hong Kong prior to travel into Mainland China. We spent most of our day traversing Lantau Island, home of the Hong Kong International Airport and Hong Kong Disneyland. But before we left for the tour, Ann Marie had to have some coffee....and guess where we found some? Yes, even in China you cannot escape Mr. Ray Kroc and his creation!

Our first stop of the day was at the Po Lin Monastery and Big Buddha on Lantau. Po Lin is one of Hong Kong's major Buddhist temples and Lantau's most popular attraction. The Buddha is the worlds largest seated, outdoor, bronze Buddha and is magnificent! We took a cab from the hotel to Pi Lin and the ride up was breathtaking, more for the scenery but second for the fact that roads are tight, buses are big and there is a huge road project underway on Lantau. After arriving at Po Lin we climbed to the top of the hill where the Buddha statue rests and observed some of the last remaining relics from the 84,000 pieces that were created when Buddha was cremated in 543 BCE. After the climb we retreated to the monastery and had a vegetarian lunch and viewed many of the holy areas in the compound.


After Po Lin we took another cab to Tia O, and old fishing village on the northwest coast of Lantau. We walked through the village markets and viewed many of the Chinese delicacies from the sea. Much of the catch is dried but there were many live fish, shrimp and eels for sale in the market.

Leaving Tia O we headed to Tung Chung but by this time everyone was getting pretty worn out by the travel so we returned to the hotel around 5:00 pm. A small dinner tonight and then straight to bed! We are touring downtown Hong Kong tomorrow so we want to be rested! Look for more posts tomorrow on Hong Kong, then Sunday morning we are off to Guangzhou for the real reason we can to China! Till then.....

Mike & Ann Marie

The Kennedy's have arrived!

Okay, I know its 9:00 am Thursday in the States, but it is 10:00 pm Thursday here in Hong Kong. All we can say is "What a flight"! 16 hours on any airplane, no matter how luxurious, is a long time, but we made it without a scratch! The photo at right was taken in our room just after we arrived, do we look a bit road weary?

We left home this morning at 6:00 am compliments of Mom & Dad #2 (Ann Marie's parents) and departed RDU at 8:15 for Newark, New Jersey. At the Newark Airport we met up with our "Adoption Friends" Keith and Susie Irwin from Augusta, Georgia. We also had a visit from Ann Marie's Aunt Mary who like an angel brought subs, chips and drinks for us all to have lunch at the airport. We had a great time with Aunt Mary discussing the family and catching up on all the goings on. With a family that is spread out all over the United States it is important to catch up when you can!


After a great meal we departed Newark for Hong Kong at 3:00 pm and much to our surprise the coach seating was not that bad! We were on a new 777 with personal video screens with multiple video, music and games to entertain us. We all watched "Walk the Line" the story of Johnny Cash so now we all are singing "Ring of Fire". The meals we were served were awesome! A dinner of steak ,veggies, rice, salad and brownie, a light snack of a mini-burger and ice cream, and a breakfast of eggs, potatoes and sausage or Ann Marie's favorite Dim Sum. Everything was superb, thanks Continental!

We arrived at the Hong Kong airport at 8:30 pm, made it through customs without a hitch and walked right to the hotel all in about 45 minutes. Try that in the United States! Everyone was very helpful and everything we have seen so far is beautiful! The photos below are from the Newark Airport, the Regal Hotel lobby in Hong Kong and the view from our room overlooking the beautiful Hong Kong Airport.

Tomorrow we are going to try and adjust to the time change and play everything by ear instead of trying to push ourselves after such a long flight. We will be posting more tomorrow night depending on what we do on our off day, but Saturday will be event and photo filled as we will be touring the island and downtown Honk Kong.

The time to become a family is short and tension and excitement is high! We should be joined together on Sunday so be prepared to check the BLOG for photos of one happy family!

Mike & Ann Marie (in Hong Kong)

Its almost time to leave....

Wow, what a day! And it ain't even over yet! We are still working on getting the luggage and the house ready for our 6:00 am departure and the excitement of the upcoming travel plus the excitement in getting to hold Savannah for the first time is not going to let us sleep at all tonight!

Earlier tonight we had our families, adoption friends and our Pastor come to the house for a small dinner and get together. A good time was had by all and the evening was capped off by a wonderful prayer from Pastor Carter in lieu of our travel to China. I am sure there were some tears shed at this point as the words that were spoken were very poignant and touching.

Ill make it short tonight so we can get back to packing, but we just wanted to say thank you to all of those people who have helped us along our year and a half journey to get our daughter Savannah. The names are too numerous to list, but I am sure you know who you are , plus hugs and handshakes mean more than words. We have not even left yet and we cannot wait to return home to share our love with Savannah, our families, and our friends.

Well, the next time you hear from us we should be checking in at the Regal Hotel in Hong Kong, unless I get some free Wi-Fi along the way! Till then.......

Mike & Ann Marie

Greetings from FedEx!

The tickets are here and we are confirmed for the 8:125 flight out of Raleigh on our way to get Savannah! Chris, our favorite FedEx delivery guy outside of our neighbor who is also a FedEx delivery guy, came right on time at 10:30 as he makes his last morning stop in our neighborhood. Chris spent a couple of minutes with us discussing the upcoming trip then we bolting inside to see our itinerary!

We leave for China on Wednesday morning arriving in Hong Kong at 7:22 pm plus one day! We will spend a few days seeing the sights of this most beautiful city then meet up with the rest of our group at the Regal Airport Hotel on Saturday, April 1st. We are assuming that we will be blessed with Savannah on Sunday, April 2nd but that is not certain at this time. After a few days in the adoption process we will meet with the U.S. Consulate and be on our way home with an anticipated departure from Hong Kong on Monday, April 10th. We will be staying at the White Swan Hotel in GuangZhou the entire trip so travel in country will be minimal for us. I will p0st links to the right side of the BLOG if you want to see the hotels we will be at during out trip.

For now we are busily finishing items around the house like baby gates and outlet plugs (does anyone know how many outlets you can get in a house? A ton!) Ann Marie will be spending her last day as an expectant Mom here in the U.S. with her Mom and then we are having friends and family come over to the house for a last hoorah before we bed down for the long night of restless sleep before we leave the following morning. Look for a post on this one tomorrow!

The BLOG postings will hopefully become daily now and yours truly, Mike "The Journalist" Kennedy, will keep everyone up to date on the trip! The hours are short and the flight is long, but we are so close to being a family now it hurts! We will see you soon Little Miss Magic!

Hugs and Love to All,
Dad, Mom and the Puppies

Our last Sunday as two....

Well, today marked the last visit to our church here in Holly Springs as two! When we return from China we will need to take advantage of the nursery for the first time! We were so happy to share the news of our upcoming departure with our Pastor and the congregation at Sunrise United Methodist Church. Hopefully many of them will follow our travels right here on Savannah's BLOG and can see how wonderful of an experience adoption can be. This is a special thank you to those of you who have prayed right along with us through these many months and have shared in our journey to becoming parents. We are exactly 2 day, 9 hours and 46 minutes away from leaving, and it’s still not soon enough!

The song that you are hearing on the website is “Little Miss Magic” by Jimmy Buffett. This song stole my heart a long time ago and I promised myself that my daughter would one day share the same name as the songwriter’s first child. The origin of the song according to Jimmy is as follows:

“When Savannah Jane was born, my world was definitely altered. Once, when she was very small, she pointed to a spot on the globe and told me she had been a princess in China. Before she could speak I would watch her follow the blades of the ceiling fan with her big brown eyes, and I could not help but be a proud father.”

I became a Parrotthead some 25 years ago while listening to “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” on a album borrowed from a friend I was immediately smitten as a 13 year old kid (you do the math!) with the tales of life on the sea, even applying to the Navy that same year (thanks for telling them I could not go yet Mom!). Some 40 concerts, one tattoo and numerous LPs, Cassettes and CD’s later I am still a fan and hope that somewhere in this small world Savannah Jane Buffett knows that the real China princess Savannah Ming Quan Kennedy is coming home.

We will be there very soon Savannah! We love you!
Dad, Mom and the Puppies

The call came today!

Okay, the day we never thought would come came with little fanfare! I received a message on my work phone after I left work today giving us the news that we will leave for China on Wednesday March 29th. Now it was'nt a real surprise as we had been told to be prepared to leave sometime this coming week, but the sound of someone's voice telling you that you will be leaving on a specific day makes your heart sit a little easier! Our Visas, tickets and itinerary will arrive on Monday so we will update again then to let everyone know exactly what the plan is! Now its time to finish getting ready for our long flight to become a family!

We will be there soon Savannah Ming Quan Kennedy!

Love Dad, Mom and the Puppies!

Can you say the word "Spoiled"?

We wanted to post the most recent photos of the transformation taking place at the Maynard household. My in-laws made a run to Baby USA the other day and low and behold they managed to leave with just three items! Now I will not say how much they spent, but the store did report record profits for the month of March and its only half over! Just kidding!! My mother-in-law is preparing for a future of multiple grandkids so it’s only the best for her grandchild Savannah, the first in what we hope is a full house. Now if we can just convince Joey and Ann (Ann Marie’s brother and wife) to move down and take some of the burden off of us in the grandchild department we could rest easier! Oh well, we can handle it for now, but I am sure that Savannah will be one of the most spoiled grandkids in North Carolina for years to come!

I hope everyone had a special St. Patrick’s Day. We celebrated at Ann Marie’s parents with the traditional corn beef and cabbage (and some tasty carrots) along with some cheap red wine to wash it all down. With a name like Kennedy you have to celebrate this day in style!

Well, the countdown is on. If you will notice I added a countdown clock to the header in the BLOG so that everyone can keep track of the amount of time we have left before we take off for China! It may update once we get our final authorization, but it’s a very close estimate right now! We will be there soon Savannah! Love Mom & Dad

Anyone here listen to Devo? Okay, I may be dating myself, but on the Total Devo album released in 1988 there was a song called "Happy Guy", and it contained the lyrics;

"Well it's an open road and it's full of life, stretching on and on, but it stops somewhere because time keeps ticking away, time keeps on ticking away..."

Thats where Ann Marie and I stand right now! After many frustrating days of waiting for a phone call to let us know when we would be leaving to be with our precious daughter Savannah Ann finally received a note from our agency saying:

We do not have an exact departure date yet, but it will be between March 31st and April 2nd. We have yet to get the appointment date but as soon as we know it we will give you the departure date and return date. This should be by the end of next week.

Thats good enough for us, for now! We are planning to leave a couple of days early with some friends so we can acclimate to the time change in China and to sightsee a little around Hong Kong before "Gotcha Day". Things should move quickly from here, wrapping up things at work, getting the house ready, making lists and checking them twice, packing for the trip....anyone want to help? Thanks for staying with us on the journey, now sit back, hold and tight and prepare for the ride to China! See you soon Savannah!!

Love,
Dad, Mom and the Pups!

Round and round it goes, where it stops, nobody knows!

Does that sound familiar? Ann Marie and I are beginning to think that waiting on a date to leave for China is just as painful as waiting for that roulette ball to drop! Its now the 2nd of March and we are still waiting to hear that TA's (travel authorizations) are in from China and that the U.S. consulate has issued us an appointment. We are very hopeful that we will be traveling by the last week in March and will return home with Savannah sometime early April, but it all depends on where that little white ball lands.....oooops, I mean when the date comes in!

We did receive some inspiration from our friends the Stults's in the form of a Swami Dean premonition. According to Swami Dean:

You will see Savannah for the first time on Sunday, 3/26. All the other stuff will happen before then.

I think that Dean is a cross between a true Swami and Confucius, but all joking aside he has been spot on so far! Thanks for keeping the faith Dean!

Meanwhile, during the tenuous wait we, or I mean Ann Marie, has been hurriedly preparing the house and packing. What this means is that I can no longer plug anything in lower than 4 feet above the floor and the spare bedroom looks like the returns section at Babies R Us! I wonder if I will be able to take any clothing or will I just have to wash what I wear each night? Ann Marie is doing her best to limit the items we take, but being a new mom this has proven to be a tall task! She has even had her Mom and friends helping but to no avail! I think we will need an intervention before we leave!

And if Savanna decided to get a little sick I am sure the CVS pharmacy that we will be packing along will be more than enough to cover it! Have you ever seen so many drugs in one spot? Okay, do not answer that! Ann Marie has worked diligently to make sure we have everything we need and for that I thank her. I may pick on Ann Marie for being so over prepared, but I would not want her to be any other way!

Well, its back to the waiting game, so keep your fingers crossed and the clock running! ;-)