Mary's turn

I just thought that I would put my little bit in here also. We are enjoying our stay here in China so much. It is so interesting watching MeiLi open up to us more everyday and to watch her learn to trust us. I have had several other parents say that we make it look easy to parent an older child, but its just God's mercy and grace to us and MeiLi that has pulled us through... Thank you for your continued prayers. Please include one of the other families whose little girl is having trouble bonding to the mother (who is a great woman) and has superglued herself to her new daddy. I try to encourage her but since this is her first child its hard to accept. I'm sure that it will work out, but sooner would be better than later. We have offered to have Karah go to play with the little girl and mom together to model that momma is a safe and good person, but we haven't tried that completely yet... Maybe at the playroom they have here. Then Daddy could step out and she would be able to play with both mommy and Karah and MeiLi... (She likes Karah too.) We are looking forward to going shopping and getting some special things bought. I always see so many things I would like to buy. Today I saw a pearl in a special case ( had a magifing glass on top) there was engraved on the pearl a Chinese poem, but it was so small it needed the magifing glass to see it... pretty cool huh! I didn't have any extra money exchanged right now, so I let that one pass. We got MeiLi's "White Swan adoption Barbie" I put it aside so that the girls wouldn't be tempted to take it out to play with it. It's something that is a special keepsake and they only give them to the adoptive little girls at the White Swan hotel. Karah has one that I have put aside from her adoption too. I might try to find some Asian Barbie's that they can play with for the plane ride home. Or maybe some other doll or toy. Anyway, I guess I had better close now.

Karah, at Chen Clan Family Academy

Today we went to the Chen Clan Family Academy. This photo is about a man telling a story for others to hear, if they like it they would pay him for the storytelling, if not they would just walk away. We shot a few photos there but it is mostly like a museum with displays inside. I have some photos on my Handycam that I will post here later because I have to wait until the DVD is finalized to be able to copy them to this blog. I added some airport pictures that were taken yesterday (below). You can right-click and select "view in separate window/tab" to enlarge them. You can see some of the other children/babies in those pics. A few Chinese families came up to talk to us and thank us for adopting the children. The area we are staying in is full of foreigners and tourists. At night there are a lot of young people with boisterous activity in the streets. There are a lot of young American military men around and many of them have Asian ladies with them. There also are many, many adoptive families here in the hotel. In the morning buffet, they have a section already set up with a baby chair at each table. We went to a supermarket to get baby supplies. Right now it is almost 2PM here and we are resting in the hotel. The hotel is very posh. On the bottom floor it is like an art shopping mall/museum. There is a large waterfall in the center atrium. You can see the website at http://www.whiteswanhotel.com/ if you are interested. I just have been too busy to shoot many interesting pictures. I will try to get a few and post them later. MeiLi has become more demanding of us which is challenging but is a good thing .. she's feeling very comfortable with us.

She also has started finger-painting on the hotel window. I think Karah showed her how to do that. Tomorrow we got the an Animal park and will see Pandas amongst other animals. It is quite hot and humid here compared to Kunming. Maybe we will try the pool soon.

We are in Guangzhou

Just a quick post to let you know we have arrived at the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou. Mary has the girls down in the Mattel Playroom while I unpack a bit. We already went ovver to the 7-Eleven store to get drinks. Sprite is called "雪碧" pinyin "Xue-Bi" pronounced "shway-bee". Well they had the green bottle and the blue bottle here. I bought one of each and to our surprise, the blue bottle is peppermint flavored. We really like it :-) . Will post more, later when caught up.