Thursday, June 9, 2011
PEOPLE'S PARK!

Piper is such a sweetheart! We are so in love with this little girl! We can't wait for everyone to meet her! She will capture your heart just like she has captured our hearts! Piper slept pretty well last night. She seems to grieve only at night. She went to bed at 9:00 PM again without any problems. She loves for me to rock her to sleep. She slept until 2:30 AM when she started to fuss. I rubbed her back and she went back to sleep. A short while later she woke up again, but this time she was crying. I picked her up and rocked her and put her in bed with us. She went right back to sleep. She was very restless the rest of the night and was tossing and turning in the bed. She woke up around 6:10 AM. I tried to feed her and give her something to drink. She played and laughed with me on the bed. She did eat cheerios while she was playing. It seems if we just have food around for her to take when she wants it, she tends to eat more. I think she is doing pretty well considering all that has changed in her life in the past three days!

Our day started out talking to the children are home! We had a much better connection to skype this morning! It was great to see our babies at home! We went to breakfast! Piper ate watermelon and peaches. She tried small pieces of a pancake, but didn't eat a whole lot. We are still very concerned about her not eating or drinking enough. She did have two bowel movements this morning, but only one wet diaper all day! We continue to offer her food all day, but she eats very little. She did eat all the cheese off of the pizza for lunch! That was the most she ate since breakfast! We hope that once we get her home and into a more normal routine that she will begin to eat and drink more!

Today we went to People's Park. The park was very nice and it is a place where people go to relax. This is also the place where people go in the morning to exercise. The park also had lots of amusement park rides! They were very similar to the type of rides you would see at home. It was a little cooler than yesterday, but the humidity was still very high! It was very hot! Piper sweats a lot when we are outside in the heat! We try to keep her cool, but she wouldn't drink a lot of water or juice! We walked around for awhile enjoying the sites! After the park we went to a porcelain shop. Porcelain is famous in this province. We looked around, but didn't buy anything. I didn't want to have to worry about anything getting broken on the way home! We have enough to carry without adding a big box to our luggage. We made it back to the hotel around 1:00 PM. Our guide ordered everyone pizza for lunch. We played with Piper on the bed for awhile. She loves to scribble with the crayons and explore the board books we brought with us. I took my afternoon nap and Erik played with Piper. Piper ended up falling asleep for about 45 minutes this afternoon. She has been taking her naps in the van, so she hasn't been taking a nap in our room. Erik took a little nap after I got up. We walked around the hotel this evening just to get out of the room.

We head to Guangzhou tomorrow afternoon! This is where we will complete the U.S. part of the adoption! We look forward to our next stop on our journey to Piper! It will be nice to be in a familiar place! We will be staying in the White Swan for the third time! We are one step closer to coming home and seeing Sophia, Graham, and Parker and introducing them to their little sister!

Notes from Dad:
Poor Piper is having a tough night - she's having a lot of night terrors and crying some. It reminds us a lot of how Sophia was when we first met her. Incredibly, we didn't have any separation issues with Parker - he was the happiest guy from Day 1. Piper started out the day eating well - lots of Watermelon and peaches at breakfast. But it became tougher to feed her as the day went on. Tricia and I will both be happy when her sleep and eating stabilizes - although that might not be until we get home.

Here's a crazy thing - it's tough to get diet soda of any kind here. Sometimes you can find Coke Zero, but it's not very common. We went to a big supermarket here and they didn't have any diet soda of any kind. Funny, huh?

Dear Sophia, Graham, and Parker,
We love and miss you so much! We enjoyed talking with you this morning! We are so glad you are keeping cool in the heat! We loved seeing the pictures of you playing on the slide and in the sprinkler! It looks like you had a lot of fun! We are so glad you loved your present we left you this morning. We are getting closer to coming home and seeing you! We went to a park today! It had lots of rides just like Dutch Wonderland! You would have loved it! We love you!

Lots of love,
Mommy and Daddy