Monday, November 8, 2010
ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE . . .
OR NOT.  LOL.

This morning, I woke up to an email from Mike's aunt and uncle. It said "This is the best that we can do for now. Love Aunt Rachel and Uncle Elmer."

If you read my post from yesterday, you know that I was begging someone to Fed Ex me a box of Puffs Plus with Lotion for my poor sore nose. I was so thrilled that someone cared enough to send the very best! LOL! It was great! You can see the pictures to the right!

Today, we had an early breakfast and went with our group to the Folk Art Museum (Chen Family Temple). It was neat but I felt like "who done it" and so I spent most of the tour sitting at the next stop waiting for the group. Mike took a ton of pictures so that I could appreciate it later I guess. I spent most of my time there wishing I was back at the hotel resting. Then, after that we went to the government market. They had a lot of nice, hand-painted items available for purchase. We purchased the girls each a hand-painted tea set for when they grow up and have a family of their own.
Then, we went back to the hotel for 30 min, long enough to grab a quick snack. Then, we had to go back to the medical clinic to have Annalyn's TB test read. She passed!!! Woo hoo!! No x-ray!!! Woo hoo!! After that we did some shopping on the island before heading back to the hotel. Annalyn had her first toy breakdown at one of the shops. I kinda saw it coming a few days before this. The issue is that she came to us with basically the clothes on her back. So while we were purchasing her basic needs, we were asking questions like "do you like this one?, which one would you like?" basically letting her pick them out. So then she got it in her head that we would buy her basically anything that she wanted. She is a sweet, thoughtful, and caring little girl, but she was starting to get the "gimmies" as Gwendolyn calls it. So with every store, she was constantly running to me, showing me something that she wanted very loudly and I would tell her no. It was really getting on my nerves. Sort of like a spoiled 5 year old. She would look more and more disappointed with every no. Well, there was this musical toy that she kept playing with while we were shopping today. (BTW, she already has a musical toy.) Well, she lost it! She threw herself on the ground and started crying. (BTW, it was basically a baby's toy anyway.) Mike kept telling her, "Sorry, that's not going to change anything." So he picked her up and carried her down the street while she was still crying. We just happened to go down that same street that Judy's shop was on. So we stopped by and Judy (our angel) once again came to the rescue and explained some things to her. She finally understood, calmed down, told us that she was sorry, kissed us and said that she loved us (in chinese). It was partly my fault, I really should have already explained it to her with google translate.

Mike has been dying to take pictures for 3 days, so he was finally able to go out of the hotel and take pictures of the island scenery. He was gone for 1.5 hours!!! When he came back to the room, he had some bags in his hand. Ahhh, he had also done a little bit of shopping as well. LOL! He came back with an awesome Chinese/English hymn book and a Chinese/English Bible! They are both so very cool!! We are so thrilled!

So, we went back to some of the shops to exchange some things then went to our new favorite restaurant, Lucy's! Lucy's rocks!! One of my favorite parts of Lucy's is that you can eat outside in the nice, very comfortable weather and NO cigarette smoke! Woo hoo!! During our lovely dinner, Mike noticed something going on down by the riverside (for all of you Martin fans...Hee hee). It was a HUGE BOAT PARADE!!! Oh, my...something I have never seen before in my life!! For those who have seen the nighttime Disney parade, it is probably real similar to that. But OH, WHAT A SHOW! It was truly amazing! There must have been 50+ boats that were all lit up with a completely different scene on each one! So pretty! We assumed that it was part of the pre-show for the Asian Games. I will include just a few for our website tonight. The entire city is just lit up as Guangzhou is hosting the Asian Games beginning Nov 12th.

Tomorrow, we have the famous traditional "Red Couch" group picture where all of the adopted kids in our group sit on the couch and we all take a picture. Then we will go to the American Consulate for the "Oath-taking Ceremony." Tomorrow is our last real day to do anything. Wednesday will be spent packing and leaving Guangzhou. I feel really rushed to get our last minute souvenirs in. But we will do the best that we can. It is a beautiful city, but I am ready to come home and see everyone, especially my sweet baby boy! Good night from Guangzhou, China!