Sunday, December 31, 2006

“Whenever I see your smiling face, I have to smile myself because I love you, yes I do. And when you give me me that pretty little pout little pout it turns me inside out.” -James Taylor

Everyday Miss Jia-Li gets cuter and funnier! Today we started calling her Jia instead of Hui-Hui and she seemed to take to it without a problem. She has also decided that Mom is not so bad even though I’m still not her favorite person. She loves her sisters best of all and they are just totally infatuated.

We took a tour today with some other couples from Los Ninos. We started out at a Buddhist Temple. It was very interesting; there were all kinds of different Budhas, some male, some female, some both. There were a lot of monks and beggars all around the temple. People were bringing incense and flowers to the different altars. For a fee you could have your baby blessed by the monks. We chose to forgo this option with our new little Christian China girl.

After that we went to the Guangzhou Provincial Museum. It was very ornate and had beautiful ivory carvings, silk and porcelain.

When we got back to the hotel we reclaimed our laundry from Sherry’s. Each piece was wrapped in its own individual little plastic bag, which Katie thought was really great. I promised her that I’d put her underwear in zip lock bags after I wash them at home.

Tonight Nelson, our guide, took all of the Los Ninos families to a very good Thai place called The Cow and Bridge. I ordered the garlic prawns, which came with the entire bodies (eyes and all) intact, but they were very good. The rest of the family played it safe with chicken fried rice. Katie ordered a banana split for desert. The waitress told her that it was enough to feed four people. Well, not 4 Parnhams! It was the tiniest banana split we have ever seen and the ice cream was green, orange and purple with beans underneath. This horrified Anna, luckily she found the Hagen Daz a little later.

We spent the rest of the evening touring the grounds of the hotel, we watched very elaborate boats going up and down the Pearl River, went through beautiful paths to the pool and then watched some of the New Years Eve festivities in the hotel.

We are going to spend the rest of our New Years Eve watching Madagascar on HBO. I never thought I would be old enough or tired enough not to make it to midnight, but this may be the year. Besides, what’s New Years without Dick Clark and Times Square?

Tonight I would like to thank our little furry friends who wait for us at home. Tink, Daisy, Max, Reggie, Bear, Skye, Jojo and Roxy provide unconditional love and affection to us everyday and we miss them so much!

“Where there is great love there are always miracles.” Willa Cather