A Day of Waiting and Exploring (Day 13)

By now we have mastered the art of hotel exploration and game playing.  One of Alia's favorite things is to sit in the large arm chair by herself, eating or taking a bottle.  She also loves to sit in the office/desk chair and spin around and around.  Our hotel here in Guangzhou has something we've never experienced before, a remote control curtain over a full size window into the bathroom.  Alia gets a kick out of playing peek a boo with us through this window.  She also loves playing with stickers off newly bought items.  Low maintenance entertainment, haha.  We've actually tried showing her some kids videos in preparation for our long plane flight, but TV and movies don't seem to keep her attention, it's a bit different in the US!

Our schedule today was virtually empty, so we created our own fun by heading out with the other two families of older adopted children (>2years old) to explore a local park.  It was only a ten minute walk, but as we crossed one eight-lane street (a small one by Chinese city standards, thus no below or above ground crosswalk), half of our group got stuck in a tight spot.  It was a little uncomfortable with traffic racing by that quickly, but we made it!  The next time we crossed that street, we ran across!

The park is absolutely beautiful.  We've been to a lot of US parks, but Chinese landscaping and maintenance is incredible.  Maybe because most of their people live in high rises (no lawn mowing!), they make their few green spaces extraordinary.  We started with pictures by a koi pond and then wandered past a group of Tai Chi ladies.  Thankfully, one of our group members smartly took a photo of the park map as a reference and we followed it in wandering through paths and bridges around a gorgeous lake.  A nice man saw how hot we were and gave Jonathan a fan to use on Ali.  We were looking for a playground but ended up stopping, resting, and playing in a nice shaded area.  We attracted a lot of attention from the locals, but had fun as a group and even discovered a nice mini amusement park complete with mini roller coasters.

On our way back to the hotel we did a little shopping, replacing our worn out and torn luggage with some nice, new pink suitcases (poor Jonathan).  Alia loved picking stickers off of them and rolling them around in our room!

While our three families wandered the park, the other five families had their ever-important US consulate appointment.  This is the appointment in which you formally apply for your child's US visa and so that when you land at your first point of entry, your child becomes an American citizen.  Well, one of these five families still had not received their new child's passport from their province.  No passport = no visa.  Despite multiple attempts to get their child's passport, they had been told it was lost in the mail.  They were then told by the US consulate that they would have to leave the consulate empty handed and reschedule their plane flights until they had a passport for their child.  They seemed to go throughout the same roller coaster of emotions as we did when we received the news of our rescheduled gotcha day.  But you know what happened?  As they were leaving the US consulate, their "lost" passport was found and delivered!  Praise the Lord for His perfect delivery and timing!

Our afternoon agenda included a one hour waiting period when we were supposed to remain in our room awaiting a phone call.  Since Alia is older than two, her blood was drawn on Saturday and we were waiting today (Monday) to find out if she had been exposed to Tuberculosis during her life.  If she tested positive we were going to receive a phone call and then promptly head to the hospital for X-rays, testing, and possible delays in travel.  But guess what?  No phone call!  No news is good news!

After this waiting game, Jonathan took Ali on a hotel exploration game so momma could get ready for a night on the town.  Alia has an independent streak, like her sisters, and it showed up as she explored.  She didn't want to be held, but followed daddy pretty faithfully through the whole hotel.  We had special fun in an outside garden and on a small playset, she loves water and slides!  We also managed for Alia to get her first goose egg by slipping and falling on some tile.  Her arms don't brace her falls too well and she had a good smack on the forehead...good thing she is hard headed!

We finished the evening with a group excursion on the Pearl River, China's third longest river (behind the Yangtze and Yellow rivers), right through the heart of Guangzhou.  For less than $40 per person we had an awesome 2.5 hour long river cruise complete with buffet and entertainment.  We enjoyed the company, food and sights!  Ali really seemed to love the cruise and was especially focused on the lady who juggled, clowned, and made animal balloons.

Another fun day in the books and one day closer to going home to our other two sweet girls! We miss them so very much and cannot thank enough the precious people caring for them while we are away!!!