Very sick...

Sorry, there will be no pics.  I am in the room alone, and have had trouble getting photos to attach without Charles.

 

I started getting sick last night.  Feels like an upper respiratory infection.  I knew this would happen because when I can not sleep enough, my immune system is not as strong.

 

I went ahead and started in the antibiotic my doc sent this morning.  I also added Mucinex and a daytime cold medicine.

 

After breakfast, I was on the phone with my mom before we were meeting our guide to go to the monkey park.  Right when I hung up with her and it was time to go, phase 2 of my illness hit.  I am actually glad about the timing because this would NOT be good with the few and far between "squatty potties" available where we would be.  There are only western style restrooms in fancy hotels.

 

I am not sure if the medicine is upsetting my stomach or if this is part of my illness.  PLEASE just pray it goes away.  This is not the place to be sick, and I don't want the rest of the family getting it.

 

I had to stay behind here at the hotel while Charles, Mia and Kennedy went out for the day.  I feel like a big baby, because after they left, I just started crying!  Silly.

 

Mia was upset that I was not going, of course, and Kennedy patted me and whispered Bye-bye with a sad look as well.  Such a sweet girl.

 

Hopefully they have a great time and we can post some fun pictures of their trip.  At this park, little monkeys roam around freely and come right up to people.  We will see how Miss Mia does with THAT!!!

 

Unrelated info:  Again I will say Kennedy is REALLY smart!  She recognizes numbers and counts to 10 in English, and she already knows all of the English alphabet.  I did not see that coming!  SHe knows a good handful of English words.  ANY game we teach her, she learns instantly and whips us at it!  As you saw form the other post, she is a talented artist, and can re-create just about any picture she looks at.  Check out the detail in her drawing of Woody from Toy Story posted earlier!  We had been  told she played piano, and Charles said yesterday at Walmart, she saw an electric keyboard and went right to it and played a song.  We will have a hard time picking her electives at school because she dances, plays piano (and I think drums) AND is into art!  We have been blessed again with another amazing daughter!

 

Again, please pray that I get instant healing and that nobody else gets this!!!!  And, let us know if you were able to watch the gotcha video!  We have only heard from a few people about it.

You have a lot of catching up to do

I have posted a lot of little thoughts today.  You should scroll down until you find the video.  I put the gotcha video online earlier.

 

Surprise Phone Call

Kennedy got a call from one of her best friends today.  The girl that helped us find Kennedy called her from Hawaii.  They talked for about fifteen minutes and Kennedy smiled a lot.  We really haven’t heard her talk much.  She is very quiet and may be shy.  However, on the phone, she was a bit of a Chatty Cathy.  It was really cute.  I just wish that we could communicate clearly with her like that, without the translator.

 

 

Sisters

Kennedy has been so good with Mia so far.  Mia has been stuck to Kennedy like glue and she has had no problem with it.  She has already learned to tell Mia no and to redirect her if she is fidgeting.

 

Today, they played war with a deck of cards.  They were taunting each other as they dropped their cards.  They played Trouble again.  I think that Kennedy likes the little button that you have to push to roll the die.  They played with a ball in the hallway of the hotel and they alternated between kicking, bouncing, rolling and “volleyballing” the ball seamlessly as though they were on an elementary school playground.  They also ran from me in the halls of the hotel.  Our floor is a big square, so they went one way and I went the other.  I thought that they would pee when I jumped out from nowhere.  Mia yelled so loud that they probably heard it on the floor above us.

 

 

Anybody want snacks?

Today, we had the most interesting chips in the world.  Kennedy and I shared the numb and spicy hot pot chips.   Umm…yes.  They are flaming hot.  Annie had little tomato chips.  I thought that they tasted kind of like barbecue chips.  Annie said that they tasted like seasoned grilled tomato, with a cool minty aftertaste.  I also bought the blueberry chips.  Not a typo…BLUEBERRY.  I can’t wait.

 

Also, at dinner, Kennedy and I shared some DanDan noodles at the hotel restaurant.  I had those the first night, but they were not as hot as they were tonight.  I thought that I might sweat through my shirt at one point.  Kennedy seemed to think that it was no big deal.

 

Cool sign

No cigar smoking dogs allowed.

What the Heck?

This picture is in one of the magazines in our hotel room.  I can’t even begin to describe how disturbing it is.  I certainly hope that Photoshop is involved somehow.

Flat Stanley on the Nanming He

Today, Flat Stanley had his picture taken with Kennedy and Mia on the Nanming He river outside our hotel.

 

 

Jiaxiu Lou & Cuiwei Yuan

Today, our guide took us to visit Jiaxiu Lou & Cuiwei Yuan.  They are side by side on the river just outside our hotel.  Jiaxiu Lou is over 400 years old and is a lucky place for students to go when they study for tests.  Where was that when we were in school?  Cuiwei Yuan is old as well, and part of it is now a prestigious elementary school.  We could not go inside, but we heard  kids singing and laughing in class.  Mia wanted to peek in the windows.  She is missing her school and her friends.

 

Mia and Kennedy were stuck together today.  They were hand in hand everywhere we went.  They are getting along so well.  We are so blessed, and we know it.

 

We think that we may go to the monkey park tomorrow.  Who knows what kinds of photos we’ll get from that.  Stay tuned.

No starving artists here...

Kennedy started to draw this morning.  Mia thought that it looked fun, so she joined in.  I believe that we have two outstanding artists on our hands.  On a super-positive parenting note, Mia was quiet and still for over 45 minutes.  It was surreal…

 

 

What's outside YOUR window?

The pictures speak for themselves.  It was really creepy on so many levels.

 

Kennedy and Mia were fascinated by it.

Houston, we have a video

I had to cheat, because I could not access YouTube from China.  I have saved our video on mediafire.com.  The video is 35.7Mb, so you will want a good connection.  When you click on the link, it will take you to Mediafire.  There will be a file name at the top, Kennedy Gotcha_112810_Lo.wmv.  Look for the download link.

 

http://www.mediafire.com/?q5guf89z88dmgbr

 

It worked for us here in the hotel, so I think that you’ll be able to pick it up.  Hope you enjoy it.

Prayers, please!

Hopefully, Charles will get out of the shower and add a picture or two so nobody comes to China to slap me for posting withot pics!  Anyway, Mia hit her wall last night at dinner!  She saw her food and just started crying.  It was a fried rice dish, but she gagged with the first bite.  She was crying that she missed her home, her Nana and Papa and American food.  She also had a bad headache because she is not eating enough.  NOT like her, but the food is just so strange to her.  The milk is weird, and that is just killing her since she really only likes milk and water.  Yesterrday when we ventured back to my favorite Walmart to get KFC for Kennedy, it was a mess.  We had to order off a special picture menu.  I think Kennedy must speak a slightly different local dialect, because the lady did not understand her well when she tried to order for us.  Anyway, Mia ordered what looked the most like regular fried chicken.  Unfortunately, it was flaming hot, so she ate  only fries and ice cream.  Super healthy meal.

 

It was the saddest scene.  I tried to hold it together, but I cried a little too.  Right there at dinner.  Awesome.  I am so exhausted.  Sleep is still not working out for me.  Kennedy looked so concerned.  Charles used the translator to explain what was wrong.  She nodded and kept patting Mia and holding her hand.  She is so amazingly sweet.  I took the girls back to the room so Mia could calm down.  Kennedy fluffed a pillow for her and got next to her on the bed.  They sat close together and quietly watched Toy Story 3 on the computer while I forced Mia to drink some cup-o-soup.  We will probably have to shorten our posts so they can use the computer more often to watch movies.  That was very helful, actually.

 

I took Mia to help her take a shower and put her in bed while Kennedy took a shower.  When she came out, Mia was asleep.  Kennedy covered her up gently, then got in bed and scooted closer to her to sleep.  It makes me cry right now thinking about how sweet that was to see.  I also shed a tear thinking that soon, Kennedy will go through this much harder and for much longer when we return home to what we know, but she does not.

 

Wow, this is wonderful and super hard and emotional all at once.  BTW...speaking of emotional...Charles made an amazing Gotcha Day video for Kennedy like he did for Mia.  He is so talented, that man of mine.  His attemptsto post it to the blog from here have all been blocked.  I really hope he figures out a back door for that so you can see it before we come home.  If he does, have a tissue ready!

 

Sorry, he is still in the shower, so no picture for now.  We will post again for sure with pictures.

It's Official!!

We just got back to the hotel from finalizing the adoption.  Zhang NiuNiu is now legally Kennedy Faith NiuNiu Manning!  (Of course she has been a Manning for MONTHS in our hearts already!)  Kennedy and Mia had their MP3 players in their ears for a large portion of the appointment.  Esther, from the orphanage, enjoyed seeing Kennedy with her beautiful, long hair down!

 

Yesterday, we delivered a beautiful scrap book of Erin and her family that Sue sent with us to Esther.  She really liked it, and Kennedy enjoyed looking at it with Esther!  She saw a picture of Erin getting her ears pierced.  I saw her smile, so I pointed to my earrings and Mia's earrings and asked if she wanted them too.  She understood and said YES!  I had Esther tell her we would get that done as soon as we get home.  Esther asked for us to also send her a photo album of Kennedy and us in a few months as well.  We promised we will!

 

After the paperwork was completed, we had to take a ceremonial picture, which we will post.  I was handed the adoption certificate right before the picture was taken.  I showed it to Kennedy, who is a GREAT reader.  She read it and smiled really big!  She knew it meant that she was officially our daughter!  Charles was so excited that he kissed Kennedy on her head before he realized what he was doing.  She got only mildly tense, which was good.  She has not seemed weirded out by him like Mia was.  Maybe he will finally have a Daddy's girl in the house??!!  We will see.

 

Right now, Charles and the girls are playing Trouble.  She immediately understood how to play.  She is very intelligent.  Last night when I took out some Chinese/English flash cards...intended to teach Kennedy some English, she immediately took charge and started teaching Mia how to say the words in Chinese.  She was so good and patient with her.  When Mia would not pronounce one right, Kennedy would nicely "make" her say it again, then give her a thumbs-up when she got it right.  Then, Mia took the cards and had Kennedy say the words in English.  Her pronunciation was amazing.  She already knew most of the color and number words on her own, and knew cat, dog, and a few others as well.  (Hey, Dad!  She knew grandfather!!)  As tough as this language barrier is right now, I think she will learn English quickly.  Esther said today that within a month or two, she will probably speak a fair amount of English because she is so intelligent.  I agree.  Esther DID, however, think she would go to "English School" before she went to regular school.  No such thing.  I told her that and she looked very surprised.

 

I had our guide explain to her today that I will take her to her school the week after we get home for some testing.  He told her that it would all be in English, but that I wanted her to know it was not to show how smart she is.  I do not want her to feel bad about it when she cannot understand it.  He explained that the test would only be to show that she will need help (ESL) to learn the language, and that we know how smart she is.

 

Oh...this just in...I saw Mia's nose dripping right now.  I handed her a tissue.  When she blew her nose, uhhh.....it all kinda did NOT stay in the tissue.  It got all over her face somehow.  Charles and I both did the mature thing and said EWWWWW!  We both giggled, and Kennedy burst into laughter!  It was hysterical!  She is already laughing at her sister!!!

 

Another random BTW...Kennedy is ON PURPOSE avoiding landing on Charles and Mia as much as she can so she will not send them back to home in the game.  SO sweet.  Mia is totally out to win, as usual, and plots and plans ways to land on THEM!

 

Our guide said that we will meet tomorrow for some sightseeing.  It will be a walking tour, which will be a nice break from the near-death experiences we have had in the van so far.  Friday, just before lunch, we will go visit Kennedy's orphanage.  We left it up to her, and she would like to visit one last time.  We are going to eat lunch at KFC soon...in my favorite Walmart...with no guide...and we will let Kennedy pick out some candy for her friends when we visit.  I also need to buy her some Chinese bras since they are very different from the ones in America.  When I had Esther ask her if she could help me get the right size, she said yes.  Then Esther informed me Kennedy already had her...well...monthly visitor this month.  Charles was very relieved and very embarrassed that he showed his relief out loud!  Esther and I cracked up!  We will fly to Guangzhou some time after 6pm Friday.

 

This is the most random post of all!  Sorry, but my mind is racing!  Anyway, I want y'all to know it is non necessarily great that Mia is teaching Kennedy English.  We all know she can't say her "r" sound.  She pointed to a tree and said, "twee", which Kennedy repeated.  Uh-oh.

 

Alright, we need to think about gearing up for battle to walk over to Walmart.  Again, I apologize that this post was all over the place!  I told you this would happen once we had her with us!  MUSHY Mommy brain!

 

 

 

Quick post before we go...

Good morning!  We are leaving in a few minutes to complete the adoption.  At breakfast this morning, Charles used the translator to tell Kennedy that today we will sign papers to officially make her a Manning, and asked if she wanted to stay with us.  I had to leave the table because the question freaked me out.  Anyway, he said she said yes, nodded and smiled really big!  Whew!!!  I know she has to be so scared.  We acn not communicate well at all, and that alone ahs to be scary. 

 

Mia and I had to wake her up today to go to breakfast.  She is a teenager for sure, because she was tough to wake up!  Poor girl, Mia wanted them to wear matching shirts today.  I told her only once, though they do have 2 matching shirts.  Kennedy put it on willingly, but I am sure in her 13 year old mind she was thinking...OMG!!!  REALLY???

 

Last night, I explained the shower and acted out what to do with the shampoo, conditioner, deoderant and facial wash, etc.  She took a super long shower and emerged in her new flannel jammie pants and tshirt from America.  Her hair was down, and so beautiful.  I showed her the hair dryer and she went and used that.  We were all in bed by 10, and I slept until 4am with Ambien.  Progress, I guess.  I got up and took a shower, and waited for everyone else, except Kennedy, to wake up.

 

She ate pretty well at the breakfast buffet, but seemed a bit overwhelmed by al the choices.

 

I wanted to blog about gotcha day, but it is time to go.  More info and pics later for sure.  No time to check for typos.  Sorry.

More Pictures

Here are the pictures from tonight at the hotel.  Mia and Kennedy were working on Chinese and English with flash cards.  Too cute.  Kennedy’s English is pretty good.  She does not know a ton of words, but her pronunciation is outstanding.

 

 

 

The big day!

Kennedy was waiting for us when we walked into the room.  We did not get to take pictures of the first hugs, but we took lots of pictures and video of the rest of our time at the civil affairs office. 

 

We didn’t know that she would be there before us.  For the first time in four years, I was totally unprepared as the family historian.  Fail.

 

We walked up to a nondescript building on a busy street.  We went up an elevator to the 14^th floor.  We got out and went up a set of absolutely pitch dark steps.  That was strange.  No lights and two overwhelmed parents.  It was a recipe for disaster, but we made it without injury.  As soon as we got up the steps, we turned a corner and went into the room where our daughter was sitting with her friends.  She stood up and had a shocked look on her face that said that she recognized us, but that she could not believe we were actually real.  Annie hugged her first, then Mia.  I was struggling to get the cameras out, so my hug was late and kind of anticlimactic, but I enjoyed it immensely. 

 

Nobody cried this time.  Mia wailed the first time and I welled up a little.  Today, it all happened so fast, that we could not get too emotional.  I would have appreciated a staging area to get ready or at least a 10-second head start.

 

Kennedy came with two of her best friends.  One will be adopted soon.  The other may not be.  She was really crying a lot.  Mia and Annie gave her big hugs to try and comfort her.  The girls were very sad when they had to leave.  One did not want to leave the room.  So sad.  These girls are tied together in so many ways.  Adoption is awesome for the parents, but traumatic initially for the kids.  Kennedy’s friends did not take the separation very well.

 

On a happy note, Mia loves her sister already.  And, so far, Kennedy has not had her fill of the attention.  It’s like Star Trek and Mia is a Klingon.

 

So far, Mia and Kennedy have played pat-a-cake, listened to MP3’s, written in journals (in English!) and drawn pictures of each other.  Mia presented her with a  sister necklace right after we met and Kennedy gave her a matching bracelet.  Kennedy gave us a batik fabric that her teacher helped her to prepare.  She also gave us an awesome cross-stitch of Jesus and a cross.  We were told that she worked on that for a week. 

 

So far, she is really quiet and reserved.  She says that she is not scared or nervous, but she is very timid right now.  She doesn’t seem to be grieving, but she is probably realizing that she has a lot of changes coming.  We have been communicating with our electronic translator.  It’s slow, but it works.  I will show her how to use it tomorrow.  I’ll let you know how that goes.

 

Okay, guys, it’s time to pray.  Annie and I are parents of a teenager, and we have lots of issues to work through to get to smooth sailing.  We are looking forward to every step.

 

Tomorrow at nine, we go back to the civil affairs office to sign paperwork to make everything official.  Adoption day!!

 

Our guide told us that Kennedy likes KFC.  She wants to go there for lunch tomorrow.  Our guide told us that the closest KFC is located inside the Walmart.  Brilliant.  Annie can’t wait…

 

Not sure what happened...

…I posted a bunch of pictures, but they didn’t pop up.  Here’s a smaller sample, just in case.

Cucumber Juice. It's What's For Breakfast

Okay, I’m awake now.  Mia and I had a little catnap while Annie was posting. 

 

Breakfast was fun this morning.  Mia got her milk.  Annie got her full tummy.  I got my cucumber juice.   See the photo and check out how GREEN it is.

 

It was not as unusual as dinner, but there were some things on the buffet that were not recognizable as breakfast items.  Can we talk about smoked fish, sushi and salad?  I ate the smoked fish, but left the sushi and salad alone.  Safety first!  I did eat the braised eggplant, which is weird only for me since I don’t really eat eggplant.  I also had the stir-fried vegetables, which in my case consisted of a really long green plant with a yellow flower on top.  I usually pick those from my yard during the summer.  The zucchini with chiles was cool, primarily since it didn’t really taste like zucchini.  Those of you that followed our last trip will remember the congee.  I had some today.  My full bowl was stolen by the restaurant staff yesterday, before I took a single bite, but I got it today.  Mia wouldn’t touch it this time, but I tried as hard as I could.  Maybe I’ll talk her into it.  She said that she thought that it would taste like rice pudding, which she doesn’t like.  I got a couple of steamed buns with bean paste in the middle.  I really like those.  I also had a “doughnut” with shaved almonds on top.  It was round, but seemed like sweet french bread that was deep fried.  It was good, but not any doughnut that I’ve had before.

 

The head chef and head pastry chef were in the restaurant this morning, inspecting everything.  They were moving things around to create the perfect display for their food.  They chewed out the line chefs and some of the people working.  I have no idea what they were in trouble for, but we saw several people getting the business from the big bosses.  The pastry chef appeared to be Chinese, but the other one may have been German.  I gotta say that I didn’t see that coming.  He was the third westerner we’ve seen since we left Guangzhou, and I would not have expected to see him preparing our Chinese delicacies. 

 

Annie made me post the sleeping picture.  You’ll notice that Mia is basically on top of me.  That’s what she did to Annie all last night.  I had 80% of the bed and they shared the remaining 20%.

 

Unless something really interesting happens, the next post you’ll see will have pictures of Kennedy.  And rain.  Did we mention that it’s raining today?  I think that the temperature has dropped too.  The window is really cold and our room is cool for the first time since we checked in.

 

Breakfast...my new favorite meal!

I am not a big breakfast eater in general.  However, after our exotic dinner experience last night, I had a new appreciation for the breakfast buffet when I awoke at 1 am again STARVING!  I had to pull out a belt today because one pair of jeans I brought is starting to fall off!  Anyway, while there are many unidentifiable...and in my opinion, NON-breakfast choices available, there are enough things I recognize and can/will eat!!  Yahoo!!!!  I pretty much carb-load!  I ate lots of these delicious "steamed-twist buns", crispy bacon, stir-fried noodles and veggies and pear-kiwi danish.  I ate until I felt like I would explode, because I now realize it is likely to be the only meal I really eat each day.  Mia is getting a little too skinny for my taste, so I told her she had to eat as much as possible at breakfast as well.  She ate a hard boiled egg, lots of scrambled eggs...even scrambled, they are a bit orange, tons of bacon, watermelon, cantaloupe, and a new favorite: croissants!  She chugged 3 full glasses of the milk we discovered yesterday that tastes similar to what we are used to.  Charles ate some food I could identify, but I will let him tell you the odd items below in a bit.  I am learning not to look at his plate so I will not get nauseated.  Sad, but true.  I will tell you he drank CUCUMBER JUICE with breakfast.  (wow)  Side note about the scrambled eggs. Yesterday, Charles asked the egg chef guy for scrambled eggs for Mia.  He got some version of orange, sunny-side up instead.  I went back and asked for scrambled again a little later, adding hand motions.  He did NOT understand, and a waitress came over.  She did not understand either, but joined me in my game of charades with hand motions.  Like an idiot, I kept repeating the word "scrambled" as if it would suddenly be understood after repetition.  REALLY?!  I know better.  He figured it out and made them!  This morning when I asked him for scrambled eggs and briefly did the motions...he immediately smiled, said yes in English and whipped those eggs for about 3 solid minutes before cooking them.  He was very proud that he understood what I wanted and I was super excited as well.  We had a smile-fest with each other while I waited for the eggs.

 

On the sleep front, or should I say the LACK of sleep front for me, Mia was out at 8pm and woke up about 5:30 this morning.  Charles and I went to bed at 9pm.  He woke up at 5:30, asking Mia and I WHY we were awake...to which I replied HOW are you asleep????  I woke up at 00:05 on the bedside clock.  I could not figure out what the heck time that meant and was disturbed to find out this morning it meant 5 minutes past midnight.  I woke up for good at 1 am again.  I was up until after 3 am, then dozed for a few minutes at a time betweem 3 and 5.  I stayed awake all day yesterday after waking up at 1am, and I was SURE I would sleep all night with no help from Ambien.  Apparently, no matter how tired I am, my internal clock is not fooled yet.  Guess I will rely on that to sleep tonight.   Arrrgg!  Also, I kept thinking how that was the last night we would sleep as a family of 3.  That led me to thinking about how my Kennedy was sleeping for the last time in the orphanage.  I know she is excited.  Sue...Erin's mom (who was just adopted in September), emailed to tell me she woke up at 2 am US Saturday morning to find Erin online with Kennedy.  Kennedy was saying that she was being adopted the next day and she was excited!  I also know that she must be nervous, scared and a little sad to know she will soon leave everyone and everything she knows.  Please pray that we can comfort her and that she will have a smooth transition into our family.  I can hardly believe today is the day!!!  I wish we didn't have to wait until 5pm!!

 

Last night, I prepared the gifts we brought for the orphanage director, assistant director, caregivers and civil affairs officials.  We will bring the gifts today for the orphanage staff, and tomorrow we will take the ones for the civil affairs staff when we return to complete the adoption legally on Monday.  The gifts are just small tokens of appreciation.  We were told all are female that we will encounter.  I hope so, because we are giving everyone pretty note cards, a pen, a Houston post card, lipstick, mascara, (you know ladies...lips and lashes are critical)body-mist and m&m's. For the director and the caregivers, we included sterling silver heart necklaces that I got on major sale at Kohl's.  For Esther, who we think is the assistant director...we got a sterling silver neclkace that is different from the others.  It is a symbol for family tree.  We included a special note thanking her for loving Kennedy so much and for helping our family grow.  She is very close and special to Kennedy.

 

Mia has a special gift for Kennedy when we meet today.  She has matching sterling silver "Sisters" necklaces for the two of them.  (also from the sale at Kohl's...$50 bucks when not on sale, so I am very proud of my $15 dollar purchases!)  Mia is really excited and wrote in the special journal her sweet teacher made for her about how excited she is that she will meet her sister today at 5:00!  She keeps asking where her "Mrs. Montagne journal" is every day!!!  So proud of my little writer!

 

Well, I want Charles to add in his breakfast selections now, but guess what!??  He is asleep again!  Taking his 8:50 am nap.  GEEZ, I wish I could sleep like that man of mine!!!  It is really quiet in here, so I think Mia may have just nodded off too.  AHHHHH...sweet silence.  She has tried to fill EVERY dead airspace with her voice.  She keeps saying she misses Texas and wants to get Kennedy and get right on the plane home.  Me too, honey.  Wish we could.

 

Charles will have to post his own message when he awakes from his beauty sleep.  I think he actually took pictures of his weird meal this morning to post for y'all.  After he posts that, the next post should be of pics from our "Gotcha Day" with our beautiful, precious Kennedy!!!!!!!!!  I just got CHILLS!!!  I think Charles plans to video tape the meeting, but we will see if that works out.  If so, I am sure he will post a clip.  Stay tuned!  We get her at 5pm, so that will be 3am in Texas.  We will be gone for awhile and probably go to dinner as well due to our meeting time.  It will take us awhile to post, so be patient.  I know several of you who will be checking every hour until you see it!  Maybe we can post a few pics right away, and work on the post later or something!   BTW, we get in to Houston around 5:30ish on Saturday evening, December 11.  Some of you may want to meet us at the airport, so you can email me or leave a comment with your email address so we can email you if you don't know my email address.  We do not want to post that specific info on the blog.  ;)  My mom works for the airline, and she and my dad are hoping to fly to L.A. to meet us on the 10th when we arrive and have to spend the night.  Kennedy will gain her US citizenship when we pass through immigration there at the airport.  It would be such a comfort to see my parents at the gate, so pray for the flights to be wide open so they will make it there!  Gotta say, after the Walmart experience yesterday, I miss my mommy more than ever!  (...said the 40 year old woman...)

Flat Stanley in Guiyang

Mia had her picture taken with Flat Stanley at the hotel today.  I forgot to share earlier.  We hope that all the kids in kindergarten enjoy these.

Pork vein, pig feet and goose liver...

Sorry, I may have just thrown up a little in my mouth just typing that subject!  We ate dinner at the nice, fancy hotel buffet tonight.  Mia could barely find anything she could/would eat.  I ordered hot tea for Charles and I , and that is also what they served Mia.  Umm...waited to try and order her the milk from breakfast again, but no luck.  She is a real trooper.  She actually drank some of it and didn't complain!

 

I ate the best steamed rice with red bell pepper that I have ever had, some noodles, steamed bread and some very fancy little delicious sweet treats!  But I could not eat most of what was offered.  There were 2 kinds of fungus...yes, I said fungus, to choose from, pork vein, pig and I THINK goose feet, squid...I did not recognize much at all.  Because we stick out like a sore thumb, one of the servers came over and gave us a little plate with...I DO NOT KNOW WHAT on it.  We smiled and thanked her.  She said, "This is free."  It was a very gracious gift.  I truly wish I could have forced myself to try it, but seriously, I could not really even look at it.  Charles ate half of it.  I told him we needed to leave before they offered us more kindness.  Too late.  She was back again with two plates, informing us it was goose liver.  I was as nice as possible and did my best to communicate that I was full.  Charles even passed on that.  I felt awful for turning it down, but she took it very well.  The second she walked away, I took Mia and left poor Charles behind in the dust to pay.  Who knows what else we would have been offered and I did not want to be rude or ungrateful by continually saying no thank you. We ate all of our dinners with our guide last time, and he ordered only things we would recognize and eat, for the most part.  We have been on our own so far, and that is proving to be...shall I say...risky!  I am going to pass the computer off to Charles now so he can tell you the crazy stuff he consumed tonight!!

 

Well....I had some normal food, like rice and noodles.  I also had steamed goose feet, pig's feet, thai squid and ahem, pork vein with chiles.  I ate something that I can only describe as a purple dried sweet potato.  I'm not 100% sure if it was animal or vegetable.  It was not my favorite dish.  At the end, the thing that Annie mentioned came out.  I am fairly certain that it was some sort of intestine on bread with blueberries.  Also, not my favorite.  It was not good, not bad.  It just "was."  The curried pork spare ribs were extremely tasty, as was the duck breast with apple cinnamon.  There was a soup with something that looked like it may have been mushrooms in it.  I'm not sure if it was good or bad.  It tasted like it had oranges in the base.  I have to say that the squid was burning hot.  It looked harmless, but had I eaten one more bite, I would have needed to lick the fire extinguisher.  It was all tasty...okay not all.  But I enjoyed it.

 

Some of you can imagine Annie's distrust of the intestine-looking thing.  I tried to guilt her into eating it by telling her that it was a gift.  Ummm...no.  Not gonna happen.  Next time, we'll go back to the a la carte menu for safety.  :  )

 

See you tomorrow.  I'm sure that we'll post something before the main event.  Good night.

I am not so brave after all!

First, I want to say that when Charles posted that “we” woke up at 2:30, he meant himself and Mia.  I woke up at 1:00 in the morning, wide awake.  Big bummer!  BUT…we did NOT make it to the 7 or 8 p.m. we had planned last night.  We ate “dinner” around 3:00, and were passed out in bed by 4:30.  We were starting to feel physically ill from lack of sleep, and Mia…let’s just say…HAD to sleep! ( I think jet lag is still with us because none of us feel 100%.)  For an extra added surprise, around 8:30 or 9:00 p.m. the turn-down service rang the doorbell a few times, pounded on the door and ended up breaking the safety latch hinge, sending the screws flying in their attempt to come in and get our beds ready for us to sleep in…hmmm…  I guess from now on we will remember the Do Not Disturb sign!  The “funny” part about that is that on any normal night, I may have peed in my pants out of sheer FEAR.  All I did was barely open my eyes and think to myself that I sure hoped they stopped making all that noise soon.  I remember thinking once they saw us in the bed they would go away.  THAT is NOT a normal reaction for ME!!!  I seriously would have flown out of the bed, heart racing, freaked out on any other night!  In the morning when I asked Charles how he liked our little “interruption”, he looked at me with a puzzled face and said he thought that was a dream.  My hero!  I am glad he was here to protect us!  ;)

 

This morning, Charles was taking a nap already at 5:30 a.m.,  I decided to get ready for breakfast, so I plugged my flat iron into a different power converter than I did last night.  A few minutes into heating, the converter started making an odd buzzing sound.  All the sudden, the converter literally shot out of the wall at me, landed on the marble floor, and one of the metal prongs broke in half vertically!  I have NO idea how that could happen, but I am pretty sure I could have started a fire.  I went running out of the bathroom to tell Charles, but he was snoring and missed the whole thing.  That man can truly sleep anytime, anywhere.  I envy that!  (BTW, my flat iron appears to be fine, THANK GOODNESS!!!!  My hair is naturally somewhere between wavy and curly, in a cave-woman kind of way.  Not pretty.)

 

We went down for the breakfast buffet shortly after it opened at 6 a.m.  I mean, when you wake up at 1:00 and 2:30, you are HUNGRY by then!  (Plus, our dinner was at 3 in the afternoon!)  There was an impressive selection of food.  I am not brave when it comes to food, so I passed on most of it.  Charles was as brave as always with the food.  Poor Mia, the milk addict.  They mostly serve soy milk, YUCK!  She can’t stand that, and I can’t blame her!  We found what seems to be “regular” low-fat milk at breakfast.  She did drink it, but it does not taste like milk does back home.  Also, not sure why, but the egg yolks are kind of orange instead of yellow.  Breakfast was good, though.  And this time, the coffee was not horrible.  Whew!

 

We moved to a non-smoking room on a non-smoking floor.  I can still smell it, but it is much better, and I am not as stuffed up in the nose department!  I am taking a break from unpacking and ironing right now.  I am going to iron Kennedy’s clothes next!!  Probably the first time I have been excited about ironing!

 

OK, now on to the REAL reason for the title of my post.  We ventured out to Walmart today.  OMG!  I do not know if I can muster up the courage to do that again!  I am not so brave in a foreign country.  This city is the most authentic area of China we have ever been in.  People who understand and/or speak English are very few and far between.  In Guangzhou, particularly on Shamian Island where we stayed the whole time when we were here to adopt Mia, is geared more toward adopting Americans.  Many people smiled at us and were friendly.  Let’s just say the looks we get on the street here are, ummm, not quite the same.  I was actually scared.  I was thankful we did not have to cross the street, but the underground passage to the other side of the street was very intimidating to me.  When we emerged on the other side of the street, people were even less excited to see us than near the hotel.  Walmart was actually underground as well.  Very odd.  The smells, I cannot describe.  The layout was the most random arrangement possible and we struggled to find anything.  At one point, there was a lady handing out samples of chips with chopsticks.  She was popping them right in people’s mouths!  I am the queen of germ theory, so imagine my horror when she came somewhat aggressively at Mia waving that sample in her face.  I said no thanks as nicely as I could and pushed  Mia quickly out of the way.  (Random memory, I was frisked with a hand held metal detector at in the airport in Guangzhou, and when she was done, she pushed me out of the way.  She did it to Charles and Mia too…so I did not take it personally…but WOW!) Anyway, back to Walmart.  People were pointing and staring like crazy.  We were looking at stuff on one row where a lady was stocking the shelves, concentrating hard.  She turned around and saw me, got caught off guard, did a triple take, nervously said “Ni Hao” (hello) and started giggling!  I had to laugh!

 

When we finally found the check-out lanes, we were REALLY the center of attention.  There was a gaggle of older women together at one register staring and pointing at Charles.  One of them called someone on her cell phone and was obviously telling someone about us.  It was funny.  What was not so funny was the not friendly woman behind me who looked me in the eye and then hit me in the back of the legs with her cart.  I moved a little and she did it again.  I positioned my foot discreetly to block it from hitting me as hard, so she pushed it harder.  She finally switched lanes.  Not sure what THAT was about.  I will say, there was a small handful of people, mostly teens and young adults, who actually smiled and proudly said hello in English.  There was one older woman when we were walking to Walmart who was walking her dog.  That is not a common sight.  I smiled and pointed the dog out to Mia, and it caught her attention.  She said hello in English, then caught up with us a few steps later to say good morning in English as well.  She looked so proud of herself and it was cute!  The dog, was adorable!  Of course, I LOVE dogs!!  Oh, and we saw the cutest little Corgi running around without an owner.  Too bad we can’t bring him back with us!!

 

When we made it back to the hotel, the relief I felt made me realize how truly tense I was during the whole adventure.  Last time, we did everything like that with our guide.  Now I know why.  Lesson learned for me!

 

Time to get back to unpacking.  Mia is hovering over me, imagine that.  She wants me to post for her and say that loves and misses everyone so “really, super much”!

 

Please excuse any typos.  I am not in to the whole editing thing here.