More Guangzhou

kate was going to recreate a photo of her brother eric from when he sat on the fat ladies shoulders but unlike him she thought the lady was to hot to sit on so instead she perched on the dog....

penny has been great about the food but the occasional taste will throw her...so the use of a napkin takes place!

Leaving Changsha, hello Guangzhou

ok so yea i just had to do it!!!

 

 31 floors up and yes i let her sit on the window sill as i figured as soon as we got home claude would have her under lock and key and she would never get the opportunity to again experience the sense of wonder that heights offer you!!

 

we checked out on friday of the Dolton hotel in changsha...totally nothing to do that we found there except to try to stay cool in the awful heat. we got to the airport and the flight was delayed so again a very long evening of flight to GZ and then a 45 minute ride to the hotel...so was midnight by the time we got to the hotel.

 

the victory hotel on the island is nice. i just sincerely appreciate the slower pace of the island than having stayed off the island and am glad of the choice. morgan and penny reunited with Peter the shop owner and gave kate an introduction to bargaining. today, saturday kim and i went to the clinic and she passed with flying colors and good lord but she was even able to see the tiny print at the bottom of the chart. i am not sure that i can even see that line with my glasses on and but a few feet away. then of course the blasted vaccines. she had to have four of them and a tb test injected under the skin on her forearm. i hate that they have to have all of these at the same time. we are keeping tylenol in her and letting her rest. tonight we are taking it easy here in the room so kim can take it easy, then sunday am we meet the dexters and go to church her on the island and then back to their apartment for Spaghetti !!! last year it was great and i am sure it will be again. we are all looking forward to eating it.

right now penny and kim are sitting here learning the days of the week in sign language! good time spent together.

 

 

 

Adoption Day

today was the ceremony presenting us with the adoption certificate. the lady read our promise to not abandon, to always feed and educate and love our children and then proclaimed she is ours forever. after that we went to an embodriay factory and saw the area that they are creating the pictures. this long one you see is a winter scene and will take several years of 30 people working on it to complete.

 

 AFTER WE GOT BACK TO THE ROOM WITH NOTHING TO DO PENNY AND MORGAN WANTED TO SLEEP OR WATCH TV SO I TOOK KATE AND KIM TO THE POOL.

 

kate actually got her to go under water for a few seconds and otherwise she just played in the water. when we went to the mall she did find a pair of sandals that she liked. the only things she brought with her seems to be clothes that have tags on them that are more winter. she has nothing personal with her at all. that makes me sad. she seems to like the color pink! guess that won't be a problem at our house.

 

tomorrow we fly to GZ and i can tell you that we are all looking forward to getting out of changsha...and to the vacation part of the trip. pray for kim to do well witht he vaccines...

 

 

 

More Changsha

so yesterday penny and kate "did" kims hair. then put all the do-dads back in! love the braids. at first she was not to sure about it but then she did accept it. i had though several times thru the day i saw sad eyes and a tremble at the mouth so was not sure if she was going to accept them messing with her hair. later we were going to go out, walk to the book store and we had to wait for a bit for the guide so kate entertained all with getting them to do si do..even kim got into it. amy and bills little girl maddie is such a hoot! the girls have her doing the heart sign such as a taylor swift....

ok so the guy doing dishes along the street is not the food stand we ate at! can you imagine?? we have been very careful eating...this time i simply did not want to miss out on some of the fruit opportunities so this time my checked luggage contained two very sharp hunting knives :) and so we are having dragon fruit, pears, apples, etc here in the room along with the occasional instant noodles, mashed potato's and cereal. (kate still has one box of fruit loops she is keeping for a bad day) and of course the chicken feet. yuck...the lotus bloom gone to seed is something that kim has shown us has seeds inside sort of like a grape looking thing that you peel and eat. it really isn't to bad. you can buy those heads all around. when we finally got to the bookstore there were displays all around. this one looks like a ship. we bought a few books but learned a long time ago that the problem with books is the weight adds up really fast! and luggage weight is now so limited that it is hard to haul stuff back.

Wednesday

photo 1 is mama g holding onto kim, i took this picture because this lady to me has always shown such care for not only our daughters but even other children without parents. the next is of kate...we walked around a city block, or was it 6? and kate got very hot. so hot she finally asked me to carry her. scary? yes...as it is not as hot as at home but the humidity was very high...mama g dabbed several drops of a small bottle of greenish stuff between her thumb and fingers, then on the back of her neck in three spots...i kept the water in her and morgan gave her her battery powdered fan. kate admitted that after the mama g drops that she started feeling better right away. we now have 6 bottles of it as it is for headaches, getting to hot, a cold, etc...mama g said i needed this many bottles because we have so many girls. got kate back to hotel and put a cold towel on her feet and around her neck and she felt better fast. mama g came in about 45 minutes to check on her and kate showed she had performed a miracle by jumping on the bed and laughing. morgan has been a godsend this trip. her chinese understanding is so great. yes she stumbles over some of it but she has done so well. she actually posed for this photo!

I just love the dimples that kim has! she also showed huge interest at breakfast with two sign language books that amy brought to us. amy feels she can develop speech although will be nasally...kim really enjoyed amys interest in showing her the sign language alphabet. penny got her foster sister in-law sunglasses as her gift she had brought to her so they posed together. we are going to go to a book store tonight, waiting until about 5 pm to go though so not so hot. personally i am hoping for some ice cream. and get this, i have checked every store we have went by looking for diet soda...NONE

Mama G and Dimples

penny and mama g have really enjoyed each others company.

mama g's grandson chowed down on pizza and it was funny to see him eating it with chopsticks and penny with her hands...

morgan is so in her element and really likes mama g's daughter in-law. they decided what to order for all of us, kim requested one dish and it was a dish of chopped pig intestin's with lots of hot spicy stuff in it. but she really loved it.

we took photos of us afterwards...kim has greatly appreciated the i-pod and thank you to judy, vicky and whoever else loaded it with the music, etc. she has really taken to it plus likes the camera in it. i was so glad when we went to the civil affairs office today as the swi staff brought a back pack and a duffle bag of kims stuff.

yesterday she showed up with nothing! what a welcome sight to see those two bags, but now i am dying to know what is in them. kim is hoping to get her ears pierced.

 we will get that done in the u.s. thank you. this city there is nothing to do so far that we have found. we did go to awl mart today and then on thursday we are going to a silk factory.

birthday cake!!

can you tell from the hunched shoulders she was just shuddering in delight? Maddie turned five today and the hotel sent her a cake that Bill and Amy shared with all of us! and yes it was good! Maddie tried her hardest to get her mama Amy to stick her finger in the cake too! i think Maddie has settled into the family like a dream and boy are they in for a ride! She is just the cutest thing to watch and they are adjusting well.

 

 

 

i will send photos soon of mama g and her family that arrived today. this is penny's foster mama and her son and his family. when we last saw the grandson he was crawling and now he is five! he likes the matchbox cars we brought and mama g said he calls me his u.s. grandma.

kim, myself and kate took a ride to the police station with our guide this afternoon as kim is over 13 so she has to sign for her passport. kate walked the distance we had to with her sweatshirt sleeve over her nose. but she is starting to venture a little into the chinese food. she has also started enjoying her self a bit.

kim is still doing well, admitted that she does not like to ride in the cars and is not used to this city traffic. penny's tummy is feeling much better. morgan really is great with mama g and seems to enjoy talking to her. i value morgans ability to talk to her in chinese! so far we are counting down the days to leaving changsha so we can be at gz...who cannot like gz?