Monday,
June 23, 2008
Another day
down in Guangzhou. It's both exciting and saddening to
think we are getting so close to heading home... we miss
our kiddos so much and can't wait to get Shepherd home and
firmly ensconced in the family unit. But the time we have
spent here has been so precious, each day witnessing
Shepherd, cautiously, opening himself up to us. And China
holds such an important place in our hearts, both as our
children's homeland and as the place that God called us to
when He planted the seed in our hearts to adopt. So we
will be leaving here with mixed emotions, knowing it will
probably be many years before we return.
Today was a fun day. Our wonderful guides, Rebecca and
David, kept us busy with a trip to the typical Guangzhou
tourist spots: the Chen Museum, the toy market and the
Pearl River Cruise. We had visited the Chen Museum
previously, but gained some additional insight as David, a
history buff, shed some light on many of the subtleties of
the Chen house. After the tour, I found some lovely
watercolors in the gift shop, much nicer than I had found
on the island, and purchased three of them for placement
above our bed. Our master bedroom is slowly but surely
becoming 'Asian' themed as each year I return with more
beautiful things from China and can't bear to put them up
in storage, so they are all on display in our bedroom. So
we figured we'll just go with it and hang some Chinese
watercolors also!
Next stop was the toy market, which really was a misnomer
because it was 7 stories of 'stuff' and most of it was not
toys. Just about anything and everything one could be
looking for was housed in the thousands of tiny shops
contained in this giant mall. Except the gameboy games I
had hoped to buy for my boys ;) We found a few gifts for
the little ones (Sophie will love the Hello Kitty
silverware we found!) and we enjoyed having some free time
to shop and peruse all the goods for sale. Shepherd seemed
to enjoy the hustle and bustle of the huge mall, so long
as he had a rice cracker firmly in his grip. Once his last
cracker was gone, he was done for, which fortunately
occurred right about the time we were to leave. He tried
to fall asleep on the van ride back to the hotel so we had
to pull out our "break glass in case of emergency" pack of
Oreo cookies. Thankfully, that did the trick and he was
content to make a chocolately mess of himself.
Once back at the hotel we laid Shepherd down for a nap and
settled in for our afternoon movies on "Star" TV. I can
say, with absolute certainty, that I have watched more
movies in the last 7 days than I have in the last 7 years.
The sad part is that not one of the aforementioned movies
has been good. Our little running joke has been that it's
called "Star" TV because all the movies are only one star,
otherwise it would have been called "Stars". At least it
makes us laugh ;) And, it's been fun to snuggle up next to
my wonderful husband and crack up at the bad acting and
ridiculous plots. I managed to pull myself away from "Even
Money" and went out to run a few errands. There was a
lovely antique jewelry box I had spotted at A Gift From
China and I had been thinking about it ever since. I went
back to get it (another gem for my growing collection) and
then picked up our laundry (I am getting SO spoiled with
that!), some congee for Shepherd from Lucy's and some more
of Shepherd's favorite drink: baby tea. Baby herbal tea.
Only in China, right? Soon after I returned, Shepherd woke
up crying and we managed to feed him his congee, but then
struggled with a crabby boy until he fell asleep again on
my lap.
At 5:30 we rallied to head to the White Swan to meet the
rest of the group for the Pearl River cruise. There was
only a small crowd on the cruise tonight, even though the
weather was lovely. And good thing, because my husband
brought his appetite. Six plates later, he was done and by
that time we were 3/4 of the way through the cruise. We
had some enjoyable dinner conversation with the other two
families in our travel group, both special needs families.
We headed up to the deck for a few pictures just in time
to for our boat to return to the dock. Once the night was
over, we were sad to say goodnight as it would be the last
time we would see Rebecca on this trip. Rebecca was our
guide for Sophie's adoption so it was fun seeing her again
and reminiscing about Xiao Xiao, or 'panda eyes' as they
called our sweet girl, due to the bad fall she took a few
days before our adoption.
Tomorrow we'll complete our paperwork for our Consulate
appointment on Wednesday and then head to a local noodle
shop for lunch off the island. It will be a nice change of
pace from Lucy's and Cow and Bridge. One more day to enjoy
our newest addition, and one day closer to home! |
Having fun at the Chen Museum
Mama admiring the beautiful embroidery,
Shepherd not
Oreo face
A Shepherd-Baba moment
Family self portrait, atop the riverboat
Saying goodbye to Rebecca |