FREE TIME

I apologize I didn't Blog/email yesterday, but we had the best day, only second to picking up our children. It was the first real free day we have had since arriving. No appointments had to be met, so we made plans to spend the day with our aunt and uncle, Hank and Michaele Burris. Thus, we had one fantastic day, but got to bed rather late. At 8 AM they came to the hotel where we had our breakfast and then left Shamien Island to go roam the streets of Guangzhou for a little bit of shopping. It was great to get out of our little area and explore more of the city. The streets are packed with vendors and lots and lots of real, authentic…knock offs.   Huge milestones for MaeLynn. She hardly cried, actually smiled a few times, really taking the initiative to feed herself and when Hank and Michaele left, she actually waved goodbye. Not so happy this morning, but not crying as much and right now she is entertaining herself. This morning she was also feeding herself a little bit better and got a huge smile on her face.   But, the thing that made our century was during out dinner at the Cow and Bridge, which is a Thai restaurant not too far from our hotel. Our wonderful waitress was tending to the children and talking up a storm with Joshua. I asked her if she could translate what he was saying, which she did. Then I asked her to ask him if he knows who are his mommy and daddy? Once asked he immediately pointed to me and said, "Mama," and pointed at Phil and said, "Papa." Then when asked about grandma and grandpa, he pointed to Hank and Michaele. Needless to say, Phil and I were beyond ecstatic. He was so cute when he called us Mama and Papa as he even giggled and drew his arms out in hug like motion. Be still my beating heart!!   Today we take the kids to get their TB test checked and….Oops, just had a little scare. Just as I was typing the previous sentence, I asked Phil how long before the Medical Clinic closes to get their TB test checked? He then said with panic, "Oh my gosh, isn't it until noon and isn't it five minutes past?" I thought we had until 3:30, but also started to panic. You never saw two people zip on out of their hotel rooms. We just grabbed the kids, plopped them in the stroller and RAN to the medical clinic. It was clearly lunch time but they took us right in, looked at their arms, told us they were okay and now we are back in our room ½ hour later. Whew…what could have been a BAD DAY was just avoided. Just for the record…I was right; it was until 3:30. J   So, now we wait for Mr. Li to come here at 4:30 where he will give us the children's passports and prep us for Monday's swearing in at the embassy. We are thinking about heading down to the Grandview Mall this evening. We tried to buy some clothes for Joshua but felt they were asking too much ($40/ for three items). And, we have been told that you cannot dry the clothes in a dryer as they do not have dryers in China and the clothes would not be able to hold up. Thus, I'm fine with waiting until we get to the states, but we'll see what the mall has in store. Yesterday we found some great deals on Jade and Pearls. Phil purchased two long strands of real pearls for under $40…try to get that in America. No, they weren't for him. Hank and Michaele were extremely helpful in teaching us how to barter and making sure things were the real deal when it came to Jade and Pearls.   Tomorrow we plan to go to the Safari Park as we've been hearing some great things. We'll be sure to take lots of pictures. Again, thank you all for following and hope you are enjoying this holiday season!! We sure are!   WOW...just as we were all lying down for a nap, we heard MaeLynn's crying getting closer and closer. We looked up and there she is crawling in to our bedroom. This is a HUGE deal. First time we've seen her crawl. You can tell she hasn't done it a lot as she was sure struggling, but again...what initiative. This is great!