Sunday in Guangzhou

Yesterday was another day of exploring here in Guangzhou and our guide took our travel group to the Safari (Zoo). The weather here is really nice right now, but it's "winter" for the locals and it's kind of funny to see them in their jackets when it's in the 70's. Rodney has been looking for a couple of short sleeve T-shirts to buy and you can hardly find anything but long sleeve shirts right now!

The Safari was great - we saw lots of animals that we wouldn't normally see in America (at least not at the zoo in Seattle), including white tigers and pandas. Sophia is so good at being on the go all day long and was quite the little trooper. As long as she's in her stroller, that girl is ready to roll!



She slept right thru the elephant show... and the tiger show...

No words for this one...

As for us, we're constantly amazed at how crowded it is everywhere we go. I suppose in a city of 13 million people that's just the way it is. We can't wait to get back to little old Burlington though!

It was this crowded - or worse - everywhere in the Safari.

We went back to Shamain Island for dinner at Lucy's (and American style restaurant) and ran into Callum's family. He was adopted from Starfish the same day we adopted Sophia, and it was so cute to see the two of them "chatting" together.

They had quite a little conversation about their shoes.

I have no idea what he's doing, but it sure was funny!

Today (Tuesday) we met up with our travel group to head to Shamain again - the other four children being adopted in our group are all over the age of two and had to have their TB tests looked at (those under two aren't required to have that done), so we had a couple more hours free time to walk around the island. It's so beautiful here. We've been to a store called Jordan's a couple of times, but the owner (Jordan) was always out on the sidewalk greeting people when we where there. This time, he asked if he had written Sophia's name in Chinese yet and when we told him no, he ran all the way back to his store to do it for us. He's a very sweet Christian man who does this for free for all adopted children. What a sweet keepsake for her!

Jordan, writing out her name and what it means.

She's wearing her "worth the wait" dress I made her. She definitely is worth it!

I mean really, could they be any cuter?

Today was also a very important day for us because it's the day we had our oath swearing ceremony. They don't allow pictures inside the consulate building (in fact, they make you leave your camera at the front desk when you first come in), but we did at least get her picture as we were leaving the building. Now the only thing left is to get her visa later this week and we'll be ready to come home! Well, we're ready now, we just can't leave until we get her passport back with her visa in it. :-)

After the oath swearing ceramony. She'll become a US citizen as soon as we get to the Seattle airport and go thru customs!

Since we had nothing else to do with the rest of our day, we did what we seem to be getting pretty good at... we when shopping. Someone told us about this huge, HUGE, market about 20 minutes away by taxi, so we decided to check it out. It wasn't nearly as touristy as the shops on the island are and we managed to find a few good deals. I mean really, if we must be here a few more days, we might as well make the most of it, right?

As for Sophia, she is doing really well, though if you'll notice, I'm rarely in any pictures. That's because as she has bonded more and more with her Daddy, she wants less and less to do with me, so I'm the official picture taker since he is always either holding her, or pushing the stroller. I know it's absolutely normal, but it's a little hard right now. I've got a great little support group of other Starfish moms whose little ones did the exact same thing to them, (thank you Brooks, Julie and Wendy!) and I know it's because she was so loved by Big Sophia and the nannies at Starfish that she's pushing me away. There's no way she's going to let me replace the ones she loved and is missing so easily. I completely understand it, but honestly I had hoped we weren't going to have to go thru this since we started out doing so well together. So, your prayers are appreciated in regard to her bonding with me. I suppose we should have been more specific - we prayed that she would not be scared of us (she's definitely not scared of me - she just doesn't want me around right now!) and that God would prepare her heart to come to us. She really seems to adore Rodney, and I'm so grateful for that. Especially with what he had to go thru with Elijah - he deserves to have her adore him! I know it will happen eventually, so for now, we're just taking it one day at a time and letting her set the pace for what she does or doesn't want from me. So far, she wants any food that I may have, but that's about it.

Loving on her Daddy

Olivia - this picture if for you :-)

Tomorrow our guide is taking us to a few sight seeing places here in Guangzhou - I'm really not even sure what they are right now, but we're looking forward to getting out and passing the time learning more about China. This whole trip has been so fascinating so far!


Till next time,
Karee