Friday! Guangzhou!

This morning we went down to breakfast as usual, but very solemn. We love Hohhot! This is where you are from and it hurts to leave.

Here is your last look at your province from the bus. We arrived at the airport and got our bags checked and Mrs Cindy went to security with us. She would leave us when it was our turn. She has been the best guide! She is now considered family. We are hoping she and her family will come stay with us when they visit America. :-) I hated to say goodbye more than anything. She has helped us with a you so much. She helps to straighten you out in Chinese, take you walking around stores while we shop... amazing.

So we were in line in security and this man comes up and talks to Cindy with a huge camera. He asked if we were coming to china for spring festival (Chinese New Year). She says what he says and we said "no, we are here to adopt our daughter." He clicks on his recording device and asks us if he can report our story. Uhhhhhh... little ole us? So he asks questions like if we like China.. why.. favorite part ... etc. We get so many questions to our guide on why we want to adopt. Hopefully by our answers, we planted seeds about adoption - our family's mission. I hope that people will see Jesus through us, somehow, because it is His story.. not ours. So, he leaves and thanks us over and over. We say goodbye to Cindy and he comes back. .. speaking 784839 words a minute in Chinese. He asks our names.. I decided to just spell it because he would never know how to spell them. I said "J-U-S-T-I-N..." and that's as far as I got.. so the report will just say Justin. Lolololol. He just ran off and thanked us. Hahahahah Before he left, he handed us his business card. One side was Chinese and one side was English. I will pull out my Sherlock skillz when I get home and try to dig up this story and see how badly it was butchered. Lololololol!!!!!!!

So we got through security without a hitch and boarded our plane. We were headed to a tropical climate after being in negative temps. You and Joy sat with me on the plane. You squirmed the whole time and Joy talked the whole time, but it was still amazing. Your legs were so short that the knees didn't hit the edge, so you wanted to put your feet on the seat in front of you. We sat behind the rudest man on the plane. He turned around and was blessing me out in chinese and he threw a fit when Joy got in her seat from the bathroom and accidentally touched his hair. Then, you thought it was hilarious that he was mad and decided to throw your board book at his head. My ninja skillz came out and I caught it with one hand, centimeters from his head. My heart was pounding. Your baba gave him an awful look when he started the yelling and he stopped and sat back down. Then, You tried to push your booger napkin in between the seat to rub it on him. I stopped you before you could, but GIRL... you're killing me Smalls! You were still good because you sat and ate snacks the whole three hours. Lol three hours was all you were handling.. and we have about 30 hours from hotel here to home of traveling next week. I don't know how we will make it home.. I really don't. Movies will be the lifesaver hopefully. I will charge my phone and the iPad and pray they don't run down as well. Survival. So we deboarded into 70 degree, misting rain weather. Funny because I was so used to trying not to slip on ice in IM that I started my slow, Granny little marching steps and then remembered.. wait... we are in the tropics hahahahah. We met our new guide, Elsie, and the van drove us to our hotel - The Garden. The orchids are blooming, petunias, palm trees and green grass everywhere. The Garden is gorgeous! The best part about the hotel, is that we have a stroller sitting in our room!!!!! All the kids were gifted backpacks filled with bibs (really nice ones!), marshmallow sucker, raincoats, rubber ducks and the cutest panda ever wearing a silk that says "the Garden hotel" on the back - What a momento!

This area is NICE with many cool stores and shopping around. The restaurants right in our area include Japanese, German, Irish pub, Pizza Hut, Oggi's pizzeria, Italian nice restaurant, little bubble tea stands, McDonald's, KFC, Thai, etc etc etc. super nice! Our room here is a suite that has two double beds, one bath, living room.... and we got a blow up mattress. They have an area out back with a big waterfalL, bridge with koi pond and a play area on the 13th floorS

We decided that since Justin is getting a cold, to stop at the first place we see for dinner.. Pizza Hut was the choice .. oh gah.. I hate pizza huts here. Give us all the Chinese - please. I'll attach pics in a new post since my pics aren't coming through here. I can only load three at a time. Joy ordered.... gulp... the seafood pasta. I thought it was just shrimp... and out came this.. I almost died. Give me donkey any day of the week, but please, no octopus. I seriously gagged writing this. There were big pieces (some "skin" left on it, too". (Just gagged again for real) then, there were little curly pieces that would get stuck in Joy's fork (just gagged Again..) ok, done.. cannot blog about dinner... let's move on. Please. We left and stopped at Watson's (make up store and drug store) and got some cold medicine for Justin. It was all in Chinese and the woman told him to take it. It zapped all symptoms in 10 minutes. He seriously is buying a lot to bring back. So funny. So then we stop at 7-11 and oh my goodness... I found them after visiting two cities... BEEF CHEETOS! Yuuummmmm. We all devoured them. Joy got an Unidentified meat sausage (gagging again) that was flesh colored... let's just say it wasn't appetizing. At all. We got back to the hotel and you and Joy shared a bath. I bought bath colored tabs to make bath time more fun. Tonight's color was yellow. Looked like I bathed you in pee, but you liked it. :-) You wanted in bed tonight with Joy and Baba.. your first time to sleep with him. I can't wait until you wake tomorrow!!!! I love seeing your face and seeing you improve so much. You aren't saying "Mama" more and more. Tomorrow is your medical appointment for your visa. Love you! Mama