Day 10 - New City

Ahhhh...I cannot tell you how nice it is to be onto the next city. Xi'an is a VERY dry and dusty city, Guangzhou is GREEN...like Florida. It's tropical. And there are tons of American families with their Chinese children all over the place.

Today, we flew out of Xi'an at about noon and into Guangzhou at 2pm. Sheehan was sooo good on the plane. We were really worried. And I'm sure it will be a different story on our 13 hour flight home. His favorite part of the flight was the meal. We had noodles and beef and rice and something orange-colored. He liked both and ate heartily. There was nobody in the seat next to us, so he got to use that one.

When we arrived at the hotel, we ran into a few of the other couples who were in our group in Beijing. We will see them again tomorrow. It's so neat to see all these families with their new little additions. One of the couples adopted a little boy who is 8 years old who has mild cerebral palsy. He is SO cute. At dinner, we heard him call his mom, Mama.

We are staying at the White Swan Hotel, which is on a little island, called Shamian Island. There is a river with dinner cruise boats going through (I think we might be able to do that this week...sweet!). The island looks very British. I think our tour book said it was occupied by the British after the Opium wars or something like that. This island really caters to adoptive parents. There are laundry places everywhere, a 7-11 across the street, stroller and children clothing stores everywhere. There is also an American restaurant called Lucy's. YUM! I had a cheeseburger and fries, Steve had a beef burrito (tiny compared to Chipotle...China hasn't caught onto American-sized portions, thank goodness) and Sheehan had congee. Sheehan tried a french fry, chewed it up and spit it out. He's allowed to hate celery, but fries?...come on.

Lucy's ... a welcome sight to road weary travelers!


Steve and I think we're the best parents ever. ha ha! At dinner, Sheehan pointed at something on the wall, we both turned our heads and Sheehan spilled his congee all over himself (full bowl). This would be able to be overlooked except that we also forgot to bring a bib. I laughed pretty hysterically. I'm always such a perfectionist, but parenting is not one of those areas. I'm like...we'll just give him a bath when we get back. We got a banana split and it had one of those little umbrellas in it that you get in your Shirley Temples. Well, Sheehan was playing with it...we were smart enough to make sure he didn't put it in his mouth or poke out his eye with the sharp end, but mom showed him how to move the umbrella up and down. Steve immediately quoted "you just sowed him how to destroy that". When he tried it, he accidentally ripped the entire thing apart. Bye-bye umbrella. It looked like a wild animal destroyed it. Mom and Dad laughed hysterically again.

Mom laughing because... (note the spillage on Sheehan's shirt)

...of this umbrella



We came back to the hotel, gave Sheehan a bath and bottle and he went right to sleep only with crying for about a minute (WAAAAY better than the 30 minutes of hysterical crying last night).

Our hotel has a pool, so we hope to take Sheehan for a dip tomorrow. We'll see how that goes. Dad has high hopes. Mom's not so sure. He loves to take baths, but a pool is a little bigger than the tub. Tomorrow, we are meeting with the other families in the morning and then going to a church down the street next to the American Consulate (where we will finalize the adoption). We're looking forward to going to church. That'll be neat. Wow, I just thought about how the big start up at AHEFC is tomorrow. I'm so focused on China, that I forgot about the goings-on at home. Hope everything goes well with the Fall Start-up!!!

A few things I would add to that last Top 10 list from yesterday (besides the fact that you could probably find any of those items in Wisconsin) are...
11. People constantly sweeping the streets with GIANT shrub-like brooms (it's so bizarre) ... (it is even more bizarre since the cities are horribly polluted and many times it seems these street sweepers are just moving dust back and forth ... they are incredibly hard workers though).
12. Restaurants serving fresh fish, have dead fish at the bottom of their "fresh fish" fish tank. MMMMM :-)
13. Low crime. We went into some areas that in Chicago we wouldn't venture into at any time of day. But in China that is not a concern. The only thing you need to watch out for are pickpockets.

Answers to questions on comments page and other items:
Mom Weimer: Yes, I have a recipe for congee. I got it from my yahoo group. I'm glad I have it. He did eat some banana yesterday and surprised us by enjoying peanuts last night. Hopefully, he won't break out in a rash or something. LOL!

Mom Weimer (part 2): No we are not buying stock in KFC, but if you had to eat Chinese food every day for lunch and dinner, you would welcome some of the Colonel's finger lickin' good food now and then too :)

Cindi: Sheehan had no problem leaving the orphanage. He waved bye-bye and blew them all a kiss as he left. They must have taught him how to do that. He does it to the people in every toll booth we pass.

Susie: I need your home email address. Email me at ougirl94@comcast.net. Thanks! :-)

Melissa: Sheehan is wearing Fleurette's old Cat in the Hat pajamas and they fit perfectly. The last hotel room was very warm so he just slept in shorts and a t-shirt, this one has A/C - I might sleep like a baby tonight...hopefully, I won't wake up at 3:30 am needing a diaper change though.

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