Merry Christmas

Christmas was definatley one to remember this year! Lucy just wanted a baby bath tub. She slept with it. Emmy was all about the Wahooo bouncy dog! Lots of laughs, great food, much excitement and hanging with family.

The End of our trip

Cordelia took us to all of the sights we didn't get to see on our first time to China. The zoo...which would have been way better in November. It was like 104 degrees that day. Uuuuuggg! The girls loved feeding the giraffes. We went to a traditional market and the local mall. I'm really sad that I was unable to blog while in China. I loved the journaling I had for Lucy. At this point it is hard for me to remember all the details. Emmy was definitely giving us a run for our money. She would try to run away at all times.....just to be funny but we were all exhausted from chasing her. We ended the trip with one night stay in Hong Kong. The plane ride home went better than expected. Both girls slept for 9 hours....at the same time. We were thankful for that. We were greeted at the Chicago airport by some of our Adoption Families. That was a great welcome back home. We obviously were exhausted and couldn't wait to get home to bed. The girls were sleeping through the night in 8 days. We have been so lucky in that way......and many others.

Bedtime

This particular evening we went to Lucy's restaurant.......down the block from our hotel. Got an American meal and Scott was in charge of bedtime with the girls. I went for a very weird massage. ( I will leave it at that). When I came back this is how the sleeping arrangement was. By the way those kids beds were very comfy. I wish they had those here. :) Pictures are in reverse order ....but I can't rearrange grrr on here.

Cordelia we are here!

Because of our flight change Cordelia was not able to meet us at the airport. She lined up a driver......who only spoke Mandarin. He was holding a sign that said Gill's and when we walked up to him he took out his phone and made a call. He then handed me the phone and Cordelia was on the other end. It was sooo good to hear her voice. She told us that she would meet us in our hotel room in a few hours. The driver would take us to the White Swan and help us get checked in. We had just started to get settled when Cordelia arrived and we all had a good cry. It was wonderful to see her again. She told us we looked younger. Haa! Cordelia is the sweetest person on earth. We felt so lucky to have her as our guide again. We then went to get dinner and show my brother around Guangzhou. They have renovated many building so things looked very different. The picture of Lucy above is with a kitten in one of the shops near our hotel. Sam, she needed to visit him daily. He was so tiny she could pick him up. It was so adorable. The other pictures are at the temple for the blessing.

Guangzhou Here We Come.

Friday was our last day in Kunming. We thought our flight was going to leave at 5:30 pm. We had planned on getting up eating breakfast and getting in our last trip to the local Walmart. Our guide arrived at the hotel while we were eating breakfast to inform us that we needed to get our bags packed because our flight had been switched and we needed to leave in 2 hours. We were just starting breakfast. Anyone who has traveled with children know that this was no small feat. I ate quickly and headed back to start packing. We also needed to get our guide and driver tip/gifts together. The pictures are of the girls the last morning in the hotel room and then of Emmy at the airport. The last one is for laughs. That sign was in the women's room the one in the men's read Warm Tips, Please Aim Carefully. ;) You can interpret that any way you want. Scott and Steve were laughing so hard in the bathroom they had to leave when they saw that one.

The Stone Forest

On the day we went to the Stone Forest it was extremely hot. I don't know what our guide was thinking when he said it wasn't a lot of walking or climbing. It was all stairs. Uneven stairs, made out of rocks, no railings and many drop off points of 30-40 feet. Great fun with 2 very active toddlers. It was a beautiful park...but you may notice we have no pictures of the stairs...which was the majority of the day.

Kunming Green Lake Park

Green Lake park was right across the street from our hotel. It was beautiful. There were a lot of fun things to see and do. You could rent paddle boats, feed the koi, or shop the local vendors. Lucy,Beba Uncle Steve and I got to spend some time there while Emmy napped. The picture of Lucy with Uncle Steve is of some candy you could get for like 25 cents. The kids got to spin a wheel that would choose the shape of the candy. The woman then spread the candy on a marble slab and created it for the kids. Lucy got a bird. It was beautiful. We walked around there a couple of days in a row. We were so lucky to have it right across the street from our hotel. We went back a few days later with Emmy. As always we drew a lot of attention but we got even more attention when I was helping Scott put Emmy into the carrier. I guess men don't wear those in China. We had about 40 people circling us and laughing.