Hot and Sweaty

                                Our guide Lily in front of the large brass drum at the museum

                                                                  Happy, sweaty family!

There is no other way to descibe today better than hot and sweaty.  Boy is the humidity extreme....at the end of the day (well actually within the first hour) we are 4 sweaty monsters.  Literally when I take Ali out of the Ergo she and I are drenched.  Yes, Amy I promise to have it dry cleaned:)  But she doesn't seem to mind, I guess she is used to this heat.  Needless to say there will be no happy family pics past 10 am on this trip, it is not pretty.  There is no point in drying my hair or the flat iron.  Auggie would not be proud of my hair!  Here I was upset that I couldn't get in for a highlight before I left - that makes me laugh now!
Oh Trish we could not find ice cream today, bummer.

Despite the heat we had a great day.  We so love our little girl.  She really opens up in the evenings when we are back at the hotel.  She definetely feels more comfortable here with us.  We played and danced and had a fun night.  She is not a fan of the bath and that is the only time she cried today.  Sorry sis, we are all so gross that in she goes anyway.  Tai continues to be a great big bro and loves her so much.  It is almost smothering.  She loves to follow him and imitate him.  It is very sweet.  We do struggle with Tai as this trip is the hardest on him.

We started our day with breakfast buffet, however they did not give us the Western menu (made to order) today.  Apparantly, they have shut us down as the fat ass american family ordered and wasted way too much food the first day...LOL!  Today we walked in the restaurant to find a small table set aside in a seperate area  filled with a small amt of Western food, such as cereal and yogart and some ham and cheese slices and some unsalted sunflower seeds.  It made us laugh b/c I suppose that was just for us!  As the only other white family we have seen here bolted on day #1 and is now living the life of luxary at the Marriott.  I can only imagine the omelets and pancakes they must be enjoying.   I will just dream about the Marriott in GZ tonight. Luckily, they still have the hot and fresh congee and noodles and pig feet for us to enjoy tommorrow. I am sitting here with my TsingTao laughing at this, b/c otherwise I would cry.
Think we will just walk in with our own Cheerios box in the morning and add some straight cream (aka milk or maybe that was yogart... hmmm) to it.  So thankful for the Starbucks Via and coffee mate we packed!

After our breakfast, Lily picked us up for a little shopping.  We denied the trip to Wal-mart.  We are now experts at playing frogger aka crossing the street, and are comfortable in the little store across the street.  Once again the fat ass Americans walk out with arms full of groceries and beer of course.  I think the workers at the store really get a kick out of us as we are quite the spectacle.

So our shopping included a trip to a very neat museum, or that is what Lily called it.  It was more of an open area with bridges and cool buildings.  There was no "indoor museum" there which meant there was no AC.  Guangxi is known for the brass drum and the embroidery so the shop was a lot of fun for mama. No time to dilly dally and shop as it was too hot.  So in a matter of 30 minutes, I managed to walk out arma loaded with some really cool stuff for Ali and us.  I got a mini brass drum and a beautiful wall hanging with hand made embroidery.  We will give that to her when she is older.  Also bought some very neat gifts and other things for the house.  So happy we went there!!!!!

After our shopping it was lunch and nap time.  We decided to order Pizza Hut delivery.  Lily came to our room to place the order but found out they don't deliver.  No problem, she just hopped on her electric scooter and delivered it to us!!!  Vioala 30 minutes later two piping hot pizzas, one seafood special and one cheese pizza at our door.

After nap, we ventured over to the store to let Tai play in the indoor play area.  Yes, the store across the street is like a Wal-mart type store with groceries etc. but it also has a play area.  It was quite old and i never would have let Tai play in someting like that at home, but we had to let him, as he desperatley needed some play time and he LOVED it.  My germ-a-phobe husband had a bottle of "squeezie" in each hand and literally throwing it on all of us.  Our last trip to China we took Tai to a similar thing and let him play in the ball pit. Jason ripped him out of there so fast after he saw the little boy in split pants walk over to the corner and pee and them jump in the balls.  Needless to say, we did not allow any playing in the ball pit today!

After our adventure to the play area, Lily came and got us and we walked to the park.  It was really nice park with a lake and paddle boats.  We bought some fish food and Tai loved feeding the fish.  Ali enjoyed feeding the fish until she started to eat the food.  The park has an area with carnival type rides and we let Tai ride on some of them.  The roller coaster was a bust as he cried through the entire ride and  Jason now has whiplash.  The bumper cars however were a hit.  There were only about 5 cars going as it was not crowded and all the little chinese kids were ganging up on Jason and Tai.  Must have been the large nose:) Also liked the whale ride where you shoot water guns at the animals... now if only we could have shot each other with those guns it would have been perfect.  Tai was sad to leave but again we were all a sweaty mess and needed to get home for dinner and bed.  We promised to take  him back on Friday morning when it is cooler.

Our trip this time is so different than last time.  We really do have to cater to the Tai guy.  Thankful that we have been here before so I have not taken too many pics of the strange things as I did last time.  And by strange I mean the dried flat frog hanging on the wall, the pigs feet and hearts, interesting foods, etc.   we also really are quite the spectacle when we are out and about.  I do not even notice the stares so much as last time.  Don't get me wrong, everyone still stares, but I don't mind anymore.  I am thankful that Tai is oblivious too.  He has no idea how different we look.  The people here literally stop in their tracks to turn and look at us.  They do not see a lot of Americans here, let alone with 2 chinese children.

Our little Ali is night and day different than Tai.  She is so laid back and goes with the flow.  We also forget that she is 5 months older than Tai was when we brought him home.  For one thing, she is so tiny and infant like.  We love that she still takes a bottle and we both love our snuggle time giving it to her.  She does prefer me over jason when it comes to bed and bottle, but he does get a little of it.  I feel bad admitting this, as Jason and I should be well versed on Peds development....hello we have done that for a living for the past 14 years!  We think she is a little delayed.  However, we are also starting to realize just how advanced Tai was when we got him.  When I tell people that in the adoption community they don't believe me.  She seems to be a bit behind, but we have no doubt she will catch up in no time!  We are not worried at all, this is just par for the course, and different than our son.  She does have the cutest walk and run I have ever seen and she does go up and down stairs, but she is not too steady when she sits up.  She is starting to talk a bit more.  Her first english word was "up".  She loves loves loves the elevator and  screams in delight when we get off an on.  She also said baba and ge ge today.  When she says mama it is when she wakes up and we are most certain she is crying for her foster mom.  That is OK and completely understandable.

 She sure does likey the cheerios and the little cup!  The dress btw is 12-18 mo Gymboree and fits perfect (since some of you have asked)

                                                                  love those dimples

 Big bro loves to smother his baby sister with the kisses!!!!!

                                                    Look who loves the stroller!  Yippee!!!!

Some fun baba time with lots of laughs

                                              Alright guys, I am ready to go, I got all my stuff!

                                                           feeding the fish at the park

                                               Fun day at the park which was more like a carnival

                                 Tai insisted we buy him the Angry Bird balloon from the street vendor

not sure if those are pets or food?!?!?!?!

                                                       I do love the chinese bakeries!

 Take out dinner from the local bakery, it included a chinese hamburger, 2 bacon roll-ups and a chinese taco and a sweet roll for dessert.  It was all actually very tasty!

 Chinese hamburger.  Ali ate the eggs for us!

 I forget the name of this fruit, but it is in a hard shell that you squeeze open and it has a squishy fruit inside with a large seed.  It is very sweet and similar to a grape.  It cost 5 yuan for a Kilo from the street vendor, so I think about 80 cents.  Ali and I both liked them... the boys not so much.

This is what dinner in our room looks like.  This is the first time we saw her use a fork and feed herself!

I want you all to know that I sat here at nap and read all your emails and comments with tears in my eyes.  We are so blessed to have such amazing family and friends.  The journey to our beautiful children has been long and hard but we are so blessed to have each of you take it with us.  People tell us how lucky our children are, but truly we are the lucky ones.  These two sleeping beauties in the room next door are so perfect and precious.