Saturday, August 18

After breakfast, Grace had her medical exam. She was not happy to say the least. There were 3 stations. Her height and weight were recorded, an ENT looked at her ears,nose, and throat, and then a doctor looked at her body. Once it was our turn it took about 10 minutes. It is not a very thourough exam. It is required by the U.S. government in order to get her a visa to the U.S. Before we went to the medical exam we had to stop by to get a visa photo taken. Grace did well with that.

After that we were free for the day. First, we walked around Shaimin Island. That is where our hotel is located. It is so nice to actually be able to walk around. There are sidewalks and a nice park. There is a nice playround we would like to take the kids to today or tomorrow. There are a couple of restaurants and lots of shops. So much more to do that we can do on our own. Everywhere you go here you see American couples adopting.

We decided to have a real lunch so we went to Lucy's. It is the western restaurant you hear everyone talk about. Dallas, Kristopher, and I had hamburgers and fries. There were almost as good as home. Zachary and Nicholas had baked potatoes, Grace and Julia had scrambled eggs. It was very good.

Back to the hotel for some shopping. We were all going to go shopping with Ann. For a small price she will take you shopping in the city. Not something I wanted to verture out to do on my own. All of us were going to go but we quickly realized it would be too hard for all of us together. So Ann gave the taxi driver directions to take Dallas, Nicholas, Kristopher, and Julia to the Electronic market. They had a good time and came back with several Game boy games for 7.00 each. They also stopped at McDonalds for ice cream. Ann, Grace, Zachary, and I first went to the toy market. It was 5 floors of stores. Similiar to the art market we went to in Fuzhou. It was packed with people and there is just store after store of goods. If I had realized how good of deals I was getting I probably would have bought more. I did get Julia and Grace little panda pocketbooks and little stuffed animals. The stuffed animals were .50. If I had been quick enough to figure that out at the time I would have definitely gotten a couple more. It was very overwhelming. Don't tell Dallas but I got the cutest hairbows. In order to get the wholesale price I had to buy 50. 20 was going to cost me more than if I bought 50. For 50 little girls hairbows it cost me aobut 10.00. Not bad at all. Zachary got a cool remote control car for 5.00. Our last purchase there was t-shirts. I was able to get the kids Beijing Olympic tshirts and Kristopher a Guangzhou Hard Rock tshirt for 2.00 a piece. They are knockoffs but none of us care. There isn't even a Hard Rock in Guangzhou. We think there used to be one here but not anymore.

Next stop was the pearl market. Fortunately Grace had fallen asleep by this time. She was in a baby carrier so it was much easier for me to carry her around. The Pearl Market was the same kind of place.There were at 3 floors of stores that looked like they all had the same type of pearls. There I purchased lots and lots of pearls. Amazing deals. I have heard their value is almost 10 times great when appraised in the U.S. I hope Ann did a good job picking out mine for me. I told her about how much I wanted to spend per necklace and she found the right ones for me. This took awhile because they had to restring all the pearls once we decided which ones we liked.

Time to get another Taxi and head back to hotel. We arrived back at the hotel at 6:45. We were planning to meet the families from our agency at Lucy's for dinner at 6:30. As soon as we walked in the hotel, it started to pour down rain so we decided not to meet them. It was about a 10 minute walk. The rain soon stopped so Dallas ran to Seven 11 and got ramon noodles and pringles. They are packaged differently but taste very similiar to home and everyone likes them. Grace can eat a whole one but herself and they are a good size.

We just hung around the room the rest of the night. By 9:00 Julia and I could not stay awake any longer so we went to bed. Dallas put Grace to bed before the boys and him went to their room. I have no idea what time they left. As long as we are in the room Grace will now go to Dallas and play with everyone. Outside of the room she still clings to me. Dallas was able to change his first diaper yesterday.

I slept in a little later today,5:30 so I don't have time to post any pictures now. We are supposed to meet the group at the other hotel(about a 10min walk)at 9:00 so I need to go get ready. If I have time I will download my pictures and post before we go. If not I am sure I will have time tonight.