Finally in Guangzhou!!

Oh we are so happy to be on our last leg of our 3 city journey in China.  We took our 1st airplane flight with Ava last night, and she did good.  She slept in Joey's arms, so his arms fell asleep, though!  Guangzhou is just beautiful!  Very tropical weather, lots of green, and best of all, sunshine!  We have had fog, rain, and hazy days until now.  We traveled to Shamian Island this am for her medical exam, and saw lots of other adoptive familes there!  And we have several families staying in The Garden Hotel with us, so we don't feel so isolated anymore.  The island is a very pretty place, we shopped and ate lunch at I Love Lucy's, a popular diner that serves Americal style lunches.  I had a grilled cheese and, Oh, how it tasted so good!  We met a family from Raleigh here to adopt a 3 yr old daughter, what a small world :) 

 Yay!  Food we recognize  :)

 Outside The Garden Hotel

Jace and Collin braved this meal, and ate their shrimp whole!!

Ava Grace likes to sit in her stroller now, thank goodness!  She feels comfortable and will even fall asleep in it if she's tired.  She cried the 1st several times we tried to put her in it.  The boys will have more free time here in Guangzhou, and they are thankful for that.  We have an outdoor pool we plan to take them all to, are going to a small amusement park tomorrow, and to a safari Monday after her consulate appointment where we take our oath.

Day 10- August 27, 2011

We have arrived in Guangzhou and it is nicer place than the other two places but it is hot here.  This place seems less crowded and people are not as pushy here- a little more civil all around.  We are all really tired and today we had an easy relaxing day.  We had to take AvaGrace for her medical exam and that was it.  There is one place to get these exams done for adoption children.  Little did we know that everyone else had beat us there.  When we walked in the waiting room was overflowing with American families all with adopted Chinese children. It was pretty cool.  That is the nice thing about where we are staying right now too.  We see families just like us at breakfast and in the hallways here at the hotel and we are able to talk with them and share experiences.  From those conversations we have the best story- or maybe we are just a little biased!  HaHa!  Either way, it is pretty different than where we have been before. 

Our facilitator here is named Jack and he knows his stuff.  He has everything lined up for us here already.  At the medical clinic we were the last family to get there, but somehow Jack got us to be the next one to start the medical visit- that was awesome!  She checked out ok and then we had to kill about 2.5 hours for the clinic to complete the paperwork so Jack could pick it up before we left.  We walked along the streets and did some shopping and then went to the park so the boys could play on the playground. We ate lunch at a little restaurant there and Mandy got a grilled cheese and said it was great.  We got cheeseburgers, looking for something like home here, but they tasted really strange.  Jack picked up the paperwork and then picked us up and we went back to the room for some freetime.  We played in the room all afternoon.  The boys enjoyed a little time playing with their Chinese legos that we bought in Shanghai just before we left to come here.  We took a nap and then went out for a stroll beside the hotel.  We found a convenient store and bought some drinks and snacks for the room and then stopped by to get a bite at the McDonalds.  It was just like home!  It was great! We miss home some kindof bad and are really dreading the long flight home.  On the flight to Guangzhou, daddy had to hold AvaGrace as she slept the whole time and it was tough to do on that small plane.  We are ready to get back for sure.