Nanchang

Well, we are feeling done with hotel life and are excited to get to stay with the Navis's in Guangzhou starting tomorrow evening; it is a 1 1/2 hour plane ride.  We are tired of buffets (except Marissa), tired of smoke smell, tired of Chinese people pushing past us onto the elevator, tired of doing sink laundry, tired of Chinese men gawking at the girls and tired of concrete for beds!

We went to a place to buy porcelain yesterday since Nanchang (Sadie's province) is most known for their porcelain.  We bought her a beautiful tea set we plan to give her when she's 18.  We are trying to buy her 16 gifts in China to give to her each 'gotcha day' until she's 18.  I'm up to 10....6 more to go. 

Gramma Sandee gave the girls $20 to spend in China so they had fun converting their money to Yuan and buying things here.  They have each bought a Chinese fan and a battery operated fan because we are SOOOO hot all of the time!

We went to the Nanchang zoo today.  It was one of those super inhumane zoos where the animals all looked a bit sick.  What was nice was that there were NO people there!  First place in China we've been that wasn't packed to the gills.  Marissa got to see a panda bear so all was well!  Sadie loooooooved the zoo.  She SQUEALED with excitement at each animal!  When we would get too close to the animals, she would cry.  It was a love hate thing.  We bought her bubbles and she shrieked as she would try to catch them.....she had all the fun for all the kids that went.  The other little girls didn't have so much fun.  They are still very sullen and cry a lot.  The one little girl who is blind moans and cries all day long.  It is absolutely tear jerking to listen to.  All she does at the hotel is wander the halls with her mommy or daddy looking for a way out.  So hard to watch.  Her name is Eva.  Please pray for precious Eva.

Sadie LOVED talking to Lukie on skype!  She thought he was a crack up!  She reminds me of Luke in that she waves at EVERYONE (there are a lot of people to wave at in China). 

The girls and I walked to a grocery store last night to get some batteries and pick up something for dinner.  We found something that looked like chicken so we confirmed about 10 times with the guy who spoke no English 'chicken' (we have been warned that you never know what it might be...aka dog).  Most of the time we eat at fast food or the hotel but we are so bored with both of those.  Sadie is obviously not used to the food she's been eating because she has diarrhea.

I went to go use the treadmill in the hotel gym this morning but someone had decided to use it for a smoking room so the stench made me stop.

We got a scanned copy of the note that Sadie's mom left with her when she abandoned her at the orphanage when she was 8 days old.  I read that at her orphanage, there is a big gate that cars/people go through then there is a tiny little gate for people to leave their abandoned babies at.  When they leave the babies, there is a pad of paper/pen and firecrackers sitting there to light so that someone knows to come and get the baby.  Quite a process, huh?

My parents sent us pictures of the boys' first day of school.  We were cracking up at Luke's because all of his classmates look like his caretakers because they are so tall and he is so short!  Apparently he cried when my dad took him this morning. 

We met a guy yesterday who is here by himself adopting a 3 year old because his wife caught something soon before they were supposed to leave and couldn't travel.  He was telling us that the little girl they adopted (Quinn) was their second referral because 4 weeks before they were supposed to travel to get their first little girl, she got pneumonia and died.  He was getting choked up just talking about it.  Heart breaking.  There just seems to be little value of human life here.