Wow, what a difference a day makes. Julia has really started becoming more active today and interactive. She played with some of the other children in the hallway this morning and has gone from just standing in one place and looking at you to running down the hallway. She is great and a lot of fun to play with. Her facial expressions are too funny. At breakfast this morning, she decided she would like to eat with a fork and a plate as we were. Her bio said that she mimics and picks up real quick. Well, they didn't lie. The fork was a little big but she found a way to manage. She is slowly starting to turn away the meat congee since she has started trying other foods that does not apparently taste the same to her anymore.

After breakfast, we took a bus to a local museum but it was closed due to renovations. We then were taken to a park that was absolutely beautiful. We visited the loving ball dance stage where such ceremony would take place. I think I mentioned in an earlier blog that we had purchased a loving ball that is a tradition specific to the Guangxi Province. The girl makes her own loving ball and decorates it herself. She then attends this ceremony where she will see which gentleman she likes and then she writes song to him? and he responds in song. Then she will throw the loving ball to him. If he likes her as well, he will catch it. If not, he will not raise his hands and it will drop to the ground. If he accepts her loving ball, then he has to go home with her and work for her family for two years for FREE. Then if the parents accept him and like him, they will get married and return to his parent's home.

We then went to a bridge that was completely made out of bamboo using no nails at all. The bridge went on forever. It was hard to maneuver around with the strollers. We then went to a budhist temple with monks to have some of the babies blessed. Julia was asleep on my shoulder and missed the blessing part. My baby has already been blessed tremendously. It was interesting to see the people walking in a lighting their incense and bowing to the idols.

Once we got off the bus at the temple, a few ladies were standing there to immediately dress us in Mongolian apparel and then they would take your picture for about $2. Matthew, Mom and Nancy got their's done and they turned out really good. Julia was on the verge of falling asleep and looked like she would have a fit if anyone touched her so I decided she and I would not partake on that adventure and just take our own photos.

She has really taken to coloring this afternoon. She is extremely smart and picks up super fast on anything you do. Everything has been a complete 360 for her and she has been a real trooper. Grandma Susan bought her ice cream at the bottom of the Pagonda this afternoon and she was not real sure about that and then loved it after getting past the cold feeling on her tongue. The boys were able to buy feed for the coy and feed them. It was amazing to see the size of the fish. Matthew tried his best to catch one by hand. Yeah, right. He acted like he was really well.

Well, we do more paperwork this afternoon and then we will all probably go to dinner together. Tomorrow morning we will meet and take a bus to the flea market. That should be a good opportunity to polish up on my bartering skills. I'm sure Matthew will take care of that for me. Matthew.... David says he is a true leader and that is good since he is a boy in the family. Leader is an understatement for Matthew. He has been a HUGE help to me on this trip. He is not timid at all. Sometimes you might get a little nervous about things that you have to do that you are not familiar with or might seem impossible. Well, just take Matthew with you. He does not have one shy bone in his body and always seems to get what we need done. Julia has really taken to him but still wants me over anyone.:)

I think we have almost mastered the potty, kinda. She just tried to squat but got really upset about the diaper being in the way. We ran to the potty and let's just say she should feel extremly lighter. She is wonderful and everything I expected and more. We have a dentist with us on this trip. He and his wife adopted a beautiful 11month old that has been doing great since day one. He is going to take a look at her mouth tonight and see what he can tell me about her future medical needs to the best of his ability. We have been so fortunate to have such a good group of people on this trip.

We will leave for Guangzhou around 5 p.m. tomorrow evening and arrive there around 9 p.m. Three more flights after that and we will be home. We will be staying at one of the nicest hotels in the world...the White Swan. This is our last stop before going home and where we will meet up with all the other families that have traveled all over China to get their babies.

Gotta go. She is running around the room playing with her crayons and looking at herself in the mirror and waving bye-bye to herself. As I always ask, please continue to pray for these children. Today seems to be a better day for them. I have gotten more smiles from her in the past hour than over the past three days. I just got interuppted by the housekeeping manager. They are making me pay for a teacup that is in our room each day. I accidentally knocked it off the bathroom counter this morning and it broke...20 Yuan ($2.50). Can you believe that? He kept saying, I sorry for this but you have to pay. Geeze, Louise, you would think they would overlook something like that for as much money has we have paid since being here.

I will try to blog tomorrow but it might be difficult since we have to pack, shop and fly out in one day. Take care everyone and thank you for the emails. Tim, Chase & Carson, we miss you guys. Olivia and Stewart, we miss you as well. We miss everyone.

Okay, here is the smile everyone has been waiting for. She and I spent some time in the lobby this afternoon and she really opened up when the camera came out. I am having to post twice today because I got a day behind yesterday. Julia has not ran fever or not anything to talk about since last night. Yeah! I still kept her in all day and took her out to the pool late this afternoon. They like for the kids to be around other Chinese kids as much as possible so that they feel a little more comfortable. She didn't think much of the water so she spent her time just walking around and looking at everyone else like they were crazy.

We went to dinner at the Western Restaurant here in the hotel and she ate really well. After dinner, Nancy and Grandma Susan had a grand idea of me going downstairs to the hair dresser/massage parlor to get my hair washed for me and they would sit in there with Julia. Shouldn't take long at all they said. Well, first of all they place you on this table where you lie down and they wash your hair the whole time they are massaging your head and neck and scratching your scalp for about 15 minutes. I was in heaven. Then they condition your hair and scratch it again. I didn't think too much when they kept signaling to Nancy that my hair was so tangly and I had a lot of it. She completed her task and sent me to the next chair where they put you in a haircut chair and start massaging your neck and arms and fingers. Still relaxing.

Well, then everything went downhill from there. They took my hair down out of the towel and saw a tangled mess. They immediately had the entire shop ... all seven workers looking over my hair and wondering how to get such tangles out of my head. The whole time I am asking for a hair pick in picture drawing English. They dug really deep and found a pick they thought could even come near touching my hair. I grabbed it and started combing my hair. The owner quickly stopped me and sent me back into the hair washing/massage table area again. They each took turns picking out my hair and each kept applying conditioner after conditioner and some more conditioner. The owner would walk in there and hand them some special conditioner. One guy even brought me a translator dictionary showing me the work "hair treatment". I kindly said no.

After remaining in that room for 30 minutes of grueling hair picking, they finally sent me back to the haircut chair where they started picking again. I finally took it away and picked myself handing them back the pick and a few hairstrands. They began to do the final task or so I thought of drying my hair and stopped in midstream to apply more conditioner to my hair. They then informed me that I would have to sit there (it is now 8:45 and Julia is sitting in the lobby floor asleep waiting on me with Nancy and Grandma Susan who by this time are laughing hysterically because they see that I am stuck in there). I explain to them that I cannot wait any longer and need to go. Of course, they did not understand and insisted that I had to wait for the owner to come and finish. I, of course, did not understand what I was waiting for.. a haircut? I don't think so. She saw I was about to get up and leave and started massaging my shoulders to keep me in the chair. He finally came over and blow dryed my hair and apologized for the wait. 9:10, I walk out of shop... 50 yuan ($6). I approach the lobby to obtain my child and find two women sitting there laughing their heads off and are probably still in there room laughing. It is official, I have the slickest, cleaniest head on the entire 14th floor of this hotel. Not to mention, there is absolutely not one tangle in my head.

We had another pee pee on the western toilet party for Julia after returning to the room tonight. I surely hope that we are moving in the right direction in that area. Tomorrow we will go to a museum and then do some shopping. On my way to sleep after looking over some more official paperwork. Please continue to pray for these kids. Some are still going through a lot of grieving and it breaks your heart. We have been very lucky with Julia and she seems to be perking up each day.

Lots of Love,
leah

I'm getting a little behind on the blog but did finally get to sleep all night last night. That is the first time I have not woke up around 3 a.m. and not gone back to sleep. Julia has been wonderful. She has gone to bed around 8 p.m. and this morning we had to wake her up around 8 a.m.

To catch up on yesterday - I was afraid when she woke up that she would be scared or crying and she was not at all. She ate an entire breakfast bar and then ate some Congee at the breakfast bar. We had to have our picture taken for the adoption certificate and then shortly after we boarded a bus to go to the notary office where I was briefly interviewed and then back to the Civil Affairs Office to go through another interview. We then had a brief ceremony where they presented us with our adoption certificates and then we had an opportunity to exchange gifts with the orphanage director. It was really neat that they gave her a box with her baby picture, some dirt from the orphanage ground and some pictures of the orphanage. The parents sent back the things that we sent her earlier in the year in the care package. You could tell that she really used the bear and the blanket. I had an opportunity to ask the director questions and was not really surprised by the answers that I received. Julia only went to the orphanage once a month which is a requirement so that they can receive vaccines, medical check-ups, etc. She is fully potty trained but not on a western commode (this has been a huge obstical for us). We just had a pee pee in the potty party. YEAH! She was literally spoon fed since the foster parents have had her. She looked at me like I was crazy when I tried a bottle and sippy cup. I think we have met a mutual ground this morning and she is using a straw.

They asked Lily why she did not have shoes on when we were talking to them. I had her explain that her foot was too little for everything that I had brought and we were going shoe shopping after the meeting. All the kids needed shoes so we all directed the bus to the department store after the ceremony. Well, let me tell you that Nanning is famous for their shoes and their cheap prices. It was way too cool. Some of her shoes were cheaper than the coke that Matthew drank in the restaurant this morning. I have posted a picture so that you can see what bargains we got. I paid about $38 to $40 for all eight pairs of shoes. The leather is real and the shoes are adorable. Her feet are so dry as is her whole body. She would just look at the shoes like this is kind of neat.

We then returned to the hotel where just about everyone ended up in the infamous Chinese restaurant on the ground floor of the hotel. Our whole meal usually ends up running around $5 to $6 at the most and you do not tip. I have seen three different times where the waitress has ran us or someone in our group down trying to return the tip. When we got back to our room Julia had a temperature of around 102. I quickly tried getting it down and started her on antibiotics and let her sleep. I still feel that is the stress and the change in temperature with the air conditioner. She is not used to being in air conditioning at all thus resulting in such dry skin. We ate dinner in Grandma's room which was some oatmeal and a pbj. We also were given a metal bowl and silver spoon that she used with the family. She refused to drink yesterday afternoon until I spoon fed her the sprite in her bowl. She was extremely spoiled.

She slept really well last night and has not had anything but a very low grade fever today. She and I decided to just stay in the hotel today and sent the others out shopping. It gave us an opportunity to just be by ourselves and she actually starting mumbling some words at lunch. Yes, she and I went by ourselves to the downstairs Chinese restaurant, a whole 25 yuan...$2.75. We bonded with a little $1 toy from Wal-Mart. It is a doodle board. One of those things that you can draw on and then erase. I would draw her a picture and hand it to her and she would look at it and laugh and then draw over it and hand it back waiting for me to laugh. Her personality is slowly starting to come through and I mean slowly. She has been through a lot in the past 48 hours but everything she has done is to be expected.

I warned Tim this morning that we have a huge problem. She can give a look with her eyes that just melts your heart. I mean the whole hang her head and throw those eyes up in the air at you...very manipulative. We are going to have some very trying times ahead of us as far as laying the law down and making sure she follows it. I was told that the foster families know that they are not going to stay with them so that they spoil them just so they will like them while they are in their care. I hope Cindy wrote a manual when she was walking the line with Olivia. I would pay a high price for that book.:)

Please continue to pray for the children in our group. Some are having a hard time because of the severity of the grieving that their children are doing. There is a younger child in our group that has been running fever and might have to see the doctor today. I know that in a couple of more days the kids will be better adjusted and us to them. Think about it, we are handed a child that we know very little about and have to learn them as they do our western ways. Julia is taking a nap right now and holding her little picture ring that we made her of her family. She got to here her Baba's (Tim's) voice this morning on the phone and just smiled. We hope that hearing him everyday will help when she sees him. She has bonded to me very will and likes Matthew. I am making Nancy do all the dirty work when someone has to hold her for her medicine, etc. Anything bad, I just blame it on her. Grandma Susan is having a fit to get her hands around her but we are having to take that slowly.

Today three of the couples went to visit the orphanage so we are having some down time. We will probably go sightseeing tomorrow and then Friday prepare to fly to Guangzhou where we will meet up with the other couples from all over China. I cannot wait to see the other children and get some more westernized food. I am hoping that changing hotels will not make her digress as far as her progress is concerned. I will also get to see your comments on our blog site and see how badly what I have posted looks since I cannot see it from here.

Picture #1 - Civil Affairs Office - Lily, China Facilitator, David, Our Guide and SWI of Yulin Orphanage Director (man with blue stripe down front of shirt)
Picture #2 -Shoe shopping
Picture #3 - She's officially ours - adoption certificate
Picture #4 - My first hug - She held her arms at for me while we were at the CAO
Picture #5 - Nap time
Picture #6 - All dress up and ready to go!