I'm a day behind again. I have not been getting much sleep as Julia wakes up several times in the night looking for me. I am now positive that she slept with her foster mother as her original bio had stated. Last night I put her in the bed with me and she didn't move until 7:30 this morning. Yeah, sleep. She is still doing great.

We left the Wharton Intl Hotel in Nanning Friday afternoon and headed to the airport. The weather was extremely bad..rain.rain and more rain. Our flight was delayed for about an hour. As you can see in the above picture, we resorted to feeding the kids noodles while sitting on the airport floor. It worked. Our flight was not bad at all and she slept after we took off. I think she is just luring me in for the big flight and will then let loose. We got to our room around 12:00 a.m and got situated by 1:00 a.m. Yesterday we had to get the children's visa pictures taken at a little shop across the street from the hotel and then proceeded up two to three blocks for the medical examination. She didn't mind any of the examination with the exception of the ENT area. The lady wasn't exactly kid friendly. I wouldn't have liked having her hold my head either.

We then had the mid morning to late afternoon free. The smart thing to do would have been to take a nap but the stores were calling my name. I have found my barterer. Matthew will get them down really low on the prices of things and you kind of feel bad because the prices are already so low. We all had to attend a "document" meeting and that lasted around two hours. I could not believe that she stayed down in the Mattel room with Matthew the entire time without me around. Matthew said that she did really well playing with the other children. You will see a picture of Julia and her new friend Esther. Esther is also going home to Alabama.

We are about to go to breakfast and then we will meet to go to a market off the Island. I will write more tonight. Sorry for the brief blog today but things are starting to speed up a little. We cannot wait to get home and see all of you guys. We still cannot see our blog site?? Thus, we cannot see any comments that are being made. Love to all, Leah.

Not much to blog today. We had to cancel our trip to the flea market because of the weather...very rainy. Some of us shoppers are going absolutely crazy just sitting around. We have to check out of the hotel around 2 p.m. and find something to do until 5 p.m. We have to be at the airport at that time and then off to Guangzhou around 8 p.m. We are all ready to get to Guangzhou for the food and shopping and of course our last leg of our journey...closer to coming home! Yeah! Julia has opened up like a can of worms and talks and talks and talks. I cannot understand a word of what she is saying but Baba (Daddy). She looks at the pictures I sent her over and over and this morning she said Baba when looking at Tim's picture. She picks up the phone and says Baba. I am hoping that changing hotels and scenary does not make her take a step backwards because she is doing great. It's truly amazing how these children have opened up after about a 72-hour period.

We went to a Cantonese restaurant last night and had a multitude of dishes. Our entire bill was around 170 yuan which is less than $24 dollars. We had one dish, fried eggplant wrapped around some type of meat. It was awesome. One of the couples that was with us decided to order some type of coconut chicken soup. We were all enjoying it, especially the babies, until our guide pointed out that there was a chicken foot at the bottom of the soup bowl that we were all dipping out of. Oh well, the babies continued to eat but all the adults quickly decided to move along to the next dish. The people here are extremely nice and honest. You have to make them take a tip in the restaurants and sometimes it's not even worth trying so we just don't. I don't think you will find a waiter or waitress in Alabama that would turn down a tip.

Well, we are packing our overweight luggage and getting ready to sit in the lobby for three hours. Please continue to pray for Julia. She has started coughing but we feel that it is just nasal drainage at this point. Her spirits are very high and she is not running anymore fever. I think she is having fun changing outfits each day with her matching accessories. Everyone keeps commenting on how she is always dressed but they don't understand that this is my first girl and only girl (besides Olivia and Megan). Yes, Aunt Leah has not forgotten you guys.

I will blog tomorrow as we will not get into Guangzhou until late tonight. We love and miss all of you.

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.