Day 10, 11, and 12 - Guangzhou

Our Kids!  Shamian Island, Guangzhou.

Our kids!  Shamian Island, Guangzhou.

Beautiful Shamian Island, Guangzhou.

A street on Shamian Island, Guangzhou.

Todd - handsome!

Gwyndolin and I next to the statue of the evolution of the Chinese Woman.

Shamian Island, Guangzhou

Statue

FUNNY statue

Cute statue - sorry about the blur.   We tried to have Gwyndolin pose with these statue children, but it freaked her out. 

The patio at Lucy's - where we ate many dinners.

Gwyndolin on a beautiful chair in the lobby of our hotel.

Our kids!

Gwyndolin pulled herself up!!!  Mom that is one of the dresses you bought her at Gymboree back in 2006 - it fits!

Our last night.  Waiting for the storm to calm down.

Gwyndolin's red couch photo.  It is Chinese Adoption tradition to dress your baby in traditional Chinese silks and take their photo on this red couch.

Gwyndolin - red couch photo.

Gwyndolin and the other baby in our travel group.  Gwyndolin at 19 lbs. looks huge next to 13 lb. little "M".

Well, it's a good morning here - 6:09am to be exact.  Gwyndolin and I are sitting by the elevators in our PJ's.  I figured who ever is up at this hour and sees me in a robe, can just get over it.  The rest of our clan is still sleeping so we thought we would come down here and do one last post from Guangzhou.  Nothing too exciting has been going on.  Tuesday night Gwndolin had her hardest night ever.  The tears and shier grief that she was experiencing was heart breaking!  She was SO upset! The good news is that last night was perfect - other than going to bed and waking an hour early.  There was no screaming or crying.  She went down very happily at 9:30pm and woke up happy at 5:30am.  Hey, I'll take that any day!  I never thought I'd be happy for a 5:30 waking, but a solid 8 hours with no tears is something to celebrate in our world.  (Holly and Ben, I know this would be something to celebrate in your world too!  :-)  )  So after our nap on Tuesday, we walked around and took some photos around Shamian Island and then we went to dinner at Lucy's.  Yesterday, because the night before was so hard, we spent most of the day in.  Gwyndolin took a morning nap yesterday for 2 hours and 20 minutes, so I joined her while Todd took the boys to the pool and walked them around the block until they were hot and tired.  The boys are getting rambunctious so we are needing to exercise them - kind of felt like Todd took "the dogs" out for a walk - haa haa!  We went to lunch at Cow and Bridge for one last yummy Thai meal. We were suppose to meet Michael yesterday afternoon at 4:30pm to get Gwyndolin's visa, but apparently there was a problem with the computer system in Washington DC, so they weren't able have her visa ready for us yesterday - THANK YOU GOVERNMENT!  So, instead of leaving this morning at 8:30, we had to "eat" our train tickets and buy new ones for this afternoon.  We are keeping our fingers crossed that DC gets thing back in business and gets us Gwyndolin's visa so we can head out today and go to Hong Kong.  If not, then we will be "eating" even more money as we will be having to pay for our room in HK (too late to cancel) and pay for another night here.  Oh, well, nothing we can do about it.  So last night after a huge thunder/rain/lightening storm, we braved the puddles and walked to the White Swan Hotel to get the infamous "red couch photo" done with the other family we are traveling with.  After that, we all went out to dinner together which was a ton of fun!   So, that's all that is new here.  We are just going to pack up this morning, and then I'm going to run out and get our laundry, try and find a couple more special things for Gwyndolin, and then hopefully head to the train station...  We want to thank all of you for your kind thoughtful posts and emails!  It is such a treat hearing from you all. Odom family - it is so cute that Nathan likes to read our blog in the morning before school!  We can't wait to get together with you guys over the summer - we are so glad you are so close.  The Zone - I miss you guys so much.  Maybe this summer we could meet somewhere - I look forward to your words every day.  Thank you everyone!!!  Here are some pictures...