Today was our first full day on the island in Guangzhou. We started the day with a wonderful breakfast at the infamous White Swan’s first floor coffee shop. On one side the restaurant is complete glass overlooking the Pearl River. On the other side you have tropical waterfalls, ponds filled with fish, and beautiful palm trees and tropical plants. It is a very beautiful place to be able to start out your day and we are excited to be back!
After breakfast we went to get Amelia’s passport picture taken that will be used for her Visa application into America. After that we went for her medical appt. She did as good as can be expected. She has seen so many “white coats” in her short little life that she knew exactly what was heading her way once we walked in. She was not a happy camper, but we got through it. When it came time for the doctor to listen to her heart, he did so about 3 different times throughout his exam. Then he had another doctor come in and she listened to it 2 more times. I then received a thumbs up from him. So I’m assuming that everything sounded fine with them.
We then headed back to the hotel where we all took a nap. We sure are getting spoiled while we’ve been on this trip. It has been so nice taking naps in the middle of the day. Unfortunately, they will come to an abrupt stop once we return home. Life is just too busy to be able to nap everyday, but we’re enjoying them while we can.
We spent the rest of the afternoon doing some shopping on the island. There are plenty of bargains to be had here and we got lots of neat stuff. We had a lot of fun bargaining with all the shop girls. Afterwards, we hit Starbucks for a cool coffee drink. It tasted just like home and was a wonderful way to end an afternoon of shopping!
Amelia is still doing great! We are really enjoying our time with her. She sure is a sweetheart. She is getting more and more daring in the room, running all over the place. She is now bored with all her toys and so she’s decided that she’s going to get into anything and everything in our room. Something tells me that she’s going to make the Bennett household even more interesting.
It sounds like things are going well at home for the rest of our family. We sure are missing the kids and I know that they are missing us as well. Anagrace gives me a list of what she wants me to buy her every night when we talk. And of course, she never duplicates her requests, so needless to say she’s asking for a lot of stuff which includes dresses, purses, and of course pink pearls-ha! Austin, he just wants mama and gei gei to come home. He sounds so sad when we talk to him, the boy little guy sure is missing us. It’ll be so good to snuggle with him and kiss those fat cheeks of his.
Vickie, Amber, and Amelia
Day 8 --
Today was a day filled with lots and lots of shopping. Our group went to a local museum, followed by the pearl and jade market. Amber and I have been to both of these twice now so we opted for more shopping on the island. After we went shopping we came back to the room for our daily nap…..awwwwww
After our nap we headed for the swimming pool. It has been so hot and humid here, there are no words to describe. I do believe that it would be fair to say that the humidity is 100% here. Fortunately we’ve had a little bit of a breeze and it’s been cloudy so we’ve not had the sun beating down on us.
Amelia LOVED the swimming pool. This was the first time she’s ever been swimming so we didn’t know what to expect. She was a little hesitant at first, but we slowing got her use to the water and the whole swimming experience. Before you knew it she was pushing our hands away because she wanted to walk around the baby pool by herself. So we would hold on to the back of her bathing suit straps so she thought she was doing it herself, but we still had a firm grip on her. She really had a lot of fun and we had fun watching her.
Afterwards we headed back to Starbucks for a nightcap and then back to our room for the evening. We ordered Papa John’s pizza and it was really good. Nothing like roughing it while we’re in China.
Tomorrow we’re going to be visiting a local pre-school. We visited this on our first trip to China, but we were not able to go there last year because they were remodeling. So I’m really anxious to see the changes that have been made, and especially be able to see all the children.
Thank you for following along on our journey and for all of the prayers and emails that we have received from everyone—they are so much appreciated!!
