We woke up without a wake up call or alarm clock, which was nice. I turned on the television and low and behold it was the All Star Game. Only Lora seemed interested in watching. She works for the Cleveland Indians and has her vested interest.
The last breakfast was just yummy, as tomorrow we get a boxed breakfast as we head out at 5:30am on the way to the airport. We definitely had our fill. We saw many other families with their newly adopted children from places including Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and more. We chat and find out how things have been going. It is sort of like a fraternity, but without the parties.
After breakfast, we decided to do last minute shopping. While I cannot offer all the details, we did hand over some more Yuan for some more items to be given to some of the people who have been rooting us on. It is fun to shop in China, although neither of the women likes to bargain. They send me in at the end to haggle down the price. Most of the time I do well, or so I’m told.
Returning to the hotel, we decide it is time for a well-deserved dip in the pool. It is the last day and nice, although of course hot and humid. We make our way to the pool and find that there is only the family from North Carolina swimming. They are friendly and have an older daughter, Maggie, who is seven today and Alana, a short in stature but large in personality girl of three. Maggie is a dead ringer for Sydney’s friend Kay, and is funny as well. Alana helped Emma get more acclimated to the water, helping her blow bubbles and get wet! Andrew took to the water without fear, and forgot that he couldn’t swim and went down in the water right in front of Ellie and I. We got him up and since he had dunked himself in the water before, he thought nothing of it, although we were making notes that he’ll need the swimming vest for sure when we have our afternoons at Lake Nanuet. This nice family offered us an invitation to Maggie’s birthday party in their room later on.
Sadly to say but the Proffit’s were leaving today around 5:00pm. We planned to meet them in the lobby to say our goodbyes. We had a little more than an hour before they had to board the shuttle to the airport, so we decided to take our conversation to Lucy’s Restaurant and have some drinks and snacks. Emma and Andrew mimicked me when I approached the restaurant saying, “Oh Lucy, I’m Home!”. It was funny.
We went to the party and were greeted warmly. We sang Happy Birthday to Maggie in English and Chinese. The cake was very light and had pieces of fruit in the frosting. After eating the children were playing with a few toys and for the first time Andrew who always shares grabbed a Leap Pad toy out of Emma’s hand. Andrew was very upset when we reprimanded him and gave the toy back to Emma, so I left the party with Andrew. When the ladies returned to the room, Emma was smiling and giggling. She had a Tangled goody bag in her hand with all sorts of cute gems. This was her first of many parties to come and she really enjoyed it.
Ellie is packing away 3 weeks worth of stuff and I am obviously staying out of her way. Off to bed in a few for the dreaded 4:00am wake up call. We’ll manage tomorrow, knowing we’ll be asleep in our own beds after the long day of travel. |
