Thanks so much for visiting us during our journey, Steve, Patty, Caleb, Danae (daughter-in-law), Logan, Drew and Annika!
For this child I prayed, and the Lord has given me my petition which I asked of Him.
So I have also dedicated her to the Lord; as long as she liveth she is dedicated to the Lord. I Samuel 1:27 - 28
Today was a free day all day long. I truly have enjoyed the Breakfast Buffet at our hotel. It is Western and Asian and I try to fill up for the day. We are trying to figure out what Annika will and will not eat. We have decided that she is not on formula anymore. We have put away the bottles and formula and baby rice cereal. We are not going to make her take it and besides, she is 15 mos. old so we are just going to do other foods. The other babies from the other orphanages who are alot younger than her are doing table food. They will eat whatever you put in front of them. But not Annika and her fellow orphan friend Shayelynn. We were told that it was a very bad orphanage with too many babies not enough workers, so we are thinking they just blended stuff and fed it as quick as they could.
We have tried to get some texture foods down her, but so far it's just cheerios in that category.
She is opening up so much every day and trusting. We were in the hotel elevator and an Asian woman held her arms out to Annika and she completely turned around and wrapped her arms around my neck. Yes, another tear moving moment for me. I have done alot of sudden crying just over the little things that she does. When one of us is holding her and she's ready for the other, she will lean towards us and just reach her arms in the air. She is a giggler and loves to have her ribs and inner legs tickled. Too sweet.
We are doing better with holding new items now, the chapstick is not as important all the time. Today it was the green yogurt ring. But she continues to put whatever it is up under her little neck to hold it and then suck her two fingers and then takes her other finger to rub her top lip.
We had a white bow in her hair today and someone in the elevator asked if she was a boy. Did I miss something??
Steve has been going to McDonald's in the evenings for my nightly hamburger with ketchup and he continues to have Asian women giving them their cards and wanting to take him home with them....hmmmm wonder what that's all about. Our guide said that if I was with him they wouldn't even get close to him.
We took our first cab ride by ourselves. Our hotel writes down where we want to go in Chinese and we take a business card from our hotel to get back. We went to an Electronics store to try and get some dvd's etc. We were able to get quite a few for the boys. From our friends the Kibbees, we hear that some are ok and some are poor quality. We will see.
We have not really started shopping too much yet. Monday will be our big day for that on Shamian Island. So we are excited to start getting our stuff to take home for our memories of China. We priced another suitcase today and were thrilled to see that they are pretty cheaply priced. Since we got an extra seat on the plane ride home for Annika we can have an extra suitcase.
Oh yea, back to McDonalds. Yep, you guessed it, squatty potty land again. But I was prepared; I took napkins in with me. But they did have toilet paper. Now you tell me.....why in the world do they not continue building the toilet up past the level of the floor. Even in well known restaurants?
We had our first Asian come up to us and ask if we were adopting Annika and said to us, "lucky, lucky baby." She truly does not understand that we are the ones who are truly lucky.
We are headed to the Zoo tomorrow. We were going to try and purchase or rent a stroller from the hotel, but Annika still has fears that we will leave her and when we put her down to play or sit her in the bed next to us, you can see her fear and we do not want her to think we are abandoning her. She likes to be very close to our necks with her arms around us, or held close to our chest. And to be perfectly honest, we are not minding it one bit.
Thank you again for all your kind e-mails, I have enjoyed reading them all. We are missing home and can not wait for Annika to see her new family and friends who have waited for her along with us for the past 2 years. Hope you are enjoying the pictures.
The first picture of Steve and I where I am opening up some Christmas presents was back in Beijing. Our friends the O'Boyle's picked us up that evening and we walked the city, went to a pizza shop, took the bus and taxis, went back to their apartment for chocolate cake, gave us some early Christmas presents. That was so comforting our first few days in China seeing familiar faces. We are hoping to meet up with them again when we fly out of Beijing to head to Chicago O'Hare.
