White Swan Hotel, Guangzhou China

Lily and Jack taking a bath. No tears for Lily!
Lily's first plane ride! She did great and didn't cry one time.
Lily has a Chinese Passport.

Today we left Nanchang for Guangzhou which is in Southern China near Hong Kong. This morning we all boarded the bus in Nanchang for the Police Station. Tim was arrested last night and our group had to bail him out!

Just kidding! We had to pick up the babies Chinese Passports. They need these before they can get American Passports and to fly. We will get to keep her Chinese Passport as a keepsake but she will lose her Chinese citizenship when she becomes an American. Cindy told us yesterday the way to tell if a family is well off in China today is if they own their own home, have a car and have a passport. In the 80's, after the cultural revolution, the way to tell if a family was well off was if they had a bicycle, a TV and something else-I forgot.

So today was lots of waiting around and trying to keep Jack busy. He is now getting a little stir crazy and needs a park! He is tired of his Leapster and watching videos. I broke out some of my workbooks and sticker books so that helped a lot. Our new town has a park so we will try to check that out tomorrow. Cindy told us you can see lots of people doing Tai Chi in this park too.

Lily had her first plane ride today. I was a bit sad to be taking her from her home province of Jiangxi, but I promised her I would bring her back someday.

She was an absolute doll today. Previously, when we would lay her down to change her diaper, she would scream bloody murder. Not today. She just gets more and more comfortable with us by the day. She is also getting a stronger torso as she can sit up on her own more steadily. The first 2 days we had her, she could not feed herself. Well, now she is a cheerio queen and stuffs them in her mouth. She can even manipulate the cheerios to the tip of her finger. I don't know if she could do this before and was just holding out due to the stress of meeting us, but she can do it now. Everyone in our group comments on how cute and funny she is. One dad called her a firecracker. I like to call her our "Chinese Firecracker". Jack just adores her. He is always kissing her and on the bus today while watching a movie he reached up her sleeve and grabbed her hand and held it for about 1/2 hour. (She was asleep)

The White Swan Hotel is FABULOUS. It is a 5 star hotel even by American standards. We got another Suite and WOW. We got in about 6:00 pm and were starving. Tim ordered room service, Spaghetti, soup, bread, and a dessert. It tasted so good to eat American food. Jack just sucked it down. Lily had just taken her bath without any tears and lots of splashing! and was sitting in a towel in the corner of the couch stuffing cheerios into her mouth watching us suck down our dinner. Jack said, "Raise your hand if you love Lily". So Tim, Jack and I raised our hands and what do you know but up goes Lily's hands- both of them along with a big happy scream. It was so cute! We just laughed and laughed. We love her so much. I can't believe my good luck to have 2 such sweet beautiful children. What did I ever do to deserve this?
I know..... I married Tim!


Tomorrow we have the medical exam which is necessary for getting a US Passport. Lily has a really weird scab/rash on her arm which I am quite concerned about. It is about the size of a quarter and very scaly and red. You may be able to see it in the picture above. At first we thought it was a vaccination mark, but I don't think so. We will get that checked out tomorrow. Any ideas what it could be?