Gwen's friend Kate from Yibin and her mommy, Jennifer.
Carrie and Emma with Gwen and I... can you tell Gwen has been crying?!
Group picture... Gwen screaming!
Waiting for more pictures... with the camera case over my shoulder... see the strap?
Red Couch picture... see Kate? She has fallen over from crying so hard!
Gwen with Alia, her friend from Yibin, and Peter, from Inner Mongolia. Peter is missing a hand. He is five years old and just about the happiest little boy you've ever met. He is the 3rd child his parents have adopted. His older sister Rebecca came on this trip with her parents to get him.Gwen's personality is coming out more and more. She cannot get enough of Scott flipping her up over his shoulders and then back down. She clambers for more every time! She says "Da!" over and over again very loudly when she gets excited. Tonight after her bath she was so wound up... she was kind of playing a peek-a-boo game with Scott where he was trying to get her... she was laughing and squealing so hard! Then she got into pushing the port-a-crib around. Part of the room has a tile floor and if she put her weight into it she could make it move pretty well. She pushed that thing with a mission! It looked so funny because she's so tiny, Scott and I couldn't stop laughing. Scott thought it was like him pushing a garage around. We've also seen some temper from her in the last day or two that hadn't shown up before. She'll sit on the floor and kick her legs in a very frustrated way when she feels like her plans have been thwarted, and sometimes it turns into falling backwards and screaming, too. Spicy girl... got to nip this in the bud!
Other activities today included a church service at a little yellow church just a block away from the hotel. The singing was all in Chinese, with the words on a screen to follow along. The words were in both Chinese characters and pinion, so we were able to follow a little, but even though the pinion spells out the words in the English alphabet, the pronunciations are so different that we couldn't sing very well. We did join in at the end of worship when the whole congregation sang "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" in English! The sermon was translated to English a line at a time, and that coupled with Gwen's squirrely antics made it hard to follow so we left part way through. We heard later from a friend that stayed for the whole service that after the sermon there was an opportunity for testimonies and a Chinese man got up and gave his in pretty good English for about 30 minutes! Wish we had heard that.
Gwen got her visa photo taken this afternoon. We are coming to the end of the official business. After the photo, all the visa paperwork that we filled out a couple of days ago was turned it. Now the only thing left is her medical exam tomorrow afternoon, and taking the oath at the American Consulate.
The White Swan hotel has a playroom just for adoptive families, sponsered by Mattel. We hung out there for a bit this morning before church. Gwen and Alia had fun emptying a little stand of toys and then Gwen climbed right into it. Gwen is much smaller than Alia, although they are the same age. Gwen is definitely the boss, though! When we returned to our room at one point today we found Gwen's "Going Home Barbie." It is a special Barbie doll holding an Asian baby, and on the back of the box it says, "This souvenier is presented by Mattel Ltd. to adopting parents of Chinese orphan children staying at the White Swan Hotel, Guangzhou, China." Hmmm... clever marketing, trying to endear parents to Barbie while the girls are young!
We also did some shopping today, and had dinner at a Thai restaurant with four other families. It is so amazing to share this experience with others... it provides such a wonderful base for relationships. We've met some wonderful people that we hope to keep in contact with as our girls grow up.
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