Monday, December 5, 2005

It's Christmas time...in China?

Good Morning! I hope that this post finds all of you and getting ready for the holiday season. As you can see my first few posted pictures of our hotel lobby. They have really gone all out on the decorations. Everyone had said that Christmas time is a great time to be in China because of all the decorations. We have to agree. It does make it feel it a bit more like home...minus the snow! A huge thanks to my mom for posting a picture of the McKenzie women get together. We had hoped to be home from China in time to make it to that, but it didn’t work out that way. It was great seeing everyone. I hope that Cam and Anna behaved themselves. Did they get neat ornaments? I can’t wait to get home and see!

I didn’t post at my usual time this afternoon. We all took 2 hours naps. Gosh, did it feel great! Even after 8 days, I’m still struggling with the time difference. About the time I get totally switched, it will be time to come home. I posted pictures of Julia’s bath last night. We had a great time. She really likes Mommy to give her the bath. Tonight she took my hand and lead me to the bathroom to get her ready to take one. It’s all fun until she wants to splash me! :-)
After bath time, comes bed time and well, that’s still Wayne’s department. She will only let him snuggle with her. She cries much less and when she does cry, it’s not the everlasting wailing. It’s more of just this whine of "ayi ayi ayi" over and over. She still asks for her foster mom. I wish there was some way of telling her that her foster mom is ok and that everything with us will be ok too. We know that she’s suffered some big losses and it will take time.

We met Rosalind in the lobby again at 9:30, actually we were a bit late due to Julia taking a power dump in her pull-up as we got ready to head out the door. We have been dressing her a little warmer than we would here in the states. The older generation feels the need to let you know if you don’t have your children dressed properly. She now goes out in a onesie, regular clothes outfit (pants&shirt), heavy corduroy pants, fleece sweatshirt and her new pink coat. Phew, makes me feel sweaty just thinking about it. She doesn’t seem to mind and while we are here, we will comply with the Fashion Police. :-)

We headed for the park (one of the largest in Asia). The kids had a great time running around and chasing the daddies. After the park, we went to a turquoise factory. I spent a little too much, but I wanted each of the kids to have a piece of turquoise from Hubei. It’s something that the area is known for. I ended up with 3 necklace type pieces. Each kid was born in a different Zodiac year, so Cameron got an Ox. Anna is a Dragon and Julia is a Ram. They are really cool! More presents for the kids that will have to wait till they are older!

Wal-Mart was our next stop. It’s rather similar to the US, but many different types of meat products. I wanted to take pictures, but thought it might be offensive. Diapers are much cheaper here. A 52 pack of Pampers costs 69 Yuan (about 8 USD). I also bought Tide bar soap for laundry (works great!), the Lay’s potato chips (very good) and some small snacks for Julia.
Dinner tonight was at a KFC about 7 blocks from our hotel. Another brisk walk to the restaurant. Both the kids seemed to like the food. My sandwich was spicy, but that is par for the course here in Wuhan.

We are now working on getting Julia to sleep. Have a great day and continue to pray for us as we wind down our time here in Wuhan. We will leave here on the 7th and be in Guangzhou until the 11th. Love you all!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Melissa & Wayne,

I went through withdrawl this morning as I had to be at the DBPD for a training I was facilitating and didn't have time to review your blog before I left. I love the new pictures. Great picture of you and Wayne with Julia - don't worry Cam and Anna will be in them soon.

Keep the updates coming. I love them!