Wednesday morning in Guangzhou

Hi all:

I am using the business center today for my post, as the back room of the little joint wasn't cutting it (besides this is much faster to type!) Our Thai dinner the other night was interesting. Kyle missed his nap, so he went berserk about 15 min. into dinner and then threw his forehead down on the table and started screaming. Charlie then took him outside for the rest of the evening. I wasn't too bummed, as the food was a little beyond my taste - I got a coconut filled with rice, chicken, prawns, curry, peas and carrots. I have been sticking more to the American food since :)

We went to the Chen Family School yesterday. It's a huge museum now, but was the school for the Chen Family in the 20th century. They were one of the wealthier Chinese families here. The museum was filled with all kinds of elaborate sculptures; very neat. They also had a lot of bonsai plants and some gardens. We put Kyle down in the grass for the first time and he loved it. He was picking up the little pieces. Afterward, we went to a Buddist Temple and all of the babies were blessed by a real monk. It was totally cool. They sat in front of these huge buddas with all of this incense. When the blessed water was dropped on Kyle's head, he screamed out (happily); it was really funny. We got some good pictures.

We then spent the afternoon resting; both Charlie and Kyle now have colds. Charlie refused to get his flu shot this year and see what happens!!! He has been dosing up on Zicam several times a day so he is getting better, but now Kyle is sneezing. There's also a ton in bloom here, so I think that many allergies are also starting to kick in. After the boys' naps, we went walking and walking and walking. Kyle was wearing shorts and no shoes (he kept flipping off his squeekies) so he was quite the sight for a few of the elderly Chinese. At least no one scolds us (that we can understand). He loves the outdoors and seeing the flowers and the leaves and just the sights and sounds.

Yesterday was the first day that Charlie could actually go to the buffet line and serve himself (yeah, huge steps!!!) and Kyle didn't even cry. I had to bribe him with food, but it worked. He is getting better and better with me, as long as he is not tired and cranky. He loves bath time w/Daddy too. We have a huge bathtub w/no baby bathtub, so both of them get to go in together. He really likes the bath gel and bubbles.

Last night, he was all wound up while trying to go to sleep so he starts coughing. Charlie thinks he is choking so he rushes to the crib and Kyle is laughing. He did that like 5 times, until we said "enough, time to sleep!" Then he stopped. He is definitely learning how he can get attention very quickly. He is still monitoring all of the other babies; especially when they cry.

Today, our guide is taking our paperwork to the Consulate for the first round of sign offs. Then we'll go tomorrow for the "swearing" in of the babies and the final signoff before they are ready to leave China. This afternoon, we will have a group picture taken on the famous red couches here in the hotel up in the lobby. We will attempt to have Kyle dressed in his finest Chinese outfit; we were in bed by around 8 p.m. on New Year's Eve (how sad is that!) so he didn't dress up. We are also going for a Cantonese dinner tonight.

Due to the holiday and the crush of people here, we skipped the Zoo yesterday but are going to hit it tomorrow a.m. There is a panda bear there. Some say that it is a very good zoo.

The hotel here is very nice; definitely a "resort" type hotel and much nicer than the last few that we have been in. There is even a floor "helper" that rings the elevator bell for you each time you go down. I think that this hotel gets a lot of convention people, too. We ate here last night and we were literally the only Americans in the entire dining room (all Chinese). Charlie had to fight w/the head waiter to get us seated (so they gave us the last table in the back 40!) Kyle is still eating like he will never have another meal -- who knows if this is appropriate baby food, but we don't have a lot of choice. He had french toast and eggs this a.m. Ham, roast beef and some pork last night. He probably thinks that we eat outdoors all of the time and we will be running around in shorts and socks at home in Philadelphia -- who wants to give him the "real news?!"

Thanks for all of the posts that everyone has been sending. Great news to hear on many fronts. The email is still horrible here, so we had stopped trying to send it. I think 6 out of 7 lines are still blown out and they hope to have 70% capacity by mid-January which is probably not even realistic.

We are off to do laundry -- 2 big bags the other day; folded, washed and in little plastic bags for a whopping $8!! That's a bargain.

Charlie will post pix later -- we are going to try and use someone's free computer to do that.

Hope you are all well. We'll keep you posted on everything. (p.s. it was 73 degrees here yesterday -- who is jealous :))

Love, Lisa - Chal - Kyle