January 28th/29th

The 28th... well Thank God!!!! We leave for Guangzhou today with visions of a more "american friendly" China.  We have heard the stories and boy are we ready to go!  Lily gave Mom and Dad a kiss today all by herself, we were in the hallway with the other kids, Yisha our CCAI representative and good friend brought her cute little five year old daughter (we kept begging her to let us meet her) and while everyone was playing Lily came up and gave us a each a kiss while we were sitting against the wall... broke our hearts!  Right now Mom and Lily are sitting on the chair playing and eating a snack.  Jonah is writing in his journal and Jeremy is in his room watching t.v.  We are packed and ready to go.  If you don't hear from us in a couple days we may not have great internet access. 

Today we woke up early had breakfast and then went to the playroom.

Lily loved playing with the duplo's, the bouncy ball and breaking into Jonah's fort

Yisha's daughter came to visit and she played with Lily and "Ling" the doll we bought Lily that says chinese and english... she loved it.

Next we packed everything and went downstairs to go to the airport.  Today we leave Hefei in the Anhui province and head to Guangzhou in the Guangdong province to finalize paperwork and get visa for Lily to bring her home.  While we were waiting for the bus to transfer us to the airport Lily hung out on the stairs and walked right in the "Business centre" to make sure everything was okay :)

We took a group picture with the seven lucky babies from Anhui from CCAI travel group 443!  Then we boarded the bus, the staff of the hotel were incredible... a little too nice, you just have to think that you need something and they are all over you!

Okay... here are the families... starting from the left: Virginia Flaherty is holding Kinley and her daddy John Flaherty is kneeling.  Top row, with the glasses and baby Grace in a snuggly is Ben Kirk with his wife Katherine kneeling.  Still in the back you should see Jonah, Jeremy, Lily and Me... Brian Beaman is below me with his sister Cari and Mom Teresa with Dad above (right next to me) Bob... they are the Beaman family.  Still in the back row will see Randy and Lydia Camp holding their daughter Janella.  Last folks on the back row are Tim and Joanne Payne holding Stephanie.  The bottom row starting on the Left (ignoring John and Kathy is our CCAI Reps, Carrie and Yisha (they were incredible and we appreciate them soooo much)  Next is Tyler and his mom Kim with Dad Paul Sparks, and Riley their baby is burying her head in Mom's sweater.

At the airport Melissa and Lydia show off the pretty girls in pink with this year's fashion statement in shoes.

Lily was awesome on the plane, I just kept feeding her raisins and playing with her and she did not cry ONCE!!!  Plus you can see Ben's family provided entertainment across from us.

We arrived in Guangzhou on time with no problems, it was late, so we got checked in and went to bed.

The next morning we met at 10:00 after breakfast to walk over to get Lily's visa photo taken and get her medical exam.  We found that Guangzhou is absolutely gorgeous... wow!

Yes, Lily does not like doctor visits... this was not fun for Baby Lily... she got over each station quickly and passed with flying colors but she hated getting weighed, having her ears, nose and throat checked and especially laying down to be measured.  (We should have just told them to let her stand up by a ruler... she did that on her own in the playroom in Hefei... oh well, you never really know what they are doing next)

Look at this... it is a Nissan... pretty cool eh?  I just could not help myself, very nice car.

The hotel is gorgeous, two outside pools, waterfalls everywhere and we are right on the river.  This is a neat little island that used to be a british colony and there are lots of cool places to shop.

Mom was in heaven when we stopped to eat at Lucy's... quite a bit different from the rest of the trip.  It was very american... bad service, average food.... just what Melissa craved.

I'd rather be in Hefei having my napkin picked up within .5 second of it being dropped... I asked for Vinegar and she brought me tartar sauce... then when I tried to explain, she just walked away... I had to go inside to talk to the manager... but Melissa was so happy, it was worth it!

We went to the Hard Rock Cafe where we spent on one meal 1/3 of the entire bill for meals/laundry etc. at the hotel in Hefei... man, I miss Hefei!  But Lily had a blast, she danced, played with a balloon and ate chicken strips with a huge smile on her face.

                          It was a good day...