Today was the last of the scheduled activities in Beijing. We went to a public park that has a kiddie amusement park in it. The kids had a blast and the parents doled out cash. This afternoon Grandma and PawPaw entertained the kids and I engaged in my favorite past-time--packing. Tomorrow we get the new passports and on Saturday we fly to Guangzhou.
We are so ready to be in a new hotel room and to be back on Shaimen Island. I never thought I would say that, but at least it is familiar territory, having spent a long two weeks there. It is, by the way, almost two years since we boarded a plane to adopt Julianna. We will arrive home from this adoption on her Gotcha Day.


This is Keith's little buddy from his orphanage. She is nearly five. We have decided that we will pursue an arranged marriage between the two. Her parents will head to North Carolina when they leave here, which is also where Julianna's orphanage buddy lives. I foresee a road trip to the Carolinas in our future.

Julianna ran straight to the engineers seat when it was time to board the train. She loves the driver's seat.

Addendum:

We went to dinner tonight and on the way home I stopped into a bread store for cookies. The price was 10.60, so I gave them a twenty. To be quite honest, the change stuff here just confuses me. Some of it is little paper money and some of it is coins and I can never figure out how much any of it is worth. Well, they didn't have enough in the kitty to give me .40 change and wanted me to give them .10 so they could give me .5. Well, I couldn't figure out the change, so a nice Westerner tried to help, but my German isn't better than my Chinese.