It's official! (In China's eyes)

Now that the 24 hour trial period has passed, we've decided to keep her and signed the paperwork to make everything official! (like we wouldn't?!?!)

Avery was a champ and was so very patient as we waited and waited for all the families to funnel through the registration office official to get signatures, money and finger/footprints from all of us involved. Quite boring for a 5 year old, but he handled it in style while corralling his little sister to just happens to have the same stubbornness as her Dad when it comes to doing things a certain way!

Today Zoe's already opened up to me and I guess is deciding that maybe I'm not such a bad guy after all! She's taking food from me (she seems to eat all the time) - and she always uses her left hand as a 'ready spare' to keep food in while she uses her right hand to shovel/grab food and eat it. As soon as there's no more, the left hand always has something left to munch on. Also, we noticed at dinner and breakfast this morning that she's not one to keep many crumbs around her. If something falls, she's quick to track it down, grab it and eat it, or shimmy down to the floor if it's made it that far. I think she's well aware of the words 'competition' and 'limitation of resources' already. On the bus ride home, she decided that she wanted to sit/stand on dad's lap, so we're making progress and she's readily given me smirks/smiles along the way. Things will be fine.

She's also a big fan of these little dinner roll looking cookies that are called honey biscuits. We unfortunately thought we brought enough, but have now determined that we may need a 50# bag to make sure we're okay on the 12+ hour flight back to the states. When she's crying, these things almost always act like stop crying pills!

Now that we're back in the hotel, we're planning on taking a group excursion to WalMart of all places. There's not really much to do here aside from going to a shopping mall or walking the streets only to get stared at. McDonald's gets tiring after one meal and so does the lackluster food (not really that bad - just not what I'd expect from a 5 star hotel - call me a snob!) in the hotel restaurants. Just a few more days then it's back to steamy Guangzhou.

Hopefully we can score a few more swim caps that are mandatory for the pool here (not sure why). Then we'll see if we can't go to the the park next door to the hotel and watch the locals do their Tai Chi, ballroom dancing, and/or see if we can't get Avery to jump on a pedal car (aka bumper cars to the locals). That and getting to know the little one better.

Just got back from Wally world China style...
It's pretty much the WalMart you already know, only with a lot more people spanning a couple floors. There's a ton of workers (like every other place we've been to - seems I've heard that China has ~20 million new workers enteringthe workforce every year. I suppose this has something to do with the worker:customer ratio) and for the most part the layout is similar. Only everything is in Chinese and rarely can you trip over an English speaking person. We made out ok. I scored Zoe's baby dinner rolls, some Chips Ahoy (I could read the Chinese on the package) and Lola got some dragon fruit, bananas and lychee-like fruits. They're good, but I think I'm alergic to them since my throat tickles a bit after eating them. For the most part, it was interesting, but I wouldn't recommend that anyone travel to Wuhan to see Wal-Mart. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't recommend anyone travel to Wuhan. Unless you're picking up your baby girl. Not much to do here.

After dinner (we brought KFC back to the hotel for Beth & the kids), we ventured to the park below. Avery spent a good hour and a half on a green machine we rented. Zoe and Beth worked on walking skills with Zoe imitating Beth by walking with both hands clasped behind their backs - so cute! After some time, Grandpa, Beth and Zoe headed up to the room. Avery and I remained for a bit and then played 'Frogger' where we were the frog characters to get across the street to the McDonald's for some ice cream. We lived and it was nice sharing a cone with my boy!

Anyway, you know by now that Zoe is officially ours in the eyes of the Chinese government. We've got some free time until we get our papers back on Friday. Too bad they couldn't just FedEx them and give us a chance to saunter up to Beijing! Not sure what we'll do tomorrow, so we may play it by ear. I'll post more pics into the album soon. Till next time...