Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! We are thankful for our wonderful family and friends, and a special thanks for finally having Mary as a part of our family. Our group is going to have a thanksgiving dinner tonight.

We had an intersting last few days. Our second night with Mary was not as smooth as the first. She slept on and off all night and wanted Mel to hold her or to lay on top of Mel. It was if she realized, oh my gosh, I'm actually going to be with these pepple. There is no doubting that Mary has bonded with Mel. As for Daddy, he can play with her and she laughs and respondes well, but picking her up is a whole different story--lots of screaming.

We traveled to a beautiful park outside of Nanning, the highest point in the province. The weather was perfect, low 70's and nice breezes. After that we returned to the hotel and Grace, Mel and Mary took a nap. I went out with another dad from the group to explore the city.

Riding in a taxi is very cheap but hard on your nerves. Traffic was coming at us from all sides and, our driver, who did not speak a word of English, drove like a wild man. The scaries part of the ride is the many near misses with folks on bicyles who act as though the cars are not present. It was actually kind of a fun ride. Taxi rides do not compare with the thrill of crossing the street. The streets are wide and the cars, motor scooters, bicycles, and other moving vehicles of various shapes and sizes are speeding at you and around you.

The stores here are just like what we in the U.S. are used to but with extremely loud music playing. Very few people speak any English so we were just wandering, taking in all around us. We did get stared at a lot and many people said, hello and laughed. I said hello back in Chinese, but it probably sounds as funny to them as their hello sounded to me. I did learn to count to 10 in Chinese which came in handy when I had to pay the taxi driver or purchase something.

As I have mentioned before, Grace's sleep clock is not on China time. Yesterday, she slept from 2 in the afternoon until about 1 am this morning. I knew she was awake when I felt someone tapping on my head saying, "daddy, let's go for a walk." I was comatose at that point and suggested that a movie or two might be fun. Grace agreed and watched two movies as the rest of were sleeping. I am glad that I brought my laptop as it plays DVDs. At around 3 am, Grace again suggested that we go out and explore in the hotel but I talked her into laying down with me and she slept until 7 this morning.

Today (Thanksgiving), rather than go with the rest of the group to a small village outside the city, we opted to stay at the hotel. Mary has a slight fever and runny nose. Plus, we were hoping to get Grace on a better sleep schedule. We walked a few blocks from the hotel and stopped in some stores.

Clothing here is so inexpensive. We purchased a few things for Mary and had fun trying to communicate with the store employees.

It is now around 5 pm and our plan to readjust Grace's sleeping clock has failed. She fell asleep at 2:30 this afternoon and she shows no signs of life at present. It could be a long night.

Have a nice Thanksgiving. We have so much for which to be thankful.

I've attached a few pictures from our walk today and the visit to the park yesterday.