Birthday Parties, Memorial Halls and Goats!

Hi Everyone,

It is the party -girl brigade coming to you live from Guangzhou China. Daddy-get-my-stuff left us yesterday and should be home sleeping by now. Although, Grandma did email us that he was in DC-- he wasn't suppose to go to DC so we think he will have an interesting and maybe not so happy story to tell.

On to our fun stuff. Yesterday after the medical exam we did a little shopping for a few more clothes. Josie Dong Dong had a blast playing with her new clothes before nap time yesterday afternoon.

I had heard that I should not bring a lot of baby clothes with me for 2 reasons. One- you can never be entirely sure about the size to get for the baby. 2- the clothes here are much cheaper. To number one-- I think Josie is pretty much in sinc with the American growth charts. This translates to it being a little hard to buy clothes for her here based on her age. I've finally discovered that she really needs size clothes for a 24 month old based on Chinese sizes.

To number 2, most of the clothes for girls here are dresses. Even shirts are longer and more dress like. This makes it hard for an active Josie Dong Dong to crawl around. My solution to this has been to purchase dresses that have a lot of "flounce" in them and then use rubber bands or ties to tie the skirt part up and back so she doesn't trip. As you can see, the result is that she looks like a little peacock. Her friend Lily and Lily's mommy, Rachel, are also in the picture.

Josie Dong Dong was very happy to have her dress tied back so she roam around without tripping.

She also really really wants to get the camera.

Last night we went out to eat with some of the other families to celebrate baby Julianne's 1st Birthday. I bought some baby party favors for the party and the babies had a great time jazzing up the joint.

Baby Julianne and her big siser Jencie. They have on matching chinese outfits. We are all singing happy birthday in this picture.

Jencie helped her lil sis blow out the candle and we all helped eat the cake. It was really yummy! The cakes here are much lighter than in the US-- so is the frosting. It was some kind of fruit cream cake-- maybe peach, but the fruit flavor is very light. I tried to get a good picture of the cake-- It is decorated with little animals made out of white chocolate and a house-- also white chocolate. Slices of peaches were used to decorate all around the sides of the cake. Josie really liked it-- and so did mommy. We might go to the bakery tonight and get a piece of cake for dessert.

Baby Caroline and her Mommy Jenna had a fun time at the birthday party too.

Today we went to the Zhong Shan Memorial Hall.

It wasn't especially exciting, but it was nice to be able to stroll around without it raining. Josie Dong Dong is getting a bit tired of all the tours we are going on. She decided she didn't want to stay in her stroller today, so I toted her around with the carrier. Another young girl in our group pushed the stroller for us.

These are radom pictures from the Memorial Hall.

Patio design (grass in between the blocks) as you approach the Hall.

Statue of Zhong Shan. All I really caught was that he was a doctor.

Josie Dong Dong and I became engaged in a conversation with two Chinese women who were probably mid to late 30s regarding adoption and why Americans want to adopt children from China. One of the women spoke English very well and it was a very friendly conversation. They were both surprised to find out how long the process to adopt takes and that we are not able to choose a child but are assigned a child.

Each woman had a daughter and the one husband who was also there indicated that they are happy to have a daughter.

The conversation ended with them saying that they think we are very nice to adopt these children and that the babies are lucky. I told them that I am a lucky mommy and they really seemed to appreciate me saying that.

Aside from the nice talk with the young Chinese mommies and their daughters, Josie Dong Dong did not find the Memorial Hall to be very exciting.

After the Memorial Hall we went to another Park, English Translation is the 5-Goats Park. The legend is that a man came down from heaven and was not able to live in the human body and 5 goats saved him. That is all I got of the translation. All I know se that there were a lot of stairs to go up and then down to see the goats-- I'm talking a mini-Great Wall expidition and now that I know how much Josie Dong Dong weighs, she feels much heavier!

It was worth the climb.



Random shots of the goats.

Part of the stairway.







Huge football (soccer) stadium.

When we got back to the hotel we went to the room and I fed Josie Dong Dong some noodles for lunch. She really enjoys slurping them up!

Of course the post would not be complete without some more Ham-bone shots of Josie Dong Dong.

Lastly, she really needs to slurp those noodles because she is really doing much more independent standing and trying to take some steps. I think the plane ride home is going to quite exciting for us. I am guessing she will learn to walk 2 days before our flight home and learn to run the day before.

Love to all,

Reena and Josie Dong Dong.