Anyone ever had a little Chinaman follow you around kissing your hand 24/7? I know it sounds appealing to the one or two people who may be reading this blog entry, but it's not. It actually gets old after 8-10 hours.

I don't have a lot of time to write. But just wanted to post that things are going pretty well overall. The honeymoon is over but we're doing well, not ready to jump off a ledge or anything.

Qiyao starts school tomorrow, and hopefully he will have a good day. I will probably go to the school to volunteer.

We had a good day with the kids at Boyd's Orchard a few days ago so I am posting those pictures.

Apologies to Will's family as there are no pictures of him.

Well, our much awaited reunion took place last night at 9:45pm at the airport. Qiyao was overwhelmed at seeing us all. He backed away from us, and would not hold Will's hand. We told the kids to give him some room. As soon as Will left to grab a baggage cart, Qiyao was looking everywhere trying to find him. When Will got back into Qiyao's site, he immediately seemed to relax.

Fanhua was streatching on tiptoes to see over a plywood barrier. There is some contruction going on at the Lexington airport. Qiyao wanted to see as well so I asked him (basically motioned) if he wanted me to lift him to see. He shook his head yes, and I lifted him up. At first he did not look at the contruction area, instead I could feel that he was staring at my face. He did this for several seconds, then took his hand and rubbed my cheek and smiled. I think he must have been thinking about the pictures he had seen of me and now he was looking at my face in person for the first time. Many times since last night, he's come close to my face to look at me. He's very curious, and he smiles and touches my face. I've started to look back at him and he will hold my gaze and stare right into my face. I think it must be his way of engaging me. He's also gotten close to me and I can tell he wants me to hug and kiss him, and when I've done this he seems very pleased. Will has said that he is not very affectionate but possibly he was only shown affection by his foster mom and not his foster dad so he could be less open to affection from men.

Basically, we are all just trying to get use to each other. Last night on the way home from the airport, Sydney said "yes, I think I like him." And Sia said "me too." Fanhua is on cloud 9. He LOVES having a brother. Qiyao woke up crying at 3am and Will got up with him and fed him some cereal. Fanhua was great about it, not grumpy or anything. And this morning when Qiyao got back up at 6am and started playing, Fanhua got up and played. Fanhua's usually a late riser but not with a new brother in the house.

So far, 18 hours into the first meeting, the honeymoon period rules! I am crossing my fingers that it will last until bedtime.

I don't know how to get the nice borders around the pictures, and Will is sleeping, so they don't look pretty but here they are!

We’re finishing up our last day in Guangzhou.  We leave for the airport tomorrow morning at 7AM.  It has been a hard trip, but we’re coming to the end.  At this point I would pay an obscene amount of money to be anesthetized and wake up in Lexington, but that isn’t going to happen.  We should have plenty of time to make it through immigration, but you never know.  So please pray that everything goes smoothly with travel and customs and most of all with Qiyao.

Our guide went to the US Consulate on our behalf today to hand over the paperwork for Qiyao’s visa application.  We passed inspection.  Tomorrow we go to the Consulate ourselves and swear an oath that all the information on the submitted forms was accurate.  An extra day was built into our schedule by our travel coordinator in case something went wrong.  We have ended up not needing it, and I wish we could leave on Friday instead of Saturday.  Still, better to have and not need than need and not have I suppose.

This statue created in 1959 of “The Five Rams” is in the large park across the street.  It is regarded as the city emblem.  A 2000 year old legend says that Guangzhou was a barren area until five celestial beings descended from heaven on rams, each carrying six bundles of “spikes” (which I think means shoots or small plants) in their mouths.  They shared the plants among the people to bring abundant harvests from then on. 

It is a massive sculpture at over 10 meters tall.  The head of the large ram at the top weighs over two tons.

Today we when to the Guangzhou Zoo.  They had a large collection of animals and the enclosures seemed clean and well maintained.

After the zoo we went to the Liuhua Tea House.  It is in a different location than last time, but the teapot fountain is the same.  Kristi and I came here with our travel group when we came to get Sydney.  Next we had lunch on Shamian Island at a restaurant down from Lucy’s that is in front of the tennis courts.  I don’t remember the name, but Kristi and I ate there when we came to get Sia.  It was good then and today too.  After that we had Qiyao’s TB test read.  It was negative so we celebrated with a frappucino and ice cream.