Just another day in China (Nanchang)

Hello All,

Everything is going wonderfully... Both girls slept through the night, we woke up at 6:00 well before both of them, Melissa actually had time to take her shower before Mia woke, and then we had to almost wake Maddie for breakfast. But, since today was pretty much a free day, no scheduled appointments, we took our time. We are completely done with our paper work here, just waiting on the Chinese Govt to issue the passport. The rest of the group could be in the same boat but since the notary is making a special arrangement for them and coming to the hotel, their adoptions are not "official yet". The notary will ask them a few very tough questions, age, occupations, the babies Chinese name, her birthday, will we take responsibility for her, and what will we do about her education, and "are you satisfied with the baby"? Since Mia was from a different orphanage we had to do things differently and passed the above test yesterday. The group as a whole is 100% on schedule and we should fly out of here on Friday as planned.

With our free day we kind of hung around the hotel in the morning, went for a short walk and just played with the babies.

After a nap for Mia it was off to the "mall". Yes, if you are keeping track Darrell was at wally world yesterday and today went to a mall. The mall is an open air mall, and true to form, every time we stopped we drew a crowd. This is the same thing that happened with Maddie, thus for us it was expected. We had to do some (you know Darrell is cringing just saying this) shopping for Mia, the clothes we brought are not big enough, she seems to be right on the USA growth charts at 9 kilos (19.8 lb.) she is a bit bigger than we expected so we did not pack the right clothes. While at the "mall" we were (as expected) scolded by the clothes police. For those who don't know the Chinese like to dress like the arctic when it is 60 degrees. Melissa was expecting this and accepted it until they started saying things (in Chinese of course) about the way Maddie was dressed as well. Again, for those who don't know Maddie, she is always warm (her hands might be like ice) we can't tell you how many times Darrell has come home from work to find Melissa sitting on the couch in a T-neck, sweater, and sweatshirt while Maddie is in only her panties. At this point we had to start moving again, we found our target store (not Target a store Darrell has only been in once) a kind of indoor multi level flea market where for less than $50 US we bought 3 pairs of shoes, and 3 winter outfits for Mia.

Dinner tonight was a group affair and a bit chaotic as you can expect. The food was wonderful and with a total of about 20 dishes and over 14-16oz beers the total came to 140 yuan per(less than $20) family. Some things are very inexpensive in China, but not all a bottle of water in Beijing at the hotel was $6. On the way home from dinner Mia allowed Darrell to carry her all the way back to the hotel without crying, this was a first. Mia then wanted to play with Darrell and was laughing hysterically for a while. Although it was the first time she really seemed comfortable with Darrell, it did cause a problem as it wound her up just before bed time, oops bad Dad.

Tomorrow for the most part is a free day as well (it is for us, since we have seen the notary) so we get to hang out and play all day again, this is tough work if you can get it...

We will try to keep you up to date and hope you are all well and enjoying our tales... trust us there is more to come as life loves to throw us curves, but that is where all the fun is anyway.

Love
The Meinen's