In Our Arms

She is finally here! We don't have many great pictures yet but here are few. Cindy said I could not post the last one of her and Lillie falling asleep at 10:30, but I thought it was just too cute not to. Besides, she is already alseep! I'll let her fill in the details later on tomorrow.

Waiting for Lillie

We arrived in Nanning yesterday and are getting settled. Our flight here was a bit of an adventure. The in flight movie was in Chinese and they play it over the speakers of the plane so everyone can hear it. Our lunch choices were chicken and rice or fish and rice. We were excited to see fruit cups on our tray until we read the label. It was white fungus and pear with rock sugar soup.

The airport in Nanning reminded me of Mexico with only one luggage pick up so it was easy to find. The weather is very nice and the flowers are amazing. It started snowing on our visit to the Great Wall so this is a great change of pace. After checking into our hotel, we found a pink crib waiting in our room. It is made of metal and is no bigger than a play pen. The beds are twin and very hard so we will appreciate getting back to the comforts of home.

We went out to the grocery last night and found some drinks for our fridge. We are going to go back and buy some fruit and apple juice later. You can not imagine what it is like to cross the street. You really need to say a prayer and hold your breath. We saw families of three on a moped and new motorcycles are not allowed to cut down on the number in the city. We had dinner last night with two other couples. One of the couples had pheasant and duck. The other had things that looked more like home while we went with corn and pork ribs. I was excited to find that they served baked sweet potatoes and expect that to be a staple for the next few days.

We are leaving to pick up Lillie in four hours...

Some more photos

The Summer Palace looks just like the movie, Big Bird in China.

Lunch after the Great Wall! Lunch was family style and include our first whole fish. We have on big sister in our group and she carries the FTIA flag so we follow her everywhere.

Some of the new moms celebrating their arrival after climbing the Great Wall!

Our first day as tourists when it was a little warmer and the sun was shining!

Check back soon for pictures of Lillie! We bought her a traditional Chinese dress today. It is purple and matches her room waiting at home.

Celebration

Aaron posted the fun pictures from today's tours. The Great Wall was awesome and he kept going to the top with some other guys in our group. He stayed up last night and found a Home Depot on the internet. He found a picture of a drill and showed it to the bell boy in our hotel. We gave him some money and he told us to come back at 6 after our tours. I just have to say that Lillie is going to have one smart dad. Aaron hooked the drill up to my broken nebulizer and it was able to turn the motor to make it work! We had pasta to celebrate and went to bed early. We are leaving in about six hours for Nanning. Some of our group will split up and five of the eight families will go on to Nanning to pick up their daughters. Most of us are first time parents so you can feel the excitement in the air. We think we are having fun now! Special thanks to our friends back in the States who helped us figure out how to blog in English rather than Chinese. We should be able to keep in better touch with all of you now.

Leaving on a jet plane...

After relocating the peanut butter so our bags wouldn't be overweight, we were on our way! My mom gave us a ride to the airport and she was so excited. The highlights of our flight to Tokoyo included Oreo cookies,travel Scrabble, and the man next to me who spoke Japanese. When we arrived at our gate in Tokoyo, we heard, "Cindy!" It was my secret pal, Claudine,and her husband, John, from Kentucky. Many of our fellow travel mates had already arrived on the flight from Detroit including Nikki and David who I met a few weeks ago for dinner in Indianapolis. We also met a family from Colorado who was on their way to pick up their 12 year old daughter. They already have three girls and a little boy who were all beaming with excitement. The final flight to China is a bit of blur to me as I was sleeping. They do wake you up to feed you so we had our first meal of steamed rice.

Yesterday, we went to Tian'an Men Square and The Forbidden City. It was very chilly so we have new Olympics hats that Aaron bought trying out his Chinese. The real adventure started after we got back to our hotel. Our guide took us by taxi to buy a new nebulizer. The one that we brought along blew up when we plugged it in. Imagine two weary travelers and smoke coming out the sides of the machine. After a trip to the pharmacy, medical equipment store, computer repair store, and Wal Mart, our quest is still incomplete. We went by the hospital on our way to the pharmacy. If you need a blood transfusion, you go to one buidling and the MRI is in another. You have to travel outside as they don't have a hall or ceiling in between departments. We passed two patients on rolling beds in the court yard. We were supposed to go to the acrobat show tonight but we opted to get some pizza and sleep. Aaron is trying to rebuild my nebulizer but we can't find any tools to use. We also went to the grocery and bought some oranges. I have never been so excited about fruit. We are going to the Great Wall tomorrow and fly to Nanning on the 9th. We get to meet Lillie at 3 p.m. on the 10th!!

The Great Wall

It was rather cold here today (even for us Minnesotans). There were snow flurries at the Great Wall. We also saw the Summer Palace and the Olympic Stadium.
Getting packed again so that we can leave for Nanning in the morning!

We have arrived safely and are getting ready to visit the Great Wall today. More later!