Doctor Visit, Shopping and Ice Cream

Our day began way too early after our long day yesterday.  We are staying in the China Hotel in Guanzhou.  Many people have stayed in the White Swan Hotel in the past, but they are completely closed for remodeling right now.  Maybe next time we'll be able to stay there.  But this hotel is super nice - another 5 Star!  It's very interesting that here in China most of the hotel rooms we've stayed in have a window in the bathroom next to the tub.  It must be some sort of Feng Shui thing, but it really opens the room up. 
We went to breakfast this morning and it was a site for sore eyes.  I really like the Chinese food, but the American buffet was fantastic.  Lydia still isn't so sure about American breakfast, but Mama is thankful for it.  I tried to give Lydia a doughnut this morning, but she refused to eat it.  She ate cherry tomatoes and yogurt (which in China is more of a drink like kiefer).  I had a muffin and grapefruit juice and hash browns. : )  Brian also found us some really yummy French toast. 
At 8:40am, we left for the clinic that is approved by the American consulate.  The tests that they did were very minimal.  They looked at Lydia's fingers, checked her height and weight, took her temp, looked in her ears and attempted to look in her throat.  It went by all very quickly and Lydia did well for the most part.  They also require a TB test for all children over 2 years old, so they injected her and we'll have to come back in a few days to get that checked.  We went there with 2 other families from our agency who are adopting here at the same time. 
After our doctor's appointment, we stopped at the grocery store where Lydia picked out some "gong" (candy) that she wanted.  Everyone in Iowa will be happy to hear that she choose a corn flavored sucker!  I should have tasted it, but it sort of smells like corn syrup. 
We came back to the hotel and our facilitator made sure that we had all our paperwork, which we don't.  I guess there was a paper that we had filled out and notarized that somehow didn't get into our stuff when we were packing.  Fortunately we can get a new copy notarized on Monday. 
We came back to the hotel room and ate a light lunch of snacks and Lydia and I took a nap.  She slept for a long time and finally we opened the curtains a little to wake her up.  Lydia doesn't really like waking up very much, but she is so happy when she does.  She has such big smiles for us.  We are so thankful that God has placed it in her heart to be so happy so much of the time.  We met a family from Alabama who have a 4 year old daughter that they adopted from China and they came back to adopt a 14 year old girl.  She was very angry and having a difficult time with being adopted.  Before a child who is old enough to understand is adopted, they have to consent.  I'm sure that she was excited about it at one time, but when it came down to leaving her friends and all that she knew, she wasn't sure about that. 
After waking up, we took a taxi so Shaimien Island to do some shopping.  The White Swan Hotel is there on the island, so there are many tourist shops that cater to Americans.  Since the White Swan is closed, it has really hurt business on the island.  There are not as many tourists all the time.  We were hounded to buy things from every shop.  They said they would give us good prices, and we probably did.  I just felt bad for all the people who make their living this way and lost the thousands of people who were walking by each day in the past. 
We ate dinner at a restaurant on the island, Lucy's.  It caters to Americans as well.  It is a location known well by adoptive families who spent any time on the island.  I got spaghetti - noodles - so Lydia and I could share.  She loved the spaghetti!  She also ate a lot of her Baba's French fries.  She's learning to be American already. : )
We headed back to the hotel and took a bath, ate some ice cream and now Lydia is laying in bed.  I'm not sure if she'll go to sleep before we go to bed or not, but I do hear her thumb being sucked.  I'm so thankful that we get to sleep in tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to not having to get up at the crack of dawn!

Happy girl!!!

Visit to the doctor

Getting tested for TB - a requirement for all children who are over 2 years old

The obsession with cleaning continues : )