Day 1 Jinan--Free Day

This is looking out our hotel room at night.

This is the same view in the daytime.

 We woke up feeling wonderful and refreshed! Our hotel is very beautiful and elegant! When you walk in the room there's a nice long mirrored hallway and an enormous gorgeous bathroom. There's a big glass window in front of the tub where you can see into the bedroom. Behind one door is the toilet and behind the other door is a beautiful marble shower with a bench and a removable shower hose that feels like you're under a waterfall!! (We aren't quite used to this luxury!!) There's a little crib that they brought into my room for Andrew, and we had to laugh because he will definitely be too big for it.  The pillow was made from a folded up towel, and there were no sheets or blankets, just towels to cover up with. We have asked for either a roll away bed or to switch to a room with a king size room and an adjoining room for the big girls. We had to get two rooms here. They are next to each other, but not connected, so we are trying to get that changed. In Guangzhou we will be able to stay in one room and we will have an air mattress. The rooms here are beautiful, but definitely not big enough for all of us. But we really want connecting rooms so we can all be together!! We had a great breakfast at the hotel buffet, and then decided to explore!!

We set out to a place right around the corner of our hotel called City River and City Square. The weather was beautiful with a little breeze! The sights were so pretty and there were pretty trees that looked similar to weeping willows lining the streets and the park. This city is a very wealthy city. We were comparing it to what we think LA might be like. Ritzy glamorous shops and jewelry stores.

There were so many families in the park today. It's the beginning of their Blooming Festival, so maybe that's why so many people were here. Or else it's just a very popular place to come. There were mother's blowing bubbles for their children to catch, and daddies flying kites with their children. We noticed that most people only had one child with them.

This blue statue is located on City Square. We heard there's a pretty light show at night time each night. (Ava was so tired though, we came back to the hotel early and she was asleep by 8pm)

The buildings around here are just so big and pretty. Nothing at all like Ava's province.

The streets had a lot of shops set up. I thought this was neat because they were selling portraits, and also wedding dresses. You can see the GAP sign on the pretty mall in the background.

If you need a scooter (which is very popular in China) this is just the place to come!!

This is how everyone gets around. Mix this in with all the cars, all the bicycles, and pedestrians and it makes it quite dangerous to even cross the street!! If you have never heard, pedestrians do NOT have the right away in China. You can totally get hit by a bike or a scooter!

We came back to our room after our little adventure this afternoon and just had a little down time. Ava didn't take a nap but she played and was just quiet. I use that time to write my blog (kind of like my homework each day) because it can take forever with the internet connection. I'm having great luck tonight with this blog. Laura and Christine went to their room and worked on homework. Laura has some assignments from her on line classes that she has to finish up. And Christine is trying to stay caught up with her school as much as possible! 

We tried to find an authentic Chinese restaurant with an English menu but couldn't so we ended up at Pizza Hut. However this pizza hut is not like ours. It has noodles, steaks, soups, sushi, and so much more. We decided to get Pizza and Potato/Bacon soup tonight. We did see a place that looked like it had good noodles so we thought we would try that tomorrow. 

We went back to the hotel and decided just to stay in the rest of the night. Ava was exhausted. She even insisted on being pushed around in the stroller today. She'd get out every now and then, but most of the times she would say she was too tired. We brought a stroller mostly for Andrew because we didn't know if he would like to walk, but more or less we were afraid he might run away or be nervous in this strange setting. We might have to buy another one while we are here for Ava!!

We ended up having a wonderful and relaxing day. It would have been wonderful to get Andrew today, but it has really worked out fine to get him tomorrow. We are getting refreshed and working our a few kinks along the way. (Like my money getting stuck in the safe, and three hotel workers had to come and figure out how to get the safe open!!! Took about 45 minutes or so!) Besides that, there wouldn't have been a great place for him to sleep tonight, so hopefully we will get our room changed tomorrow!! God surely has this under control! There has been so many little bumps along the way--the night before we left our kitchen ceiling started leaking---so thankfully Craig is in GA to deal with that. I will not question the why's (why Craig couldn't come, or why we missed our flights) Some things are just LIFE things and we have to figure out how to deal with LIFE things. I'm very thankful that I'm learning (it's still a process) to trust God no matter what the situation. I didn't love the fact that our flights didn't go as planned, but I didn't panic like I might have in the past. I'm thankful that God is working in my life. I know He has so much to teach me, but I'm really happy that I know I can trust Him whatever the case might be. There's no mountain too big, or no valley too low. Our sweet little Andrew (his journey) has taught me that.

Tomorrow at 1pm we get to meet our little angel boy. I'm so humbled, and excited to meet my son, and get to know the little boy that God has planned to be ours!!! This is the last night ever that Andrew Lawrence XiaoShuai will have to sleep in an orphanage. The last night that he won't be hugged by his family and kissed goodnight. Sleep tight sweet boy, because big changes are in store for you.