How do you earn money to live in China

Construction workers - for Papa & Uncle Greg. These men build the bamboo scaffolding for construction/renovations. It is amazing to walk around the city and see this bamboo tied together with what looks like black string and formed into scaffolding. Bamboo has many uses here in China. Not just for feeding Panda's. :) We did find out that the country is thinking of moving some of the Panda bear population to Jiangxi because of the abundance of bamboo.
Taxi/tour boat driver. We had an interesting experience on her boat. She stopped to give someone on another boat a water bottle filled with brownish liquid and not quite full. The other woman tried to give her money but she clearly didn't want it. She threw the money back and then a very strong but obviously fun too argument ensued. It was pretty funny for everyone including the two of them.

Fishing... used to be huge here but has decreased drastically! In Nanchang, there are river fishers who bring their live fish directly to local markets for sale. They are swimming around in shallow tubs.
Jewelry crafters.
Marchants in the market -

This lady peals fruit at Walmart. I have no idea what this is but it looks pretty neat.

This lady is skinning bamboo and selling it in the local street market.

See the person with the with the Chinese hat - he or she is sweeping hundreds of stairs with a bamboo broom. There were people all over this national forest sweeping leaves with bamboo. I think they must sweet day in and day out.

Lu Shan Mountain Trip

Gracie Lin is adjusting amazingly well I think. She continues to surprise me with how well she is doing. She loves her Mama and especially loves her brother Parker. We have had great nights of sleep and just easy days as far as how Gracie and Carter handle the outings.

Today we went to Mt. Lu as they call it here. It was the most beautiful place! It's their vacation spot like Highlands and places like that for us except that there is so much history there! There have been many major political meetings on the mountain. When I say on the mountain, I mean we hiked for 45 minutes to get to the site of their meetings and built into the side of the Mountain is a small building with a courtyard where they met. It is possibly now a tea room but it wasn't open. There was an older gentleman there who just looked wise. He wrote poetry on fans in calligraphy based on meaning to their names. When they read the fan to Parker he just stared with huge eyes (I think he was wondering if we planned this in advance). His fan said that he is very smart and needs to study, he will be very successful if he has ambition. :)

Tea fields - Mt. Lu is a very good climate for .tea growing

Fish Hatchery

Happy family photo!!!

Gracie's cousin Aubrey Mei - well, we've decided they are cousins. These babies were born four days apart in the same city and look like they 'could be' cousins. She is a sweetie!

When our bus stopped, we couldn't even see that there was a house in the middle of this lake because of the clouds that move across the mountain. The clouds moved so quickly across the lake that we saw it vanish and reappear several times during our short walk around.

Floral Path

Every where we go, people want to take pictures with Parker like he is a celebrity!

No subtleties here!

Lone lotus flower

Zen - this is an ancient natural Buddhist temple spot by the lake

There is so much more to this day that I'll add later.

Fun Video

Local Tour Day

Today is Gracie Lin's 13 month birthday! To celebrate, we went on a tour of local markets. That trip started with Walmart! It was quite an experience! The department store items on the second floor were very similar to home and wasn’t a huge deal. The food section on the first floor was so different. I have a few pictures of the grocery sections. The biggest thing is that people stopped us so frequently that we couldn’t get through the store! Everyone wants to touch the boys and then check out Gracie’s sweet little face. They loved the head band today. We have cards to show people that will tell them that we are from the US and are adopting this baby girl. I think that would be very fascinating to most people but with the boys here, they are not that interested in the baby but want to talk about the boys. I think part of it is the blond hair and part that we have two boys.

After Walmart, we had a terrific lunch with an opportunity to try some spicy food. Our host only ordered one real spicy meal for the table; she’s pretty conservative with us in general. We tried 10 different dishes and I don’t think there was one I didn’t like.

Lastly, we went to the local market. I was five stories of clothing, shoes, stores to get custom made items, household items, cosmetics, and accessories. There were times in that market that we would just stand in one spot and be surrounded by people. Particularly at one point, there was a large group of you people that I though might be high school age kids. They stopped to check us out and they all brought out their cell phones to take pictures of the boys. Parker in turn pulled out his camera and took pictures because one of them had a puppy. It was such a fun experience! I forgot to take pictures there because it was all kind of overwhelming.

When we got back to the room, it was around 3 and the little ones had already napped in the market and on the bus. So, it was a rough afternoon with Carter wanting attention and getting into continuous trouble. He is having his moments over not being the baby anymore! Our prayer request is to be able to give him enough attention and enough things to do that will use up his abundance of energy each day!

This trip is amazingly hard with two little ones but it is also equally incredible because of the interaction with all of the kids. Gracie is very attached to Parker which is a blessing. I can pass her off to him to get things done and he’s the only one who has been able to put her down and she doesn’t mind when he puts her on the floor. I’m caught a smile to share!

The pictures are all in backward from my story but I'm too tired to change them now! Good night!

Fabric photos for Nanannette

Random photos

Entering PR China from Hong Kong

Carter trying out Gracie's bed for her before she arrived.

View from breakfast - homes

View from breakfast - gardens, chickens

Looking down from our room

Doctor and Day of Rest

Today is doctor visit day. After breakfast we came back to the room to wait for our call to come down the hall to see the doctor. The doctor said that Gracie Lin had beautiful skin. Other than that, he didn't really have anything to say. He just asked if we had any concerns. We had thought we would go out to explore down town a little but after yesterday's experience, we decided to take a day of rest. We did go downstairs to swim a little before nap time. Don't the kiddo's look cute in their swim caps! :)

The Adoption is Final!

Crawling on the pizza box from last night.

Today was the lest fun day that I can remember is a long time but such an exciting day in many ways for this family because the adoption is final!! We had to meet at 8AM in the lobby but the kids were up by 5 anyway. We stayed out until noon, came back to the hotel for lunch and naps (which turned out to be minimal) and then had to be back to the bus at 2:30 to return at 5:30. Physically it was just a really hard day since John and I each basically had a child to hold all day. There weren’t a lot of places that Carter could get down without getting in trouble. J

Although it was very hard, we had some exciting moments! If I pass Gracie Lin to Parker, he can put her down but she won’t let me put her down. Parker took her this morning while I got dressed in about five minutes, he shouted, ‘She can crawl!’ We were once told that she could crawl but since she wouldn’t let us put her down, we didn’t know. Secondly, Parker got Gracie to laugh and after that she was laughing easily. We had a special moment on the bus where Carter joined Gracie Lin and me in our seats and he started sharing his sippy cup with her. They played and laughed and eventually she figured out how to drink from the cup. Lastly, at the end of the day, John was walking her and had Carter walking with him. When Carter ran into our neighbor’s room, he asked another friend to hold Gracie so he could chase. Gracie Lin cried until he returned and took her! We are taking this as a very good sign that she is getting familiar with us!

Fuzhou Babies and the Orphanage Director

It was a long, hard and joyous day! Good night kiddo’s!