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10.25.2008

My little girl's first full day back in "my Ti-nah!"

This is gonna be short cause my eyelids keep closing...

All three of us had a good night's sleep last night! Kylie zonked out on us around 7:30 pm on the way back from buying bottled water and slept through the night ~ with a brief awakening around 1:30 am when she told me, "I not seepy anymore. I want to watch Ni Hao!" I never turned on the light and told her that she could have some milk but that it was time to sleep. Thankfully within about 15 minutes she was peacefully sleeping again and even I slept until 6:15 (I had gone to bed around 8:30).

It was an exciting day as a mother to watch my child be so excited about being back in her homeland! Even breakfast was exciting to her, she'd smile and say, "I eat nu-nus for breakfast in my Ti-nah!"

Not too bad with the chopsticks ~ looks like she is gonna be a lefty!


After filling up on noodles, bacon, and fruit, we headed out for a full day of sightseeing. We started at the Summer Palace. I didn't listen to much of the history this time as it was more fun to simply watch Kylie ~ besides, we were just here 21 months ago... One major difference for us this time is that the lake was full and in water form vs. frozen solid! It is quite a beautiful place!

Kylie and Darby at the entrance to the Summer Palace.

The unfrozen lake.
(Kylie's fake smile brought to you by Starburst...)

The Long Corridor.
Pretty impressive ~ 728 meters long with thousands of unique paintings of Chinese folklore along the ceiling.



From the Summer Palace it was off to the jade factory (we bought a pendant for Caleb and earrings for Kylie) and then lunch at a Friendship store where we picked up silk outfits for the red couch picture of our kids. Next stop, the Great Wall! As we drove out there, we noticed that we passed the section of the wall we visited last year and went to a different area. It had fewer steps and more of the smooth (but steep!) area. We were also blessed with a very clear day and today I got my views of the Great Wall stretching off into the distance!



Kylie was so excited to be there and kept saying, "We're at the Great Wall!," but every time we broke a camera out she'd clam right up. I think we may have gotten it on the camcorder, but I'm WAY too tired to figure out how to load that onto the blog! Anyway, Kylie wasn't interested in stopping for pictures ~ she wanted to go, go, go and climb the mountain. And so after forcing a shot with the girls and their daddies, we did!


"Okay, okay, so I looked at the camera ~ can we go up now?"


She walked up holding my hand...

And then holding Ian's hand...

And was quite irritated when we decided that we had a while to climb back down!

Several Chinese people stopped and watched her as she picked those little feet up to step up the big steps! They thought she was so cute and such a little trooper! One mother even (at least this is what we decided from body language) scolded her 7 or 8 year old son who was whining. She pointed at Kylie and seemed to say, "If she can do it, you can do it! Let's go!"




Pretty impressive when you realize that Kylie's little legs climbed up to the tower just below the highest one pictured (to the right of the flag, just to the right and below the highest point on this section of wall)!
We will go to Tianamen Square, the Forbidden City and the Olympic Village here in Beijing tomorrow, and then we have a 6pm flight to Wuhan! Oh my goodness, only two more sleeps until we meet Caleb! Kylie is pretty excited to finally be seeing her brother!

PS ~ we're praying that Traci and Adam's (my sister and brother-in-law) yard sale to help fund their adoption from Taiwan is going well! We wish we could have been there to help! Traci is also going to be selling journals, copies of Fireworks and Fireflies (the book she wrote and illustrated for Kylie), and other adoption related items on a website soon! I'll let you know when we have the website up and running! Believe me, you'll want to check it out!

11 comments:

Laurie said...

Wahoo! Another awesome post. So happy you had a wonderful clear day to experience China! Looks like your sweetie is loving it! So cute! :)

Kimberly said...

Wow!! I think if I'd seen Kylie truckin' it up the Great Wall I'd have been inspired to go higher myself. You go some beautiful shots of the mountains and the Wall. It's so exciting to see y'all over there with Kylie. Praying that the next 2 days (well, really day and a half) will go quickly and that the butterflies will be minimal.

Kimberly

Kimberly said...

Wow!! I think if I'd seen Kylie truckin' it up the Great Wall I'd have been inspired to go higher myself. You go some beautiful shots of the mountains and the Wall. It's so exciting to see y'all over there with Kylie. Praying that the next 2 days (well, really day and a half) will go quickly and that the butterflies will be minimal.

Kimberly

Nancy said...

Wow, how cool that Kylie is so excited about being in "my" China, especially so young. How fabulous that she is able to experience this AND be there the second she becomes a sister!

Anonymous said...

No wonder you are all sleeping so well...all of the activity wears me out just reading it! I'm so glad Kylie is enjoying her time there getting ready to meet her brother! Carter was amazed when he looked at the pics and realized that you were already in China :)
Jen

Kathy said...

It seems so strange to see you in China while I am sitting at home. I'm glad Kylie (and you) are having so much fun. What a treat that the weather cooperated. Hard to believe that you will be holding Caleb in two days and Kylie will see her "brodder". I am so anxious to see the pics. Thank you for giving us such wonderful blogs. Hope your flight tomorrow is smooth and pray Caleb will be ready to see you.
Love, NaiNai

Anonymous said...

Hey... we just got back from a conference in Macedonia. I was away from email but we've been praying for your travel and speedy trip to Caleb! It is so amazing to see you there WITH Kylie! Get one more night of good sleep... after this more adventures begin!!
Blessings!
Jenny

Anonymous said...

Wow it looks like you are having a wonderful time! Great pictures of the great wall! It is wonderful to see Kylie so excited to be in China! What a blessing!
We had our yard sale today. It started out misty rain and no one was coming... with the amount of stuff we had.. and did we ever have a lot of stuff!!, I was afraid it wasn't goning to go well, but we ended up raising 1,354.44!!!! Can you believe it? And we only got rid of half of the stuff. We are going to try to have another one in the very near future!
We are working on the blog for the journals and books. Hopefully that will be up soon.
1,354.44 down and about 37,000 more to go! :0
Love you all and glad you are able to post!

Aunt Cici and Uncle Adam

Nicole said...

Loving the posts and pictures! I am a bit jealous you get to enter the Olympic village, we only got to drive by as the games were still going on while we were there! Have a great day, only hours now till Caleb, can't wait to see that! I am sure Kylie will be a GREAT big sister!

Our Journey said...

Oh what memories ... your pictures make me feel like we were there yesterday. What an awesome thing it must be to be with Kylie at these places .. looking forward to your meeting w/ Caleb!!

Cindy M said...

Oh, my goodness, it's so much more beautiful than when we were there! No heavy clouds and smog...you can see so much better! And the lake is beautiful! WAY different than before! It is SO surreal to see you guys there without us...seems like I'm reading your journals from last year, except there's a couple more little cuties in the pictures this time.

So happy you're having a great trip...