Friday

Today was a good day. We got up and headed downstairs to breakfast where MinLan proceeded to knock half the items off my plate while we were in the buffet line. Fun times! Guess she didn't like my breakfast choices! Ha!

Our guide picked us up at 9:30 and we headed to the pearl market.  He said Americans are the ones that call it that, Chinese do not. They actually sell many different stones, etc. mostly to wholesale customers. 

We went to Andy's Store and got each of the girls a pearl necklace for when they are older and I got a couple of bracelets. It was really neat to watch them handstring the pearls while you waited. The pearls were about $40 American so not a bad price at all. There were much higher quality there too but when you have many little girls to buy for, you are on a budget! Ha!

See the fancy tin of Oreos in the picture above. They cracked me up bringing out food for Ellie. She didn't want any Oreos so they finally brought her packaged cookies to take with her as well as some chocolate. 

For all of you bacon lovers out there, here's some stone for you.....

Then we headed to Shamain Island to get a name scroll for MinLan and some shoes. Our guide dropped us off at Master Wang's shop. He warned us that since Master Wang considers himself an "artist" he can be a bit temperamental. He was fine with us but it took me about ten minutes to explain that MinLan does not HAVE an American name. He wanted to put her Chinese and American names on it. He finally was happy with putting her birth year, name, city of birth and the name of her orphanage. Will share a pic soon. Holding my sweet girl (she is soooooo not a morning person) and blogging makes it hard to take a picture!

Apparently it is very popular to come to the island for your wedding portraits. They were also doing some modeling shoots. 

The grounds on the island were very pretty. 

There was no way I was risking taking a happy MinLan out of the carrier for a photo shoot here. Maybe we'll photoshop her in later! Ha!

Chinese women have definitely come a long way over the years.

The Pearl River. I asked our guide if people swim in this river. He said only if you want to catch a skin disease. Ha!

We managed to find a few treats for the kids while on the island so a good trip. Might have to go back before we leave. So then we came back to the hotel and were going to have the consierge order a pizza recommended by our guide. He kept saying "cham ping" pizza. I ask the concierge several times and she had no idea what I was talking about. She finally figured it out and when the pizza arrived, it was CHAMPION PIZZA!!!! No wonder she didn't know what I was talking about! Ha!

That pizza and one coke for around $11 US. Not too bad.

We let MinLan lay in the bed with us for a long time before we out her in her bed. She did much better going to sleep after that and I only had to getup with her a couple of times.

So it's seven in the morning here and Ellie and I have showered and we are waiting on miss sleepy head to get a little happier. She is definitely not a morning person. ;-)

Today we are venturing out to Aeon by ourselves to look around and then our guide comes over at two to help us fill out some paperwork. 

Thanks to all of you that are praying for us. We can feel it.

Love,

Jenifer