Day 6 with Samuel!

Today we went touring – AGAIN!  But it was interesting, just a little overwhelming at times.  There are 22 million people living in Beijing, and this is the last weekend before school starts, and it is a Saturday.  All that made for unbelievable crowds of people.  I hate crowds but it is really just a way of life here. 

We started out at the zoo and aquarium.   We saw a dolphin show where the dolphins would push this guy super fast in the water and then shoot him up in the air, or shoot him up on to the ‘stage’ area at unbelievable speeds.  Pretty sure we have laws that protect people from things like that because just a very slight mistake would have sent this guy crashing into the concrete side, head first.  You get the picture. 

We left there and had a nice lunch – Chinese of course – and then to the Summer Palace.  While there, we had a lot of people that stopped us to take pictures of their kids with Matthew, Daniel and/or Anna.  Even one guy that was a teen came up and want us to take a picture of him (with his camera) with Matthew and then with Daniel.  My kids are celebrities.  This happened a lot on the Great Wall, and has happened other places too.  One guy wanted pictures of all of the Caucasian people in our family but not the Chinese kids – nope, we are package deal, all or nothing. 

Then tonight after the 4 little ones went to bed, I went out with the 3 big ones.  We had so much fun.  We went to a night market with all kinds of weird food. WEIRD! And there was a church in the area, with a large square, and someone was playing techno music.  Everyone was dancing, what I would have called line dancing in my day, but my kids told me it was called a Rave.  It was so strange and funny and interesting.  And then in the middle of a song it stopped, the people cleared out, and another group moved in and started doing ballroom dancing. 

On to one of my favorite subjects – and I’m trying to not sound like a broken record but, our little guy is ADORABLE!!  And so sweet. He just has the cutest smile ever and is so sweet.  Did I tell you how sweet he is????  I think I say that a thousand times a day.  He is wiggly and loud at times, but for the most part, he is such a snuggle bug and the happiest little guy ever.  He is such a good eater and he SLEEPS!!!!  Mercy still has sleep issues and so its nice to have a good sleeper.  Hoping the same for Benjamin.  And speaking of Benjamin, we are less than 48 hours from meeting him.  We leave in the morning for Kunming, get there in the late afternoon, and meet him on Monday in the early part of the day.

p.s. These are some of Samuel's adorable little faces.

p.s.s. I tried to post extra pictures to our blog but I cant access it even w/a vpn.  The internet here has been very slow and patchy.  I will try when we get settled in, in Kunming.