Day 2

Hi all! We got to talk with the boys! That was wonderful. They are having great time and Brooks already wants to spend his birthday money! Brooks - dad said he didn't care! Today, we had our orientation meeting with Shiyann. She was telling us what to expect when we get our children (there are 10 families travelling with us, but to 4 different provinces, I think). She was also telling us about writing down questions to ask about our children. We need to start thinking about them. I have a short list, but another mom on our trip has a list of 40!
After the meeting, we ventured out with a couple from Georgia. They also have 2 boys at home, are naming their daughter Hanna, and decorated her room with butterflies! We walked and walked until we finally found a department store and a pizza hut! The pizza was delicious - just like home. Then we decided to follow our map and find the McDonald's and KFC, just to say we did. We had been looking for an open air market, but hadn't found it. We'd seen several small areas where people had stuff set out, but nothing big like we'd been told. Then we stumbled upon it. It was so much larger than I've ever seen, with so many people. I didn't think that I would get to go to the Bridge Festival, but I found it in China! We stayed and shopped for a little over an hour and then we had to leave to get ready for an acrobatics show. We were sorry to leave. We really wanted to shop more. In our hour or so we were there, I'll bet we didn't even see 1/4 of everything there - probably less. We had just made it to a section that was really hustling, when it was time to leave. It is only open on the weekends and with going to the Great Wall tomorrow, we don't know if we'll have time to go back. Tonya and I are really hoping though!
The open air market had tons of Chinese artifacts. We picked up a Buddha statue, a fan with pandas on it, a compact mirror with the great wall on it, and a bracelet for Hanna. We looked for dragon statues, but didn't find one yet. Boys, we will still look! We also bought of lily shaped shoes like the ones women with bound feet used to wear - they are silk with butterflies embroidered on them. Jerry got good at bartering. There were asking $80 for our buddha statue and he got it for $15! Supposedly it is a 150 year old relic.
There is a couple with us from Oregon who have a daughter they adopted three years ago and they are adopting a son now. We're hoping Katie and Hanna will like playing together when we get to Guangzhou. They look like they may be the same size.
The acrobatic show was really neat. At one point they stacked 4 people on top of each other's shoulders! They amazed us with their gymnastics and flexibility skills. Then they showed us how to pack 13 people on one bicycle and still peddle in a circle! That's funny because we've seen several people riding on one bike in the busy traffic!
Boys - we love you more than our pizza hut we had today! We'll try to talk with you again tomorrow! Can you believe we get to climb the great wall?! Who do you think will get to the top first, mom or dad?
A note for Mr. Thompson - You need to get over here. There are six hundred million women your size or smaller!