Monday's Events

Erin's  TB test results and finishing up paperwork Monday Morning we all headed to Sharmian Island.  Dave took Erin along with the 3 other families to have the girls TB results read.  The rest of us went to the Swan room that is sponsored by Mattel and let the kids play.  Dave said that Erin did pretty good with him, she didn't get to close to him, but she talked to him.  When they were reading the girls TB results, the first three was a quick negative.  Erin's was not.  They had two doctors look at it and measure it.  She was .8 mm.  I believe if she was 1.0 mm she would have had to have a chest x-ray.  Thank you Lord for it being providing a negative TB results. They then walked back to the White Swan and started the paperwork for the consulate.  Now I decided before we left the hotel, that I was going to clean out some of the papers.  BIG MISTAKE!!!!  Dave comes and gets me and said I can't find this forms you go and look for them.  As soon as I saw one of the other families form, I knew we left them in the safe.  Dave volunteer to go back to the hotel and get them.  Our guide said not to worry about it, that we will stop at the hotel later in the day.  When all the paperwork was done, we had 45 minutes to eat and be back at the hotel.  We ran to Lucy's, ate a very fast lunch.  Erin is very grabby at things, I had ordered a grilled cheese sandwich with French Fries.  Before I could even move she had grabbed the ketchup bottle and started to shake it without holding onto the cap.  Needless to say the cap came off and I got a little splatter with ketchup.  She also tries to get the girls to drink or eat faster, which isn't a good thing.  We all ate well and made it back to White Swan in time. We took a hour bus ride to Katie and Jenny's orphanage.  We drove into the city and then waited for the director Ms. Li to meet us and bring us to the orphanage.  While we were waiting, Erin who was sitting directly behind Dave, grab is hand and wrote on it all by herself (See the picture for what she wrote), you should have seen the proud face that Dave had when she did that, What a huge step for him and her.   This orphanage wasn't in the same spot as we adopted Katie and Jenny, so that was different.  We met Ms. Li (The director who is retiring soon) in Foshan and followed her to the orphanage.  The orphanage is tucked away down a nice street with housing on both sides.  When we got out of the van,  Ms. Li was so excited, gave our guide a hug (she didn't know our guide) and then gave me a big hug, hug the two girls, said hi to Monika took the two girls by the hand, led them up to the stairs and to a crowded of people.  Most of them were in regular street clothes,  Two ladies grabbed Jenny and one grabbed Katie and started to hug them, the others were just standing there taking pictures.  We were introduced to the "godmothers" of our girls.  I recognized Jenny's favorite one no problem.  Katie's Godmother lost some weight and she looked a little bit different, but figured out who she was.  They brought us into the courtyard which is also where the playground is.  It was very clean.  We took a left and right there on the wall was the picture of our girls that we sent to them in Feb. 2006 (6 months after we came home).  After taking a whole bunch more pictures in front of the poster and in the courtyard, we went into the conference room.  It was Ms. Li, and then three workers (not nannies).  I recognized one of them and she was taking notes.  When we inquired on the four babies, Ms. Li was able to answer some of the questions and others she asked the other two workers.  We didn't get much of updates on the girls since I didn't know specifically what to ask.  Once we finished that, we went up a flight of stairs into the "baby" room. I touched and held as many babies as I could.  I didn't pickup the newborns since they were all sleeping.  Once we finished in the baby room, we went back downstairs into the courtyard.  I looked across and there was a preschool age area, we didn't go in there, but there were a lot of children admiring us and you could see such sadness in them.  There were bars on the windows.    One of the babies that I checked up on was her birthday, so we sang in Chinese the birthday  wishes.  I was very hard to see these children and the sadness, but is gratefully that more and more families are adopting from there.  When we were getting to leave, both Katie's and Jenny's godmother gave them some gifts.  Once in the van, Katie lost it and cried hard for about 1/2 hour or so.  I had her move up to where we were.  She initially told me that she was saying good bye to her mother and then after that was explained, she still couldn't calm down, so Dave talked to her and she said to him she was upset and crying because she didn't want her Godmother to leave.  We explained to that is was her day off and she stopped in to see you.  It took her a little while to calm down, once she did, she was fine. So we get back to the hotel, give our guide the papers she needed.  Cindy and I decided we were going to the Island shopping and Dave was going to take the girls swimming.  I asked Erin what she wanted to do.  She asked Cindy was she was doing, Cindy told her "I don't know".  Erin said she wanted to come with me, which I said was fine but that she couldn't complain.  So she made the decision to stay with Dave and her sisters.  We were all shocked and Cindy and I tore out of the room before she could change her mind.  Cindy and I enjoyed our time on the island and even found starbucks and had a chocolate shake.  I brought a movie Avatar with Chinese subtitles for Erin.  When we got back to the hotel , We gave Dave the movie without Erin seeing it.  Dave said they had an awesome time together and that they really bonded well.  They had a lot of fun together.  She won't get to close to Dave, but she is joking with him and trying to talk a little bit to him.  So he was on cloud 9.  Once the girls were in bed and asleep he gave her the Movie and said it was from him,  she smiled and started to watch it right away. Katie is doing fine and eating like a horse again along with Erin.  Monika is being fussy as all get out and Jenny is being adventurous and started to be really sassy today.  She has been doing remarkably well this whole trip with her moodiness and sassy, but today she decided she needed to do it and not listen either.  She ended up losing the chance to watch a movie with her sisters which got her more mad.  For those of you that have left comments on my blog, thank you so much.  I do read all the comments.  Thank you Jean and Vicki for your latest advice, it really helped. I  am asking for prayers for me.  I woke up really early Monday morning to go to the bathroom, while walking my knee popped.  It has been very painful all day, I have limited range of motion.  I can't squat for the toilets (it was very interesting to do that), I have swelling under the knee cap and the other edge of my knee.  Motrin helps take the edge off for pain, but still in pain.  I continued to do all the activities as I don't want it to stop me. Thank you Jesus for opening a door for Dave and Erin, to allow them to connect better.