Adventures in Guangzhou--Sunday, 3/29/09

We were so tired on Saturday night!! The stress of situating into a new place really took its toll on us on Saturday, and we slept over 12 hours! We woke up late--around 8:30 a.m., took showers, and headed down to breakfast around 9:15. The breakfast at the White Swan is included in the price of the room, and it is massive!! All of us really enjoyed all of the options, and we lingered longer than we should have, and we had to rush to get ready for the Chinese/English church service which started at 11 a.m. Ellie-Kate looked so cute in her new lavender dress, and church was only a short stroll away from the hotel. It was packed!! We understood none of the Chinese and part of the English translation, but the praise and worship service was refreshingly familiar. However, we had to chuckle that the English songs were accompanied by a piano (and were very traditional), but the Chinese song was set to a tape, and they rocked!! We didn't know the words at all, but we longed to sing along :)

After church, we took pictures at the waterfall in the hotel (see below), and we went down to the Swan Room to play. We met another family from Iowa who was adopting an older girl who had lived with their other daughter in a foster family. We have heard the coolest stories during our time here, and one of the best parts of our trip has been meeting all of the other adopting families. Lots of very cool people!!

After playtime, Ellie-Kate went down for a nap, and we spent the afternoon shopping, playing in the arcade and Swan Room, getting a quick workout (Christie), and managing to eat at Lucy's for lunch (take-out) AND supper.

Overall, Sunday was a really low-key day, but it went by quickly. After all of the touristy stuff in Beijing and then adoption paperwork in Kunming, it's nice to relax and do at least a few "normal" things as we wait for the final surge of adoption details on Monday and Tuesday.