Farewell, Nanning

Create Your Own

Farewell, Nanning. All the pix except the one of Olivia are shots I took from the taxi on the way to the airport today.

I'm happy to report that Olivia was a lot easier to redirect today and much better about accepting "no" without an attitude as well. She's also getting better about sharing as we try to teach her to ask instead of grabbing things from Emily. She still has her moments when she wants what she wants when she wants it, but I am happy to see that the "easy" child has made a reappearance. She may have just had a bad day yesterday since it was such a long trip and her nap was pushed way back. I doubt she knew where we were heading yesterday, but she may have sensed something was up. Whatever the case, yesterday I was afraid the honeymoon was over, but I'm glad that today she was really good in spite of our air travel and missing a nap. I imagine new frustrations and behavior issues will crop up, but we're still VERY fortunate that things are going so well.

She's also doing really well with Daddy :) Tonight she let him carry her around in the baby carrier/Hip Panda and they shared an ice cream cone as we walked around our Guangzhou Holiday Inn. He also gave them a bath AND put them both to bed (previous attempts resulted in wailing for Mama). She still smiles and laughs a lot, but it's hard to capture that because she still doesn't like the camera. I've been trying to coach her into smiling for the camera and now she imitates what I first showed her by putting her fingers to the corners of her smiling lips as she says, "shamile!" She does this readily as long as there is no black box aimed at her. She enjoys looking at her pictures on the camera's display so maybe enventually she'll like hamming it up in front of the camera. Hopefully.

Our new hotel in Guangzhou is quite an upgrade from the one in Nanning, but we don't have the comeraderie of too many other adoptive families here like we had in Nanning where there were several on our floor. Aside from our travel mates, we haven't seen any other caucasians since arriving. Tomorrow we'll visit Shamian Island where most adoptive families stay, but we agreed to stay a 15 minute walk away from the touristy area in favor of roomier, newer and cheaper digs. And boy is this suite spacious and nice!! We have a HUGE living room that's bigger than ours at home that has a plasma TV, an ultra modern bathroom. We paid extra to be on the executive floor to be away from construction noise so we have the perk of having access to the executive lounge with it's refreshments. It's all pretty swanky and nice.

I still have to sort through pix and post about RongXian, but it's late and that will have to wait for another day. Andy and mom are happy to have found English TV and are watching Jim Carey in "Bruce Almighty." Inside this hotel we could think we're back in the states...until we look out the window!

Tomorrow morning (Monday) we'll get Olivia's visa photo taken and have her visa medical check-up. Our next appointment isn't until Friday when we have the visa ceremony, so we'll have three free days to do whatever we want to do :) Not sure yet if we'll want to take any little field trips to sites out of town or if we'll just stay nearby.