Day 8....Zheng Zhou

Last night Annabella slept through the night again. We got up around 9 to a super happy baby girl! Breakfast in the hotels is really unusual but very good. This morning I got adventurous and had eel rice, rhambutan, (sweet fruit, looks like a miniature peach, tastes kind of like a red grape) and Bio Maou, (some sort of steamed meat wrapped in a won ton wrapper...I'm probably misspelling that one!)  I also had fresh honey melon juice. They have two juicers each morning and a bowl of fresh fruit by each one. This morning it was watermelon or honey melon. We have also had bread pudding with raisins, and a variety of fresh fruit. Yogurt, which is really runny here, and children drink it with a tiny short straw, and also fresh breads. I had a slice of french bread with whole cream cheese with herbs and pepper. I also had a bit of Camembert cheese.

Annabella laid herself down in the floor about 30 minutes ago, began rocking back and forth and went to sleep.

Do Not Disturb indeed!

So now we are trying to organize all of our clothes, food, toys and souvenirs and sewing a few broken zippers and buttons. This afternoon we may venture down to the park since Annabella has been napping and will hopefully be in a good mood.

We had hoped to be able to travel to her finding place, to see where her birth parents left her, but we found out that it would cost us almost 300.00 to go there and would take half a day. It was very hard to have to make the call not to go there and be able to see and take pictures for her, but we knew that putting her in a car for another half day trip was not in her best interest, not to mention the fact that we just simply can not afford to pay for the trip there and back. We are supposed to get a newspaper copy from when she was found, and we will just put that with her things from here for when she is older and wants to know about her origins.

So far we have not seen a drop of rain, but it has been over 90 degrees the past two days. You walk outside and just start to sweat instantly. The smog is incredibly bad here, and it blots the sun like low hanging clouds. Our rep, Yisha, has said Annabella is like a dragon, very bright and smart. She is already using the sign for more when she wants more, and she calls me Mama. She will imitate you often, and she loves things to be in their place. I think she will be like Alex in that respect. He likes to have an order to things. He likes a certain "schedule" and I think she will too. She is also full of energy. Like the Energizer bunny...really! In that respect she's just like Andy. I think the two of them will get along like gang busters, and they will constantly be on the go. She is like Nathan in that she is a bit reserved. She likes to watch how you do things, or how things are being done around her and then she can pick up on that and she will attempt to do just what she's seen.

She takes everything in like a sponge, and then gets excited when she can turn around and repeat something she has seen. She loves her little bag of animals, and will dump them out, and put them back into the bag. She has begun to try to stand them up, and has also put them into the stroller to try to stroll them. She likes her nesting cups, and will work on figuring out just which one fits into the other. She loves a bath, and loves to play with her cups in the tub, filling and spilling water. She also likes the links I brought. Simple baby links. She loves the texture to them, and the sound they make.

She has the tiniest longest fingers and toes, and a skinny tiny little foot. We put her into a 12-18 M set of pj's last night and they seem to fit pretty well, with still a bit of growing room. We never got the bomb we expected last night, and were pretty pleased she saved it for when we got back to the room after breakfast. The diarrhea seems to be subsiding some, and that's good. Also the gas has been much better today. Well, she is beginning to stir, so I'm going to stop here for now. We will try to upload more pictures tonight and do another update if we make it down to the park. For now, please continue to pray for our group, and know that God is answering your prayers for us here in China!

Smiles

She LOVES flipping upside down

Happy baby

This nap is  like a diamond...precious!