Pics from yesterday and today

Sign on Orange Island.  Isn't this so much nicer than KEEP OFF THE GRASS?

Ahhh....Guangzhou.  A familiar place to us.  This morning we enjoyed the wonderful buffet breakfast at the White Swan Hotel.  There are a ton of adoptive families here this week which sort of surprises me since the Asian Games are in town.  I kind of thought most agencies were delaying travel, but I guess not. 

Nathan seems to be doing a bit better and isn't quite as bouncy as he was in Changsha.  He slept great last night and didn't have too much trouble setting in to sleep either (of course, it was about 1 am!) We are lounging in our hotel room this afternoon after spending part of the morning at the medical clinic, where Nathan and about 20 other children had physical exams, TB tests, and shots.  Nathan had a little bit of trouble there with self control (lying on the floor, turning off the air conditioning, throwing toys, etc.  He did great with his shots.  He only needed 3 shots, thankfully, and he was a trooper, pushing up his sleeves, holding still, not a whimper.  I felt so bad for a little 2 year old girl who needed SEVEN shots.  Our gov't needs to get their act together and get rid of this ridiculous requirement.  I don't see how it can be good for a 22 pound kid to get 7 shots in one day.  Maybe there is no "medical" reason it's bad, but it surely isn't great for these children to have to endure this kind of thing one week after being plucked from their old lives, deposited with weird smelling strangers, and going through enough trauma without being hurt.

I am not exactly sure how many people are in our Lifeline travel group here in GZ since some didn't come in until today, but so far we have met about 4 families.  None of them are adopting older kids, they are toddlers or babies.  One family has a boy about Nathan's age who I am hoping will be able to help him learn to play his DS games since Marc and I are hopelessly inept in this department.  We have got to find some sort of activity to occupy Nathan on that plane ride home!!  We have managed to teach him to play Uno pretty well so I guess we could do that for 14 hours.

Here are some photos from our visit to Orange Island yesterday morning in Changsha before we left, and also on the plane, and from today's visit to the medical clinic.

Not sure what to say about this one

Someone didn't want his picture taken