Day 3 in Beijing

Today we wrapped up our 3rd day in Beijing and the first leg of our China journey to bring Jacob home. I am so grateful we made the decision to stop over a few days here and really introduce the kids to the Chinese culture. It has been an incredible 3 days of learning all about the Chinese history that we didn't know very well prior to coming back the second time. Our guide has been wonderful and oh so patient with us as we made multiple potty stops and took hundreds of photos. I just don't know how she does this week after week with adoptive families. She definetly loves her job. Today we visited the Temple of Heaven where the Emperor worshiped. We also visited the Summer Palace where the Mother of the Emperor vacationed during the summer. It would have put Donald Trump to shame. Both are now very popular tourist attractions and the locals purchase year long passes to go and visit daily. Especially the older people go and play games, exercise and socialize all day long. We also got the chance to go to the Wholesale Pearl factory. It was fun learning all about pearls and seeing all the photos of very famous people, including our US President, who has visited there to purchase their Pearls. The quality was superb and the price was a complete shocker. I cannot believe how inexpensive it was there compared to the US. Amber and I both now own a beautiful set of fresh water pearls. I almost felt guilty paying the little price we payed for them. They are beautiful. If I ever make it to Beijing again I will be sure to take orders ahead of time. haha The funnest part of the day was when we were finishing up our tour of the Temple of Heaven. There were dozens of older men and women singing and dancing to old traditional Chinese music. Annabel started dancing with them. They asked her to join them and she hammed it up. I actually got the whole thing on video and look forward to having her watch it when she is older. As we were leaving a gentleman was taking photos and Annabel got in front of his camera and started posing and smiling for him. He just kept flashing the photos. It was hilarious. She is so not afraid of strangers. That can be good and bad. We also drove by the Olympic site and saw the birds nest and the water cube. We couldn't stop because there was no parking anywhere since the paraolympics is going on right now. It was really fun seeing many of the Olympians around Beijing today taking in some of the same sights as us. We finished up our full day with a KFC dinner. When mark asked for butter and honey for his biscuits they looked at him like he was crazy. First of all they dont have buiscuits, they have rolls. And the thought of putting butter and honey on their roll was really funny to them. So we made it through dinner without our butter and honey. It was till very good though. Well it has been a long day. It is only 7:30 pm and I am the only one still awake. Tomorrow we say goodbye to Beijing and head to our son's province. It is only a 1 hour and 2 minute flight from here. I cannot believe in less then 48 hours we will meet him. I haven't been nervous up until this afternoon. It is really starting to feel very real now. I have been trying to learn as much Mandarin as I can to help with the transition and I keep praying his little heart is ready for us. I guess at this point it is ready or not here we come. Joey is over the top excited. He can hardly contain himself. God has truly given us a great visit here. We have been full of peace and not worried about a thing. We are very grateful for that Lord. Praise God that He always knows what we need.