China Day 9 – Fun Day with Stella

Day 9, we are so close!  We only have 2 more breakfasts in the hotel.  We have a dinner cruise tomorrow night and then one more dinner.  Then we are getting on an airplane!  I can’t wait to come home and see the rest of my kids.  I miss them fiercely!

In the meantime, I’ll share some about the newest kid.  Miss Thing with the attitude and booming voice to match her personality.  She looks so sweet, and when she is sleeping she is.  But when she is awake, she is large and in charge.  She pouts when she doesn’t get her way, which doesn’t happen too often, but does occasionally.  She talks loudly.  She laughs loudly.  She harrumphs loudly.  She is loud.  She doesn’t snore though so when she sleeps she is quiet, and so precious. 

Today we had another free day.  We ventured out to a nearby park.  It was steamy!  It is so hot here we have to wait several minutes for the camera lens to acclimate so it doesn’t get all foggy.  It is steamy, sauna like.  So we went for this walk.  It was a gorgeous park!  Stella was mad at me in the beginning of our trip and that lasted for at least 20 minutes.  But she eventually recovered and enjoyed taking pictures.  She used the camera while it was hanging around my neck.  She doesn’t like the zoom lens so if she wanted to get closer she would drag me forward.  But she couldn’t take too long to take her picture because I was bent forward so she could reach the camera and if I stayed that way too long I dripped on her.  It was that hot.  When we got back to the hotel I changed my clothes and it took the rest of the day for them to dry out.  It was hot.

While Stella napped this afternoon, Sean ventured out to the electronics market.  He says he needs to go back because he didn’t get to spend enough time there.  The good news is, there will be another nap tomorrow.  One of his purchases was a set of headphones for Miss Thing to use on the airplane.  She is thrilled with her new headphones!

Stella had a little breakdown before dinner.  You can almost see these coming.  It starts with her being mad at not getting her way, but sometimes is lasts longer.  Today it lasted for a while and there were a lot of tears.  I wasn’t terribly surprised.  Much like a brewing storm, I could sense it coming.  More than once today she had been mad at me and wasn’t listening well.  So when the big blow up happened, it was almost as if we had been building toward this all day. 

After dinner we went swimming.  She loves to swim, but she does not like to have her face in the water.  Something about not blowing out and inhaling water so she chokes.  Now she is laying, well, probably sitting on the bed, pretending to snore.  She has great stall techniques.  She always has to go to the bathroom right after she is tucked in and when she gets up to go to the bathroom she has to alert everyone that she is going to the bathroom.  Then she needs help washing her hands.  Then she gets up again to get a little drink.  Then she remembers she hasn’t brushed her teeth.  She is giggling and giggling.  Now that her stress from earlier is over, she's all kinds of happy. 

Tomorrow we have our appointment at the consulate.  No camera, cell phones, purses, anything.  They will review our paperwork and issue her visa to be picked up on Wednesday.  Then we get to go home!  Yay!  So close!  Thanks for following our journey!

Stella when she is mad.

Stella when she is really mad that her picture is being taken while she is mad.

Miss Thing at the park refusing to turn around for her picture to be taken because she is mad at me.  Poor kid really needs a bigger sun umbrella.

Taking pictures.  Notice the leash, I mean camera around my neck?

All throughout the park there were people in groups big and small or just individually, doing some sort of activity.  They were dancing, playing table tennis, doing tai chi, using the adult playground (that sound horrible, but really that is what it looks like), and other things that I’m not really sure what they were doing, but they were doing it with purpose.

These people were rolling muscles.  I almost stood in line, but I was soaked, kinda grouchy, and not really in the mood for all of the inquiring glances that we were already getting and really not in the mood for more.

Miss Thing with her new headphones.  Her pose, not mine.