How do you sum up two weeks with Courtney and then a 3 day weekend with Betsy & Karina too? One word...BLESSING! What a joy for our hearts it was to spend time with best friends from home - it refreshed us, renewed us and reminded us that we are here for a purpose!
Saturday we picked up our overnight travelers and headed out for some traditional Chinese food at the Zhujiajiao water village. Dumplings, tomato & eggs, fried rice, chicken, and noodles (lots of them!) - all the simple yet tasty, harmless stuff! Quick trip on the canals and then it was off to the underground market to pick up Courtney's Chinese dress (beautiful!). Sunday, after a relaxing foot massage, we headed out to Century Park - along with lots of other people who went to the park to sit in their tents...we however went to enjoy a bike ride on a sunny day! Topped off the day with church and Courtney's favorite Sweet n'Sour Chicken for dinner. At the last minute the older girls all decided to go trick or treating! It was fun watching them come up with costumes at the last minute (cat, Ninja, paparazzi, Book-face, and the Bollywood star Karina!). We sent them off with 100RMB (about $15) to buy Snickers from the convenient store in case there wasn't any candy to be had...they came back with a good small load of candy and a Snickers for everyone! My favorite candy they all got was a piece of Viactiv....yes, the carmel flavored calcium chew (clearly some people think medicine really is candy!).
Monday morning was a special time at the Healing Home - playing with the toddlers and holding the babies, all until they fell asleep in our arms! Precious Rachel (celebrating her 1st birthday), Andrew, Anna, Jenn, Joy, Sophia, Samuel...such a wonderful home and adorable kiddos! Monday afternoon we learned (not to anyone's surprise) that saying good-bye for a second time doesn't make it any easier! Abigail asked yesterday how many sleeps until we go back to Arkansas...sadly, too many to count!
On the bright side after a sad Monday night, our sea shipment arrived on Tuesday! We now have all of our stuff from home...not quite unpacked yet, but everyone has a bed, we all have warm clothes and some decorations for the big empty walls!
Oh, thank you for the wonderful details and pics! So great! You guys know how to squeeze a lot of fun activity into a short amount of time!!
ReplyDeleteHopefully, now you feel almost all settled, a little more "homey".
Can't figure out how to really tell you how much we love and miss you, so we hope you know the depths of the words we can't find. Huge Hugs for all of you!!!