Today is a good day. It is Independence Day. We are one step closer to completing our journey. Don’t get me wrong, this is AMAZING! But it takes a toll. The little things add up and turn into bigger things. For instance; we take brushing our teeth for granted. The tap water in China is not potable. The water doesn’t cause any ill affects to the locals because they have built up immunities to it. But for people who are not from China, the organisms in the water can give you a host of intestinal problems. So, when you brush your teeth you must remember not to run your toothbrush under the tap. The hotels provide bottled water and a boiler to boil water in your room. Rinsing your mouth after you’re finished is the same, as well as cleaning your toothbrush after. This also holds true for cleaning dishes/utensils that you use in your room. The children are not affected by this because they have been raised consuming this water. But try taking care of a child that is new to your family without the help of one parent for a few days. Ice cubes are the same in most cases. Some of the five star hotels have safe ice but not all. Eating in restaurants and at the same buffet can get old real fast. The food here is good but you can only eat so many dumplings before you start dreaming about them. Buying groceries on a daily basis because you find that your child could make the Japanese guy who wins the eating contest at Coney Island look like a lightweight. To keep the weight of your luggage down, you go through the 2 weeks with 3-4 sets of clothes (Not to mention the addition of 19lbs of baby (or in our case close to 38lbs)) So you end up doing laundry every couple of days in addition to the small things that you wash in the sink. Alright, I’ll stop whining. But these are some of reasons we are looking forward to getting home. Did I mention that it is 95 plus degrees here just about everyday with extra humidity thrown in. For those of you who know me you know that I’m not a fan of the hot weather. But those same people who know Mary, know that she is. She thinks it’s too hot… Patrick Hao woke up several times this morning. This is bad enough in and of itself. But he does this while screaming. This is not the best way to come out of a sound sleep (if you are sleeping and not laying awake in anticipation of the next wake up). This is getting really old. He finally did us a favor and got up for good at 4:15 A.M. I guess he wanted to save us the trouble of getting up and going back to bed. Mary has been bearing the brunt (97%) of these early morning meetings. I have wussed out. I need to get a little sleep in order to function each day. Mary falls back to sleep much easier than I do. For this I am very thankful. We left the hotel today at 8:30 A.M. after having breakfast. We have a 5:20 P.M. flight tonight and wanted to make sure that no matter how slow the driver drove today we would make that plane. Mary and I are a little snappy with each other today due to the lack of sleep. This has been going on since June 28th. Today we decided that we were going to give the boys some children’s benadryl. After we started out on the road we gave each of the boys a half dose. Within 15 minutes they were out. They slept for close to four hours. This gave Mary the opportunity to get a couple of hours sleep and I was able to sit without monkey boy (Lucas Ming) climbing all over me for six hours. We are not proud of this but we felt we could live with ourselves after this. We stopped for lunch in Nanjing before heading to the airport. Nancy billed this eatery as being a big popular place owned by a 30 year old woman. They served mostly seafood. We arrived at this place that looked like what the modern day emperor’s palace would look like. They have a room on the first floor that has all of the meals, appetizers, soups and desserts laid out in a beautiful presentation. They have main dining areas and private and VIP dining rooms. We were shown to a private room. The table had a lazy-susan and seating about ten. There was a TV, private refrigerator, and its own supply of plates, silver and glassware. I guess that they heard how the boys eat. We ordered a few dishes from the live menu and a couple off the top of our heads. The food was good, plentiful and very inexpensive. The black tea that we ordered cost more than any of the entrees. Oh yeah, you get free beer. We found out that this restaurant can seat five thousand (5,000) people at one sitting. I don’t even want to know who this woman’s backers are. We made it to the airport with two hours to kill. The boys played with/on everything in the waiting area. Once on the plane Patrick Hao fell asleep on Mary for the entire trip. Lucas Ming again used me as a jungle gym for the entire ride. We were met at the airport by our Guangzhou facilitator; Jason. This guy has more useful energy than any four people should be allowed to have. On the way to the hotel he gave us a run down on exactly what would be happening from an official standpoint and what optional excursions were available. We arrived at The White Swan Hotel. This is truly a five star hotel. The service is amazing. The food is very good ( I say only very good because this is based on the breakfast buffet only). And the amenities are fantastic. We got settled into our suite with Cindy staying with us this time. I recommended that we get Cindy her own room after spending a week with the screaming twins. But she wanted to stay with us and Mary wanted the company at 5:00 AM when Hao woke up. We dined on trail mix and fed the boys rice cereal. We got them to bed with little hassle considering they had two naps…We were close behind, it has been a long day. Tomorrow the boys go for their physicals and visa photos.
