DAY 10 - December 17, 2006

Our first full day in Guangzhou started with only a few hours sleep due to Abby's being awake half of the night and inconsolable the rest of it. But we are in love with the White Swan Hotel and their service and staff. Our bathroom is completely marble with antique fixtures. O.K. so it's not the safest for baby in socks but it's gorgeous. We have a girl on post in our hallway 24 hours a day to get us anything we might need or to simply push the elevator button for us. We have nightly turn-down service complete with beautiful chocolates, slippers laid out on a towel and bathrobes prepared for us in the bathroom. I gotta tell you, we ain't used to this but we LOVE IT. We started out our day at the famous breakfast buffet (included in our room price of $80.00 a night!) and it lives up to it's reputation. If you know David you know how that boy worked the buffet this morning - everything from French toast to pizza to so much fresh fruit you couldn't try each one if you were here more than a week! Then it was major paperwork time-visa application; we can't bring her into the United States without a visa. David took all of our paperwork up to our Rep's room and was gone for 2 1/2 hours! This gave Abby time to play and nap and even Sara got a few minutes of much-needed nap. Then it was out to shop for many of the items we've been planning on bringing home - granite etchings of Abby's photo, chops of family names, Chinese clothing tailored to actually fit us (Tim and Carol - Daisy is giving us a great deal thanks to you guys! We adore her.) and the infamous "Squeaky shoes!" These are shoes for the babies with squeakers in the heal so they squeak when they walk. Well, with Abby trekking around so easily and quickly now, these shoes help us know where she is at all times. She thinks it's pretty funny that she's the one squeaking. We wonder how Benny will react to these seeing as his favorite chew toys, a.k.a. his "babies" have squeakers ( a game we used to call "kill the baby." Guess we'll be changing that!). Then back to the hotel where we took Abby to the Swan Room - the playroom for kids sponsored by Mattel. She had a great time and was good with other kids but was also very tired. But when we left 45min.later we had to drag her out, yawning the whole time. Later we hooked up with Sean, Sally and Caroline and ate dinner at Lucy's for some "As Western as you're gonna get " food. We've now had a cheeseburger and fries and Fish and Chips and now we feel ready for our group dinner tomorrow night to eat Thai food. We then walked the streets - the weather is gorgeous here - to just be out of the hotel room. The girls were charming the shop girls who loved them so much they took them out of our arms and played with them. When we were done it was back to the White Swan where Daddy and Abby had some bonding time by just walking around the hotel together, looking at the amazing skyline (China knows how to do Christmas lights!) and the awesome waterfall in the lobby. We can't wait to take some shots of Abby with it as the backdrop. Daddy is doing all he can to get Abby to trust him but it's not happening quickly at all. So these bonding walks where she doesn't scream and cry are AWESOME steps in the right direction. Then it was back to the room where Sara traumatized her daughter once again by bathing her. Abby's foster family reported that she LOVES baths, but not from what we can tell, or at least not with us giving them to her. But afterwards, wrapped in a huge, soft White Swan towel she fell asleep in Sara's arms. Now we pray she sleeps through the night (at least for the most part) so we can get some much needed (and we feel, deserved) rest.

P.S. Sara has a new best friend, one of the shop girls at Jennifer's Place who looked at her and said "You have face of a little girl. You so young.

And sorry Emma for the lack of pictures "staring" David. We'll try to do better!