DAY 11 - December 18, 2006

We had Abby's official medical exam today...what fun that was! Right after breakfast we headed to the clinic that specifically handles all of the adoption "physicals" that are required of the babies before they are allowed to exit the country. It was not much of a true physical just more like an are you breathing and are you running a fever type tests, both of which Abby passed. She did great until the last part of the exam where she was looked over physically without her clothes. She was not cool with that. After the exam we head back to the room for NAP TIME FOR ALL OF US! David is feeling kind of crummy - enough so to start on the precautionary antibiotics we brought for us and Sara isn't really sleeping all that well due to being kicked and slapped and punched all night by a flailing, whimpering baby (yes, literally all night). We all slept a good 2 hours and then it was out for more shopping. We found some great traditional Chinese silk shirts and a dress for Abby for our photos later in the day. But Abby was grumpy all day, so we cut it short and just went back to our room for some "down time" before the famous red couch photos. For those of you who don't know, CCAI has taken photos of EVERY group they have sent to China on this red couch and today was our day. Many of the girls were crabby and by the end when we tried to get all 9 of the babies on the couch together for 1 photo, many of them were in the melt-down phase. But a couple of our family photos came out pretty well (even though we had horrible lighting due to the bright afternoon sun coming through the wall of windows where we were. Another family actually got the best photo of us and we'll try to get our hands on it soon or as soon as we get home. Then we had a group dinner at a Thai restaurant that was very good, even if the service was a bit off (they brought David a second dinner after we were all done eating claiming her ordered it when she brought us the bill...wait a second! That does sound kind of like David!). Abby was so tired she actually fell asleep at her highchair. Seizing the opportunity David carried her back to the hotel where we walked around looking at the beautiful Christmas decor, the amazing indoor waterfall, the night skyline, etc.... Abby woke up as we were walking and allowed David to continue to hold her for the rest of the walk! Little steps for big results, we say. Then it was back to the room for calming down time, which turned into Abby being goofy and getting too spun up, so when 9:30 hit and she was still going (imagine the energizer bunny) we had to just turn out the lights, make a bottle and let her be angry at us. After what felt like forever (15 minutes in reality) she succumbed and went down, but woke up just now from what we would discern as a bad dream. So now that she's back down and we're showered, we're headed to bed. We have a 1/2 day tour tomorrow so we need our rest...especially when you're carrying a 20lb kiddo the entire time! Sara's back is killing her!

Sorry about the difficulty updating the website. We hope we've fixed the problem.

Love to you all and we'll be home on FRIDAY!