Goodbye Harbin...Hello Guangzhou!!

We are officially settled in to our new home for the next several days...The Garden Hotel in Guangzhou. This place is wonderful:) Let me go back and tel you about our last night and day in Harbin...then I'll fill you in on what has been going on today. Thursday night we decided we would venture out and try a local favorite restaurant about one block from our hotel. The name of the restaurant was The Dumpling House, so you can imagine what they serve...that's right dumplings! The family we met while in Harbin said it was great. We decided since it was our last night there we would try it out...kind of a farewell to Harbin meal. We walked to the restaurant, and quickly realized we were in trouble. We had no one to translate, and the entire menu was in Chinese! Ok now I know what you are thinking...well, you are in China what do you expect? Usually there are at least pictures! haha:) Guess what? No pictures...Todd remembered that the Vaupel familyhad their guide with them to help...great! Well...long story short, I found a sweet waitress who had a hand held translater in her purse. She got it out, I wrote down beef, pork, shrimp, and vegetable, and we had a delicious meal! After that we ate ice cream and went back to the hotel. The next da (Friday) we ate breakfast, packed, and went to take a few pictures before we had to leave. Teresa saidshe would be in the lobby at 12:10pm, and we would leave for the airport. Our flight was scheduled to take of at 2:30pm. We met Teresa in the lobby, took a few pictures with her, and we were on our way! When it was time to say goodbye to Teresa we were all a little sad...especially Ellie. We enjoyed getting to know her, and she was with us when we got Betsy. We exchanged email addresses and plan to send her pictures of Betsy with our entire family once we are home. When we got on the plane Betsy DID NOT want to be buckled in her seat! Todd just held on to the buckle part. A few tears were shed, but she was over it soon. Next, she had to go to the potty. The plane was just starting to level off. Todd got up and took her. She was fine until he flushed...the noise scared her to death!! After that she would say she needed to go, but when we would get up and take her she would cry and not get on the potty. She refused to go for the next 4 hours! She would cry, but would not go. When we got to Guangzhou and got with Lily, our guide, she talked to Betsy and told her not to be afraid of going to the potty on the plane. She said she and Rebecca, our other guide, would talk to her again before we leave. Please pray this is not an issue on the way home. When we got to the hotel Todd went to Subway to get dinner and the kids got their baths. We went to bed after that...so tired! We love our new hotel!! It is a very large suite...plenty of room. Today we went for Betsy's medical exam. We met Lily and Rebecca and five or six other families from the US in the lobby at 10:00am. We got on a bus and went to the medical building. Betsy did fine until the TB test. She did not like it at all and cried big tears...breaking my heart! The good thing was that she let me hold her, comfort her , and was happy in a few minutes. I'm not sure if I have said exactly what her special need is lately, but it is Nystagmus of the left eye. Basically that means there is a shaking of the eye The doctor said he could hardly detect any shaking. If you are looking at her it looks like she has a lazy eye. Her vision is poor in her left eye because her right eye has compensated for the left eye for so long. She will need glasses when we get home. We will take her to the eye doctor as soon as we can. We have met some great families, and know we will enjoy our stay here. However, I am missing my little boys at home, and can't wait to see them! We love you Hugh and Henry!! See you soon:)