Last Day in Shiajiazhung

We're all packed and ready to head out to Guongzhou first thing in the morning. It's been 10 days in Shiajiazhung and we are so ready to go. We had a free day today, so after breakfast we strolled to the park with Allison and Bo. (btw, if you enjoy our blog, you can check out their blog as well. We've been together in Shiajiazhung and it's been great to share the experience with them. Their blog is: http://www.bohawkins.blogspot.com/ ) Aubrey is like two different kids inside our hotel room and out. Inside, she is becoming more animated and outgoing daily, but outside, she withdraws and becomes super clingy and irritable. We assume that she just doesn't know what to make of it all, but we keep working on it. We are very interested to see how she does in a new location. Up to this point, I think she thinks that we live in this hotel.

Bo loaned Aubrey a toy that requires walking, so she actually let her prized red boots touch the ground for a while.

In the park, Becci and Aubrey joined in with the dancers and attracted the usual attention.

Becci and Aubrey trying to blend in

"Say, you're not from around here, are you?"

Meanwhile, Aaron continued his quest to climb every piece of playground equipment in the park. Afterwards, we spent a fun afternoon at the hotel...Aaron spent several hours on homework..(Hi, Sister Anne if you're reading!) while Aubrey and I played in the other room.


For dinner, we went for the street vendor buffet. A few blocks from the hotel, I found a bigger, crazier Food Alley. Tonight we had these really tasty wrap things from this lady:
As I walked on, I saw something with tentacles being cooked, so I ran over and grabbed a few on a stick..Becci is a sucker for food with suckers. It turned out to be octopus and it was awesome.

Pretty sure this was dead before he started cooking it

Then, I hit this guy doing a Middle Eastern style meat on a stick thing that was one of the most delicious things I've ever had.

Add to that some roasted sweet corn, some noodles from the store and dinner is served...I'm really going to miss the food here.

Insert corny caption here

This has been an emotional week for us, full of lots of highs and lows. We are all anxious to get home so we can begin to establish some sense of a normal routine, but we'll always treasure this first week with our new little girl.


Next post is from Guongzhou..we're nervous about the flight, Aubrey has put up a real fight over any kind of seat belt. So far that hasn't been a big deal since seat belts are rarely found and even more rarely used in cars, but on the plane she'll have no choice. Wish us luck!