“Does he feel like yours yet?” Seems like a reasonable question to most people. What those people don’t know is he “felt” like mine the minute I saw his name and had no idea how to pronounce it. Then, I saw his picture, he emotionally became my son and it was no longer possible for me not to consider him mine. He “felt” like mine before he legally was, now I just have paperwork to back it all up! The day we got to meet him face to face, what a difficult joy. He came running out of that orphanage like he was excited about what was ahead for him, he accepted us and our gifts like he knew us and he quietly displayed his emotions in the van like a boy beyond his years. My heart is forever changed and forever connected to “him”. He already trusts me with his precious and unsolicited hugs and kisses, he trusts that I will be there when he goes looking for me because he is feeling sad or confused, he trusts that I will help him with those tasks that are difficult to do without a hand, he trusts that I have accepted what some might call a defect, he trusts that I will figure out what he is saying when I don’t even speak his language, and he trusts me as he responds to being called Caleb, which means faithful and bold. What he doesn’t know is that those hugs and kisses make my day and I will gladly return every one of them, they humble me. What he doesn’t know is that I would rather a millstone be around my neck and cast into the sea than to leave him alone in his grief and adjustment to life in America, it is my privilege. What he doesn’t know is that he has already inspired me by his determination to live life to the fullest despite any handicaps, it leaves me with no excuses for myself. What he doesn’t know is that I hardly notice that missing part of his body because I can’t get past the beauty and mischievousness in his dark eyes, they make me smile every time. What he doesn’t know is that love covers over those gaps in communication, he is still a boy it is easy to know what he is thinking! What he doesn’t know is that he will live up to his name beyond what any of us can imagine, he is God’s creation made for a specific purpose.

That is only the beginning – then there is the whole other side of watching my other children take him in like he has been here forever. What emotions arise to see them interact, to see them not care that he looks different from them, to accept him exactly as he is. Well, of course, there is Mia, whose princess throne has been a little rocked, but the rest of them have shown strength of character beyond my own. To think that God saw fit for me to be their mother – it is daunting to think about, humbling in the least and a call I am unfit for except for the fact that I know I don’t have to do it on my own strength. Then to see the picture below of Caleb looking into Cameron’s eyes with a look of devotion and trust that should take years to develop…. It makes me consider my own Heavenly Father, what tender devotion and support He gives to me as He wraps his arms around me and pulls me close. Isn’t that what adoption boils down to, my heavenly Father’s unconditional acceptance of me, it is really a simple story.

So, I guess the answer to the question is – “Yes, he feels like mine because he was destined to be, but I know he has only been entrusted to me for a time by the one who created Him so perfectly.” I am left so thankful to my Heavenly Father for the 8 children He entrusted to me, so thankful to Cameron for taking this journey with me and loving me through it all, so thankful to 2 women whom I have never met and yet who have given me 2 of the most precious gifts I could ever receive.  I am left with 8 precious blessings. I am left with a changed heart in so many ways, humbled by God’s grace in every circumstance.

Kelly loves this picture from China, so she asked me to add it.  Taylor took it and it was just as Caleb was receiving all of his immunizations.  Thanks Tay …

Cameron

OK, so first things first, Caleb is doing great at home.  He is having a lot of fun with the kids and the kids are having a lot of fun with him.  He has fit right into the family with little to no issues as of yet.  It is ONLY day two, but things are looking good!  The two issues I was most concerned about, his adjustment as a five year old and the communication gap, have been non-issues so far.  Here, Luke and Caleb watch a movie on the computer together.  I’m THINKING the movie is in Chinese, so I’m not really sure what Luke is getting out of it …

Here is a nice close up of Luke’s chicken pox.  How sad is this shot?

While Luke stayed home with Zach and Jake on Sunday morning, the rest of us headed to church for Mother’s Day!  Here are my two girls, all outfitted in the dresses that Brittany bought while in China.  Are they pretty or what?

And, after a busy mother’s day, here is what Kelly’s foot looked like!

OUCH!  I took her to the Orthopod this afternoon and he says it is a really, really bad sprain.  He gave her a boot to wear for the next three weeks and then she is supposed to come back in for him to evaluate her and decide if she needs to do any physical training.  Funny, he didn’t put any special herbs or potions on it?  What is up with that???

Cameron

We got home last night, after a very long a stressful day, only to be overwhelmed by our families.  More on that later.  Before I go into the blog, a quick “sorry” to all my Facebook friends.  I told everyone they could follow us on Facebook, forgetting that Facebook is blocked in China!  So, none of my posts were linked over.  This will be the first post on Facebook since we returned!

A Lot to be Thankful For!

We got up Friday morning and went to the airport to find that our first flight of the day had been canceled.  This started a cascading effect that meant that we missed every flight for the rest of the day!  That is NOT what you want to have happen when you are trying to get home and see your family.  To make things worse, no one would really help us rebook our flights in Guangzhou, saying that we had to take care of it in Beijing. We called our travel agent, Todd Gallinek.

(Side note:  Todd is an adoption only travel agent out of Denver.  He is great and if you are planning an adoption, you need to go through him.  Not only is he in tune to the flying needs of adoptive families, but he is very accessible.  How many travel agents do YOU know who are willing to take your call from China at 9:00 – 10:00 PM??)

Anyway,. Todd told us there was a flight to Washington DC that left at 6:25 PM from Beijing, so to try and get on that flight.  I tried talking to China Air in Guangzhou about rebooking us, but there were about a million people who had been canceled on flights that morning and they were just too overwhelmed.  They said that we needed to fix it in Beijing.  We were supposed to leave for Beijing at 10:00AM and ended up leaving at 12:55PM.  We landed in Beijing at 4:15PM, just five minutes AFTER our flight to Chicago left!

Because of Kelly’s ankle, they met us at the gate in Beijing with a wheel chair.  The girl that pushed Kelly around was very sweet, but didn’t speak much English and didn’t really understand what we needed to accomplish after getting our bags.  When we were waiting in the baggage claim area, I saw a Chinese business man who was talking to a Western business man.  I went and told him our situation and asked him if he could communicate with our assistant from China Air what we needed to do.  At first he asked how much money I was willing to pay him, but when he saw the dejected look on my face, he quickly told me he was kidding.

By the time we got through baggage, got up to the China Air desk, received a certificate saying that our flight was indeed canceled, and then got to the United Desk, it was 5:30.  We had the China Air rep, two United reps, and two United supervisors working on our situation, but the one supervisor told us that flight was already closed.  It closed one hour in advance.  I asked to please try, and she agreed, but she told us that we had 20 minutes to check our bags, get through security, get through immigration, get on the tram, and get out to the farthest terminal.  She told us there was no way we could pull that off, but we were welcome to try.  The other supervisor took us to check our bags and told the guys there to rush them out to the plane.  Then a very nice young chinese man started pushing us towards the gate.  He kept asking about times and every time I would tell him what time we had to be there and what time it was, he would get this concerned look and push faster.  He took us right to the front of the line at immigration and through two different security sections and we rolled onto the plan with about 15 minutes to spare.  I’m really not sure what happened with the time because we were standing talking to all the United people at 5:50 PM and were sitting on the plane by 6:10.  Nice …

We were told in Beijing that there were no flights out of Washington that had space, so they booked us on a flight early Saturday morning.  They told us that if we stayed in Beijing and left Saturday afternoon, they would put us up in a hotel and take care of our meals.  But, if we went to Washington, we were on our own.  We decided it was better to spend a night on our own tab in Washington than on China Air in Beijing!

As soon as we landed in Washington, we got a very nice middle-aged middle-eastern gentleman that pushed Kelly and got us from place to place.  He, too, pushed us right to the front of the line for customs and immigration and we were through in no time.  We went up to the United desk and, believe it or not, there WAS a 10:15 flight to Dayton!  We went to the counter and the agent told us that the flight was fully booked, but that she would put us first on standby.  There were twelve people who had not checked in and as long as five didn’t check in, we were on.  However, it was a pretty small plane and there was still almost an hour before the flight would close, so she wasn’t overly positive.

The other issue was that if we checked our bags for this flight, we wouldn’t get them back and we would have to spend the night without them.  They would be put on our morning flight.  So, we were standing there at the ticket counter digging through all our baggage looking for items that we could keep if we went and got a hotel!  Taylor suggested we all freshen up our deodorant right there in the terminal lobby!  It was probably a good idea, but we were to embarrassed to take such measure.

Our wheel chair guy took us through the employee security check point, which was almost empty, and we headed to the gate.  We sat there and slowly watched the number of people who had not checked in yet start decreasing.  We were the first five on the stand by list, but there were probably twelve or more people on it all together.  In the end, eight people didn’t check in, and we were on!

We landed in Dayton at midnight, about two hours past the time that we were originally supposed to be there, even with missing all the flights.  In fact, when we got to Dayton someone said that while our flight was the last scheduled flight of the night, there were a ton of delays and we were the FIRST flight to get in that evening.  I’m assuming that means that if we would have hit our original flights, we would have actually arrived home later!  God is good and he really took care of us.  There were a lot of times during the day to get frustrated and discouraged and we did!  But, in all, He took very good care of us.  And, Kelly’s injury probably saved us in a big way!

Kelly’s parents picked us up at the airport and we headed home.  Now for part two of the day!

Extreme Makeover

So, after the harrowing 30-hour day we had experienced, we walked into a huge blessing at our house.  Not only had our families spent a TON of their time taking care of our kids the two weeks we were gone, they had also (under my sister-in-law Koreen’s direction) spent two weeks working on our house!  I don’t know if I can begin to tell you all the things they did around our house and to our house.  And, to make matters worse, while we were gone there were several appliance failures that had to be incorporated into their plan!  The dishwasher started leaking, one of our water heaters started leaking, and the stove broke!  Are you kidding me???  We built this house almost ten years ago, so it is getting to that point in time that stuff will start breaking, but all this while we are gone for two weeks???

There is so much stuff that they did that I will miss something.  But, I honestly want to thank them for all the things that they did.  It was SUCH a blessing to us and to our neighbors, also.  I was stopped by our neighbor across the street who told me how much it blessed HIM to see everyone working so hard for two weeks getting all this stuff done just for our benefit.  It is really, really humbling and a few words spoken or placed on a blog do not do justice to how Kelly and I feel right now.

Here is what they did, or at least what I have found so far …

Outside

They weeded and mulched all the beds outside.  In addition, they sanded and restained the swing set and painted at least one outside door (I just saw that this morning when I was talking to the neighbor.) 

We had gotten on Jacob at one point over Skype for not going to a neighbors house to play and instead stayed around the house.  We thought he was staying home just to play PSP or something.  It wasn’t until we got home that we realized that he was staying home to work out in the yard and get stuff done.  What a great kid and we felt a little guilty.  He and Zachary both did a ton of work and Kelly and I appreciated their help.

Basement

I refinished the basement seven or eight years ago, but never quite got around to putting the trim up.  It is one of those things that I keep meaning to do, but never have gotten to it.  Not only did they repaint the entire basement, remove the cheap wall paper we put in the bathroom and painted that, they did all of our casings and moldings in the entire basement.  And, John, Chris, and Kelly’s dad didn’t just do it, they did it well.  I went back down this morning just to look at the great job they did.  It is beautiful!  The kids won’t be allowed to play down there anymore!  It is too nice!

In addition, they replaced the water heater that started leaking.  There was a brand new one sitting in the closet!

First Floor

They replaced basically every appliance we had.  There was a brand new stove, refrigerator, dishwasher, exhaust fan (and not some cheap exhaust fan, but a really nice one!  Probably one of the nicest ones I have seen), and a new washer and dryer. How humbling is that?

Second Floor

When we built the house, they didn’t do a good job with the carpet in the upstairs hall way.  We have tried and tried to fix it, but there wasn’t much that could be done.  It had started to buckle a little bit in two places.  The problem with changing the hall carpet was that you had to change the carpet in all the bedrooms, also.  I have known that this was something that was a high priority for Kelly for us to get done, especially since the carpet on the stairs was showing the wear of so many kids running up and down them for the past almost ten years.

Our family replaced all the carpet, including carpet for my office (they didn’t have that replaced because they were too worried to touch my office.  There is a lot of stuff in there and I am SURE that thought of pulling it all out and putting it back together was way too daunting!)  They replaced the carpet on the stairs, down the hall, and in all five bedrooms and closets!  It is so beautiful and it is SO soft!!  I’m thinking they also repainted a lot of the casings and moldings in the house, especially on the second floor.   It looks too white!

So, although Kelly had made it through most of the trip without crying, the long day combined with the blessing we received when we got home, was a little overwhelming to her and she cried a little last night, cried a little when we went to bed, and maybe cried a little this morning.  One of the things that she and I talked about was that we had a nice house before we left and really didn’t NEED all the things that were done.  Then we went to China where so much of this is beyond the scope of what they could ever imagine.  We are truly blessed to have family who loves us and desired to do something extra nice for us.

Update

Caleb did pretty good on his first night in the house.  I think he was a little overwhelmed and he cried a lot when he went to bed.  At one point he closed the door to our room, and I think that kind of helped him “compartmentalize” everything and shrink his universe and he settled down after that.  He is running around playing with Max and Nick right now laughing his head off.

We took Kelly to the urgent care to have her ankle xrayed.  It is huge.  They said that it doesn’t look to be broken, but the radiologist will look at it on Monday and give us a call.  They gave her an air cast and a boot to wear.

Thank you for following us for the past several weeks!  I will try and put some new pictures up as time goes on, but you know how bad I get about that!

Cameron 

OK, so this is it.  We are heading to bed and have to be out of the room by 7:30.  We board a plane to Beijing at 10, probably leave Beijing about 4, and get home around 9:30.  All on Friday.  LONG day, but worth it to be home.

Kelly hobbled around on her ankle today.  And, Caleb tried to be her helpmate!

We went out to the playground with the Dinn’s before they headed out today.

Then we all hobbled out to dinner for our LAST dinner in China.  Thank goodness!

Next stop, the US of A!  We are looking forward to it!  And, a few home cooked meals!

Cameron

JUST when you think everything thing is taken care of and all you have to do is get through another day…

We called the house this morning to find out that my dad had spent most of Wends in and out of the hospital in Cincinnati with Kidney Stones.  Sac took him down Wednesday morning to the ER and then brought him home that afternoon.  Then, Wednesday evening, Koreen took him back down to the ER and Zach brought him back around 10:30.  He is on medicine and seems to be doing well, but the last thing you want is to be in a strange place watching your grandchildren and have to go through something like that.

After we talked to them, we went down for breakfast.  After breakfast we made the fatal decision to take the stairs up to our room instead of the elevator.  On the way to the stairs, Kelly fell and severely sprained her ankle.  We had to first carry her over to the couches while the hotel staff panicked!

We were able to get a hold of Connie who came over to the hotel.  At one point, the staff brought up a couple of bell boys in what we thinks was an attempt to carry Kelly to the medical clinic!  Luckily we were able to thwart that plan.  They did bring a doctor up to look at Kelly, but there was just a lot of looking and talking and we never knew what was going on.

Connie arrived and decided that we should probably go over to the clinic at the White Swan Hotel.  She had a client who had this exact thing happen to her just a little while ago, on the day before THEY were supposed to leave, and the clinic at the Swan was very helpful.  So, our hotel gave us a wheel chair and a manager and off we went through the streets of Shamian Island!

You thought people looked at us funny before! 

We got up to the clinic and the doctor there took a close look at Kelly’s ankle.  She didn’t feel it was broken but suggested that we have it looked at in the US if it wasn’t better by Saturday.

For those of you that would like a closer look ….

The nurse put together a Chinese herbal balm that Kelly needs to leave against her ankle for the next 14 hours.

They gave Kelly an additional box of “stuff” to put on it in the airplane tomorrow.  They wanted us to come back in the morning and have another treatment, but we have to leave the hotel at 7:30 and they don’t open until after 8:00.

Back at the hotel, Kelly was bed-ridden for the rest of the day.  Taylor and I will have to figure out what we are doing with baggage and weighing everything later this afternoon.  But, above all, we are heading home tomorrow!  Yay!

Cameron

 Today we had our oath ceremony and, as a surprise, the US Consulate was able to get all our VISA’s done today.  Normally they have upwards of 30 familys in at a time, but today they only had six.  Because of the smaller number, they had time to process everyone’s VISA before we left today instead of coming back tomorrow.  That was pretty cool as that is the last thing we needed to get outta here!  I called our travel agent this afternoon and we are hoping that we might get out of here tomorrow instead of Friday.  The chances are pretty slim, but we have NOTHING to do here tomorrow so it would be nice to come home!

I do have to say that the entire adoption process here in China is MUCH easier and runs a lot more smoothly than Vietnam did.  And, our agency, Madison, really has done a nice job with the guides they have in country.  They really understand the process and make things a lot easier.

This morning, our family and the Dinn’s decided to go into the city and off of our little island.  It WAS different in there!  Much more urban!

First stop was a market right across the street from the island that had all kinds of different and exotic spices.

These guys were separating dead star fish, I think.  It didn’t smell real appetizing in this market!

The Dinn’s were looking for a coloring book at one of the local news stands.

Here is a typical scene on a China street.  The guy on the bike is trying to squeeze past the grey SUV that is trying to pull into the street.  However, what you don’t quite see is that the bronze colored car on the right is ALSO trying to get into the street and there isn’t enough room for everyone.  All the cars were kind of stuck here as the bronze car couldn’t move and the grey SUV had wedged himself into a position that he could move, either.  We just walked between them and kept moving.

 On of the construction areas must have hit a water main because at one point there was water EVERYWHERE!

It was so bad, that you had a difficult time getting up the steps that lead over the road.  You can see the level of frustration with the lady in the middle of this picture.  She wasn’t too happy about trying to figure out how to get up the steps without getting her feet wet!

As we climbed the steps, I just thought it was impressive to see the size of the buildings that they are building here and, it seems, everywhere else in China.

With so many people cleaning all the time, it is amazing that the place is so darn dirty!

Coming over the road we had a view back at our little island oasis.

We then entered into a fish market.  I’m not real sure if we were supposed to be there or not, but we headed on in anyway.  Just about anything you could imagine from the ocean was there.  Our guide, Connie, said that you can buy your fish in the market, and then take it to any of the restaurants along the street and they will cook it for you.

Look at these crabs!  Do they not look TASTY?

The market just went on and on …

We went back out on the street and saw some of the street vendors and the little shops along the main roadway.

I thought about getting a little trim in this outdoor barber shop, but thought better of it.  They might now be able to do my hairdo like the people in the States do!

This old guy was all happy because he thought I might buy some bananas from him.  Sorry, bub!

I thought this little guy looked so cute riding on the family bicycle on there way home from the store!  I didn’t realize the irritation of his father until I processed the pictures tonight!  Sorry, dad!

Although they do not use as many bikes for transportation here as they did in Vietnam, they still use them to transport a lot of materials from one place to another.  It really is amazing that these guys can balance things the way they do.

With the importance of these bikes for business, there are a lot of areas were street vendors have set up bicycle repair shops.  This one was pretty busy.

Brittany was wearing her new shirt, which says “sister” in mandarin on the front.  She is a good big sister.

The kids held hands as we walked back over the bridge onto Shamian Island.

We started back towards the hotel, but it was still early so we walked around a little more.

I found another old building.  Our guide was saying that this island was used by the French and the British as an outpost during the Opium Wars.  Therefor, there is a lot of European influences here in there architecture.  I could probably spend a couple of days here just photographing these buildings. 

I realized today that I had not taken a shot of the Victory Hotel, so here it is.

As we came by our hotel, a group of older chinese women decided to ogle over Brittany and how very pretty she is!  Literally, they wouldn’t let her go!

I wanted to take the next two shots to show you how fast these workers are getting things done.  This area below was under construction just a few days ago and as of yesterday afternoon there was very little vegetation.  Last evening and through the night, workers were planting and preparing and this morning THIS is what we woke up to!  This island will be so beautiful when everything is done.  I doubt we will come back, but I do with we would have been able to come when it was all done, and not just during the restoration and beautification process!

(Doesn’t it look like I did a really poor job of photoshoping Caleb into this picture???  I didn’t!  He was really there.  He wanted to be in the picture.  But, it looks strange, huh?)

We had been able to stay away from the Starbucks on the island all week, but today was the breaking point us!

(See that partially prepared bed behind Kelly?  Tomorrow that will be packed full of flowers and be beautiful, just like the beds above.  It’s AMAZING what cheap labor can do in a short amount of time!)

This place looked like we were RIGHT back home!

We had chocolate tort and cheese cakes!  It was great!  In this picture, Tay is looking at her legs.  She has become somewhat of a primary food group for some sort of biting insect on the island.  They have been chewing up her legs the last couple of days.

You have to love a drink with ice in it!  It is SO hard to find!

When I was taking this picture, some Brit came by and said “Nice picture.”  I told him that anytime I was able to find a drink full of ice in this country, I was going to have to take a picture of it!  It was at that point that I realized, by the look on his face, that he was actually just a grumpy old Brit and he was being sarcastic.  Whatever … life must not have been very nice to him!

Tomorrow, if we don’t get out of here, we have to go make ONE more purchase!  The problem is, it has to be done in the store that I had already told them I wasn’t coming back!  What to do about THAT?  I’m thinking that we will have to send our friend, Clayton, in there for us.  He didn’t make any ultimatums to the store owner like I did.  But, hey … he wouldn’t deal with us and told us we wouldn’t find a better price and we would be back.  We did find a better price on everything else but this ONE thing.  This may be a challenge!!!

We are so close to going home!  We can almost taste it!  It was nice to go to the US Consulate office today just to be around American stuff again!

Cameron

Well, everything went off today without a hitch.  Caleb’s TB test was negative and the U.S. Consulate approved all of our documents.  We go tomorrow for a swearing-in ceremony and then we get his VISA on Thursday.  Then we get on a LLOONNGG plane ride home Friday morning.

Today was kind of a boring day!  We went to the pearl market, which isn’t too far from the island.

Here we are actually entering into the mall.  A mall of just jewelery.

How exciting it was for Taylor to be in a building completely devoted to jewelery!

Unfortunately, it was kind of a bust.  This market was really geared towards the wholesale purchase of pearls and didn’t really translate well into a person just buying a piece or two.

The one place that was kind of cool were the Amber shops.  Their jewelery was a lot prettier, at least to me.  And, what do I know?

But, in the end, we didn’t purchase a thing!  We thought we would head back to the island and wheel and deal for a few more souvenirs.  Someone should have informed us that Tuesday is NOT bargain day!  Or, let us know that the shop owners are MORE than willing to deal with you when you are new, but as they know you are approaching your departure date, they quite bargaining because they know you are on a limited time frame.  We kept running up against a brick wall!  No one would even drop their prices a little bit!

We were still wondering around at noon when one of the local schools dismissed for lunch.  It was cute to see all the kids lined up marching down the street.

Finally, we went back home and rested.  On the way to dinner, we stumbled across this little shop that is run by a husband and wife.  Their shop is in one of the buildings that is in the midst of remodeling so it is kind of hard to see.  We went in and they treated us wonderful.  Their prices were already some of the best on the island and they did negotiate down a little more.  We were happy to pick up all the last minute items we wanted, plus they gave Kelly, Taylor, and Brittany each a bracelet for free.

We took everything back to the hotel room and went to dinner.  We ate at an Italian place that is supposedly run by real Italians!  The menu was pretty pricey, but we ordered several pizzas and, in the end, it wasn’t too bad.

I wasn’t sure I had taken a picture with my pretty Brittany yet, so I had Tay take one for me. (She is proof reading this over my shoulder and catching my mistakes, of which there are usually many!)

Caleb was willing to spread his love around to the other side of the table!

And Brittany showed off her new fashion accessory!

We are ready to hit the hay!  We don’t go to the swearing in ceremony until tomorrow afternoon at 2:15.   I am not sure WHAT we will do in the morning.  But, we will take care of that when we get there.

Cameron

Caleb woke up early and I’m trying to keep things quite for the girls so they can try and sleep in a little bit.  Caleb’s arm looks good this morning.  I don’t see any problems with the TB test.  Thank you for your prayers!

 I wanted to get a shot of this guy carrying construction supplies.  Seriously!  I know it is light and all, but you should have seen this guy and his partner carrying these huge bundles up an alley way. It was amazing.

Kelly and I caught Taylor napping on the way, but they she woke up just as I took the picture.

You see such beautiful stuff tucked in amongst all the people and noise!

Here we are all filing into the park ….

and here we are on the other side after passing the gates.

Brittany checking her new bag!

Caleb stuck with Connie the entire time she was with us.  You felt bad for the little guy, but also happy that he had someone who could understand him today.  He just wanted to talk about all the things he was seeing!!

Here is a picture of Clayton and Joy.

As I told you, the park was pretty lush!

Did you know there were cowboys in China???

Here is Connie helping Caleb on the train.  He made sure that he was sitting right by her to talk her ear off!

I don’t have many pictures from the Safari on Wheels part because my dumb telephoto lens wasn’t working. 

It was truly amazing to see this wide open area with all these animals … and a bunch of chinese people in their cars driving ALL over it, ignoring lanes, making whatever path they thought got them closer to the animals.   For a country that seems stuck on following the rules, they pretty much ignore any rules that relate to traffic!

Here was some guy that would let you take a picture with a Python.  For a price, though.

The zoo had a lot of open areas where you could see baby animals close up.  Here are some baby tigers.

And here are some baby bears.  They were all so cute!

At one point, Caleb was just one little boy in a sea of little Chinese kids trying to look at the baby animals!

My pretty yet brave little girl decided she wanted to use her money to get a picture with a baby tiger.  How often do you get to do that?!  Caleb was SO irritated that I wasn’t holding him, as you can easily see!  Even the guy next to Kelly knows it!

I think this zoo has the largest collection of white tigers in the world?  At least Asia, but maybe the world!

How often have you seen THIS sign at the tiger exhibit at the zoo?  If they have it, you know they must have had to use it!

Pictures of everyone in front of the tigers.

Just a couple more tiger shots.  Caleb likes tigers, so this is for him!

This was a tiger cub playground.   There were probably five to eight tiger cubs in here playing.

Again, just to show you how pretty the park was!

This place had a TON of giraffes.  Not only were there probably a dozen on the Safari ride, there were another six to eight in the park itself!

Unlike our zoos, people can feed the animals here and they get a kick out of that!

Taylor and Brittany just HAD to have their picture taken with this animal!  Taylor told me you could see the seat dripping down this poor guys throat!!

Sometimes, it is hard to be a Koala at the zoo!

And, sometimes it is hard to be a little boy with a big sister that likes to put stupid hats on your head.

The best part of the zoo was the panda.  They had a ton of them and they were a lot of fun to watch.

After watching panda’s, you HAVE to have ice cream, right?

We started to make our way out of the park as we needed to meet Connie.

I had to take a little rest room break, so I thought I would get you a shot of a toilet in China.  The hotels have traditional toilets in the rooms, but pretty much everywhere else you go, you have to deal with these “squat” toilets.  I haven’t used one yet, but thought I would share what they look like!

Everyone waiting on me to use the restroom!

A couple of final shots on the way out of the park …

And then Caleb had a little time to debrief with Connie!

All in all, a pretty fun day.  It was a little warm and muggy (probably around 86) but better than sitting around the hotel.  Tomorrow, the pearl and jade markets.  Taylor has ONE set of earnings, but that is just not enough for a girl like her!

Cameron