No Ordinary Family

 We saw this fellow hitching a ride on the way back from the Great Wall. This is us in a rickshaw!  Just daily Chinese life...  And this was our guide to the Hutong tour.

 We can see the Forbidden City from our hotel room.  Last night the wind blew and cleared up the air quality, though it DID make it much colder.(Jimh.)  We went to the Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven today.  All of these pictures are from the Summer Palace.

We took a breif tour of a Cloisonne workshop yesterday & I still can't pronounce it.  It was fascinating, they are pottery and other decorations made out of copper.  They first create the shape of the piece, this gentleman was creating a vase.   Then they glue on tiny shaped wires to create the design. Then they add enamel color and fill the spaces between the wires, it takes several days to do this since each layer needs to dry before the next. Then it is fired, litterally.  This makes it hard and shiny. After polishing they use a secret process to add gold to the copper so that it will not rust. There is a lot of Cloissonne in the forbidden city that we will get to see tomorrow.  These were taken in the show room there was a lot of very beautiful things. Jim blogged about the driver we had but I don't think he told you that all the drivers were like that.  I was surprised that we only saw one accident yesterday.  Pede...

 There are more pictures on Jim's Blog , too.

We are going to be meeting Chloe for the first time in one week.  I would love to say that it just happens to be our oldest niece's birthday but I feel that it is not a coincidence, it was meant to be this day for a very long time.  See our Niece, E, told me this several years ago. In 2007 we were logged into China and we began our very long wait for a referral.  During that time our journey to our first child has changed many many times.  We never expected to be where we are today and to have gone through all the ups and downs that we have.  In 2007, we thought we were in for a 18-24 month wait at the most, who knew that we would be here almost 4 years later but finally packing to go to China.  Well apparently E knew on some level.  For some reason I remember this conversation with complete clarity and I have kept it with me through out the wait. Jim and I had been shopping in the Tri-Cities that weekend and it was also the weekend of E's birthda...

Are you packed yet?  the answer is NO!  I know we are getting very close but I think today is the first day that I can relax and start packing for us, well that is tonight I still have to go to work.  I had an audit at work yesterday that went really good!! and now I feel like my work stuff is winding down, yea!  I only have 3 more days to work and when I come back I will be a mommy!! I have Chloe mostly packed.  I am still trying to decided if I should take her coat or just get one there?  It is going to be cold in Changsha, but do I want to pack it?  Jim and I still need to pack but hopefully that will be pretty easy. Our little girl's life is about to change and she does not even know it.  I know it will be hard for her at first but before we know it we will be living our  new normal life with a toddler!  I can't wait. In a little over a week we will be parents.  I can't believe I am even writing that!

We lost a beloved member of our pack today.  Sully is sorely missed, he was a really really good cat.  These are not the best pictures of him and perhaps I will post better ones soon but I wanted him to be remembered as our loving puppycat and a missed member of the pack before I get really busy.