July 15

As you know, I am a bit behind on my posting. Let me stop and explain why at this point. This trip is turning out to be quite a bit harder than our last trip, leaving me much less time to sit down at the computer. Our biggest hurdle right now is that Melody won't sleep through the night. She goes down fine, but wakes up hollering 3 or 4 times starting around midnight. She will fall asleep immediately if we pick her up, but she is very hard to put down again. If we give her a bottle she will go down and stay down, but should a 10 month old eat all night long? The hardest part is that once we get Melody back down, Julie has woken up and needs about 30 minutes of help to get back to sleep. Play this scenario over and over all night long and you're looking at some really tired people. That means I end up sleeping while they nap. At night, we both have to get in bed with Julie to help her get to sleep without making a racket, at which point we end up falling asleep too. All in all, it's been a bit crazy. We would SO appreciate your prayers for some good sleep.

I have another prayer request to share. Sadly, there has been a real tragedy in our travel group. One of the family's babies has passed away. She was really sick when they got her and she just couldn't beat it. They took her to the hospital, but they didn't get the treatment she needed. We had a memorial service for her today in the hotel garden. I tell you, this is not what anybody imagined we'd be doing. Please pray for the family who only got to hold their little girl for less than a week. They have been so strong, but I can't imagine the agony. It's hard to grapple with the "why's" of a situation like this, on so many levels. At the memorial, the family read a powerful poem written after 9/11. I'll try to find it and post it later. In the meantime, please do pray for this family.

In the morning, we went to the Chen Family Temple turned Folk Art Museum. It was so incredibly HOT that it was hard to enjoy the sights. After the museum, we went to Carrefour to shop for essentials. I don't think I've ever experienced anything quite like that shopping trip. It seemed like there were thousands of people in there, but I guess it is like that most places in China. We were able to get what we needed, but we had to switch formula brands again. We started with formula from home, then used Manzi, and now we're using Sanlu. Thankfully, Melody doesn't seem to mind. We've also started cooling her bottles off so that we can stop carrying around a thermos of hot water all the time. In the afternoon, Larry went to a "paperwork party" in our guides' room. That was the last paperwork we have to fill out! All that is left is our consulate appointment and our oath swearing ceremony. After the paperwork party we all gathered for the memorial service and then had dinner in our room. We are living on the equivalent of Ramen noodles and McDonald's. Finally, Larry took Julie swimming in the magnificent hotel pool. There is a shallow kids' section that she just loves. While they did that, I bathed Melody in the sink. Here are the pictures.

Julie is learning to say "cheese!" for the camera!


Me with good friend Jennifer and her daughter Maddie. Jennifer and I met online in 2005 while we were in process to adopt Julie and they were just logging in with the CCAA. She is finally completing her first adoption and we are completing our second. It is amazing that we ended up traveling together. What a blessing!


At the folk art museum. Can you see the sweat running off her?


Baby in a sink. So cute!