Day 14

Day 14
Today we were scheduled to go to a park for a little sightseeing and be back by noon. We opted to stay at the hotel. Everyone said we made a good choice. The ones who went said it was HOT, miserable, and hundreds of steps! The park was more like an outside museum type place with statues of stuff. No nice breezes and trees. Brad and I decided we would walk to the friendship store that everyone has been talking about. It ended up being about....5-6 blocks and we were both POURING sweat by the time we got there. Literally. The shopping center we went to was VERY UPSCALE. Like Dillard's but way nicer. Very expensive. The supermarket we were looking for was on the 5th floor. Even their food was expensive. $5 for a box of Ritz bits crackers! I couldn't believe that we had walked in the heat for this! We ended up buying 6 bottles of water for our room and a jug of apple juice for Macy.

THEN...on the way down....well, first of all-Brad was NOT having a good day. He was very edgy and Macy was hyper, Mia was fussy, and I was too easygoing! :) On the way down the stairs - I was experimenting with having Mia in the stroller and walking with Macy. Macy had a plastic drawing board tucked into the basket on the stroller. Brad was carrying the stroller, with Mia and the bags in it...when the drawing board slipped out...and clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk.....you get the picture. It was VERY loud! All the way down the open staircase inside this uppity department store. About 30 Chinese employees turned and just stared at us. You could see Brad about to crawl under the closest clothing rack! Red face. Gritted teeth. Narrowing eyes. Mia was fine until this point - but the cluttering and clanking startled her and she started screaming. Brad wanted me to take her out of the stroller, but I said, "Just start pushing it - maybe she will get distracted and be fine." About 30 seconds and 20 steps later....she was still screaming. By this time Brad was about to blow a fuse b/c the onlookers had grown by about 20. Let's just say that we didn't really talk until we were out of the building! :) If he wasn't so mad it would have been an absolutely hilarious moment! ;) After hoofing it back to the hotel and 5 gallons of sweat later - he realized that he had not taken his thyroid med this morning. And without it he is a bear!

Mom, Mia, and I took a taxi back to Shamian Island tonight to finish up some shopping. I had some name scrolls made for Macy and Mia for their rooms that have both their Chinese and English names on them. I also bought about 10-12 small cheap identical gifts for them. Each year on the date that we received Mia into our family we will have "Forever Family Day". Most adoptive parents call this "Gotcha Day", the day they received their child into their family. But since we are blessed to have 2 girls - we will celebrate "Forever Family Day" and they will each receive a small gift that day that came from our trip to China.