Cuteness overload

Big fan of the thumb.

Molly, our agency facilitator, giving the peace sign like it's 1972.

Baby needs some new shoes.

Entrance to beautiful park we visited. The water from the fountain flowed all the way down the middle section of the steps.

About to laugh or about to cry, you decide...

Crazy birds-in-flight topiaries.

The winner = about to laugh!

Golden girls take a walk.

My "US Weekly" shot.

It's not the color that needs correcting here, it's the pollution, man.

Group shot. (Sorry it's so far away, no time to crop.)

Family photo, Helen still zonked. I swear she's feeling ok, it's just our carrier puts her right to sleep.

My favorite photo so far. Peanut.

This morning the doctor said Helen's head is looking so good, we don't have to go back tomorrow! She'll be cap free starting Tuesday. This makes all three of us extremely happy. We had a great day today, free in the morning so first leisurely breakfast of the trip. It's so fun to go down to the breakfast buffet at the White Swan because all the other adopting families are there around the same time and, of course, they seat us all in a big group. We hang out and socialize and carbo-load for the rest of the day. Today, a woman from New York and her business partner approached us and said that they came over for the breakfast buffet from another hotel specifically to see all the new adoptive families whenever they visit Guangzhou.

Later, we did some shopping with The Johnson's (friends from our group) and had a nice lunch on our own at Lucy's (this joint down the street that serves American food). Sometimes ya just need a little taste of home (even if it is their interpretation of that taste). Stew had a cheeseburger and fries and I had cheese pizza. Oddly, the pizza had no sauce so was actually like cheese bread which is nothing to complain about in my book.

Speaking of lunch, I forgot to tell you this - the other day Stew really wanted noodles so we asked one of the locals and they sent us to the restaurant in the Shamian Hotel, right down the street. We walked in and the menu, though providing English subtitles, was a little vague on details and even the pictures of the choices were so poor/far away that we really couldn't make heads nor tails out of the thing. Finally, we picked out a broth soup with some steamed pork dumplings but when we tried to pick out a noodle dish, I made the mistake of stearing Stew away from his first impulse towards another photo that looked to me like pan-fried noodles with thinly sliced veggies. We should have known something was up when 1) the description said something about Chef's Special, and 2) the server gave us a rather curious look. When they brought the plate out, all the Chinese people in the room turned to stare at us - waiting for our reaction. Stew and I looked at each other and through smiling, clenched teeth said to one another, "What is that? I don't know. I don't know either. Keep smiling. It looks like bugs. I think it IS bugs." The stuff that looked like bugs wasn't bugs, it was bug larve, and the stuff that looked like crispy-fried greenbeans turned out to be crispy-fried minnows. You read that correctly, friend. Bottom line: we pretended like we didn't know what it was and we ate it. Not too bad. Hey, trip of a life time - when in China, right?

Tomorrow we're going on a walkabout with Molly to Quing Ping Market, where they sell Traditional Chinese Medicine fixins, and Shang Xia Jiu Road, a well-known shopping street. We're hitting the Pearl Market, baby stores, and a DVD/music store. Can't wait to experience all that!