The Great Wall & Great People

Today started a little late as we all enjoyed sleeping in until 8 am! We're starting to get over jet lag and our days and nights sorted out.

The food, literally everywhere we've eaten has been fantastic! The kids have been really adventurous once again with their eating.

We hired a private car and went to the Great Wall today. We weren't planning on seeing te wall again, but our teacher friend who is travelling with us has never seen it and so we thought...."while in Rome...."

This section of the wall is closer to the Shunyi area and it was by FAR more beautiful than the section of the wall we climbed last year. Mountains all around, beauty everywhere you could see and some fun riding on cable cars, too.

Potato kept saying..."this is my great wall in my China"...

Then our evening was spent visiting another work benefiting older orphans here in Beijing. The work focuses on helping older kids who will never be adopted...though I could have taken any number of them home with us...they were amazing. Such good kids, full of laughter and so outgoing. The girls were the rage and they spent 2+ hours dancing and playing in the courtyard with several of the girls aged 7-13. We enjoyed dinner with them then started back for our last night at the other foster home.

We had hired drivers as I said and they were really nice fellows..but a few times they got lost and turned around...I wasn't nervous at all, neither was the rest of the family...and it made the trip all the more real and enjoyable to be so far off the "adoption tourist" track.

Hope you enjoy some of today's pictures...mostly they are a snippet of what we experienced today. The first is some famous wall...the second, Magpie with a precious resident of our host foster home...the third, Potato and Busy Bee were "helping" snap beans for our supper at the training institute for older orphans where we were this morning...the forth, The Bug taking a moment to smile for the camera after being mauled by the older kids at the center, she was in heaven! The fifth picture, was one of the adults who work at the training center that Busy Bee took quite a liking to...it appeared to be quite mutual!

We leave for Wuhan EARLY tomorrow morning then we'll be met at the airport by our Chinese family...we're all excited for that.

Only 6 DAYS until we have Isaiah with us...hardly seems real at this moment...

But one more note...we are AMAZED at the change in Beijing this year from last. Of course with the Olympics less than a year away everything is in high gear...but in general...we found our stay here to be most enjoyable. We saw the sun each day, had no trouble breathing the air and met so many more wonderful friends!

From our beloved Wuhan next...