Today was mainly a family bonding day and we only took a few photos. We’ll get more uploaded tomorrow.
Amelie slept from 9 pm – 6:30 am. Praise the Lord! I know that she was so tired and worn out from the emotional day. We got her up on the bed with us and all started playing. She opened up to Mike and even gave him some half smiles. We went down to breakfast and then had to get right downstairs to meet Tony and our driver. They took us straight to the notary to do some more paperwork. Amelie had been doing really well and opening up more and more, but when we got to the conference room she really started to get upset and nervous. Her little eyes got all teary again and she wanted to be snuggled up against me. We could tell that she was starting to panic because it was like yesterday. Once we finished there and got back into the van she relaxed again and we headed over to the bank.
We waited quite a while at the bank to get receipts for the various fees we have paid since arriving. While in the waiting area Amelie wanted to get down and started to mimic what Nadia was doing with Mike. She started spinning around and around and then would stumble into my arms and laugh and laugh. Then I introduced her to goldfish and she really liked those and so Mike started giving them to her. After the bank Tony took us to a little children’s shop so we could find some shoes for the orphanage. Tony did the negotiation and I hope he didn’t haggle too hard. The poverty here is overwhelming and I hope that we were able to help that family out with the 20 pairs of shoes we bought.
Tony then took us down to a more commercial shopping area and we went into a toy store to find something for Nadia and Amelie to play with in the room. It’s just miserably cold here and I am keeping some of our other toys stashed for Guangzhou. While in the toy store Amelie got excited about a lot of stuff and said a couple things to Nadia. We could not understand, but it was exciting to hear her little voice.
Yesterday at lunch I ate something that I thought might have had MSG but I took my chances because I was so hungry. True to form, just about 20 hours later while we were in the toy store it hit me. Heart racing like mad, burning up and thinking I was going to puke. We decided go back to the hotel instead of going out to eat with everyone. I was down for the count. Between that and the pulled muscle in my chest I was feeling awful. We all laid down for naps and slept a very long time.
Once we were up we played some more with Amelie. After a while I touched her and she was burning up. Her temperature was 102 and she has this icky cough so we gave her some medicine. Once again I am so happy that I packed a pharmacy since no one speaks English here except our guide and the Italians who are adopting too. Mike is still coughing and it sounds really bad. Nadia is the only who is well out of the group. I pray that she is able to stay healthy.
Oh and tonight Nadia was feeding Amelie some Cheerio’s and when she got up to grab something Amelie turned to her and said, “Jie Jie!” Which means big sister. ADORABLE!
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