More Fun & Sighteeing in Beijing

Sorry we haven't posted. All is well with us...we haven't been put into quarantine or anything. :) We have just had a very busy couple of days. We are still having our temperatures checked twice a day but thankfully nothing more than that.

Yesterday we spent the majority of the day exploring Beihai Park which is an old Imperial Park. We once again did a ton of walking and took a paddle boat out on the lake. It was an amazing park and even though the humidity about killed us, we enjoyed ourselves immensely. The parks here are unbelievable. That afternoon/evening we headed to a pedestrian mall and night market. That was quite an adventure. Normally I really enjoy going to these but sadly I think I have decided I don't much like shopping in China, or at least in Beijing. For those of you that know me well that may be hard for you to believe...but they were just way too aggressive. I actually had a couple of women grab my arm and try to keep me there and at one point they even made Camden cry as they tried to pull him closer to the live scorpions on a stick. Um no thanks...don't touch my kid mister!!! Anyway, there was totally lots of crap um I mean stuff that I kind of wanted to buy but their approach really turned me off. Hopefully shopping will be more fun in the other cities we travel to.

Today, we met up with the rest of the families from our adoption agency which I believe is around 22 families. Everyone is super nice but boy do I wish our group was a little bit smaller and more intimate. We were like a large heard of sweaty animals sightseeing at a breakneck pace. But on the positive (and more important) side we are thrilled that so many children are being adopted into Christian families. Praise God for that! It is quite strange for us to be a part of a big tour group. That's just not the way we usually like to do things and I think after this trip Doug will never want to travel with a big group again or at least until the memory fades. We saw so many amazing sights today...Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City and The Summer Palace. But all very quickly. We really wish we had a little more time to spend at these places. Although we were seeing them with about 30 million of our closest friends so perhaps we wouldn't have lasted that much longer. One funny thing at these sights...much to Camden's dismay...people kept asking to have their picture taken with him. Too funny! In addition to the sights, we also visited a Pearl Market and Silk Museum which was fun and I picked up a few little presents for Avery that we will give her on future birthdays. The day was topped of by a Chinese Acrobat Show which was simply amazing.

I am having a little trouble uploading photos to blogger so I am going to leave you with a link to our photos. I will warn you though, there's way too many of them and I don't have the time to weed the bad ones out (which I am sure there are many) so check the link at your own risk! :)




http://picasaweb.google.com/starico32/ChinaJuly10thJuly11th?authkey=Gv1sRgCJyhlfnap5zJIQ#

I am beat! So I better catch some zzz's. Oh and if you didn't remember...two days until Avery!!!