Little Bits of Catch Up

I'll try to catch you up the last 2 days since I skipped yesterday. Sorry there was no post, but I believe you got photo's at least, which are the most important part!
Yesterday, Monday in GZ, we had a free day until our dinner cruise at 6. We did a little shopping and and as always, sitting in the park. We love to just sit somewhere shady and let Jia watch all the kids. She usually will wander a couple of feet from mama and really takes things in. She is so curious!
All the families come to the park and excercise, ride bikes, ride ripsticks, we see a LOT of hacky sack and badmitton. The park area is ALWAYS full! Yesterday there were some boys riding a bike and I'm not sure what happened but they all started working on it. Then the mom was helping.. they were kicking on it and couldn't get it to work. So Jack rescued them! I think their chain guard was bent and none of them could bend it back enough. Always the mechanic....
Last night was the dinner cruise... from about 6:30 to 8. It was really nice we enjoyed our evening very much! We shared a table with the lone boy in the group, ChiChi, and his dad and grandma. Jia even shared her cell phone with him!
Today we took the traditional red couch photo. I knew that as soon as I stepped away from Jia, she would cry. Most red couch photo's I've seen though look like utter chaos... ours was no different! The babies are all adorable! In the photo of the babies, there is Nola, Mae, Mia, Megan, Brenda and Chi Chi (Conrad) and Jia on the bottom. We thought all the crying girls would keep Chi Chi away from girls for a while! He was such a big boy!
Tonight we had dinner at Lucy's with Jeff, Jennifer, Matthew and Megan. They are the family that has been with us since arriving in GZ and we really enjoy spending time with them. After dinner, we walked back to our hotel and stopped in the park for a while. There were several kids playing on the slide and Jia was really enjoying watching them. I decided to see if she'd try the slide. Just yesterday, I would not have tried this, but tonight, she did it! Over and Over and Over again! She loved it! Such big smiles!
This evening she has been wonderful! I was downloading pictures on the computer and she got her stickers back out... she was sticking them on the desk and just singing and talking! She was in such a good mood. Finally Grandma Mellanie woke up and got on Skype... Jia talked her leg off and even talked to Grandpa a bit. She just loved it! Everyday more and more of her personality comes out. She is such a silly little girl that is so happy and loves to smile. She's very ticklish and loves to imitate mommy. She can say no-no very clearly and loves looking at her book of photo's with the boys in it.
Speaking of the boys... Jadeth is holding down the fort at home, but Jacen and Jory have been at Grandma adn Grandpa's. They've been busy swimming and fishing and maybe mom will add a couple of photo's of them for you today as well!
Tomorrow we meet our group at 2:45 to go to the consulate. Molly had our big appointment today and when we met for the red couch photo's she said all went well! So I think tomorrow is not a big deal at all... we'll just pick up Jia's passport with her Visa in it. Sometime tomorrow, I have to pack everything. I haven't quite figured out where it's all going to go and how I'm going to do it with a 3 year old that's 2 steps behind me. I guess it will get done though! We're excited to get back to Hong Kong then on home on Friday. The time in HK in the beginning went so slow, but since we've got Jia, time has flown by. Tomorrow we must say good bye to our friends we've made here... the sweet ladies from the Consulate office we see at breakfast everymorning, the lovely Jenny from Jenny's place who invited us to church and of course our friend Jack. We just love Jack and will always think of him and wonder how he is. All but 2 families will be traveling all the way to Minneapolis with us, so that is a great comfort!
Enjoy the pics!
JMS