Closer to that American Citizenship

What a safari!

Dropped right in the middle of a ginormous, bustling, noisy, crowded city is an oasis of nature.  Extremely hard to believe how many varieties of animals they had AND the numbers of each animal.  It wasn't just one or two but many of each kind and they were roaming around much to Jaeya's trepidation.  She has not had much life experience outside the walls of her SWI and little by little she will learn that she can handle...tolerate...then even enjoy new things.

Imagine the shrieks when the elephants and giraffes came close.  I gave her the camera and looking at them through the viewfinder was no as scary for her.

 Funny, Meisyn was in charge of taking pictures of Makayla with the zebra.  The camera kept clicking so we thought we had lots of shots....in ended up we did.  They were just shots of Meisyn's face, hahahhhaaha!  She took about 11 self portraits instead.  Sorry Makayla.  Sorry zebra.  But look at that sweet face, ahhhhh.

 About how we were all feeling by the end of the day.  It was FANTASTIC though and one of our favorite days, even for Jaeya after we found the baby animal nursery.  THAT she could handle.

Visit back to Lan's SWI

Off to Guangzhou

Time to say goodbye to Hangzhou.  Meisyn is ready to kiss goodbye and jet off to a new adventure.

 For Jaeya it is not that easy.  Out came the hair clips and all composure as it was time to say goodbye to our lovely guide Vivian and board the plane.

 Meisyn is R E A D Y!  Let the soaring begin.

 Once on the plane it got more bearable and even kinda exciting.  A smile is wiggling its way out.

 TAKE OFF!  Jaeya takes a self photo at the moment of take off.  Not bad!

Landed in Guangzhou!  The first plane ride was over and soon so would be the smiles.  Trying to get the girls and all the carry on's off with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING FROM THE CHINA SOUTHERN AIR STAFF THAN STARES was pathetic.  We had to carry them down a slippery two story slippery metal staircase and onto a bus to get to the terminal.  ONE compassionate good samaritan named Lucy who was returning to Guangzhou stayed with us and helped shlep.  She implored the staff in Chinese to help but they just kept shooing us forward.  I may never see you again Lucy but I will NEVER FORGET your kindness.

We rolled into the Shifu Holiday Inn at midnight.

West Lake in Hangzhou

Narrative will follow at a later date...getting the pictures up.

We have no blog access.....booo

We are so bummed and have 15 minutes to borrow a computer.  we crashed our hard drive and need a boot disk.  I can't get on to blog without a VPN due to China's Great Firewall so borrowing one from a friend who is leaving for Beijing in minutes.

We have all sorts of adventures to share and if you go to my Facebook page you can get a short updates.  Guess it will be pictures and more when I return home.  So sorry you couldn't take the journey minute by minute with us. 

But we are all well.  the girls are noisy, chatty, happy for the most part and really starting to understand shopping.  hahaha!  Jaeya told the guide today she needs more shoes.  we only bought three pair yesterday from Sherry's Place.  A girl and her shoes.

The paperwork has all been signed and all the appointments completed.  We just wait for the girls visas to be issued on thursday.  it feels so awesome to finally be here. 

we now have 2 days that we can slow down and do laundry and sleep. 

Love to all of you my dear friends and family.

Stefani