"That Italian lady kept pushing me."-Josh

I have to start today's post with a story about Josh at the Great Wall. First of all, I absolutely have no idea how to portray the Great Wall. I wish I had my USB cord to post some pictures, but we have been unlucky with that. I promise we will find a way to get one by the time we get Kai, Oh which reminds me we learned more information about Kai, that is more important, so let me digress from the Josh story for a minute, as good as it is...

We got this little questionnaire from our coordinator yesterday. Here is what we learned about Kai:

His nick name-Lun Lun

He has a small birthmark on his back.

He can use a spoon to eat.

He likes to suck his finger while sleeping. His nanny's tell him not to do this, as they feel the drool gets into his ear to cause an ear infection. So that answered the ear question we had about him, it was an ear infection. This made me sort of sad to think of him trying to self sooth and them not letting him. Hopefully he will like the little stuffed animals and quilt we have for him.

He does not throw temper tantrums for no reason. He is a good boy. When he gets fussy you can hold him for awhile or take him to play outside. (He sounds like an outdoor kid! Yes!)

He is an active boy and can sometimes push other kids to play. We'll see how that goes!

So, that is what we know now. Pretty exciting.

So, back to Josh and the Italian ladies. Well, the fabulous part of the Great Wall, outside of the structure itself, was that it was such a global place. There were people there from all over the world there. Anywhere you turned you could hear, German, French, Italian, etc. The thing about some of these women, they were climbing the wall in skirts and dresses and high heals! Crazy! The wall is very steep and the stairs are pretty high. So, you really have to lunge up to get up some of the stairs. Anyway, when you get to a certain point, you can stop and get certification that you climbed the Great Wall. Of course we stopped for that. You get to chose from a plaque with your name carved in it, or your picture taken on a "hero card". We wanted both so Josh did the picture and I did the plaque. A group of lovely Italian women stopped at the same time as we did. To paint a picture for you, one woman had a big white straw hat with a little battery operated fan somehow installed in the front. She was very tan and was singing a song when we first stopped.
The other woman, the "pushy one" had red hair with a thick blond streak framing the front of her face. They all had pearly eye shadow, lots of eye liner and painted toe nails with dressy high healed sandals. Poor Josh, love him to death, but he isn't the most assertive in a crowd. So, while I held my own with the ladies on the plaque side, once they moved to the picture side, Josh, who was there first, didn't have a chance. They swarmed in and pushed forward. I waited and watched and tried hard not to laugh. Which totally did not work, it was way too funny. Once they had their cards in hand, Josh was able to get his. As we started the climb to the next watch tower, I was still laughing as Josh said, "That Italian Lady pushed me... twice!"

The wall is just breath taking. I wish we would have had more time to climb there. I would have loved to climb all the way to the top.

Last night I woke up at 1 am and couldn't sleep just thinking about Kai and hoping it all goes well. Our coordinator, Catherine, also said that they are told that they are being adopted and probably already know. Tomorrow we leave for Guangzhou. I am looking forward to getting settled in there and then getting Kai (Lun Lun). We so appreciate all emails. I miss everyone a lot and getting email is really nice. Thank you for your continued prayers as well.

Till next time!