Paul took Jen and Yong to the park this morning while I attended another meeting. Holt is very good about getting information to families and making sure they know where and when they are supposed to be. We now know how to exit China safely and correctly and still have our children with us when we reach the United States.

These last few days have been emotional for the group as a whole and for one of the families in the group specifically. I won’t go into many details, but the child that they adopted had many more special needs than they were informed of. They are not capable of managing them and so have decided to relinquish the child. They are devastated. The mother will stay in China for another two weeks to try and adopt another child while the rest of the family returns to the US. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

Today for lunch we ventured to Lucy’s. It is a little restaurant just down the road from the hotel that serves American as well as Chinese food. Jen ordered a toasted cheese sandwich and milk. Her meal came with French fries and she was totally excited. The cheese sandwich was made with Velveeta cheese and had the crusts cut off. She downed the whole thing! Yong had a bowl of chicken noodle soup, which was more Chinese-style than Campbell’s soup style. It was delicious! I had fried rice and Paul had fish and chips. Yong enjoyed the fish that Paul shared with him. We enjoyed a walk through the park on the way back to the hotel.

After a nap, about which there was much protesting by both Jen and Yong, we did some shopping and had dinner at an excellent Thai restaurant. It was different from the one we ate at the first night we were here. On the way back to the hotel we found a grocery store that had Wahaha. Yong was very excited and was speaking Mandarin with the young women working in the store to let them know that the Wahaha was his. Today was a much better day than yesterday.