Fifth Day

At the pool- she’s still to excited for me to pause and get a picture of her swimming but one of these days I will… She loves the water!

Since we wake up so early, we usually have to wait to go eat breakfast around 6:00 AM.  Brennan enjoys getting my coffee ready each day at breakfast and has put together the perfect “potion” of sugar and creamer.  It really is good!  Kate loves her apple juice and yesterday tried yogurt, which she loved!  The yogurt here is quite runny and so she just drinks it right out of the container.  Brennan is always excited when they have egg rolls on the buffet.

After breakfast we hung out in our room for awhile and then decided to go fishing.  The canal was very dirty today- I’m thinking they may not clean the canal and Pearl River on the weekends.  It truly looked gross and when Brennan pulled his line out of the water with a gross bag attached, I was ready to sanitize him from head to toe!  I didn’t let him know how I felt, but I was very happy when he said he was ready to leave in about an hour!  He didn’t catch any fish yet but handled it very well!

After fishing we decided to go swimming.  Kate couldn’t wait and once again had so much fun!  She was great about waiting for me to go in the water.  She would sometimes want to put her hand on the ledge in the pool which is about up to her waist.  Whenever she would play on the ledge, Brennan and I would play for awhile.  When she was ready to go in the deep water again she would yell “Mommy”.  I LOVED it!  We would have stayed at the pool all day but then it started to thunder.  Kate left without a problem today.

We decided to go eat lunch at Subway which is about three blocks from our hotel.  While we were eating it totally stormed outside!  Subway is connected to a little store so we decided to buy a few more snacks in the hopes that it would stop raining.  It continued to storm so we hung out in the store for awhile with about six other people.  When the rain slowed down a little, we ventured out to walk two blocks to one of our favorite stores.  We love the lady that owns the store and talk to her often, since we always pass her on the way to the canal.  We’ve also shopped in her store a few times and always get a good deal!  Inside of her store is also a room that is operated by EChO- Education for Chinese Orphans.  Kenny runs a school for 800 students in the Henan Province.  500 of his students are special needs orphans that would not normally get an education.  His goal is to teach them vocational skills in order to help them become self reliant when they are forced to leave the orphanages at age 16.  Some of the artwork in his store were created by the students.  Kenny was really enjoyable to talk to and the artwork was incredible!  His website is www.scrollsfromchina.com  We’ll definitely stop back in his store to buy a few things!

We walked back to the room in the rain (I don’t think it was ever going to slow down) and we were all soaking wet.  Kate had closed her sun/weather protector to her stroller but was still wet too.  She LOVED it and laughed and laughed.  We dried off in the room and then decided to go down to the Swan Room to let Kate play for awhile.  There was another family in the room with three kids.  Brennan was sooo happy to have kids his age to play with!  Kate was just happy to go around playing with all the different toys!  I was happy to have finally met someone that was not leaving the same day!  This family will be staying until Wednesday so hopefully we can meet at the pool a few times.  Brennan asked if he could have a sleepover with them- he’s so cute!  I love my sweet boy!  

Keeping busy while Brennan fishes

We went back to our room and had a few snacks for dinner.  Brennan and I were feeling sleepy so we decided to take a walk so we wouldn’t go to bed too early- it was about 6:00 PM.  We walked a different way to check out the island and went into a new store.  The owners of this store had a five year old son and so Brennan and their son became fast friends.  They played with the three week old kittens, they caught critters (I think grasshoppers), and they were pulling snails out of their shells for the dad to eat later.  Okay so  I myself wouldn’t eat anything out of the Pearl River (and especially on a weekend when it’s not cleaned) and I don’t think I’d eat snails… but I loved that Brennan didn’t make a big deal out of it!  He’s learning that everyone has their own ideas and opinions.

I found out that the dad is from the same city as Kate so we talked for awhile. Brennan was happy playing and Kate had fallen asleep in her stroller.  I love that she is so easy about her naps so far and will just nap on the go!   I bought a pair of shoes for Kate- the ones I brought from America were too big for her!  She has very small feet!  I also bought two beautiful fans!  When we left and were walking towards the canal I commented that I didn’t get a very good deal on my purchases and wished that I would have bought the fans somewhere else.  My sweet son (who is so observant) commented, “Mom when I went to wash my hands I used their real house sink… I think they are poor and really needed the money.  You shouldn’t worry about it because they needed it more than you.”  He was completely correct- they really did seem poor but I wouldn’t have expected an eight year old to notice that or even the fact that they lived in their store.  So now my purchases mean even more!

We walked to the canal and Brennan watched a fisherman for about thirty minutes while Kate slept.  When she woke up we walked back to the hotel and decided to stop in the Deli that is connected to our hotel.  Brennan got a hotdog and we all got some ice cream.  Kate LOVED the mint chocolate chip ice cream that we shared! 

Kate’s new favorite toy.  We are working with her to learn not to push any buttons- truly hoping she hasn’t racked up a huge phone bill when we weren’t looking!

It was about 8:00 PM so we decided to get ready for bed, and we were all sleeping within ten minutes.  It was a GREAT day!