Guangzhou - Thursday, February 11th - botanical gardens and consulate appointment!

We have had a really super day despite a rough night (not enough sleep).   Isaac slept like a log the whole night but Indigo was up just before 4 a.m. with bad coughing.   We gave her a little benedryl - really all that I have at my disposal since she did not need tylenol or advil but she did not stop coughing so I took my huge pillow and plopped it under the upper part of her mattress and that seemed to really help as she stopped coughing.  However, I really struggle with sleep so after all that I had a rough time going to sleep - I let my mind run.  However, I must have fallen back asleep eventually because I was awoken by the alarm at 7.  We all dressed and went to breakfast and then at 9:30 am we left for the Botanical gardens - beautiful, stunning etc.  Some of the cutest photos of Indigo being a big sister and wanting to hold Isaac's hand and him letting her.  I love the close up one of them from behind, hand in hand.  We only had about 1 1/2 hours there which was not enough.   We raced up the pathway to the top of the hill and were first at the start of the rock garden but then we went right, met up with David, Grandma and Isaac who had made it up the hill - go Grandma (it was one steep hill and we went up fast) and we went into the beautiful greenhouse which was filled with orchids and then also had some cacti.   It was so beautiful.  It was also the sunniest and hottest day here so far - about 30 degrees celcius.  We went back to the rock garden but bought some waters first and Granddad bought lollipops for the kids.   We worked our way through the rock garden and then to the rose garden - gorgeous and then back down the hill towards the entrance, passing some beautiful sculpted trees.   Granddad took a diversion and power walked up a higher pathway  - you can see him waving part way up the path in one of the photos.  The kids sat on some tiger figures which I guess are up for Chinese New year - the year of the tiger.    Back to the bottom and meeting up with our group and onto the bus back to the hotel - on the way back I took some shots of buildings with the laundry hanging out.  This barely catches the flavor but we see this over and over, passing building after building.  It's hard to capture shots from the bus and you're never sure what side or when something is coming up but this is very typical scenery.  Guangzhou is incredibly built up and more buildings seem to be going  up everywhere.     The good thing about getting back early was that Isaac fell asleep immediately for a nap and Indigo fell asleep shortly after him - yeah.   We got them both up by two o'clock and gave them something to eat - these little hot dog things wrapped in a bun that David had found at a pastry shop (along with some desserts - no surprise to those who know him well).  David took some photos from out our hotel window so those are the tall buildings you see - it is definitely the clearest day we have had.  We were down at the lobby before 2:30 for our trip to the US Consulate for our swearing in ceremony.   There were 16 families, with 17 children being adopted.  One family was adopting two girls, one of whom would have aged out when she turned 14 on February 18th so it was really special that she got her forever family just in time.  I think there were three families who were first time parents and almost every single family raised their hand when asked who was here for a second (or more) adoption.   They also said that the for the first time last year, adoption of "special needs, waiting children" exceeded those of non-special needs.    We were there for a really long time because they said that as a new year gift to us they would get the visas (allowing the children into the states) today instead of having to wait tomorrow.   So, we all started to leave and then they said we would just wait as they were doing them right them.  So, we left the consulate with our brown packet envelopes and our children's passports with their visas.   Yippee!   Means we could have taken the earlier flight to Beijing tomorrow but Granddad said he'll appreciate another warm day.   After a 10 minute clean up we all headed out to the Banana Leaf restaurant in the Toshiba building across the way.   It's Thai food and we had a delicious meal and ate too much (except for Indigo).  Indigo was far more interested in dancing with the waiter singing Day Oh, Day Oh, Daylight come and I wanna go home...)  She actually got down from her chair, held his hands and danced, until all of a sudden she said "I have to go pee pee" so off we ran.  You never have video and camera when you need them - we'll just remember that.   We came back and the children had another bath.   Yes, by the way, when you see Isaac's filthy shirt in the close ups and in the cute ones from the garden - that shirt was put on clean this morning and he ate breakfast in his coverall bib!   You can see that bathtime was again a fun affair.   So, I mentioned that our weather here was hot and sunny and back home we're having blizzards and record amounts of snow and apparently our road is impassable etc.   Our good neighbors sent us a few shots of the front of our house, the side view of our house and one from their house (with their cute dog Fred) looking down to the road - where you can see someone cross country skiing!   We appreciate our neighbors watching out for our house and for helping us to organize some plowing!  We'll be back to cold ourselves tomorrow night!
Photos from today:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/7322989@N05/sets/72157623407666530/