Hello all, Well we have had a great day today in Nanjing. It is actually our last day here. Tomorrow we fly to our last destination before heading home to the States. Our day is not over yet, we are heading out tonight with our guide to see some more sights. I wish I could tell you where we are going but I can't pronounce it and Mark is taking a nap. So on my next post I will tell you where we went. haha Today we headed out on our own to visit a museum with the history of this area. It was quite amazing. This is part of Annabel's heritage and we want to be able to take as much of it back to the states as possible for her so that when she is older she is able to understand it all. Many of you have emailed me asking me whether or not we visited Annabel's orphanage. The answer to that is unfortunately not. It was entirely by our own choosing. We have a fantastic guide who said he was willing to take us. But after day two we decided not to go. For one thing it is 3 1/3 hours each way and it gets blistering hot in the vehicles here. In China they don't so freely use air conditioning the way we do so it tends to be a little on the warm and humid side. On day two we took Annabel back to the Adoption office and said her goodbyes to her nannies. After that we noticed a little bit of a change in her. She seemed very confused. We didnt want her to think we were taking her back to the orphanage. We had the amazing opportunity to receive back two cameras and 8 pages of questions that we asked the orphanage. Plus we got to question the nannies for a long time. So I felt like we had all the information we needed. Between not wanting to upset Annabel and confuse her any more and the weather being the way it was (by the way it is beautiful today) we decided not to go. We will go back when she is older for a heritage tour so she can learn where she came from. Since we chose not to make the trip we also didn't get to see her finding sight. But I am ok with that. I felt like it was much more important for me to gain her trust and bond with her then to be on the road in yucky weather for over 7 hours. Today she is doing fantastic. You wouldn't know we have only had her for 4 days. At the museum many Chinese women and a few foreigners on vacation began to talk to her and she reached her arms up to be held. They would pick her up, she would smile and say a few words (who knows what she was saying) and then reach for me and say "mama". I loved the fact she always wanted to come back to me. For some of the Chinese women they were almost saying goodbye to her as if they knew her. I believe many many Chinese people are sad because of the great orphan epidemic they have here. They are so happy to see these children go to good homes even if it is in another Country. I also believe because they see us speaking Chinese with her they know we intend to keep her heritage alive for her. Yes we have learned a little Chinese. Not enough to survive on our own but enough to get us by. I hope we dont forget it all the minute we leave China. haha As for Annabel, what can I say? She is an absolute precious gift. Worth every bit of the pain and tears throughout this entire adoption process. She is like a sponge learning and mimicking everything we do. I cannot even imagine her not in our life now that we have had for her the past 4 days. Thank you God!!! You are so awesome. Well I am off to get ready for our big evening out. Until next time. God bless, Tamara
