We made it to Guangzhou!!!

Whoo, I'm behind on blogging! All is well. Yesterday (Friday here) was a big travel day. We left our hotel in Urumqi at 11:45am and arrived at our hotel here in GZ (Guangzhou) at 10pm. We quickly treated ourselves to McDonalds, which is right next to our hotel. Y'all, it was so good. We had ICE everyone. Cold drinks. So good. And Joey had his very first hamburger, which he started asking us for months ago on one of his video chats with us before we got him. He gets so excited about little things like that, his joy is contagious!

An 11pm bedtime made for very tired boys this morning and we had to drag them out of bed at 8am to make it to his medical appointment on time. More on that in another post.

I can't describe how happy we are to be here I'm GZ. There are English speaking people here! Not a ton, by enough to get by. We are much more comfortable exploring a little on our own and there at many other adoptive families here from various agencies and the fellowship with them is priceless.  Our hotel room here is awesome, way more food choices and more things to do. Today we got Papa John's which I'm pretty sure was his first pizza. We're loving it!

Joey was phenomenal on his first plane ride. He was calm and patient and we couldn't be more proud of him.  He was so excited by all of it, getting on the place, taking off, eating on the plane, landing....every little bit is a new adventure for him.

Being here in GZ makes us realize just how much of an adventure it was for us to be in his province.  There was security everywhere in Urumchi..to get in the hotel, into the stores,parks, etc. That's not the case here and we just feel more safe and at ease here. We were very sad to tell our guide Wendy in Urumqi goodbye, though. She became a fast friend and took amazing care of us, and we loved our time with her. She very special and played such a huge role in Joey's transition. We plan to keep in touch, and thanks to WeChat it'll be easy to do. She and Joey always had so much to talk about together!

Today we finally got to swim. As far as we know, it was his first time in a pool and as with everything else, he had no fear and loved it!


Our guide in Urumqi

She treated us to delicious dumplings at the airport- she said it's a traditional thing to est when saying goodbye

We had many makeshift meals in our hotel room there-chicken soup and oatmeal packets.

Both boys love the popular chinese cartoon Boonie Bears

Ben showed Joey had to build a fort.

Chatting with the kiddos at home.

Last breakfast in Urumqi. It can be quite an adventure at a buffet with him. He doesn't quite understand not to touch all the food on the buffet etc but he loves all the local foods for breakfast.

Packing up.

Hotel security in Urumqi

Off we go to GZ!

New city, awesome hotel

Burger and fries in our PJs