Today was a warm beautiful morning and we got to walk along the perimeter of the island along the Pearl River.

The people were off for their lunch breaks and were exercising, dancing and playing Hak-i-sak. We even saw a group of people singing. We had no idea what they were singing or why, but it was fun to listen.

Kyle had to go to a paperwork meeting so I took Sydney and we met Allison at one of the pools.

They swam and Lydia and I talked with other people there. Lydia continues to be a little more emotionally secure each day. She is quite the little clown... We think she may be a little entertainer. She is taking about 3 steps at a time and then dives to the person at the end, laughs, and claps for herself. Of course, we make a pretty big deal of it, too. Yesterday we borrowed someone's DVD player and put in an animated movie. Her eyes got big and she started talking, clapping her hands, and laughing. Too cute!

I know you saw the pictures of the Thai food from yesterday. I thought I might add a few things... The menu was a little out of my comfort zone. One of their featured items was ostrich kidney fixed a number of different ways. We found some things that looked safe, but our seafood pineapple rice did have squid tentacles in it. Kyle ate those and liked them. Sydney had peanut butter and jelly after we returned to the room. Ha! It was a pretty nice restaurant and we had two entrées, an appetizer and three drinks and the cost was $21. We are getting spoiled in that way.

The big news of the day is that yesterday and today most of the people who went to the United States Consulate to pick up their child's visa and have the swearing-in ceremony were unable to get the visas because of a computer glitch in Washington DC. This visa appointment is the last thing everyone has to do and then they are free to go home. What this means is that all those people had to cancel their flights and have to stay here the additional days until the problem is fixed. Our day to pick up visas is Friday afternoon and we are scheduled for the first flight out on Saturday morning. People are kind of panicking. Of the 19 families in our group, 14 have children at home being cared for by grandparents or friends. Those families in particular are very upset at the thought that we might be delayed in coming home.

Additionally, the Guangzhou Trade Fair begins on the 15th and all hotel rooms in the city are booked so we wouldn't have a place to stay in Guangzhou. I'm not majorly concerned, yet. They have tomorrow to get the problem fixed and catch up the previous two days. I heard it was a printer problem. Hopefully it's a quick fix. Please pray that they will get the problem fixed and we will get to come home on time.

We joke about how it feels like we are camping except it's camping in a five-star hotel. It's harder than it sounds, though... We are ready to come home and show off our beautiful new daughter.

'Til tomorrow,
Carmen, Kyle, Sydney and Lydia