Happy Birthday Kelcy!

Yesterday was Kelcy's Birthday, August 25.  We celebrated by going to a park in Nanning that is quite beautiful and has a variety of things for families to do.  It is actually in the heart of the city on a mountain and we spent some time in the stone stature garden and then feeding the koi fish.  Conner and Kelcy loved climbing on the rock sculptures that were of different kinds of animals and then we took a shuttle bus to the lake where we fed the gigantic koi that hung out by the bridge....waiting for kids to feed them.  Here are some pictures from the park:

Today was a great bonding day for Kelcy and Daddy.  Kelcy warmed up to Tommy quite a bit and wanted him to carry her through the park.  We think that our accent on how we (okay me) pronounced the word daddy may have caused some confustion.  In chinese the word for daddy is ba-ba and the word for afraid is pa-pa so we both said pa-pa and pointed at Tommy by accident a couple of times so that could have caused some confusion :-)  So now she really prefers Daddy to Mommy today....but the good news is that she seems comfortable with all of us...she really loves to laugh and sing and chase balls and chase after her brother and be silly. 

We celebrated Kelcy's Birthday at dinner where we ordered long noodles and she really enjoyed our sweet and sour pork :-)  She does love anything pork....her first couple of days with us she ate quite a bit and now she is slowing down...we are hoping that she feels a little safer with us and that we will provide what she needs. We bought a little cake at the local bakery and took that to the restaurant and then sang Happy Birthday in English and Chinese.  I think that she was confused as to why we celebrating - her Chinese Lunar Birthday is July 25 and we think that her Foster family celebrated on that day. 

Today is our last day in Nanning and we are packing up.  Tommy and Conner went to work out and Kelcy is taking a nap...she actually lies down on her own when she is tired and curls up with her stuffed unicorn and blanket that we gave her....she also holds onto whatever toy is her favorite while she sings herself to sleep.  She is comfortable telling us what she likes and doesn't like in true toddler form...which is a good thing because we are able to see more and more of her personality.  She loves putting on hand lotion and brushing her teeth now.  I found out from our guide that most toddlers do not brush their teeth - the parents usually rub the teeth down with cotton wipes...so our pediatric dentist might have a little work to do when we get home.  Conner continues to be a trooper through all this travel.  Tommy and I have not lost a single pound because we have been eating fast food so that Conner gets at least one meal in his system every day.  So far we have had McDonald's, Subway, Burger King, Dominoes Pizza, Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken with mashed potatoes.  We have been staying at the Marriott hotel so the breakfast buffett is very international so we have had a great brunch everyday...and Conner is able to eat cereal and Kelcy gets her fill of sausage links.  We are heading to Guangzhou tonight and it will be an hour plane ride for Kelcy - hopefully it will go well and she will be able to get on the 12 hour plane ride scheduled for next Friday.  We are looking forward to seeing the other families that we met in Beijing and their daughters and catching up with everyone.  Guangzhou is where Kelcy will get her medical appointment and will be sworn in at the American Consulate on Wednesday.  I will write more when we get settled in and we really appreciate everyone's comments!  We pray that everyone stays safe in North Carolina with the impending Hurricane heading to the NC Coast and we hope that everyone is okay after the Earthquake.  It is very hard to hear this type of news when we are so far away and all we have is the UK and Asia CNN tv channel.   Take Care everyone!