Day 13

Our last full day in China :(  We are sad to leave tomorrow.  We are so excited to see our families, husbands and children, but saying goodbye to China will be sad.  This has been an amazing trip, so wonderful and extraordinary, but so very hard and devastating as well.  My grieving for my grandmother is easier here, so distant from what I expect to return home to.  I feel comforted here.

Micki and I had a completely free day, so we took a taxi out back to Shamian Island to finish up a little shopping.  We both wanted to get our daughters at home a special gift, and our sons all got an awesome gift, too.

We returned back to the hotel and began to pack.  Oh my gosh, we bought a lot of stuff!  We are having to both leave a ton of things behind to fit it all in our suitcases and stay under the weight limit.

Tomorrow Phoebe's life changes again, this time forever.  She has so many people waiting to meet her.  Her father is already in love with her, as are her grandparents.  She has a sister who has been waiting so long to have a little sister and a brother who has been telling me to "Go China, Mama, get Phoebe" for months.  (until I told him I wouldn't be there to put him to bed and then he changed his mind)

They have all gotten to know one another on Facetime and Skype.

So goodbye in the morning:  luxury hotel life, room service, maid service, yummy breakfast, doors being opened for us, drivers, being stared at and people taking pictures of or with us.  We have been treated like royalty, like movie and rock stars, complete with paparazzi.

Goodbye crazy hotel rooms that have glass walls from the bathroom to the bedroom.

View from the toilet through the shower then the bathtub to Micki's bed.  There is a electronic curtain you can close, but we kept forgetting it was up before running into the bathroom.

The result of a week in a hotel room with a baby and two women

Yum Yum Yum Yum Yum

View from our window of Guangzhou

We won't miss television here.  We have watched more
Ghost Hunters, Locked Up Abroad (which scared us to death) and Dog Whisperer than we cared to.  We did watch some Chinese rap and dramas when really desperate during naps and bedtimes.

Luckily we had a super fun and cute little girl to play with the rest of the time.

We meet Kelly early in the morning in the lobby after being forced to forego the breakfast buffet.  We have eaten more food here in China than we usually do in a month! 

We fly from Guangzhou to Shanghai and spend 5 hours there for a layover, then on to Chicago, where we will race through immigration and customs to catch our quick flight to Grand Rapids.  As soon as we land on U.S. soil Phoebe will become an American citizen. 

Our families will meet us at the airport at 8:30pm on Friday night and we will go home to

stay up all night with jet lag since it will be Saturday morning in China.