White Swan and Squeaky Shoes

Hi All!

We made it!!! Dan and I almost dropped to our knees and kissed the ground once we discovered that the hotel has air conditioning, but I didn't want to drop the baby. When we got to the airport, for some reason, the lady at the counter didn't want to let us have the seat that we bought for Keira. Aggie explained to her that we bought the seat and she said that she had to check with someone to see if could keep the seat we paid for???
Weird...

Anyway, Keira did really well! I made sure that she was drinking a bottle on the climb up so that her ears wouldn't pop too bad and she was doing really well. The only time she screamed was during a pretty fast drop the plane suddenly made that really freaked her out. Dan was working on staying calm looking even though I think he was as scared as she was.

We got to the hotel and although Guiyang was a cool place, this place is so much more to our liking. Every family adopting must go into Guangzhou to finalize paperwork, so the hotel is VERY geared towards children. There is a little playroom that we took Keira to that she loved. She got to run around (with help of course) and crawl around playing with lots of toys. They also gave us the traditional adoption baby with a blonde barbie holding a chinese baby. Mattel makes them specifically for the hotel. They also made the play room.

Dan went outside of the hotel to see if he could buy a cheap umbrella stroller, and came back with one looking kind of confused. He said, "I don't know what just happened, but I told the lady I was looking for a stroller and she gave this one to me and didn't want me to pay for it." I explained that alot of the little stores outside let you borrow strollers and after going out for a bit, we understood why. It's a great way to bring people in to buy souvenirs or use the laundry services. What was the first thing that we bought? Squeaky shoes of course (sorry Laura! I couldn't resist)! These are little shoes that squeak when the babies try to walk that encourages them to keep walking. Everyone coming out of here buys them, so of course I had to as well. Keira is having a ball with them! The picture I am posting of her laughing was her first reaction to trying to walk with her new shoes. There is also a picture of her after a bath last night as well as an old school that we took a bus to to do some sightseeing. There was an old man that paints beautiful landscapes with nothing but his palm and fingernails. Keira was really grumpy there and so was I. It was SOOO hot!

Right now Dan and Keira are having daddy and baby time. He was playing with her and now they are laying on the bed watching cartoons together. They have kind of a cartoon channel here that is in Chinese so we can't understand a thing they are saying but it keeps her really happy, so who cares if we can't. :) Oh, by the way, the picture of Dan and Keira by the window- they were watching a dragon dance show in the street!