Sunday

Today we enjoyed another day with Mei Ling and her friend, Kai Qing. We had heard about a church on the island that had a bilingual service, so we headed there this morning.  I'm so glad we did.  Half of the songs were English and the other half were Chinese, but even in another language, it was so good to hear God's praises sung.  The first English song they sang was There is None Like You.  It has a line that says, "suffering children are safe in your arms…" and I got so choked up. Several times during the service, I was trying to keep my emotions in check. Mei Ling seemed to know the words of the Chinese songs and I found out later that she had learned them from her cousin and grandmother. Kai Qing had never been to church before.  I'm so glad they came with us. The church had a little book store and we picked up some Chinese worship music. Joshua really likes listening to music – especially Hillsong, so we tried to find some we thought he would enjoy.   After the service, a woman came to speak with me and asked about our boys. She told me she works for a clothing catalog and asked if we would have time for her to use Mark in a photo shoot.  I asked how long it would take.  She said about four hours, so even though Mark thought it sounded fun, it didn't seem like a good idea. The church is on Shamian Island and we have seen photographers taking pictures there every day. Today, we saw some newly married couples having photos.  We also saw some models dressed in strange costumes.  We heard from Mei Ling that there is a movie star staying in our hotel. I guess there were lots of young girls gathered in the lobby talking about him. Around mid night last night I had heard a lot of commotion and had wondered if there was a fire alarm we hadn't heard about…I think it was just excited fans.   We took Mei Ling and Kai Qing to lunch at Lucy's Diner.  Around the time we finished eating, another huge storm rolled in. We were soaked, even with umbrellas, before we could get in a taxi. We took the taxi to a shopping area and an electronics store thinking we might find a cheap camera for Joshua, but they were all too expensive. The electronic store was crazy and the whole area was about what you would picture in the busiest part of a city of 10 million people.  It was overwhelming.  We decided to take a taxi back to the hotel to let the boys rest and swim while Mei Ling and Kai Qing did more shopping. Joshua got car sick again, but perked up after resting in the room a while and wanted to go swimming.   Mei Ling called us later and asked if they could take us to dinner in another shopping area they visited. We met them there and they took us to a "home style" restaurant like her mother would cook.  It was a unique restaurant. We were seated upstairs where we had to duck to walk to our table. The food was very good and not something we would have ever ventured to try on our own.   The size of this city is hard to describe. I have to imagine it is like being in New York without being able to read the street signs or recognizing any landmarks. I'm attaching a picture out our hotel window – it looks like that in every direction. I'm also attaching a picture of the boys in the area we were tonight. Mei Ling had just negotiated a good deal on rubix cube type toys for them, so they were oblivious to the crowd and bright lights.   Mei Ling told me it is difficult for her to keep up with my English over the phone, but that she can understand me in person when she can see my face and hand signals. I've learned a few useful Chinese words and phrases, but am a long way from being able to converse. We communicate with Joshua with a Chinglish, improvised sign language method. I think Pete and I could take on anyone in a game of charades by the time we get home from this trip!   Tomorrow we go have the TB test checked – it looks good to us. Then we go from there to our consulate appointment to turn in all of our paperwork. Our guide, Rosa, wants to take us around in the afternoon. Tuesday, we will pack our belongings and head to Shamian again to meet up with another friend, then go to Joshua's citizenship appointment at the consulate and board our van to drive to Hong Kong for our flight home on Wednesday!

Fourth of July

It didn't really feel like the Fourth of  July here.  I don't think we saw another American today. No fireworks, but we did have some big thunder this afternoon.   This morning, our exchange student from four years ago, Mei Ling, flew into town from Chongqing with a friend of hers.  We are so excited about seeing her again. We so loved hosting her and have considered her an extension of our family ever since.  We spent several hours today at the Guangzhou zoo.  They have a very nice zoo here, complete with a Panda.  It is much less expensive to go to a zoo here. We got all six of us in for about the same price as one person at home. We don't have a ton of pictures of the boys today. Shortly after we got to the zoo, Mark took over our camera and Joshua had Mei Ling's camera.  They each took pictures until the cards were full!  We left when the tremendous thunder storm came rolling in and soaked us even with umbrellas.   Joshua tired quickly and his leg was sore from his shots. The only food we found at the zoo were big bowls sort of like cup of noodles in mysterious flavors or ice cream.  Pete, Mark and I had ice cream and the others had the noodles. Joshua was digging into his noodles for quite a while before we noticed he was sweating terribly, his nose was running and he was halfway through a second water bottle.  It finally occurred to us perhaps his noodle dish was very spicy.  Mei Ling asked and confirmed it was way too spicy for him.  However, true to form, he was eating as fast as he could handle the heat. We asked if he wanted one not so spicy and he nodded emphatically!  He finished every noodle in the second bowl.   Food is a really big deal to him.  At breakfast the past two mornings, he has wrapped up some food to take back to the room. Hopefully, he will soon understand that we always have food for him.   Tonight we went to a good Chinese restaurant.  Mark FINALLY got to have the whole roasted duck he had heard was famous in China. It was only six us dollars and was quite a sight with the head and all. We've found that eating at Chinese restaurants is far less expensive than western food restaurants.   Joshua has challenged us with a few things when we know he understands us, but so far, he seems to understand and take correction and direction pretty well.  He was limping and complaining a lot about his leg until he figured out that meant mom would try to give him more ibuprofen and he has been "fine" ever since. He has a good sense of humor and I think that helps all of us in many ways. I kissed his forehead several times this morning to make sure he didn't have a fever.  As I was walking away from one set of forehead kissing, he came back and gave me a good long hug.    I'm missing my other kids terribly.  It was so good to hear all of their voices this morning. They all seem like they are doing well and getting to do a lot of fun and special things. We so appreciate the people watching our kids, property, dog, goats and chickens. Rachel told me she is amazed at how people are bending over backwards (apparently some quite literally) to make them feel comfortable and loved.   Sidenote -- today was Anna's finding day 5 years ago.

Morning Trauma and Afternoon Delights

Sorry for double posting – hope I'm not boring all of you… Today, we were very briefly part of what is left of our agency's travel group – for the 30 minute ride to Shamian Island. The boys were up so late and still on Xinjiang time, so we barely made it to breakfast in time to catch our bus with them.  When we got to Shamian Island, we were dropped off at the medical clinic with both Guangzhou guides and the other two families went shopping. They leave tomorrow for Hong Kong, so it will just be us again.   The medical clinic was traumatic.  Joshua did great through all of the examinations. It was a similar, frustrating experience as we had with Anna in that the doctor's didn't know how to describe his special need. Four doctors took turns moving his arms and fingers around despite our explanations. We finally wrote out "arthrogryposis amyoplasia" and it looked like the senior doctor went to look it up on his computer. Then we had to deal with the TB test and shots. I was a very unhappy mama about the whole thing.  It is SO not right. I've already written all of my congressmen and I think I will do it again. We are only the second family (the first from our agency) that has had to do the TB test. The other family probably has not had results read yet. They checked to see if he had the immunization since that can cause a false positive. He has no record of the shot, but since he didn't come to the orphanage until he was older, he may have had it when he was born. We are just hoping there is no reaction.  They do the test by poking a syringe into his little forearm.  It took a long time and he cried through the whole thing. They followed that up with three shots. He screamed, fought, argued and had to be held down. They couldn't do the shots in his arms because of the missing muscle and had to do it in his leg. I was so angry, but they told us we had no choice.  Afterward, our guide told him how unhappy mommy was and that I was going to write letters to our government about it. He seemed to understand. I had some ibuprofen with me and convinced him it would be helpful if he took it. He didn't really want to take it, but he seems to trust me and I'm thankful for that. To add to our troubles there, he lost his Joshua pendant there too when Pete took him to the restroom.   Thankfully, he was a happy boy again as soon as we left the clinic.  We had a truly delightful afternoon on the Island.  He enjoyed visiting the little shops.  We visited the Charity store that supports Good Rock Foundation. GRF sponsored Anna's foster care and sponsored Joshua at summer camp last year. We also found Michael's shop. He has moved since last time. His wife was there and we saw pictures of his little boy who was just a little younger than Anna last trip. We got a chop for Joshua. A chop is a stone stamp that is engraved with his English and Chinese name. It is beautiful and cost about $7.  He LOVES it.  He seems to really like his English name. He has me write in on all of his things. When we were at the medical appointment, he was writing his Chinese name for our guide. I wrote down his American name and she asked him if he knew what it was. He said, "yes, that is my English name". When we weren't watching, he took the pen and copied underneath it. Maybe I need to attach that picture…  He is very smart. We are amazed how quickly he is learning English. He keeps slipping in English words here and there – we've especially noticed he likes to do that with Chinese people.  I'm glad he is learning so quickly, but hope that doesn't mean he will refuse to speak Chinese once we are home like so many children do.   We enjoyed the Island so much. We stayed on the Island last time, so we have many nice memories there. It is very hot and humid here, but there was a nice breeze near the water which gave it a very tropical feel.  We ate lunch at Lucy's Diner – pretty much a requirement for any adopting family. We met a nice family there.  They are from California, adopted 5 years ago and moved to Guangzhou 2 ½ years ago to teach English. Joshua put away a ton of food again. After finishing all of his food, he ate half of mine too!   Yesterday, we were able to have our guide explain to him about why it took so long for us to come for him.  He told our guide yesterday that he knew last year that he was going to be adopted and come to America. We explained that we had to do many papers and that we couldn't send anything to him until we had some of them done and that we came on an airplane the first day they said we could come   We took a lot of pictures today.  Joshua wanted to take some pictures and ended up taking many, many pictures!  When we got back to the room, the boys went with Pete to the pool while I went to complete the rest of our paperwork with our guides. As I was getting ready to go out the door, I gave both boys a kiss good bye.  Mark said, "Zai Jian!"  Joshua said, "Zia Jian! Good Bye!" then ran to the door to give me another hug. It was so sweet and reminded me of my James who has always had to give me one last hug before I go out the door.      Mark is doing great.  He is finding food to eat and has discovered he loves cooked broccoli – something easy to find here. When we were leaving breakfast this morning, we discovered they serve Sushi, so he's hoping to have it tomorrow.  Breakfast has been included at all our hotels. One thing I love about China is veggies, rice and noodles for breakfast – much better than American breakfast, in my opinion. When we were driving today, Mark was paying close attention to the many run down looking apartment buildings. He was very concerned about it and starting making plans to come back when he is older to repaint and rebuild apartment buildings for poor people. He asked if I knew how to help him make a website to get people to help him. Mark has been a patient brother. Today, when they got ready for the pool, Mark put on a different swimming suit and it had fish on it. Joshua asked if he had one like it, but didn't. He clearly wanted to wear that one, so I told him he'd have to ask Mark.  Mark readily switched swimming suits with him.  I was proud of him.  I was also proud of Joshua when he said, "Thank you Mark." I've heard him say "thank you" and "sorry" several times unprompted.   We have had a couple small battles of will, but so far they have turned out okay. We know things could change any time, but so far, he seems to want to make us happy. He seems to know how to be charming. Last night, at dinner, he charmed the woman at the next table out of some of her grocery purchase (a small carton of milk).  When he gets into trouble with us, he always flashes a big grin. That smile has probably gotten him out of trouble in the past. We're endeavoring to try to teach boundaries, in spite of the million dollar smile. He seems to understand much of what we say, so pretending not to understand won't work for very long… He doesn't have too many naughty moments.  Even though he seems very mature, he is really just a six year old boy and the challenges we've seen are really pretty typical (running ahead., touching things in stores, going in and out of the door when we've told him not too, etc.).   Because he is from the same orphanage as Anna and has the same condition, people always want to know how this happened. We have learned to give an abbreviated version of their amazing stories, but even in brief, it reminds us again and again of the amazing grace of God.

Aldrich Family Grand Bazaar

Thursday was our trip from Xinjiang Province to Guangzhou.  Before leaving, our guide, Wendy, took us to the Grand Bazaar and our previous guide, Sunny, met us there. No car sickness this time!  Urumqi City boasts of having the largest Bazaar in the world.  We must have only seen a fraction of it, but it is pretty amazing. On the car ride, our guide told us that the Uighur people like big families (they are allowed more children). When a family has no children, they say the home is like a "tomb", but when they have many children, they say it is very exciting and happy like "The Grand Bazaar".  So, we decided the Aldrich family is A Grand Bazaar family.   It was fun to have our two guides meet each other. It turns out they were both born in the same area on the West side of the Tian Shan mountains. Their parents still live there. I think they will become friends.   We were concerned Joshua would be nervous about the flight, but he was SO excited. You should have heard him squeal when we got through security and he could see the airplanes through the windows.  Airplane is a Chinese word that I know, so I knew that was what he was shouting as we walked out of security.   He was very excited about being on the big plane – we were on a newer Boeing 777, so it was much nicer than the last flight we took between Xinjiang and Guangzhou. We had four seats together in the middle section.  Thank you Lord! We had picked up some movies in Chinese at the Grand Bazaar and the boys watched them on the flight. Joshua loved the food on the plane. I have to say, it was the most amazing airplane food I have ever received – we were stuffed.  China Southern Air – for those traveling to China.   When the second movie ended and we started descending, he started having that distant look again. He wouldn't make eye contact when Pete, who was sitting next to him, tried to talk with him. Nothing to say, didn't want anything except a piece of gum I offered to him. When we landed, we got off as quickly as we could and I let him hold my hand and take the lead. Getting to set the pace as we zoomed through the moving sidewalks really cheered him up again. I think he was taking lessons from our taxi drivers…  Note to Rachel – it was comparable to you taking Lacey for a walk…    He was a happy boy when we got to the hotel and wide awake. When we came in the room, he decided to declare which bed was "Joshua's" and which was "Mark's". It was sweet though, before bed, he pushed their beds together.  We ended up going to KFC and he delighted in dipping anything he could again. We met a nice woman at the next table who wanted to practice English, I think, and was curious about Joshua.   I have lots of pictures from today (Friday ) so I'm going to do a separate post…  p.s. for anyone technically challenged like me – if you want to see the pictures larger – just double click.

Ready to Fly

I'm not sure if I will have time to post again when we arrive in Guangzhou tonight - so I'm doing a second post for Wednesday...  They boys had a great time at the pool again.  There were some other children there swimming. I guess local people can buy a swim pass there. Mark and Joshua were playing with the children when I got there and having so much fun. There was a boy there who was being very helpful with Joshua. Turns out he is 11 years old and has been taking private English classes for three years, so we had a nice conversation.  Very sweet boy. Curious about us and Joshua. He told me that Joshua told him his parents had died. We don't know if he really believes that or if he just said that because it was simple - I kind of think that is the case. There was a little girl there that wanted to know if I could speak any Chinese, so I demostrated a few of my phrases and counted in Chinese. They were all impressed with my counting.... He told me I speak better Chinese than most Americans, however, I don't think that is saying too much.   We had such a huge blessing last night.  Sunny, our delightful guide from last trip met us for dinner. She had been our lifeline here last time around and spent seven full days with us when we adopted Anna. She is incredibly sweet, is great with children and teaches English to tourism students at the University. Joshua started looking a bit distant again last night as we left for dinner, but he warmed up quickly to Sunny. We were able to communicate with him about many things during dinner. A NOTE for Grandpa Dean -- yesterday afternoon he had seen fishermen at the park and said he wanted to go fishing and to go in a boat. He expressed this wish again at dinner and we told him he has a Grandpa that likes to fish too.   Sunny was able to explain to him about our travel to Guangzhou and that we will stay there several days before we go to America. I was concerned he might think Guangzhou was America. Now I think he understands -- he didn't before. Sunny took us to a Kazaak restaurant that was close enough to walk so we could avoid another taxi ride. Joshua and Mark both enjoyed it immensely.  One of the pictures shows Mark diving into a specialty dish of the Kazaak people - horse meat.  I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Sunny treated us to dinner and ordered about 10 dishes.  A funny thing happened. After she first ordered, the waitress told her we needed to order even more food -- what???  Turns out we were seated at a 6 person table and after 9 pm you are required to order at least 300 yuan worth of food for that size of table (about $40 us dollars) and it turns out our 10 dishes plus drinks only totaled a little more than 200 yuan (about $30) -- so we ended up squishing into a 4 person table and all was well!!  We had tried to pay for dinner, but Sunny had snuck off to pay earlier.  When it was time to leave, there was a ton of food left and Sunny wanted to pack it up to share with her roommates the next day.  Joshua grabbed the bag of food as we left.  Sunny complemented him for his help, but I told her I suspected he thought we were going to take that good food with us - since he is really into food.  She talked to him about it and turned to me with her hand on her chest, "do you know what he told me?"  I thought he probably told her he wanted to save it for later. Turns out, he told her he wanted to take it to the other children at the orphanage.  So, now we are all tearing up...  She told him it was too far away, but that we would help him send some things from America to his friends at the orphanage.  We went from there to an Ice Cream shop - great delight again.  We took our Ice Cream to Dicos where there was more room to sit and ordered some fries. Joshua asked if he could have a piece of fried chicken too.    It was such a treat to have Sunny's company and translation.  She plans to meet up with us today and accompany us to the airport. She really wants to see us off. Hopefully, our other guide won't mind. We are trying to talk Sunny into coming to visit in America one day. I know Rachel and Sarah will smile when they read that.

Balloons, Bonding and Taxi Rides

We had a great day yesterday, but for some reason, Joshua became withdrawn and quiet at dinner.  He had done the same thing at the end of dinner in the same restaurant the night before.  Last time, he stuffed himself and then became quiet. This time, his countenance changed right after we sat down.  He wouldn't speak to us or to the waitress who saw what was happening and tried to speak with him. He didn't want anything to eat or drink.  After the broccoli arrived (which he devoured the night before) and he showed no interest, I decided perhaps I should just take him back to the room. I wasn't sure how he would feel about leaving with just me or if we would have a scene in the restaurant, but as soon as I got up and said, "Let's go" he took my hand and walked out.   There had been a few quiet tears in the restaurant. When we got back to the room, he went and sat on the bed. I grabbed his blanket, wrapped it around him and just held him and told him it was okay to be sad.  I don't know what, if anything, he understood of what I was saying, but the tears started to really flow for a few minutes. I didn't know what else to do but just hold him and tell him all of the people that love him. After a while, I got him some tissue and held him some more and sang a couple songs that I always sung to my babies (or toddler in Anna's case) when I rocked them – Jesus Loves Me and Amazing Grace.  Those songs are pretty deeply ingrained in my kids.  Sarah sang Jesus Loves Me to Joshua the first time we called her.  Anna sang it to him today.  Mark wanted to sing Amazing Grace while we were here.   Joshua was very quiet, but he allowed me to hold him and I think that was good.  After a while, I went in search of the photo albums and on the way, found packages of balloons we had brought with us. They are those balloons used for making animals.  I sat next to him and started pumping one up.  He started looking sideways at my work, then wanted to blow one up himself.  We ended up blowing up several balloons, making some creatures that could only exist on a foreign planet and finally had a balloon sword fight with the helmets I had attempted to make out of the balloons.  (I really needed my girls here to help make balloon art – I'm the least qualified person for such a task!)  By the time Pete and Mark arrived, we were ready to ambush them with our balloon swords.   This morning, we had another fun breakfast, called all of the kids (after I figured out where they all were – I had lost track but they were all at our house with both sets of grandparents, my sister and her boys!) and then set out with our guide to Red Hill Park. The boys had a great time again. We had a little balloon misadventure at the start. There was a midway type game of shooting lasers at balloons.  The sign said .4 yuan and our guide said it would be about 1 yuan for both boys to play (remember – there are 8 yuan to one USD) so this seemed really cheap and we said, "okay". So the boys start blasting away at the balloons.  I'm watching two employees stand there with a big bag of balloons replacing the popping ones as fast as they could go and thinking – boy this seems like a lot of work for them for one yuan….  After the boys had been blasting away for a few minutes I signed for them to stop.  We had a big shock when they told us it was .4 yuan PER SHOT….  Between the two boys, they had taken about 500 shots before we made it clear to these employees that we wanted them to stop.  SOOO, when you see the boys in the pagoda picture holding stuffed parrots, please admire them since it cost about $30 for those two parrots!  Yikes!  A good lesson learned for us and our guide.   We enjoyed visiting Red Hill Park – note to my girls – it was MUCH cooler this time. We actually got rained on for a bit. The park is at the highest point in the city, so you can get a good view in every direction.  The pagoda in the picture is filled with photos of the city and a history lesson for Urumqi city (pronounced either "ooo-rooom-chee" or "wooo luh moo chee".)  The city is considered a young city since it was established a mere 200 years ago.  It is smack dab in the middle of Asia – as far from an Ocean as you can get. The photo I'm attaching shows the main highway that sits where the original Urumqi River was diverted away. This is part of the Silk Road. Anna and Joshua are actually from Shi He Zi (pronounced Shir Huh Dzah) about a 3 hour drive away from here. Shi He Zi used to be a military headquarters. After the cultural revolution, they sent the surplus soldiers there to work as farmers until they might be needed as soldiers again. At the peak of Red Hill Park, there is a small, but tall pagoda that was built 200 years ago. There was a story about a dragon in the river. When the water would flood, they thought the dragon was angry and the city leader had the pagoda built to subdue the dragon…not sure how that would work…but the river still floods…   After leaving the park, we caught a taxi with the intention of visiting the Grand Bazaar for which Urumqi is famous. We had planned to have mutton shish kabobs and rice pilaf.  However, the drive there was a bit crazy. Seriously crazy.  Truly, it felt like something out of a movie – picture pedestrians darting to both sides as your taxi careens through alley ways and between cars driving both directions within an inch or so of your car… when we became completely stuck between cars our driver started shouting out the window at the other taxi driver who apparently violated some mysterious crazy cab driver etiquette…  (Sorry mom and dad – promise we won't do it again and we're all safe J) Anyway, before we reached the bazaar, Joshua started to get that withdrawn look again…well it turned out he was car sick.  He told our guide his stomach was upset and he didn't want to go to lunch (who could blame him), so we asked the driver to take us back – now he was careening even faster…along the way, Joshua threw up all over the back seat. Thankfully, we had stopped at our hotel to drop off the parrots and pick up a jacket for him – so that caught most of the fallout.  Before we got back to the hotel I had him and the cab cleaned up with my trusty supply of wet wipes. (Sarah, I thought of you and that tram ride years ago…)  This is the second time Joshua has felt car sick – the amusement park rides today probably didn't help much.  Prayers for a smooth flight tomorrow would be greatly appreciated. Flying will obviously be a new experience for him and I think our flight is 4 or 5 hours.   When we got back to the hotel, Joshua slept for almost 2 hours, but woke up feeling much better. Pete got some num bread and fried rice (they have their own yummy type of rice here) and Joshua had something to eat and seemed quite content. Pete and Mark went out to the street vendors to buy an outfit for each boy to wear tomorrow since we figured out it cost less than laundry at the hotel. We attempted to find a place to do laundry today – another long story – We're trying to hold off on laundry until we get to Guangzhou!   The boys are off swimming again, so I'm off to see how they are doing.  Thank you again for all of the prayers and encouraging words. One more week in China to go…it will be good to get to Guangzhou tomorrow and meet up with some of the other families from our agency.

Let's Go!!!

Today we are seeing a lot more of Joshua's personality.  After his good, long night's sleep, he awoke happy and ready to go.  He was pretty quiet yesterday, but today he woke up in a chatty mood.  Very energetic and trying to talk with us even though he knows we don't understand.  He is also trying to learn more English and imitating things he hears us say.  His first new English phrase was "Let's Go!"  At first we didn't understand it and it sounded more like "let's geeyou", but by about the 20th time, it was very clear.   It has been fun to watch this little boy delight in new experiences. The first event of the day was heading to the breakfast buffet.  Mark is only able to eat hard boiled eggs, but had some cereal bar before we headed down. Joshua had a great time picking food from the buffet.   After breakfast, we walked a few blocks to The People's Park – a huge city park.  We attracted a lot of attention on the street today.  If we were an oddity with my blonde hair and Mark's red hair yesterday, we were utterly puzzling when we added a Chinese boy today. The park was very interesting.  There were people gathering around in various places singing traditional Chinese songs, there were also older men playing interesting instruments, people in street clothes joining into traditional dances, people aged 5 – 80 using various exercise equipment and people playing some card game that looked like it required each player to hold half a deck of cards.   Joshua was so excited to arrive at the park.  He and Mark gave the exercise equipment a try and that was fun, but there was sheer delight when we found the little amusement park.  It was somewhat like an aged Oaks Park or traveling carnival type rides. Joshua was SO excited to see the rides.  The first thing he wanted to ride was a little train. He had the biggest grin.  He had a great time in a big play area and then we found a mini car track.  He was shaking he was so excited. He and Mark played a couple bumper car type rides.  On the first one, Mark slammed him a bit too hard and he bumped his knee.  He wanted to stop, but shook it off and was fine.  We kept playing around that area until Mark bumped his sore finger and it started bleeding again.   The boys were a huge mess by the time we left. It is actually cool today (in the 70s) because a big storm came in last night.  It dumped quite a bit of rain and it was muddy at the park. They came back and had showers and we were finally able to convince Joshua to change his shirt. As we had started out to the park, I had written :"Joshua" on his water bottle.  It had rubbed off during the morning. When we got back to the room, he brought his bottle to me with a pen and asked me to write "Joshua" on it again.  It was a blessing to see that he understands and likes his new name. He is also able to say it much more clearly than yesterday.   We went back to "Dicos" for more chicken, fries and dips.  After lunch, Mark wanted to go to the pool. We weren't sure what Joshua would think, but he was game to try. The pool required swim caps and also that we pay for a third person (I guess only two per room can swim free???)  While Pete and I were figuring that out, both boys hopped into a shallower water area. Joshua's head went under water for a few seconds before Pete got into the pool and Joshua decided he was done with the pool.  He and I sat and watched Pete and Mark play in the pool for about 20 minutes before he started looking for his swim cap to join them in the pool again.  It was amazing to see him jump back in the water with Pete. He started just having Pete hold him in the water, but by the time we left the pool, he was jumping in by himself, putting his face under water, trying to imitate Mark's swimming and having a water fight. It was a truly amazing sight to behold. He was again, just delighting in the experience. His laugh was making me tear up because it was just so amazing for me to see.     There was a man giving swim instructions to children at the pool.  He was pretty funny. He came to ask if Joshua was Chinese and where we were from.  When we told him "America" he went and found a flute (doesn't everyone take their flute with them to the pool?) and started playing the Star Spangled Banner and other patriotic American songs until all of his students arrived.  He asked about Joshua's arms and then told us it was very good that we adopt him.  It was nice to hear that after all of the puzzled stares today.   We just came back to the room for another round of showers. Joshua asked if he could have a bath – more delight.  Now the boys are fighting (in a friendly way) over a bag of popcorn – so utterly normal!    This morning, during my quiet hours, there were so many things I was pondering.  I kept thinking of the song that we have on the other blog that we called "Joshua's Song".  The real name is "When Love Takes You In" by Steven Curtis Chapman.  There is a line that says, "In a moment was has been is lost in what will be…" We are enjoying getting to know this little boy that is now part of us.  We know he will come with his own unique traits and challenges. Today we are seeing a strong and brave little boy who is able to delight in his world and it is a joy to see.