Monday night

We started today with new introductions/ The first was a four legged long tailed one at breakfast. It was some kind of lizard running around under our table. No one else seemed to notice, of course we were amuzed by it. Craig has been our international ambassador, this morning he was watching the fish in the Koi pond while the rest of us finished breakfast and he introduced himself to a family from Singapore. Jessie went over to rescue the family and ended up talking to them for 20 minutes. They couldn't believe how much Ruthie truley liked us after only 6 days with us. The mom thought Craig was a very nice boy and she gave us her phone number and email address and told us to look her up if we are ever in Singapore. She told us how lucky Ruth was to end up in a family like ours and like everyone else we told her we truley are the lucky ones. We went up and Craig, Ruthie and Bob took a bath, Ruthie loved it!
After breakfast of course we went to Shamain Island to finish up our shopping, the lady at the olympic shop was able to take a credit card by using the machine at a store down the street?, works for us we loaded up. I jumped in a taxi and ran the stuff back to the hotel while the rest of the fam went to the park to play. Craig had fun and played with several kids (again neither understood a word the other said) Ruthie walked around and picked up lots of leaves. The way she looks at leaves, trees and flowers it is as if she has never seen thm before. We dropped off the last load of laundrt to get us through the last 48 hours, with a 5 year old and an 18 month old we underestimated how dirty we would get everyday. In all we dropped off laundry 4 times and it cost us about $45. Most of the shops on the island do laundry and they all discount it about 40%. We took ours to China Doll next to the youth hostel, Lisa, Ann and Grace took good care of us. Lisa by trade carves the marble stamps with your american and chinese name, we bought 5. We bought a lot of Jade family balls there also, as well as just about every silk purse they had. We ordered a picture of Craig and Ruth etched unto a piece of stone, and a picture of Ruth painted on the inside of a bottle, they will deliver them to our hotel tomorrow.
Tomorrow we leave for the consulate at 2:30 and we should be back by 5:30, before and after that will be packing, packing and packing. We will have Ruthies' visa to enter the US and we will be ready to come home. We leave Wednesday about 5:30 am. We are all looking forward to getting home, but wednesday will be a long anxious day.
I haven't mentioned our agency, but without Lisa at AAI we wouldn't have our complete family yet. Also the guides here have been amazing, top notch, super, Jane in Beijing packed a lifetime of memories into 2 days, Lilly and Judy here in Guangzhou have been awesome, we never had to worry about any paperwork (except when I left to go to carefour and Jessie didn't know my filing system and Judy came to get the 1 form we had to supply) but they found it as soon as I got back.

It's 8pm and Ruth just took her botlle and is sleeping soundly, Craig is watching Snow Buddies and about to nod off and I am sure the rest of us will be close behind. He has had a cough and the sniffles fo a few days, hopefully he will be up to the plane ride home, thank goodness it is only 15 hours coming back home,

I will try to write 1 last time tomorrow night, but if I don't we want to thank all of you again for your support and prayers in helping us complete our mission.

Bob, Jessie, Craig, Ruth and Kara