Friday, July 3 - Another fun park

We went with Elsie and the other family to a park this morning.  It was another really neat park and would have been fun to spend more time there.  There was a little amusement park and we let TongJie choose a ride to go on, and of course he found a train ride!  He really wanted to sit up front and "drive" the train, so he patiently waited an extra turn before going in so he could be first in line to get the spot he wanted.  After that, we went to the playground area.  It was an awesome playground!  It would be fun to go there early in the morning or later in the evening when the weather isn't so hot, but it's not within walking distance from hour hotel so we probably won't be going back.  It was still fun anyway, even in the hot weather!  There were some fun and interesting pieces of equipment, such as a merry go round that simply had chairs bolted to a platform, and one with bicycle seats and pedals that you actually had to pedal to make it go around.  We left the park around 11:45 and came back to our room to cool off, have some lunch, and take naps.  We plan to go swimming this afternoon.  Tomorrow morning we'll be going on another outing with the other family and one of the guides.  Elsie asked us what we wanted to do, and we all thought anything that would be fun for the older kids (TongJie and Francis, the other family's eight year old daughter) - it's nice that the guides are really doing a good job of finding things that the kids like to do.  Last time we were here, we did some sightseeing that was interesting to me and Jeff, but not something that younger kids would find interesting at all.  For the most part, TongJie has been having a really great time here and he's still getting to experience a lot of the Chinese culture.  Ezekiel is too young to remember it anyway, so we're just trying to work on bonding with him and keeping him fed and happy.

Elsie said that Ezekiel's passport is finished and is on its way via express mail to Guangzhou, so we should get it in the next couple of days.  That's very good news to hear since sometimes there can be hang-ups with getting the passports, and we need to have his passport in order to have our visa appointment at the consulate next week.  So . . . so far, so good.