Part 7--Guangzhou

It is Tuesday morning here in Guangzhou, China and it's already about 90 degrees!

Sarah Grace had her official medical exam yesterday. Imagine small building crowded with dozens of adoptive families, plus dozens of Chinese patients as well. It was noisy and hot. Sarah Grace blissfully slept through our entire initial wait - about 1 hour. The minute the doctor began poking and prodding her, she woke up with a vengence though! There was much screaming! The exam was required but was really not with our effort. There were three different stations she had to visit. Each station took about 20 seconds but had about a 25 minute line. So she would get woken up for one station and then fall back asleep while we waited for the next. Total, we were in the office over 2 hours! She checked out fine. She weighs 19 lbs, has a head circumfrence of 17 inches and is 71 cm long. Many of the babies have been sick in this first week but Sarah Grace has not at all.

After the exam, our guides took us souvenir shopping for about 2 hours. She slept through all of that in her stroller as well. I think the heat just makes her want to sleep. All of the Chinese advice tells us that these babies like the heat becuase that's what they're accsumtomed to in the orphanage, that they like to be bundled up in lots of clothes and that they don't like the air conditioning. I don't know if that's true for other Chinese babies, but it isn't for Sarah Grace. She loves the AC and wants to take all of her clothes off the minute we get in the hotel room.

When we shopped, we bought her a new book to celebrate our one-week anniversary of being together.

Sunday, we visited a beautiful park across the street from our hotel, Yue Xiu Park. It's 92 acres of beautiful, lush trees and palnts. We plan to visit another park, Orchid Park, this afternoon. Sarah Grace loves leaves and flowers.

We took another swim last night. Sarah Grace would take off swimming if we would let her. She kicks and moves her arm and tries to put her face in the water. She laughs and laughs.

Her disposition is very sweet. She loves to giggle, smile and babble. She is gaining all kinds of muscle strengths and wants to be moving constantly (I guess that's why she takes such good naps).

We will be in China for 2 more full days before we leave on Friday. We are praying for that plane trip. She did so well on the 2-hour flight last week but this will be a bit different!

We are ready to get home. China is a fascinating country and there are so many interesting sights to see, but now that we have Sarah Grace our focus has shifted from sightseeing to her (as you can tell by the pictures we have taken!). We are ready to take her to her new home and introduce her to the people who love her. We'll see you soon. As always, thanks for your prayer and support. We are happy that we can share this journey with you!

Love -

Andy, Angie and Sarah Grace