Hello again! Just another day in paradise here. We are blessed beyond any measure of mortal man. Ruby continues to amaze us. We should have anticipated the quick turnaround in her personality, but I suppose almost three years dulls the memory. Jada continues to amaze us daily, so perhaps that helped dull our senses as to what we should expect from Ruby as well.

This morning’s feeding was so different than the tale of misery and woe dished out to you in yesterday’s journal entry regarding Ruby’s first feeding. To tell you the truth, and I believe the picture to the left will tell what even a thousand words might fail to convey, I think we can all easily see what the problem was yesterday… I was not feeding our little angel.

Sheila here…Yeah, he feeds her three bites and has Jada taking the pictures while I go answer the phone. No kidding, I’d say she took 35 pictures of those 3 bites. :]
OK …back to Richard. I’m going to bed.

Don’t pay any attention to that statement. Seeing is believing!

We had some more official Chinese government meetings today. After each meeting, it is customary to give the official a small gift. The gift giving is very un-ceremonial and the recipient may not even know who presented them with what gift. All the gifts from all the families are piled together and the gifts are not opened at that time.

On our way back to the hotel, three of the families stopped off at the Garden Hotel to see the Western doctor who practices there. Only another family and us remained on the bus back to the hotel. The other family had actually been to the clinic in our hotel earlier in the morning and received a checkup and medicine for their little girl.

During the bus ride to the Civil Affairs Office, we invited the rest of the families to our room later in the afternoon for a small birthday party for Ruby. Since all the girls’ birthdays are so close, we turned it into a five girl birthday party. Two of the girls’ birthdays were today, one tomorrow, one day after tomorrow, and the other one is the 12th. We had some cake and soda and some good old fashioned fellowship.

Later in the evening, we all met for dinner at Lucy’s Restaurant, a small place that serves American food, as well as other types. It is well-known in the Chinese adoption community since it is so close to the White Swan Hotel.

Okay, so there is the synopsis of another day here in Guangzhou. If you haven’t noticed, I have tried extremely hard to NOT discuss the heat and humidity here. Since the babies are not used air conditioning, we even had to turn the AC almost off in the room. Not good for me, but that is what is best for the baby.

I’m not sure what all we have to do tomorrow. All I know is that we have to meet in the hotel lobby at 9:00 to be hauled off to another official government meeting. Hopefully, I will be able to report what we did in tomorrow’s journal entry. So, enjoy the pictures and notice how our baby is changing right before your eyes.

Richard, Sheila, Jada and baby Ruby