Elizabeth woke in the middle of the night vomiting, but after sleeping some more she has been fine today.  I just know it is because she ate the raw parsley garnish on the beef noodles at the restaurant yesterday... We went on a tour of the museum here in Lanzhou today- there are dinosaurs and beautiful silk and pottery dating back 2000 years.  The most famous exhibit is the Galloping Bronze Horse that was found in Wuwei.  Lanzhou is along the Silk Road, and the history here is fascinating.  We were able to buy a book at the museum shop about Gansu, and a silk map of the province.  Our wonderful guide, Steed, also handed out paper maps of Gansu in English. Next, we went to the famous Yellow River waterwheels, which are huge and beautiful.  There was a little shop there with art, so we were able to get some great souviniers, including a replica of the Galloping Bronze Horse, some art that is common to Qingyang, Thomas's birthplace, and a painting of pandas on silk. We made a quick stop at a famous sculpture that was made by a lady artist in the 1980's along the Yellow River of a mother and baby for family pictures.  Then we ate at Pizza Mira, which was ok.  The fries were amazing. I made the daily water run to the store, and poked around while Thomas napped with Matt and the girls.  I was looking at these crazy green boots for Elizabeth, who LOVES green, and the sales lady dragged me off with them and sold them to me for an ENORMOUS discount.  Less than $7 US dollars...  so if you see my kid in crazy boots, that's why. Tomorrow we fly to Guangzhou in the south of China to  complete the US portion of the adoption paperwork.  Everyone says Guangzhou is so much better than here, but I've enjoyed it here very much.  Seeing Thomas come out of his shell has been great.  He's still doing self-stimulating behaviours like smacking his head, staring at his hands, and rhythmic rocking, but he's having good eye contact and more laughing and smiling too.  He even lets me touch kind of near his mouth, all over his face now.  He still HATES having his mouth or cleft area touched.

Mother with child sculpture (represents China and her people) November 03, 2011 order prints Lanzhou Waterwheels November 03, 2011 order prints Galloping Bronze Horse of Wuwei November 03, 2011 order prints Steed pointing out Qingyang November 03, 2011 order prints Happy baby November 03, 2011 order prints