Wednesday Update # 1

Hello all, this is Rob writing. It is about 4:15 p.m. here on Wednesday as I write this message, I hope all of you at home are sleeping well as it is 4:15 a.m. on Wednesday for you!

First of all, the two lovely ladies in my life are napping right now. Laurie was jealous that I was going back to the business center to update the website, so she told me I cannot tell you all the wonderful things about Piper in this post. She wants to brag on our daughter later today!

I will just say a few things about her anyway. She weighs about 17.5 lbs. which is slightly smaller than we were told. We have a scale in the bathroom here in the hotel and she weighed about 8 kg (the scales are in kg) which is about 17.5 lbs. She does not walk and she is not interested in crawling yet. We do not think she had a lot of time on the floor, and spent most of the day in her crib when she lived in the orphanage. She is an awesome little girl, and I will let Laurie tell you more about her later!

The weather here has been nice. When we were in Beijing, it was about 65-70 degrees in the city, maybe 55 or so when we drove out to the Great Wall in the mountains. Here in Changsha, it is a bit warmer as we are much further south. About as far south as South Carolina or Georgia. It is humid here, and shorts are a must. It is about 80 or so, but it feels like 85 plus. Tuesday was windy, but today (Wednesday) is quite muggy and hot.

The city of Changsha is very nice. It is big and reminds me of Atlanta. There are 1.9 million people that live in this city, and we are in the heart of downtown. Our room in the hotel is on the 11th floor, and we can see about 40 or so scyscrapers out of the window that are anyware from 30-50 stories high. The locals here are very friendly to our group, and very curious about the babies. The like to come up and touch them, and take our pictures. Many of them just stare at our group when we are out in the city.

The drivers here are crazy!! Pedestrians do not have the right away here, so crossing the street with a baby in your arms is a scary thing! Most of the time, a police officer will help our group cross near the hotel.

We have eaten A LOT of Chinese food here. Laurie has done remarkably well, and has eaten a lot more than I would have guessed. The breakfast here at the hotel is the best meal. Made to order omelttes, bacon, fruits, pastries, cereals, ... the whole 9 yards. It is very good. Lunch and dinner has been tradtional Chinese and food here in Hunan is quite spicy. It is also hard to get them to give you more to drink. You have to beg the server, and even then they only give you a splash or two. We have bought a lot of bottled water to keep in the room to stay hydrated!

We could not be more pleased with our adoption agency. They have really rolled out the red carpet for us on this trip. Yes it did cost a lot of money, but we are being waited on hand and foot. We have a great guide here in Changsha, Peter. His real name is not Peter, but that is what we call him. He is Chinese and lives here in Changsha. He is always with the group when we have planned activities or places to go. We have a very plush chartered bus we ride around and all we do is just get on! The driver takes us there, and Peter makes it all happen. We also had a great driver, bus, and guide in Beijing. Helen was what we called her and she was excellent. Our agency has this thing planned down to a tee. We really feel like we are on a vacation now. Most of the paperwork here in Changsha is done, and we just have mostly leisure activities planned for the next few days. I think we will get Piper's passport on Saturday or Sunday. We leave Monday for Guangzhou.

This morning our guide Peter took us shopping. There are 11 families in our group, which is 23 adults and 11 babies. We went to a baby store to buy some needed things like more diapers, wipes, formula, ... you know, baby stuff. It was a small store and you should have seen the workers eyes pop open when a chartered bus pulled up and in came 23 adults and 11 babies! They were like, "We have hit the jackpot!" I bet they sold more stuff in 30 minutes than they do in a week because all of us needed stuff!

Then we went to Wal-Mart. Yes those of you who know me know how much I hate Wal-Mart! It was quite an experience. Wal-Mart is very different here than it is in the States. The meat department has live turltes and some other very questionable meat selections! Stuff here is SO cheap. We bought quite a bit more at Wal-Mart like another piece of luggage, more bottled water, a few new baby outfits, and it was about $30 US dollars. We needed another piece of luggage, we are definitely leaving China with A LOT more than we came with.

Many places here only take Chinese Yaun money. We are easily able to exchange US Cash at the hotel for Yuan. Right now $100 US Dollars = $821.44 Yuan.

We have some other fun things planned the next few days, like going to the park, visiting the embroidery factory, seeing some museums. The mornings are fun things, and the afternoons are nap time.

Thank all of you for the e-mails that you have been sending to piperpressly@yahoo.com
We really appreciate reading them and yes we are getting them. It is so nice to hear from so many of you, and please keep them coming. We do not have enough time to respond to them all, so please just check the site for updates.

Also, we are starting an e-mail chain tonight that will include photos! We have not been able to upload photos on the site here, but we have a group member who brought her laptop with her. She took some photos for us today with her camera and saved them on her hard drive. Then she is e-mailing them to us and we will forward out the chain. We have several contact people at home to forward, so please be patient, the are coming soon! If you have not received the photos via e-mail by like Friday morning, please e-mail Mellisa Gravitt. Melissa works with me and will send them to you if you have not gotten them. But please wait until Friday morning to ask her.

That's all for now. We are thoroughly enjoying ourselves, and of course the new joy in our life, Piper!

We love you all.

Rob