Now we know how celebrities must feel....

Today we ventured out to the Nanjing City Museum. What started out as a nice easy-going museum visit soon turned to chaos! All of the sudden our group WAS the exhibit. We went through the first few exhibition halls admiring the jade statues, intricate carvings, etc. After we had been at the museum about 30 minutes a ton of school kids showed up (probably over 100 in all) and they surrounded us!! They wanted to practice their English, they wanted to take our pictures, they wanted to take pictures with us, they wanted to just listen to us talk, they followed us everywhere!! I have to admit at first it was kind of cute but after we had a hard time even moving (much less looking at the exhibits) it became kind of annoying. Believe me when I say it was CHAOS!!! They were all really nice mannered but I guess I never realized how excited they would be to see Americans. After we figured out that this was not going to get better we wound up leaving. Some of the students even followed us to our bus. We didn't get many good pictures of the experience but believe me none of us will need to see pictures to remember it.

Piper was in her element. She had a whole group of kids mesmerized under a staircase speaking Mandarin to them.

The Downing's take a family portrait with one of the students. If you look closely in the background you can see several of the students surrounding them. At one point Paul had a camera about 3 inches from his face! We are used to getting stares when we walk down the street but not this!

The kids following us to the bus!

After we returned to the hotel and recovered from our paparazzi experience we headed out to lunch. We all felt like we needed some "comfort food" so we went to "Tacos World Cuisine" located across the street from our hotel. Their specialty: Mexican Food. Yes, we found Mexican food in China!!!!!!!

Fajitas, tacos, Margaritas.....they had it all!

Kathy, Mary, and I all chose the chicken fajitas. They were delicious!!!!

After lunch Paul, Mom, Avery, and I headed out to do some exploring. We wound up at a local department store and decided to check it out:

Leave it to us to find the Clearance racks in any language!!!

A funny story from today: I have become quite proficient in gesturing to communicate. At one particular store I was trying to gesture to ask the sales girls a question and after I was done (in which I thought I had done a fabulous job) she looked at me and in the clearest English you have ever heard said "WHAT??" Paul and mom said the look on my face was priceless. Needless to say she was able to help us out and I didn't have to gesture with her.

Now on to the real reason you checked the blog today: Avery pictures!!! We have seen so many changes in her in just the last 2 days. When we brought her back to the hotel Monday afternoon she would/could not sit up unassisted, roll over, or support her weight on her legs. I am so happy to say that she is now sitting up for several seconds at a time on her own, she is rolling from front to back, and she LOVES to stand (with support) and bounce herself up and down. We are amazed in the changes in her in this short period of time.

How could we not love this face????
We received her notarized documents today. We will receive her passport tomorrow and then Saturday morning we are traveling to Guangzhou to complete the American portion of the adoption.

THANKS FOR CHECKING IN!!!