Our Journey as an Adopted Family

The weather was a bit better today (as good as it can be in smoggy China) so we were able to go sightseeing this morning. Peter had us laughing as he explained through hand motions and sounds that "Annu" (Andrew) snores very loudly at night. LOL He cracked himself up. We ate another delicious breakfast and headed out with Rita to see some of the historical sights of Jinan. We went to see the place that honors the liberation of Jinan. The building was beautiful and full of wonderful artifacts. Rita did a great job explaining the history and the city of Jinan. The building was located near a spring and we went down to it. There were many older gentlemen getting water from the spring to take home. The kids all took turns drawing water and enjoyed doing that. We then went to the lake nearby where we were able to see more old buildings and enjoy some beautiful music from some musicians there. Rita told some more stories and it's neat to hear about a city that is 2,000 years old. And Americans are proud of their history. ;-) We then went to a very sacred place...a Chinese Wal-Mart. :-) LOL Wow! Very interesting....You must enter on one story and exit on another, the clothes are another story and it was just all around different! We bought a few things to bring home and to keep in our room here and then said goodbye to Rita for the day. We headed out on our own to eat lunch and walked around to find a restaurant. During this, we walked through the Chinese market which are on the side streets. The front streets are full of beautiful shops but the Chinese market is a whole nother world. We walked down it for 2 minutes and turned around. There were so many people, so many strange food smells and it was overwhelming. Even Peter did not care for it. When we came out, he said, "Wooh" and looked very relieved. So we found a Pizza Hut! It was very upscale! While there we witnessed another argument. We have seen an argument in public each day we have been here. It's so strange because no one gets involved. The first day we were here we saw a man trying to go after a woman and her friends were trying to help her. Someone threw a brick at the man!! Yesterday there was a confrontation at the mall. And today a man was being very ugly to a woman. He forced her into a car against her own will. She even tried to jump out when they took off. And no one did a thing. It broke my heart. I wish I had known some language so I could have helped this poor woman. We also realized that Peter probably has a blood sugar problem. He sinks fast when he's hungry. We will probably need to carry some healthy snacks for him. They brought out our pizzas (3 in all and we ordered 2, language barriers!!) and it was YUMMY! I wish our Pizza Hut was this good. We headed back and vegged a moment with video games. We brought some blow dart guns from the $1 store and decided to play with them. And this is where we some the strongwilled Peter come out. He did not want to put the video games up. He kept saying NO, NO, NO and wailing. But once he saw it was fun, he joined in. He was laughing so hard! We all laughed so hard at him. He had played this before because he understood barriers and teams. It warmed our hearts to see him team up with Andrew. He would scream "Annu" and bring him darts so they could win. And Peter initiated the team with Andrew. We then thought we could teach him Go Fish and once again met with huge resistance. We decided not to put up a big fight and thought he would join in. Nope. He wanted the video games. So we have another strong willed child in our midsts. We will deal with this more when we get home because we are still very early in the game. After that, some of us napped then we ate dinner in our room. It's nice to know that Peter enjoys Wheat Thins and Progresso soup! He eats very healthy food and I hope that rubs off on us. He and Abi are playing dart games again and videoing it. Peter is cracking himself up as he records himself shooting the camera. He just asked me what I was doing and I told him I was writing a hello, how are you letter. We are trying to explain what hello, how are you is each day. He continues to mock what we say. Earlier I was telling Eric to let something go and Peter was sitting there playing video games and he popped up and said "Let it go!" HA!!! Continue to lift up our sleeping and bonding. He seems to be bonding very well with us and has told Rita that he likes us a lot. He has no problems initiating hugs with us, holding our hands or just a simple touch. Earlier we had to have the translator tell him he cannot pop Abi underneath the hiney, not on but to near for us. He thinks that is funny. Lift up Abi also. She gets a lot of stares due to her hair and being a girl. She spends a lot of time with hats on. We had a man stare at her forever through the window at Pizza Hut until Eric finally made a "I'm watching you gesture" at him through the window. He finally walked away. None are ever threatening but it scares her. I've broken out in hives so there is something that I'm allergic to here. Who knows what that is?! LOL Also lift up Eric's guys that are working with him. Everything is going well and they are doing a great job while we are gone but I know that Eric and the guys would appreciate the extra prayers. (I'm not going to code to much because Amy H. said we should be ok! Sorry mom!) We have also started praying with Peter. He does understand what we are doing so that is a plus. We hope to get him a New Testament in our next city when we visit a church there. Lift Peter up as we start this journey! We haven't ran into the Raffray's again but we did email and they said things were going well with Blue which is good to hear .We will post more pics tomorrow! I hope our updates are not too boring! I miss talking with my friends and I miss seeing all the cute kids! I hope ELO went well for those who started back. Love you all!! Aimee for the Akin's