We're in Guangzhou

Hey all, we made to to Guangzhou late on Friday night and to the White Swan about 10:30 pm. It's Sunday afternoon right now and since we didn't want to pay the high cost of internet at the White Swan, we walked down to the Starbucks and are enjoying a caramel machiatto & a mango smoothy on the porch of the Starbucks in the very tropical city of Guangzhou....it's beautiful!! (Sorry no photos today as I left the camera cord in the hotel.) :(

We checked out of the hotel around 2pm and had to wait around in the lobby for Megan's passport. We finally received it at 4:15 and left for the airport. Our flight was late due to thunderstorms but once we were in the air all was good. Megan did wonderfully on the flight, especially once the dinner came and she ate all of her rice plus some of Natalee's. Unfortunately Natalee did not fare as well. She was sitting with Kyle in the row ahead of Megan & I and almost immediately fell asleep. She was saying her head hurt really bad. Once we landed in Guangzhou (1 1/2 half later) she had quite a temperature and was not feeling well at all. I'm so thankful that we met the American doctor with the other agency in Guiyang - he was very willing to check her out once we got to the hotel. The White Swan is about 40 minutes away from the airport and both girls slept the entire way. Once in our room we just let both girls sleep. The night was rough!!! Both Kyle & I were very worried about Natalee! She spiked such a high temperature (silly me did not even bring a thermometer - oops!) and was complaining that her stomach hurt so bad. I was so worried that it was apendicitis. We gave her tylenol and said many prayers.

Dr. John came in the morning to check Natalee out. He said everything sounded good and thought that she most likely picked up a local Guiyang virus. She was in bed all day Saturday with a high fever and not feeling well at all. She started to perk up late afternoon on Saturday and her fever was down to 99.9 (I borrowed a thermometer from another mom). Mom & Megan had to go do the Medical visit alone - it was very hard to leave Nat & Dad in the room alone not feeling well. It's really hard to see your little girl so sick and be so far from home - I know that your prayers, even if you didn't know she was sick - have helped. We met up with the rest of our Bethany families too and they also were praying for Nat.

Medical exam....Megan had to see 3 doctors for the medical reports...ENT - passed no problem....height & weight = 27.2 kg, 97 cm....physical exam the doctor said all looked good but he doesn't think she has had heart surgery. hmmmmm?????? this will be interesting to find out more once we're home. She did so well, not crying at all and was very cooperative.

Back at the hotel we had our noodle lunch and let Mom rest with Nat while Daddy took Megan out and did some shopping and sight seeing on the beautiful Shamian island. It was great that she actually asked to go out with Daddy - isn't that awesome! When they returned we all played in the room for awhile. Then, Megan & Mom were going to go out with the group to Lucy's for supper. However, we had torential rain & thunderstorms which prevented us from going. We waited about 40 minutes and things let up a little so we tried only to go out and get soaked from the flooding in the streets. So...back to the hotel. A few other families & us decided to order pizza from Papa John's which was about a 2 hour ordeal and we didn't even received all the pizza's we ordred. Oh well, it was good and we had good fellowship with new friends.
Natalee was able to join us for pizza and is feeling better - thanks for all the prayers - God is good!

The past two days have been great with Megan! We didn't have any grieving and only a few times of whinning that were not related to normal 3 year old issues. She has been having lots of fun goofing off with Daddy and smiling quite a bit. She is starting to parrot our words and saying some things in English. She will say her name "Megan" but it's not just "megan"...it's "Megan Zhang HuiYi".

This morning I had a meeting for all the finalization of the paperwork for the Consulate appointment...there are mounds of papers so it's wonderful to have our Bethany China Director help us organize all of it and help us...Thank you!. And now...we are enjoying our drinks, updating the blog and will now go shopping!

We hope all is well! Hopefully I'll get a chance to update again before we leave and I'll try to remember my camera cord. Tomorrow (Monday) we have a free day, Tuesday we have Visa appointment and pack up, Wednesday we leave. Wow....it's hard to believe our journey here in China is coming to a close.

Zai jian - talk to ya later!