Great Wall

Today we visited the Great Wall. At the point that we visited, there was the difficult side and the more difficult side. Our guide suggested we go up the more difficult side because that is the side where most native Chinese visit. This was the first time that we tried to put Kaiden in the backpack carrier. I was worried that he wouldn't like it because he doesn't have neck control. Sure enough, he HATED it. I did get this picture of him with Pete before he started fussing. K's Mom had a front pack carrier that she had brought to carry her daughter around it. She was so NICE to let me borrow it to carry Kaiden in. He liked that much better. But once we got up one flight of stairs and I saw how hard it would be to not only come down, but come down without

being able to see my feet in front of me, I decided to sit it out. Kenadie joined Kaiden and I. We sat at the bottom and watched everyone else go up. They made it just past the first tower that you see in the background. I was very impressed with the girls. We were only at the Wall for 1.5 hours. Everyone was done in less than 1 hour but we had to wait for our guide to come back for us.

After the Wall, we went to an 'authentic Chinese restaurant' for lunch. I use that term very loosely. It was really a tourist trap. The parking lot was full of tourist vans. Yes, it was an authentic Chinese lunch, but it was not an authentic Chinese restaurant. It was attached to this very large warehouse type sotre full of typical Chinese wares like dresses and tea sets. We didn't buy anything though because we knew the prices would be MUCH better at the local markets.

While we were at the Wall, our guide got a phone call from the government office that our Chinese adoption was finalized and we could come pick up the last document so we did that. It made for a very long day but it was nice to be able to get more paperwork out of the way. He's officially officially ours for the third and final time. We received his adoption certificate in a red envelope.