OK, so I’m getting closer to getting caught up on this blog. It is currently Thursday and I’m working on the Wendesday blog. This picture thing has put we WAY behind.
To start with, a few facts about Ali, now that we know her a little better:
- She has a very husky voice
- You already know she is tall, but she is also a little gangly and somewhat uncoordinated. Pretty … but uncoordinated
- She has a SERIOUS addiction to Chinese soap operas. She watches them as much as we will let her, and it is a sacrafice because we don’t understand them and the acting is really, really poor
- She is incredibly giving and sharing. The other night Brittany didn’t like the meal that she ordered. We slid it over to Ali to see if she liked it, but she didn’t care for it either. Then, Ali moved her own bowl over to Brittany and started eating the meal no one liked. Obviously, we gave her meal back to her, but she does selfless things like that all the time
- She burps all the time
- She chews her gum VERY loudly (I hadn’t thought about this one until I was typing this out and she is chomping on it over my shoulder!)
- She had never taken a shower before
- She has never been in a candy store (see below)
- She had never been in a pool (see below)
- She is very loving. Always holding hands and willing to be loved on
Back to the blog…
Yesterday, as you know, was shopping day. Hence, how I got my card reader. We didn’t do a LOT more shopping than that. Mainly went to a book store and allowed Ali to pick out some books that she would like. The day began with Brittany doing Ali nails … a right of passage in the Bernadsky household.
This morning was the first morning that Ali cried a little bit about the entire process. She calls her nanny at least once a day and normally it is a happy time for her, but this morning it was sad. After crying for awhile, she looked at some of the pictures from the orphanage the day before while Brittany comforted her.
She perked up pretty quickly and we went up to the 29th floor for our breakfast. Remember I told you how much she eats? This was ONE of her plates for breakfast:
She didn’t eat them all, but mainly because she didn’t care for the taste, not because she couldn’t!
After finding my card reader, we went into a local candy store for the girls to get some treats:
As I said previously, we went to a bookstore to buy some things for Ali to read and do for the next week and a half. At the book store, they had a sign about learning English. All of you that know English will be happy to know that your life has been perfected because of it!
Cherry led us out into the street and we walked down the main roadway through Hefei. They have a cool circular sidewalk that goes around the major intersections.
After we returned to the hotel, we took off on a quest to find the stupid McDonalds that we couldn’t find the night before.
(I love this picture below! My bride!)
Below is Kelly’s favorite street begger. He sees her coming a MILE away and starts rolling is skate board toward us! You can hear him coming a MILE away!
We FINALLY found the McDonald’s (which, I might add, has very few hamburgers. Mainly chicken.) We found a nice little park across the street and ate our “healthy” food!
Kelly took a quick shot of the girls and me!
After such a nutritious mean, we needed to go work some of that junk off, so the girls went swimming!
As soon as she hit the water, the big smile that broke our hearts over a year ago came out FULL FORCE! It is so wonderful to see her happy. There were several pictures that we had received over the last few months that that joy seemed to have dimmed a little bit. It is nice to see “Ali” back again!
Brittany and Ali being “sisters!”
Afterwards, it was tiem to brush out the hair …
Snuggle with mom …
And chomp on her gum right by my ear!
Gotta love her!
Later that night we went for a walk in the local park. They have a decent amusement park there and as we turned the corner in the dark Ali saw all the neon lights from the rides. One, in particular, really caught her eye and she excitedly wanted to ride it. Now, I hate heights, but I don’t really mind rides. In America. This is some rinky-dink little park in the middle of nowhere China. But, she was so excited I had to take her. Since I didn’t have my camera, I will try and explain what the ride looked like. On each end of of about a 60-foot arm was a car that held three people facing out on each side of the car. The arm was attached at the mid-point and basically the entire thing spun one way and then the other is a large circle. The only thing really holding you in was a “horse” collar that was buckling you in.
Ali and I were all buckled in and she was all smiles. First revolution she lost the smile. Second revolution she started to cry. Poor thing. I’m a terrible parent. Should have said “no”. We stopped for a few minutes and then we started going the opposite direction. I think Ali was feeling like the ride was NEVER going to end.
Now comes the part that cause ME issues! They had to stop the ride to load people onto the cars … the cars at the OTHER end of the arm. Meaning, we were sitting at the very top while they loaded the other cars. In addition, there was no one on the “back” side of our car, so our weight was tipping us forward … and down. We sat there with gravity pulling us against our restraints just waiting to plummet to our deaths. I have to be honest. I had to control my anxiety a little bit. Nothing wrong with actually RIDING the ride, but just sitting there … FOREVER … staring down 60 feel of nothing. We finally made it down and Ali is pretty much done with amusement parks!
Cameron