Venturing Out Alone

Ventured out ALONE today..

First of all, we woke up to college football on ESPN.  David loved what little he got to see of the game and Madison got her first look at what she will see a lot of this fall.  Hopefully the Bama/ Michigan game will air on ESPN, too, because that way we can see a part of it in the morning.  It's weird watching stuff like that at 7 or 8 am, but it is a taste of home.  Roll Tide by the way!!

Today, our guide Kelly had to take 2 other families who came in late last night to do their medicals. So that meant that we were all on our own today! This hotel living is about to drive David insane, so he suggested that we get a taxi & go to Walmart & the mall.  And against my better judgement, I agreed. The drive wasn't bad. I think I'm getting used to the roads here, because I can now actually look out the window without gasping every 5 seconds!  I've never been out of the country before & let me tell you...the roadways & squatty potties I just wasn't prepared for!

So back to our day out...we got to Walmart without any problem. However, when we got into the taxi & left, Madison started to tear up & she moved really close to me.  I could tell she was scared.  I'm not sure what she was thinking, but this was the first time that our guide wasn't with us (Kelly always explains to her where we are going). So I think she was unsure of the situation.  Once she saw that we were at Walmart, she was fine.

I left my camera AND my phone at the hotel.  Boy, I could kick myself, because there were several things I wanted to show y'all.  There was a store called Mr. David, a shop called MoMo's (miss you Morgan), and some other clothing store called "Teeny Weenie".  There were also a ton of restaurants on the fourth floor.  One had a sushi conveyor belt and another had some type of whole bird roasting in the window!  As we walked around, we realized that evidentially the Chinese version of Justin Berber was coming to the mall today because there were thousands of people standing at this stage in the middle of the mall!  Just my Iuck! :) We asked Kelly the other day how many people lived in this city & she said about 15 million!!!! And I believe that most of them were at the mall with us.

At Wal-Mart (nothing like ours by the way), we bought Madison an alphabet puzzle. She really likes it & we are hoping it will help her. She doesn't know her colors, shapes or letters that well yet.  She repeats EVERYTHING we say & do...if we cough then she coughs etc. But she still hasn't got the hang of saying things like "potty" when she needs to go pee-pee, etc.  She will soon though, because she really is smart!  Again, it's just the language difference.  As I write this, Madison looked at David and said something.  He told her he didn't understand, and after a few times of David saying "use our words" she said "potty!" That's progress, folks!!

In all, it's been a pretty good day and one that brings us just a little closer to home!  Please continue to pray for us and the bonding, for the language barrier and for us to continue to rest well.   We also think Madison might be catching a cold because her nose is starting to run a bit.  Please pray it doesn't get worse or keep her up at night.

Thanks so much for praying us through this journey!  Have a great day.

Melissa