Adoption March 24th

I didn’t blog yesterday because I was too tired. We went to the Great Wall of China with Cheng’s mom. The van (with our guide) picked us up at 9am, and we arrived at the Great Wall about 10:40am.The entry point that we visited is one of the more natural areas, without the addition of cable cars and elevators to assist tourists. We hiked up a million, or maybe more, steep steps to the first summit, ate our picnic lunch that we packed and hiked back down. David, Cheng’s mom, and I were huffing and puffing the whole way up, while the kids had no problems whatsoever. Even little Ben climbed 99% of the time by himself. David did have to carry him down at points because the steps were so big he would have had to jump from step to step, and he would’ve fallen for sure. When we got back down, our legs were literally shaking. It was quite the work-out, to say the least, and well worth the trip. It’s hard to describe the scope of the Great Wall, so I won’t even try. I’ll just post photos when I get back to the States and have access to my blog. After all that climbing, who do you think stayed awake on the return trip to Beijing? Yep. Our little Ben. He is just like Austin sometimes—outlasts everyone. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at the Bird’s Nest, the Olympic site. We walked around there for an hour or so and took lots of photos. It was pretty cool. We found out, via our guide’s translation, that John actually attended one of the swimming events during the Olympics!! We have yet to tour a site that he hasn’t already seen. During the day, several groups of tourists asked Connor if they could take a photo with him. Connor has blond hair and blue eyes and everyone thinks he is handsome. We must look like the oddest family. We are obviously a family to even casual observers (we are quite physical with each other), but we don’t speak the same language and we don’t look related. After all the touring, we decided we’d just relax for the rest of the day in the room. Cheng’s mom went back to her hotel, and we got Subway subs for dinner. As picky as Ben is, we were shocked that he ate a Subway Sub with no problem. He refuses all vegetables normally, yet, he didn’t think to pick off the lettuce, cucumber, tomato etc. on the sandwich. He previously told us (via Xiao’s translation) that his favorite food was McDonalds and KFC, and now we find he is quite happy to eat Subway too. He’s going to have a whole lot of adjusting to do because we rarely eat fast-food at home. After dinner we all went to bed, even though it was only 7pm. Ben began crying at bedtime, asking for Cheng’s mom (who he calls auntie), or maybe he was asking for his foster mother, or another aunt. We kissed him goodnight and tucked him into bed with his brothers. It’s a good thing we went to bed early because Ben woke up crying about 11pm, and that was it for us for the rest of the night. We brought him into our bed, and alternated between giving him drinks to keep him hydrated, and taking him to the bathroom. He is running a low-grade fever, just as Connor was the other day. He is also crying that his legs hurt, which is not surprising considering the big hike the day before. Unfortunately, this morning we need to go to Civil Affairs, the Notary Office, and the Passport Office. We gave Ben Ibroprophen, and we are hoping he’ll be ok today. It might be a very,very, long day, dragging around a sick little guy. Unfortunately, we can't change the appointments or it will affect our return trip date. Connor’s illness resolved itself in 24 hours, so we have our fingers crossed.