August 31, 2012: Day #5 with Cai Yun, Zhengzhou, China

On our fifth day with Cai Yun, we got ready to depart Zhengzhou, the capitol city of the Henan Province and fly to Guangzhou in southern China, where we would spend our last week completing the required steps of our adoption.

 

 

We had to find room for the new items that came along with Cai Yun, including this large piece of straw art that was presented to us in a silk covered case by the director of the Zhumadian City Children's Welfare Institute during our visit.  Cai Yun's province of Henan is known for this beautiful straw art and we were totally not expecting to receive something like this from her orphanage.

 

 

Cai Yun always is ready to help and started gathering the items that was sent with her  including a prized photo album from the family that raised her and some snacks.
 

That afternoon, the families in our group were asked to meet the guides to review documents and items needed for our second half of the adoption trip. One of the couples adopted two children on this trip, a sweet little girl and boy who were both around three years old!  Luckily for their parents, they sometimes fell asleep at the same time,

 

Cai Yun really enjoyed playing with the two older children from this family...especially when it was anything electronic!

These two were so incredibly sweet to always include Cai Yun in the fun and share their games with her.

As always, Cai Yun found a way to draw her daddy into the fun!

 

 

Our beautiful Cai Yun!

 

August 30, 2012: Day #4 with Cai Yun, Zhengzhou, China

Our fourth day with Cai Yun was another free day as we waited for our adoption paperwork to be processed.  We ended up doing a repeat of the fun from the day before.

 

On our way back through the park the day before, Cai Yun spied rides that she indicated that she wanted to take a spin on.  So this morning we made or way back to the park.  As we left, we first stopped at the little pond on the back of the hotel.  Max showed Cai Yun how to skip pebbles across the water.  Cai Yun does everything in an intense way and the pebbles she picked increasingly became larger and larger until she was throwing rocks into the little pond! 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to the tranquility of the park...

When made our way to the rides, Cai Yun's first pick was the bumper cars.  She insisted that mommy and daddy come along for the fun.  Since she is so little or maybe because of her feet, the operator would not let her drive a car by herself.  So I helped her stop and go and bravely let Cai Yun steer!  These were our bumper car targets...

...daddy...

..and these two boys who looked like they were up to double trouble!

One of my many lessons in letting go of all control!

Then it was off to one ride after the other

Cai Yun looked like she had done this one before.

 

As with the day before, Cai Yun began to wilt after about an hour, so it was back through the park, towards the hotel, lunch and a nap

More noodles and silliness at lunch

Our guides delivered some of our notarized adoption documents this afternoon.  We were asked to go over them and make sure all the information was correct.  Cai Yun was very interested in reviewing the Chinese documents as well.  Sometimes we wonder if we should wait to let Cai Yun read these papers, but it is obvious that she is well aware of her past and being part of each step of the process seems to help her.

Cai Yun LOVES having fun with her daddy!

Letting her hair down...

 



...giving her daddy grief about his whiskers.  No matter how closely he shaves, his face is too rough on Cai Yun's soft little cheeks!

Cai Yun likes to use her daddy as her Barbie head

Like the day before, we ended with a dip in the pool - Cai Yun's favorite was cooling off in the shallow whirlpool that was more like a kiddy pool where she could float around and pretend like she was a fish!



August 29, 2012: Day #3 with Cai Yun, Zhengzhou, China

 

With no appointments or itinerary packed days to worry about, we finally had a free day to sleep in and relax a little.  Cai Yun started her day thinking about how to do her hair...

...then what to eat for breakfast at the Crowne Plaza's buffet.  She usually opted for traditional Chinese foods like hot and sour soup or one of the many congee options.  Max and I on the other hand, were always tempted by the many different choices like the pastries.



We decided to explore the city park that was down the busy road from our hotel.  Just walking to the park was an adventure as scooter after scooter whirled by and weaved around us on the sidewalk!

After trekking through the noise and smog hanging over Zhengzhou, the tranquility of the park was a pleasant surprise. 

Strolling along in a peaceful setting, we enjoyed seeing all of the interesting people, including the pretty bride and musicians playing or singing in nature.

As we watched this group, Cai Yun quickly made friends with this sweet little boy who had just been adopted by a couple from the Netherlands.  

While chatting with this also newly expanded family, we received all kinds of curious stares, double takes, and many pointing fingers.  Despite the widespread adoption of Chinese orphans by Westerners, seeing "foreigners" is still not commonplace for many Chinese.   An older woman pulled up her cart to observe us with our new children and seemed to try and offer her advice, in Mandarin, as she felt was needed. 

Cai Yun immediately spotted the paddle boats from across the park and expressed her desire to take a ride in one.  She choose the large duck...

As we glided along in our duck, we enjoyed the massive water lilies and waving at others paddling by

Puuussshhh!  Cai Yun had the easy job of pointing where she wanted to go while mommy and daddy did the hard part of paddling under the canopy of the boat on this steaming hot day!

We still enjoyed some sweet moments with our little Cai Yun!

Driving Miss Cai Yun

We were surprised at Cai Yun's low threshold for heat and cold, as the Henan Province has both in a big way and  we were told many orphanages in China do not have central heat or air conditioning.  A lot of her issues with dealing with hot and cold is probably due to her low/almost no body fat and we can always see her start to visibly wilt when she is too hot, which she did after being at the park for only about an hour.  After more steaming hot Chinese food for lunch, back in the coolness of the hotel and a nap, our silly Cai Yun came back and had wonderful fun trying to lure her new mommy and daddy in making all kinds of faces she created.

Later that afternoon, we ventured to the hotel's pool.  We think this was Cai Yun's first time in any type of pool.  She immediately took to the water like a cute little mermaid and thoroughly enjoyed herself!

Then daddy and Cai Yun took a long walk back down the busy sidewalks of Zhengzhou to get us dinner from McDonald's.  This was inspired by Cai Yun's mention to our guide, while on our drive back from our visit to the orphanage when Cai Yun was talking endlessly about food, how she would love to go to McDonald's again and eat a hamburger and french fries.  This was something she had only done a few times in her 9 years of life and were obviously very memorable meals for her.  When they got back, Cai Yun excitedly acted out all of her adventure as she pulled out the treasured food.  Just look at this satisfied customer!