Day 6 Visiting the Orphanage

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

We got up really early this morning and ate breakfast. Olivia ate congee (rice) and had milk. We took her snack bowl with us and filled it up with Cheerios and brought it back to the room for her to munch on. She really likes to eat and I think that Kevin may have just met his match.
 

Lily picked us up at 9:30 am and we went downtown to the notary's office to make sure that all of the papers we signed at the directors office were translated to English correctly. Lily had us read all of the English translations and she read all of the Chinese words. We only found one mistake on one page where they had misspelled Olivia's Chinese name.  Lily took the papers back to the office and had them fix it. They gave us a receipt and Lily and the driver are going to pick the papers up later. Our papers were all fine.

 

We then got in to the car and headed off to the orphanage, which was 30 minutes away. Olivia has been in a car, but only a few times so since this was a long trip, she fell asleep. We woke her up 5-10 minutes before we got to the orphanage and Lily told her that we were going to go see her friends. We arrived at the orphanage and Lily called the director's office and we were told that she would meet us outside in the parking lot. It was a very large building. It has 4 floors. There was playground equipment out in front of the building and Olivia told Lily that this is the area that she plays at. We got out of the car and there were 2 nannies with several children playing. They were jumping up and down on a trampoline. You could hear them laughing and giggling. Olivia got very quiet and stopped talking. Lily told her that we were not going to leave her there and then she was okay. The 2 nannies came over to Olivia and started talking to her and she went to them. Olivia told them she is very happy and going abroad. When Lily told us the big word that she had said we couldn't believe it, then she explained that the nannie had been showing Olivia the pictures that we sent her. She would tell Olivia that this is mama and baba. She told her that she is going to have her own room and would be going abroad.

 

We got out gifts to give to the nannies and the suitcase full of clothes, out of the car. We took the nannie's gifts inside and went to the first floor. The director showed us where her class was. The agency had told us that we could take clothes and suckers for the children. So, the director let us take the suckers in with us. She let Kevin give the children suckers. Olivia stayed with me and really didn't want down to see any of the children at first. She went to the nannies for a few minutes then she same back to me. You should have seen the little children when they saw Kevin with a bag of suckers. They were all over him. The nannies had to get them to line up and she let Kevin give each child one sucker, but when we got to Olivia's class she said that we could give her classmates two suckers. When Olivia saw one little girl her face lit up.  Olivia put her hand out to hold her hand. Then after a few minutes got down and went to see her friend. The children were very happy to see Olivia and loved the candy. We gave the rest of the candy to the director so she could give it to them another time.

 
 

 
Then it was time to go upstairs and see where she slept. The children all told her bye and waved to her and she waved bye to them. She hugged the nannies on that floor and told them that she was happy. We went upstairs to see her room. There were about 20 little beds in a room. There was a plaid blanket on it and a comforter folded and placed at the head of the bed. There were cubbies at one side of the room, which were filled with worn out clothes and blankets.
 

 
While upstairs, we gave the gifts to the nannies. We had brought chocolate, tea and coffee. Lily had told us to give $100 yuan to Olivia's special nanny in an envelope, which is about $15 dollars. She didn't want to take the money at first but Lily talked to her and insisted. She opened her gift and shared the chocolate with the children in her class and gave one to Olivia. I thought that was very sweet of her.

 
We are so thankful that Olivia is happy and content. We left the orphanage in good spirits knowing that Olivia is happy and all of the nannies got to say goodbye. We came back to the hotel had lunch and a nap.
 
Lily picked us up at 3:30 pm and we went to the Xi An City Wall, which surrounds the city and it is around 800 years old.  It was built during the Ming dynasty. We got to the gate and Lily went to buy our tickets so we could walk on top of the wall. The wall is 9 miles long and 40 feet wide. This is the only complete wall in China that is still standing today. There were several people riding bicycles on the wall, but we didn't think that would be a good idea with Olivia. We pushed Olivia around the top in her new stroller. She got out and walked a little bit.
 

 

After our adventure, we returned to the hotel and had supper. Olivia played in the room with her new stuffed animal and empty water bottles. She also learned how to turn the tv off and on. If she sees you do anything once, she will mimic or want what you have. We are looking forward to tomorrow because we are going to see the Terra Cotta Warriors and Lily has special meals planned for us, so Kevin is very excited.

I was in the bathroom and the doors have louvers at the bottom so she was trying to see me.  She's so cute.