Christmas Day

What a wonderful Christmas day spent in southern China.  We were able to spend the morning at the local park and walked, ran, and hiked for several hours. We hiked up and down stairs, ran through the forests, walked up monuments, watched with respect all of the small yoga groups or bands or artisits, took pictures of some statues, and videos of the large gathering of hackey sack players. We fed the fish, took a motorozed boat ride on the lake, and helped Jonny get away from the large group of high school girls vying for his attention and wanting pictures. 

Sign at the park.  Many users of the park bring in their own trimming shears to assist in caring for the landscape while they are their for other activities. It was fascinating to us how the caring of this park is a community wide project.

Watching the fish eat

Feeding the fish (with nice man who gave my kiddos fish food)

Tropical sights on boat ride

Reminds us of S. Carolina (sigh...)

We all deserved a long rest after that, however Brianna and I were on a mission to shop!  We went to the Pearl Market and were enthralled with the culture, noises, smells, sounds, and interesting way of life for so many in China.  There are really not words to express what we saw today, as we walked through the narrow alleys and buildings lined with booths, all selling the exact same thing.  It was fascinating to learn of this culture and experience just a little bit what it is like to live here.  We found a few items, but the cigarette smoke and street vendor smells were making us rather neauseous and ready to go back to the hotel. 

Alley behind Pearl Market.  

Large Christmas tree at Pearl Market

When there are no more booths available, trunks will do...

We enjoyed a Christmas dinner at the Australian restaurant across the street.  We splurged and let the kiddos share some milkshakes, which was really just a slightly thicker version of milk.  But, hey, the burgers and fries were good.

Jesse has been speaking so many English words today, such as 'yes', 'go', 'shoes', 'Jonny's turn', 'owie', etc.  He loves his siblings so much already and has really shown much tenderness to younder children. He is quite the jokester and enjoys making everyone laugh.  Many times the laughing is at the expense of my humility. For instance, today as we were running through the park, I stopped to take a picture of a large group of women gathered doing a form of yoga.  Jesse ran through the group, tapped a lady on the 'button' and enthusiasically yelled "hello!".  Yup.  And another crazy thing in China is that the light switches for bathrooms are outside the room!  Which makes it fun with my boy who loves to turn of and on switches.  It is one thing when we are in our hotel room and he does it, but when he does it at the restaurant, oh my ...

The other day on the elevator, he pushed every single floor from ours (14) to the ground floor.  We stopped at every floor, and of course had several other people on the elevator with us.  I apologized, but not sure they understood.  When we got to the ground floor, one man got off, turned to me, smiled and said 'finally!'.   I'm just glad I can laugh with him and that he loves to giggle and laugh. 
Now there may not have been a lot of humor found in him running through the wet cement at the hotel's playground.  But, just as Jesse has left a lasting impression on many hearts within China, he has left an impression on his final stay in his home country! Thankfully the wet cement footprints stayed only on the playground and were not tracked to our room.  :)

Jesse is slowly learning what is safe  vs. dangerous, right vs. wrong, and kind vs. mean.  In reflecting over the past 9 days, we can see how much he has grown, how much he has learned, and how fun loving he is with all of us.  We are very thankful that even though we are not perfect parents and we show frustration, he still shows affection and love to us.  We are so thankful that we have been able to spend Christmas away from the materialism and commercialism, and reflect on the one true gift that matters, the Lord Jesus Christ.  There is so very much to be thakful for this year! We are looking forward to sharing the gospel message with Jesse and hopefully he will understand the reason for the season next Christmas!