free day

Matthew- you can barely see it, but Ben is holding the flat matthew in the face spot here. They have World Cup stuff all over the shopping areas, you would love it. Even a giant big screen outside on the side of the building for people in the center to stop and watch!

Today our schedule had a built in free day. Mostly to recover from travel probably, which we are still working on! Last night we stayed up as late as we could and crashed about 6:30 p.m. Sad right? Well then we woke up about every 2 hours. Stayed up for one and a half nearmidnight and then slept again til almost 5. Not too bad.

Today we were dragging and needed a nap after lunch. I was determined to get up after an hour, but didn't even wake until after 2 hours had passed. I hope we can sleep tonight! We are doing pretty good and its already past 6:00 p.m.!

We had a driver today who we asked to take us out to New Day Foster Home. I was pretty excited about going. It was neat to see first hand what I've been following online for the last couple years. Emotional too, knowing the stories of the kids, and about the work that this place is doing. Good day for going too, as it was thunderstorming. It is very far removed from the city, think suburban. But the further out we drove, the landscape changed so so much. There are a lot of abandoned buildings; some of them now just rubble, lots of small storefronts; trash everywhere.

We had a tour of the whole facility and then spent some time talking with Rita and playing with the kids a little. Preschool was in session so just the younger ones were in the playroom. When I sat down, I was swarmed. Sweet and sad. Annie latched onto me and wouldn't let me put her down for the duration. Ben had a little guy cling to him aswell; they played catch and Ben helped him up and down the slide, as his leg was casted, and the other soft casted. I think Ben really enjoyed going there. I know I did.

After our lunch and nap we walked around our hotel area. Apparently our hotel is in a very nice shopping district. Although, it's fancy shopping; like Coach, Burberry, Gucci, etc. Interestingly, behind the high rise buildings, you can see houses; shacks really, with all the roofs touching one another. Odd to see two ends of the spectrum right next to each other.

We were able to walk about 3 blocks and find a shopping mall that had Nike Beijing, and a bunch of other stores. We looked in a couple, but mostly we went there to pick up Pizza Hut to go. We've had a nice quiet afternoon and have been chillin' in the room all evening. We're still plenty tired!

Tomorrow is a big day with the Great Wall; please pray we have nice weather for it. We got absolutely drenched today in the rain and Ben's tennis shoes still haven't dried out!

Here's a couple pictures of us at New Day, and then the shopping area we walked to.

(Laura, I just had to take one of LensCrafters China for you!)