Farewell to China

Today we will bid a very fond farewell to China and all our wonderful travel group and guides.  It's been a great trip, we've met wonderful people, seen some amazing sights, gone to the most interesting places, and are bringing home many many memories we'll treasure for a long time.  At least until we come back to bring the girls on a heritage tour.
We're so anxious to be with all our kids again.  We have missed James, Katie, Mindy and Myleigh terribly, and if only we were rich, we could have brought them with us. 
This morning we visited the Chen family temple, which was beautiful.  It makes me wish we had our own family temple, and more determined to create that zen garden that we have planned for our back yard.  i have gotten some great ideas here.
We're having lunch and then off we go to the airport.  Lily will be coming with us to help with check in, but, we're pretty savvy in navigating through China, so, we're not concerned, although we appreciate any help with translations, especially if there are any problems.
We did find out something about Holly's story that breaks our hearts.  Apparently, she was placed with a family from Spain when she was just 14 months old.  They actually had her with them, and for whatever reason, they brought her back the next day and said they didn't want her.  Luckily, she was far too young to really understand what happened, but, it's so heart breaking.  I am glad for us that they did, and for her, if they weren't the right family it's best that they found that out early, just so sad for a child to be put on approval of sorts.
We've had a number of people ask if there is a way for them to help out with the costs of the adoption, and we thought long and hard about it.  Finally, we have decided to set up a way through paypal where donations can be sent.  I'll be putting a link on our blog when we get back to the US.  We so deeply appreciate that there are those in our lives that want to help with what has been a huge undertaking. 
Oh and for a side note, for those preparing to come to China, if you like to use deodorant, and we do, you will want to make sure you have what you'll need for the entire trip, especially if you travel in the winter time, as we have.  For some reason, they don't sell deodorant in China, not anywhere we've been in Wuhan or Guangzhou in the winter.  They explained that Chinese don't use it in winter.   Somehow in his packing and repacking, Tim ended up without his deodorant, and found out the hard way that Secret really is strong enough for a man, but made for a woman.