A Year Ago Today || November 11, 2017

Nov 11

Nov 11 A Year Ago Today || November 11, 2017

November 11, 2017

While we continued our tour of Beijing and the Great Wall of China, my son was celebrating his 2nd and LAST birthday as an orphan. (Today, November 11, 2018 ~ We celebrate his THIRD birthday TOGETHER!)

The next day we part from some of the families to head from Beijing and fly to Tristan’s province, Shanghai, China. Then a few days later, meet up again with all the families in Guangzhou, China to finalize our adoptions with the Chinese and U.S. Governments.

Our first stop of the day was to a Cloisonne Factory. Cloisonne vases date back hundreds of years. Each vase is made by hand using copper threading to create intricate designs, then painted by hand and fired. The process is painstakingly detailed and absolutely beautiful.

After a lovely tour and a bit of shopping, we headed out to a small portion of the Great Wall. To experience being out on something that was built with manual labor and human hands (without machines) was pretty amazing. We did a small loop of the wall that left our quads and legs screaming for help. I loved it! Brooklynn also rocked the wall!

Above are some of the brave who made the loop the whole way! And it was worth it!

After visiting the wall we headed to a Jade store, and had a lovely lunch before heading back to our hotel for a short rest before dinner. Also, a special thank you goes out to the man that helped a bunch of crazy American’s find a the restaurant in the maze of a mall that had us going in circles. It was quite comical though. :)

The next day we would all split up and go to our child’s provinces where we would prepare to meet them the following day.