Tyler's First Smiles! & more

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sidenote: I hope the pages are still working fine and quickly for everyone. Here in China the pages are only coming up about 1/2 the time when we try to go to them and we are having a lot of trouble even uploading them. I think it's just a problem with our Internet Connection here, but that's also why we aren't getting too many photos up... I apologize for that.

We got up about our normal time today, took our showers and went down for breakfast. Tyler ate great this morning, he had 2 boiled eggs, 1 1/2 bananas a bowl of congee and a few slices of watermelon.... a lot for such a little boy, but he kept saying he wanted more if we asked him.

After breakfast, we went up in to the mountains to see some stone carvings. Some of these stone carvings are several hundred years old. Of course, we have no clue what they say since they're all in Chinese, but they look impressive. The detail that they had even though they were in solid rock was amazing. This area is also a very large Buddist temple with a lot of buildings. We walked around the area and saw a lot of people worshipping and lighting and carrying incense. They would leave incense in different areas. There was a lot of incense and candles burning all over the area.

After seeing the temple and the stone carvings, we came back to town and stopped at McDonalds for lunch. Our guide, Amy, doesn't like McDonalds so she didn't eat with us. Tyler enjoyed the french fries and liked the ketchup as well. He looked at the hamburger a few times, but never actually tried it.

By the afternoon, we were back in the hotel room. It was a slow rain outside, so we didn't want to go for a walk or anything. Instead, we played with Tyler's toys and got him to really start having some fun. Today, less than 48 hours after Tyler joined us, we have him smiling and then even laughing with us! We were playing with a car that shoots out of something you put it in. Tyler would shoot the car towards me and I would jump, or fall or something. He started smiling about it and shortly after, started laughing about it. We had him laughing quite a bit after that, sometimes pretty hard too. He has such an adorable smile and laugh!

The food in the hotel is expensive, about $10 - $13 per person for a meal, whereas McDonalds and places like that are $2 - $3. You do get a lot more with the hotel food, but if you're eating in the dining room, you really feel that you should each order something. Instead, we ordered room service for dinner so we could just order two things - pizza and spaghetti bolognaise. We made sure Tyler had enough first and then the three of us finished up the rest. Of course, I had to get pictures of Tyler eating spaghetti.

We woke up about 6:00 on May 17th and did our usual morning routine. It's been raining lightly on and off this morning. We decided it wasn't raining too much to go for a walk. We borrowed umberellas from the hotel and left for Fuzhou Panda World to see and learn about the giant pandas. It was quite a bit of walking, but for most of the day, it didn't rain much. At Panda World, we watched an introductory movie telling about the pandas. Tyler got bored, I had my camera in it's underwater case and he started playing with it. I showed him how to look at the pictures and he did very good at doing it himself.

After we were done at Panda World, we went to an adjoining zoo. Tyler didn't seem to interested in any of the animals. We wandered around the zoo for a while until it started raining again, then we walked back to the hotel. Mom had fallen on Monday and hurt her knee and this morning her back gave her trouble when she was trying to put Tyler's shoes on. The walk at the zoo strained her a little more, but she isn't going to miss out on the explorations either.

When we got back to the hotel, mom wanted to relax in the room, so Danni and I took Tyler down to the hotel restaurant for lunch. We each ordered some food off of the menu and split it with Tyler. Tyler was having a ball at lunch. He was talking to us and then laughing. We would repeat it to him, of course having no idea what we were saying, and he would laugh even harder. He ate very well for laughing the majority of the time through lunch. While we were paying for lunch, he would say 'bye, bye' and wave at us smiling and laughing and run off a little ways and then come back and do it again. He is much more relaxed and having fun with us now. We didn't eat everything we ordered and brought it back up to the room for mom.

Back in the hotel room, we started playing more and Tyler continued to have a lot of fun. He likes to try all types of new things and he had to try my laptop, so I let him make an entry on this page.... not sure what it says either, but it is at the bottom of the page. :) He has also figured out how to run my small digital camera. He took a lot of pictures, most of nothing, but when I told him to take a picture of sis, he got her on the screen and took the picture.

Tyler wanted to look through his picture books, so I was telling him what each picture was. To begin with, he was saying them after I did. After a short while, he would just point to the one he wanted me to say, but wouldn't mimic me anymore. He appears to be interested in learning though, which is a very good thing.

It's about supper time now, and we're going to order room service again. Tyler is doing soooo good and he is so smart. He catches on to everything so quickly just from watching us do it once or twice. I think once he starts learning and speaking english, he will catch on quickly. We have some picture books that we go through and tell him what is on each page and also repeat many things on tv or that we are doing or eating. I think he'll start speaking some English before too long.

Tyler's first blog entry, May 17th, about 3:00pm



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