A Sunny Day in Zhengzou

A few feet from our hotel

At 1 a.m., Emma is back to sleep. We put fresh sheets on her bed. Emma is sleeping on a fresh towel and there's another under her top sheet in case she gets sick again. Today was a little difficult generally.
Emma complained of a hurting tummy just before dinner and I ran her back to the room for a few minutes. We had decided to try a hotel restaurant almost within sight of our room door rather than take a taxi to eat with the other families and in retrospect that was a great decision.

Even so, we got to bed late. It's hard to say when Emma started feeling bad. Today we went on an underwhelming tour to the Zhengzhou Aquarium and Emma fell fast asleep on my lap during a very loud show. She was really zonked and didn't awaken until we got on the bus home. So, when we arrived home she didn't go to sleep at nap time and that led to a little meltdown at about 5 p.m., before dinner.

Pray that we all stay well. One other man whom Emma calls Mr. Bob had a 24-hr bug a few days ago. Hopefully this episode is from something Emma ate and she didn't catch something like that.
We were trying to recall what she may have been exposed to and there are risks everywhere. Besides Mr. Bob (one of he favorite people) having been sick, the first thing that comes to mind is the sign over our bathroom faucet: "Water is not potable unless boiled." China has serious problems with polution of the air and water. So, for example, when we ate at McDonalds yesterday the ice was a threat and we wonder at each meal whether unboiled water has made its way into our food.
Along those lines, the air is getting to us a little, I think. We all wake up with a cough. We've been having what passes in Zhengzhou for sunny days but blue skies are uncommon here. I hear you can sometimes see blue after a day of heavy rain. Buildings more than about a mile away are only grey outlines and a family that went to see the Yellow River yesterday reported that they couldn't see across it.

Noelle loves french fries (and loves to share them)

On a positive note, we got our documentation back from the Notary Office today and it looks to be in order. Along with the official documents we got many pages of records from the orphange, all in Chinese, along with more photos. You may be able to find out more than I can at the moment by searching online for Xinyang Childrens Welfare Institution. That's where Dan Dan has spent most of her life. However, the sites appear to have been blocked so I'll have to wait until we get home to learn more (the government blocks Facebook, YouTube, BlogSpot and who knows what else.)
And we got a photocopy of Liu Dan's newspaper advertisement. It is required to be posted in the effort to find an abandoned child's parents and lists the exact place where she was found along with the date and who brought her to the orphanage. Our guides have translated the advertisement for us.

BTW, the orphanage records indicate that the caregivers at Xinyang have been trained by the "Half the Sky Foundation" and we are thankful for that.

It's 2 a.m. now and Emma has been sleeping peacefully for over an hour. More later. Thanks for praying for us.