What a night, what a day to come. . .

Good morning. We just woke up and wanted to post before you go to bed. When you wake up, we'll have our son! Amazing to think huh.

Here I am in the airport yesterday morning.

Yesterday we went to the supermarket with our guide. To say that we were overwhelmed is an understatement. In Beijing, many items and signs are translated to English. . . not in Changsha. Not only that, but this is not a tourist town and China is not the land of many colors. Besides the Reigers, we are the only white people in town, not to mention that we have blond hair. I'm beginning to get used to the staring, but it can be hard. We were trying at the grocery store to get some staples and find food that Simon will like. Yup, we realized that we need to feed him. :) So, we had found a bank (AMEN!) to change our money and were able to purchase some bread, jam, noodle bowls, diet pepsi, yogurt, and some apple juice boxes.

We had quite a wonderful evening last night. We were both feeling a little discouraged, frustrated, and homesick in the afternoon. We spent some time talking and praying together. God is so faithful! After our prayer time, we were invited to go out for dinner with Anne, Cara, and Anne son. Did we have a great time! They ordered some wonderful dishes and we had great conversation. In the middle of dinner, Kyla showed up!!! She is in town for some ICC meetings. We were able to talk a little bit about Simon. She gave us all of his photos on a disk, some of his schoolwork to save, and told us some more things about him, all of which were encouraging. He has a wife at the orphanage (so funny!) that he spends all of his time with. He takes care of her and will play with her and share with her. We hope to sponsor her when we get home.

Then we took a walk and they showed us some of the places around our apartment. We were shown where to buy steamed bread. We can get three of them for one yen. They thought that Simon would be very used to eating steamed bread. We also went to a produce and meat market. It was down for the night, but we'll make sure to visit again. We should not buy produce there as the vendors are dishonest with the scales, but it is fun to see. The meat market has live animals. . . though dogs are not in season right now. That's right, the enjoy dog here in the winter.

Then, we got dessert. See the picture on the right. It is a type of sugar bread. The guy rolls it out and then bakes it. There is set of coals in the bottom of a drum. After he rolls out the dough, he puts his hand in the drum and sticks the dough on the inside where it bakes stuck to the wall. After it is brown, he uses a tools to take it out as it is rather hot. Then, when you eat it, in the center is a glaze of melted sugar, much like a marshmellow was cooked inside. It was so cool to see and even better to eat.

We headed home and went to bed so early. We are exhausted!

Here is our room with our bed and Simon's bed. We are so grateful to the Rigers for the use of their apartment!! We are also thankful that there though there is a squatty potty in the apartment, we don't have to use it because there is also a western toilet!

Finally, we want to thank everyone for their prayers and messages on e-mail, on the blog, and on facebook. We read them and covet them so very much. Though we can't respond to all, please know that we get them and love you all.