Red Couch Pictures

It is a tradition in the Chinese adoption community to have their children's picture taken on the red couch at the White Swan where many aoptive families stay during the Guangzhou part of the trip. I might have sent Jerry by himself had I not had such fond memories of our last stay here. Unfortunately we are not staying there this time, nor are many other families because the area is under construction in advance of the coming Asian games. We had to make a trip to the area to have the kids TB tests read (they were negative - hooray!) so we stopped by the WS for pictures. The picture tells it all : our son with the earphones hanging out the front of his shirt and our daughter with her pants sticking out. Eleven year olds. And the sweet 3 year old belonging to the family traveling with us. A wonderful family traveling with their only other child, a 24 yr old son who have facinating stories of their short term mission trips in Central and South America. The husband also works for a power company so he and Jerry have endless things to talk about.
That's the easy - here's the hard - the resistant daughter who continually says No! (okay, so it is her only English word) and a son who drinks coffee, plays poker, and sneaks up in the morning to watch music TV. Back to the good- after some pouting and the guide speaking to him about trust he is back to his cheerful self singing along with Cheryl's Chinese worship music on his mp3.....Anyone remember Everett's geisha performance ? That is exactly what he sounds like :)
So please keep praying as we work out this'family' thing.Thanks.C