Day 3 - The Great Wall

Today we discovered a great many important things about China:

1. When you change your $20 into Yuan, you feel really (sinisterly) wealthy
2. "American Classic Flavor" Lay's are vastly superior to either "Mexican Tomato Chicken Flavor" or "Italian Red Meat Flavor"
3. Locals won't hesitate to pick up our children. Sasha was held by not one but two military men at the Great Wall today and carried out of various cars by porters and wait staff. So odd!
4. Bumper stickers here rock. Our favorite today was "Sleep pig in car" which we believe to be a humorous take on "Baby in car" which we believe to be something like the "Baby on board" stickers you used to see on cars in the U.S. The best sticker from today that we don't believe was a joke was "Baby on road" - I don't think that gave off the same flavor of caution that they were hoping for
5. The boys are still minor celebrities (the popularity of their hair did not wane overnight) but they have not yet figured out how to charge for photo ops. When I'm walking with Sasha, people will line up their shots to "surreptitiously" get her in the shot. I'm thinking about renting out the boys to help defray the cost of travel...
6. Sasha likes acrobats way better than kung fu warriors. She's still talking adoringly about the "butterfly girls on the bicycles" (referring to the costumes of the girls in the bicycle part of the show). Go fig.
7. Today was a much quieter day than yesterday. We spent a few hours climbing the Great Wall, shopped for some WanYing birthday presents at the "Jade Factory" (another pleasant but thinly-veiled charade to get you into the gift shop), and finished up the evening at the Chinese acrobatics show, which everybody thought was *awesome*.

Ben won the prize for hiking the farthest up our section of the Great Wall - although at its height this 2,000 year old wall was an incredible 5,000 miles long, our section was only a few kilometers and Ben made it all the way to the top/end!

Tomorrow we have a little more time to play tourist and then it's off to Nanchang - the capitol of WanYing's province! And Monday morning we meet our little girl!

Today's prayer request: Please join us in prayer for extra patience and grace for each other. It's so easy to get tired and out of sorts when traveling (and Mommy is the prime example of out-of-sortedness!). Please pray that our words and actions come out of the love we have for each other rather than the fatigue or high emotion of any given moment. Pray that we (I) exhibit the fruit of self control!