December 12th Update

What an adventure... Rick hiked the steepest part of the Great Wall with Paul on his back.  The only casualty was his thigh muscles and a little chaffing.  Oh, and more than a few comments from the other climbers... of course they were in Chinese so we assume they were something like" what a good Daddy to bring his son up the wall."  Of course, it really was probably something like, " Crazy man."  I hiked up as well.  We made it about 2/3 rds of the way up and the steepnest and wind made us go back down. It was awesome.  We have an amazing tour guide -- he has taken us to many more places than we asked.  So far we have seen the Great Wall, Ming's Tombs, the Secret Place, the Lama Temple with the worldest largest gold Buddha, the Art Zone, the Chinese Acrobats, the Beijing Zoo and so much more!! What a great way to get ready for Joseph -- now we have orientation this morning.  We found out we are the only family here.  The others left on Saturday.  We will meet them Friday in Guangzhou.  Today we go to the Forbidden Palace and Tiannimen Square.  Tomorrow is Gotcha Day! We drive for about 40 minutes and get Joseph and then drive about three hours to the Capital city of Heibei where we spend the next day and fly out on Friday morning to Guangzhou to do our American paperwork.  Paul is very excited... Rick and I are wondering how the parents, aunts and uncles did it... just adding one child after another:)))  It is now starting to seem real.  Paul is telling everyone what he is going to teach Joseph -- I going to teach Joseph a lot of stuff -- Matt (his friend)  will help.  So, we are in the final countdown!!  We will let you know how it goes tomorrow!! Love, ARP