Week one in review

Ruby watching TV and eating dried apricot
Ruby next to a statue she really liked at a furniture store

Mike, our guide - Peter, and Ruby enjoying tea at a tea store. The tea expert
is the man behind the beautiful wood table. The table is what attracted Mike
to the store :)

Mommy, Ruby and Daddy at the Zoo

First, thank you everyone for the wonderful posts. It is nice to hear from you all back home!

Ni Hao. This has been a very busy week. It's hard to believe that nine days have already passed! During those nine days we have learned much more about Ruby, traveled to the city of Xian, saw the Beijing Zoo, visited the Terra Cotta Warriors, rode bikes eight miles around the city wall of Xian, watched a traditional Chinese dinner performance, Climbed the Great Wall and much more!!!! Everything, including the food, has been wonderful. Ruby is doing well. We have our good moments and challenges, but overall she is a trooper. Besides, the language barrier, our main challenge is the television. She wants to watch it constantly. We understand why, but she gets very upset when we ask her to turn it off to eat breakfast or go to bed. Today, we hope to communicate with some Love & Logic on the issue when we meet with our guide/translator. Hopefully this will ease the problem. Ruby has also been working on saying "thank you" and holding Mommy's hand in public. She is doing much better with these two things. We are keeping things simple at this point because we don't want to overwhelm her. We are still in the trust building stage. Everything else will come with time and baby steps.

Ruby is also much smaller than her measurements from a month ago. I think they measured her in a snowsuit because she fits best in size 7/8. I'm glad I brought two things in this size just in case. She is almost swimming in size 10, unless is is a small size 10. I don't think she cares though because the dress she wore when we met her was very big on her as well. She may not even know the difference? At least she'll be set for clothing for the next two summers because most of her summer clothing is size 10 thru 12 :)

Yesterday was the only day we saw our travel group from A Helping Hand. Ruby made friends with another family's daughter. Both girls enjoyed each other's company even though they don't speak the same language. We hope they are able to keep in contact in the future. Yesterday was also the day we climbed the Great Wall. Ruby has so much energy! She likes to race and climbed it very fast and again on the way back down. She also entertained the group with singing some traditional children's songs.

Ruby has so much energy.....this is an understatement! Mike and I haven't met anyone like her before. I can only think of one child similar to Ruby in my career of 10 years working with children. She is truly one of a kind! I have decided that Ruby is a cross between Anne of Green Gables , Buttercup from the Powerpuff Girls and a pinch of Cinderella. A very interesting combination to say the least!