Beijing Day 2

We woke up to a little bit of snow today and it was cold! We went to a jade factory and saw how they carve jade. We got a neat piece called a Happiness Ball. It's one solid piece of jade carved into 4 separate balls inside of each other. There were so many beautiful things that were all hand carved by artisans whose families have been doing the same thing for generations.

Then we went to the Great Wall. The pollution was terrible so the views weren't quite what we'd hoped for but it was an awesome site! Syd and I made it up to the first guard tower and James made it up to the third guard tower. Talk about shaky legs! The stairs are very uneven, some were 2 inches high and some were over 12 inches high. It was amazing!

Then we went to the Birds Nest and Water Cube from the 2008 Olympics, it is a huge complex! We also got to go to an acrobat show and you can certainly tell that these people have been training since they were small children.

We went to Pizza Hut for dinner and Syd lost her tooth while we were there, wonder what the tooth fairy will bring her? She has been a trooper, loving all the tours we've done and exhausted by the end of the day! Her and James woke up around 4-4:30 this morning and since I was still asleep, James set her up in the tub with blankets and pillows to play with her new Nintendo DS (thanks Oma, Opa, MaaMaa and PapPap).

We've got to finish up with packing, we leave for Zhengzhou in the morning and we get Alex on Monday!!! Now that the touring is all done (for now) the real reason for us being here is starting to sink in. We'll soon be a family of 4!!

PS: Hope the first grade assembly was fun! Syd missed singing with you.