4th of July

Sorry to the morning coffee club for not having posted anything for a while. We have had a couple of slow days and didn't have much to post. Yesterday afternoon we did some shopping at our favorite little shop, Jordon's. I wish he had everything that we are looking for in his store because it's nice to be able to just look at things without people following you around trying to sell you everything in their store. We bought Sydney some traditional dresses and two pairs of squeaky shoes. They certainly make the squeakers in the shoes loud enough! It's fun to hear other kids squeaking down the hall in the hotel!! Sydney LOVES these shoes! We might have to see if we can find a larger size to bring home because she will likely grow out of these pretty quickly, judging by how much she is eating. We're still keeping her on a bland diet of congee, toast, noodles, rice, bananas, and yogurt. It seems to help keep her stomach settled down.....we just hope it holds for a few more days!

We have really been blessed with a great group of other families here. Everyone is so generous and caring. It helps so much to have them around and it's been fun getting to know them. It's so fun to watch all of the kids bonding to their families and changing already. We will miss not seeing them and their kids every day.

Last night we ordered in food from Danny's Bagels and Alycia and I had some incredible macaroni and cheese. Sydney enjoyed her chicken noodle soup and crackers and Donny tried a hamburger and fries. He said it wasn't bad but it's not quite like home either. After supper Donny and Alycia took Sydney swimming for the second time. This time we remembered the cameras! She had a blast and seems to enjoy everything a little more if her sister is there. She let Donny and Alycia hold her in the big pool and spin her around. She didn't want to get out of the water but it was getting close to bath time. Thanks to the squeaky shoes she agreed to get out of the water! While I put Sydney in the tub, Alycia and Donny went down to the deli and grabbed some ice cream. Donny gave Sydney a few bites of ice cream....she knows who to go to when mom says "no"! By the time her bath and snack time were over, it was close to bedtime. She decided to be a night owl last night and it was almost 10:00 when she finally went to sleep. She was content to just roll around in her bed but she wasn't so content before lunch today. She decided to spend around 20 minutes howling and crying! Not quiet tears either....the kind of cry that you can hear in the elevator a couple of floors down!! Alycia and Donny left to go to Lucy's Cafe for lunch and I decided to keep Sydney here and feed her when she calmed down. She doesn't like to be held or touched when she's upset, that seems to make things worse. She likes to sit by herself and just cry....it's heartbreaking not to be able to comfort her! I made her noodles and got her food ready and she started to calm down a little bit, so I went over and asked her if she wanted to eat and she decided to be done crying. We're not sure what made her mad in the first place but we figured she's likely just tired and irritable. She was pretty lazy after lunch and just lounged on her dad and pretended to bite off his finger.

Sydney is taking a much needed nap right now and we're hoping that she wakes up feeling better. We're just planning to hit a few more shops this afternoon and we've started packing things that we don't need for the trip home. I usually hate packing but packing to go home is very exciting!

Tomorrow we have our appointment at the consulate and then we are done! We hope you will all enjoy the 4th of July and maybe someone will take pity on us and repeat the grilled steak and potato salad (some with no onions, of course!) when we get home???!!!

We're counting down the hours!!