Our first full day in China! - October 11

Hello from China! Yesterday may have been fairly uneventful, but today we remedied that. After breakfast, our guide and driver took us to the Olympic Park to see the Bird's Nest, the Cube, and the building that looks like a giant flame (don't know what that one is called). It was really cool to get to see the locations that we watched on tv in August.

Then, we loaded up and headed to the Great Wall. All of the stories that people have told me are totally true. The steps are completely uneven. One step would be two inches tall, and the next one would be 20 inches tall - very hard to climb. But it is also as amazing and wonderful as I had heard.

The boys were probably more excited about this than anything else on the trip (except their sister of course). When we started to climb, they were ready to roll. So we set off climbing the most difficult and steep part of the wall. Mimi made it about 1/3 of the way up, which is quite impressive. Amy made it up about 2/3 of the way. But Tim, Ben, and Will went all the way! The kids just kept going and going and going. It was unbelievable.

The boys at the top of the Great Wall

To give you an idea of how high they climbed, this picture was taken about 1/3 of the way up, and they got to the farthest tower you can see in the photo. There was actually one more section they could have climbed to get higher, but they ran out of time. You see, it turns out that my children are celebrities here in China. Tim said that every few steps, Chinese people were stopping him to ask him if they could take pictures of my kids. And this went on ALL day! The Chinese paparazzi was everywhere! According to our guide, Chinese people think that little American kids are cute (funny, considering that I think Chinese babies are adorable). So at least two dozen Chinese people now have pictures of themselves with my children. It was pretty funny.

Anyway, after the wall, we went to a Cloisonne factory, which is a place where they make bronze items like vases and they create these intricate and colorful decorations on them. They were beautiful. Then we ate lunch at the factory - which was tasty. The bean paste spring rolls were delicious. Seriously.

Finally, we went to the Summer Palace, which was a massive palace and garden, including man-made lake, where the empress liked to spend her summers. We didn't go into any of the buildings, but the grounds were gorgeous. Then, we took a boat ride across the lake, where more people wanted photos of my children.

Now, we are completely exhausted. Will passed out before we ever got to the room. Ben has danced all over the streets of Beijing, and is hopefully asleep by now. Funny Will story of the day - on the way down the wall, Will says, "I knew I would have a great life." I think he meant he knew it would be a great day, but it was so sweet and funny. Ben also said that he was glad to be a part of our "team" climbing the wall. Have I mentioned I have awesome sons?

Tomorrow we fly out to Nanjing. Continue to pray for travel mercies, and that we don't get sick. We accidentally had ice in our Cokes tonight. Hopefully it will be ok, but we will know by morning, won't we? Love to all.