Blood, blood, and more blood

We had an incident yesterday.  Our middle child took a spill.  There was blood - lots of blood.  Adam and I were changing Abbie in our room and we heard a scream and a cry coming from my parents' adjoining room.  My mom came running in saying my dad needed me and that Gavin was bleeding.  When I got in there, Dad's hand was full of blood, blood was streaming down Gavin's neck, and there was more coming from his head.  I grabbed him and brought him into our bathroom and we applied pressure with a clean washcloth.  Oy.  It quickly became apparent that it looked much worse than it actually was.  The bleeding stopped after a few minutes of pressure, and while both of our hotel rooms looked like a crime scene, we departed for a fun-filled day with family of some friends in Illinois.

We went to church with Julie and Steve Wu, aunt and uncle to Charlie Wu (our good buddy from daycare).  After church, we went to lunch and a play yard with the Wu's and their three adorable kiddos.  They were so generous and thoughtful to take us out and about for the day!

We've been enjoying playing together as a family in our hotel.  Here is a video of Brayden and Abbie running around:

 Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuFhZ-KYBT4

Abbie loves to play peek-a-boo through the glass doors in the bathroom.

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLW6U265H2w

Today we went shopping on Shaiman Island.  It was great fun! 

For those of you traveling to China in the future, here are my thoughts on must-hit shops. For those of you not traveling to China, feel free to read on, but this concludes the family happenings blog post.

• Jenny's: You'll find shoes and silk dresses here for great prices (30-35 RMB for both), and Jenny is very sweet.  There is another shop just across the entry way from hers that has lots of shoes, but the prices are a bit higher (48 RMB).  
• We had a hard time finding Jenny's.  It's just down the street from the Crafts & Arts Shop (see below) in the center section where the statues and park benches are.  
• Crafts & Arts Shop: This is where we bought our chops.  Master Wong was recommended to us, and he was very good.  I'll include pictures and videos below.  I bought a medium square chop for both boys and a large oval one for Abbie.  It was 200 RMB in total.  I also bought some odds and ends here, but would suggest you stick with Jenny's for silk dresses as I overpaid at the Crafts & Arts Shop. 

• This store is on the corner of one of the thru streets and the center park area.  It's yellow and easy to spot.
• Jordan's: We ran into Jordan as we were strolling around, and he certainly lives up to his reputation.  He was a gem.  I bought a lot of stuff from him, but mainly to support a nice guy - the prices weren't stellar, but they weren't horrible either.  
• This shop is just down the center park area from Lucy's.  
• Michael's: I bought two North Face jackets and a Burberry dress here.  I had to work them a lot on prices - it ended up being 400 RMB in total.
• The location is down the thru street from the Crafts and Arts Shop.  
• Lucy's: A good meal, and a pleasant environment.  You'll be certain to run into at least 7 other adoptive families during the course of your meal.  We had 4 adults and 3 children and our bill came to 400 RMB exactly.  I'd stay away from the pizza and the onion rings - just not very good.  My mom had the beef stroganoff and LOVED it, Dad had the spaghetti bolognese and seemed to like it (he doesn't talk much), and Adam and I shared the grilled cheese with fries and Lucy's special pan fried noodles - both were delicious.

Here is a photo and video of Master Wong working on our chops.  They turned out perfectly.  One tip - bring some documents with your child's Chinese name so they get the characters correct.  One of Abbie's Chinese names has a few different character possibilities and I didn't have any documents to help them select the correct character.