days 24 and 25 - Sunday

This was our READY TO GO HOME DAY!  We all got up and made it through one last breakfast buffet.  No one wanted to eat anything today.  I did remember to bring my camera and get a few pictures though.  

There was a big stage at this end of the dining room.  We couldn't figure out what it was used for though.  Just a display, I guess.  S is looking towards it in this picture. 

Josh usually fed E in her stroller while I fed G in hers and we tried to keep S in between us.  I spent a lot of the time at breakfasts running back and forth from the table to the buffet getting plates for all the littles and one for myself.  It was crazy.  

The lobby had this massive wood carving.  It was amazing!

This is the lobby walking from the dining room back towards the elevators.  

Anyone else notice the horse theme here?  

I ran outside with G to grab a few shots of the outside of the hotel. Josh took the other kids to get some more money exchanged so we could pay our guide and driver.  

You have to pay to park in the little tiny parking lot outside the hotel.  Our driver had to pay every time he came to pick us up even though he was just picking us up and not staying for any length of time.  So stupid.  

After I got back upstairs I got the fun job of packing everything up for the last time.  We were all out of clean clothes by this point and didn't want to pay for another laundry service so I sorted through the dirty clothes bag and found the least stinkiest things for everyone to wear.  Gross doesn't even cover that.  Oh, the fun things the Mommy gets to do!  I guess I actually did this the night before because everyone was dressed before we went down to breakfast.  I did have to go through and sort all the dirty stuff to pack it away though and get everyone an extra set of clothes to take on the plane.  Josh kept everyone in one room while I packed in the other.  G screamed and screamed the entire time because I had left her.  :(  I'm a pro at this now though and it didn't take me long to get us all packed up.  I even managed to make several PB sandwiches for the kids to take on the plane in case the meals were anything like last time.  I took a few pictures of the hotel room and view before I packed up my camera. 

There was a huge park right across the street from the hotel room.  We wanted to take the kids on a walk over there but were too chicken to cross all those lanes of traffic with our crew.  It doesn't look too busy right now but it was usually VERY busy.  

Right next to the park is a big sports complex.  The night before there was some kind of tournament or something going on and the place was crazy packed with people.  So loud too!

 

Here is a shot of "my" room.  S snuck away and helped me pack for a little bit.  

And the bathroom. 

Josh's room was exactly the same, just a mirror image.  

After I finished packing we had a few hours to spare and we really needed some more water.  So we walked down to a convenience store and bought a few bottles.  The kids ate a light lunch of leftover yucky pizza from the night before.  They picked everything off and basically had pizza crust for lunch.  I wanted to at least get something into the little kids before we left.  

We met our guide downstairs and paid her and the driver and then we were off to the airport! Hallelujah!!!!!

We got through the airport OK.  After checking all our bags and getting through security we found the gate listed on our tickets.  Once we got there we found out it had changed.  To a gate about a mile away.  Ugh!  We walked forever to the gate only to find out it had changed again and was about 3 gates back.  GRRRRRR!!  Get me out of China already!  We finally found the gate and made sure it was the right one.  M and I went to use the restroom and then Josh took the boys.  He also went in search of some water for us.  We were all parched on the flight over here since it's so flipping long and we drank our water pretty quickly.  I was not going to let that happen again.  We finally found some at a vending machine and bought the four it had.  They finally started boarding and once we made it past the ticket agent there was another security checkpoint.  They had to search our bags AGAIN and throw away all our water AGAIN.  Even the babies' stuff!  SO FREAKING MAD!  There wasn't even a place to throw it away.  No trash can or anything.  Some of the cups we had to dump out since they were sippy cups.  So they made us wait for them to get somewhere to throw it away.  Josh was so angry he was seriously close to dumping it on the floor or maybe pouring it over the security guards' heads at this point.  Don't think that would have gone over well though. . . 

We finally got on the plane.  We had two rows of four seats at the very back of the plane.  It was a double decker plane too.  The ride was SO turbulent and scary.  The big kids all sat in the back row and Josh and I and all the babies sat in front of them.  The big kids played on the iPads and DS's the whole time and did very well.  The little kids did OK.  I had to hold G the whole which sucked majorly.  E had 2 major meltdowns - one at the very beginning of the flight where everyone stood up and turned around to see her screaming and watch us.  I finally yelled to them, "Yes, she's crying!  It's great, isn't it?!" and waved to everyone staring.  SO DONE WITH CHINESE PEOPLE!!!!!!!!  E watched TV for a little bit but then it died and it was all downhill from there.  There are no outlets on a freaking 11 hour flight?  What stupid person designed this airplane?!  The plane over to China had outlets so I figured this one would too.  Same airlines and all.  

E settled down finally and fell asleep for a little while.  S was awake for quite a bit of the flight but finally fell asleep for the last 4 hours or so.  G napped on and off the entire time.  The food was AWFUL, as expected, but the little girls ate well.  Our travel agent reserved a baby meal for us because of G being a lap child ticket.  Guess what the baby meal is?  A tray with a quart of milk and two tiny little baby food jars.  What the crap am I supposed to do with a quart of milk, people?  Seriously.  What child drinks and entire quart?  I seriously laughed out loud when she handed me the tray.  We never even opened the milk since neither girl will drink it cold. The baby food was a fruit mixture and a meat and vegetable mixture.  You're probably thinking something like chicken and vegetables, right?  Uh no.  Fish paste and corn.  Yeah.  I didn't open that one.  I tried to give G the fruit one but she wasn't having anything to do with that and went right for my tray of actual food.  Haha.  Once E woke up she snarfed down the baby food though. I had told Josh not to open the "meat" one as it would likely make us all barf but I guess he didn't hear me because a few minutes later I see him gagging at the end of the row and E is screaming.  Hahaha!  She had finished off the fruit pretty quickly and he thought the other jar was more of the same.  He gave her one spoonful and she spit it back at him.  That's what made him gag.  And she got it all over her shirt too so she smelled a little fishy for the rest of the trip.  Nice.  Luckily I had made the PB sandwiches before we left so no one was too hungry when we finally landed in San Francisco.  We had two meals on the plane and neither were very good.  We did get another quart of milk with our second meal though.  HA!

We landed a little late so we were worried about our connection to DFW.  We got off the plane (and sang a chorus of "Hallelujah!"), made it through immigration fairly quickly (thank heavens for America and English speaking people!), and found our bags.  We had to check our bags again but that was a quick process.  I had to get a boarding pass for me since the agent in China gave everyone boarding passes through to DFW except me. (WHY?!) Then we had to go through security again.  I was just happy to be able to communicate with the security people and understand exactly what they wanted of me that I didn't really care!  We made it through security fairly quickly and without problem and then on to our gate with about 10 minutes to spare.  We immediately got the iPads plugged in for a little bit and the little TV too.  We also got some food into everyone since breakfast on the plane was so disgusting.  SO gross.  I'm not even sure it was actual food.  I was desperate for some water and some fresh vegetables.  I found a chicken veggie wrap and it was SO good.  We also got water for everyone and no one took it away from us!

While we were in the airport E walked around and tried to climb on every lap of the people sitting there waiting.  They thought it was super cute but it's just really sad.  We wanted her to run around though so we kept catching her before she could climb up and tried to redirect her.  That only made her mad though.  

We got on the plane to DFW - the very last rows again - and almost everyone fell asleep pretty quickly.  

By this point it was about 4 am Beijing time and we were all exhausted.  I couldn't really sleep very well since I had to hold G but I dozed off here and there.  

 

This was what I was really waiting for.  Hello, old friend.  How I've missed you.  Too bad they don't serve Mountain Dew on the flights.  I might have broken down and cried tears of joy! (Sorry for the blurry iPhone shot)

Made it into DFW around 9 pm Dallas time.  We all got off the plane, got a potty break for everyone, got our luggage and couldn't remember the name of the parking place we had used for the suburban!  We spent some time looking for it on the internet (with working phones again - yay!) After about 15 minutes we finally found it and called them.  They said they would send a shuttle right over.  We made our way outside and, thankfully, the van was already there for someone else so we didn't have to wait long.  Got everything and everyone loaded onto the van.  We're almost there!  

We found the suburban and unlocked it to find that the battery was dead.  We had the van driver give us a jump and we heard something pop.  We didn't think much of it until we got going and turned the air conditioner on.  It was blowing super hot on the driver's side and cool everywhere else.  We tried turning it on and off but didn't want to risk turning the car on and off after just getting the jump and we couldn't get the hot to stop so we had to drive with the windows down.  At least it was nighttime and not as hot as it could have been!  The little girls were FREAKING out about the carseats and everyone was starving by this point.  We made a stop at Whataburger and calmed most of the people down.  But then they started freaking out because it was so loud with the windows down on the freeway.  Will this ever end?!  Most of the kids fell asleep eventually though.

We got to Lucas and had to stop at the grocery store.  I went in alone and left Josh in the car with most of the children sleeping.  I came out and realized we didn't have any room for groceries anywhere so everyone had some piled on their laps - more freaking out ensued.  I had to hold the three jugs of milk on my lap but at least it was nice and cool! 

Our garage door openers wouldn't work when we got home.  Seriously?!  Luckily we have a keypad on the outside and we were able to open it.  We finally got everything inside and changed some diapers and sent the big kids to bed.  Josh and I stayed up with the little girls who had slept most of the flights so weren't ready to go to bed. The little girls finally fell asleep around 4 or 5 so Josh and I crashed too.  Everyone woke up around 10:00 am.  

Now our new life really begins!

 

day 23 - saturday

Today is the Great Wall day!  We were all looking forward to this day throughout the whole trip.  G woke up without fever or spots and seemed to be feeling better.  She is cutting a canine tooth - the upper left one but it doesn't seem to be bothering her much.  I can just tell it's about to burst through because it's pretty swollen.  

We got up and ready for breakfast early again.  All the kids are really tired of the food here and hated the breakfast buffet today.  There were just not very many options for them.  No fresh fruit that they could eat besides watermelon (which tastes really weird in China, by the way), no syrup for pancakes - just honey, no bacon, no eggs, just a bunch of weird stuff.  

We met our driver in the lobby since Helen had to be at the airport early in the morning to help some doctors doing some charity work in the orphanages get on their flight.  She met them late the night before and stayed at the same hotel as them to make sure they got on their way on time.  We had to drive past the airport on the way to the Great Wall anyway so it worked out for her and them.  We just made a quick stop to get her and then we were off again.  The ride was really nice.  It was about 1 1/2 hours but it was through some really beautiful countryside.  Up until this point we hadn't seen any place in China that wasn't a huge city, which is amazing considering how many places we went!  G, of course, fell asleep before we had even made it to the airport.  She's usually out on any trip in the longer than about 15 minutes.  

E sat next to M for a while.  (Is it weird to see the kids not in carseats?  It was not fun trying to keep all the little ones in a seat without them!)  She likes to grab hold of the arm of whoever is sitting next to her, especially if she's scared.  She'll pull it over and then hug it all on her own.  Pretty cute!

This picture wasn't from today but it shows how much fun S had this entire trip of not being restrained in a carseat.  I can't tell you how many times we had to yell "SIT DOWN" to that boy.  

Once we got a little closer we started to see the mountains.  Daddy was very excited to finally see some big-ish mountains!

After driving for a while we came to a more touristy-looking area full of campgrounds and cabins for rent.  It reminded both Josh and I of driving up to through that mountains near Manassa or the area around Estes Park, Colorado, we drove through a few summers ago.  It continued to get more crowded with with touristy places and we could tell we were close.  There was a small parking area that was just completely packed with vans and buses and cars all over the place and so our driver decided to join in the fun.  That is the Chinese way - there is always room for one (or 12) more!  We got everything unpacked and decided to leave the strollers in the car and put the little girls in the backpacks for the day.  We had to walk through the parking area and the little marketplace outside the entrance and it was all uphill.  Like really steep uphill too.  I was tired just making it to entrance!

Our guide stopped to show us the map.  I'm pretty sure she pointed to where we were at but I can't remember where that was now!  You can see the ski lift icons on there so we must have been around that spot. There are lots of spots you can go to start your journey on the Wall.   We went to this one because it had the ski lift ride up and we wouldn't have to climb up ourselves (although we could have if we wanted to).  Our guide said this is a really beautiful part of the Wall too and not quite as busy as the other ones as well.  I don't have anything to judge it against but we LOVED it.  Helen also said that you can climb the whole Wall but you'd have to prepare ahead of time and do a lot of camping - it's that big.  There are sections that are missing now or have fallen into disrepair that people actually go to visit because they aren't fully walkable.  Tons of people go to actually climb it - like rock climbing with ropes and carabiners.  There are even parts of it that are so remote that you have to get special permission from the government to go to and take special guides and everything.  This is quite literally a GREAT Wall!

We waited at the edge of the marketplace while Daddy bought our tickets for the ski lift.  We had to buy tickets for going up and coming back down.  

Looking at these pictures I realize how painful it looks for E to have to sit in that backpack trying to fit her legs around Daddy.  But she wasn't in any pain or anything.  This girl does the splits twenty times a day just to sit down and is super flexible.  It was not a problem for her at all.  She didn't like being constrained at all but there is no way we could have done it any other way.  

Here was the big entrance.  

We walked up for a little bit until we made it to the ski lift entrance.  It was a perfect day with perfect weather.  Beijing is so much nicer weather-wise than all the other places we stayed.  It was in the 80's that day and cool in the morning with a great breeze.  And dry - no more humidity!!!  Once we made it to the ski lifts we had to figure out how we were going to do this.  No one actually said the words "ski lift" until we got to there.  It was always gondolas or carriages, etc. so I didn't really expect ski lifts.  We switched the backpacks with the girls in them around to our fronts and then divided up the kids the best way possible.  M and R went together, Daddy with E and S sitting next to him, and me with G and C sitting next to me.  M and R were in charge of the family backpack with all our supplies too.  Our guide got her own ski lift all to herself.  Putting C and me together was probably not the greatest idea since we are both pretty terrified of heights but I think I would have been even more terrified trying to keep S on the lift by myself.  I still don't even want to think about him being not the ski lift at all - it seriously makes me nauseous!  

Since I already had the camera around me I went ahead and took a few pictures although it scared the heck out of me to let go of the railing to do it.  

Poor C was so scared too.  I felt so bad for him!  I didn't really know what to expect so I couldn't prepare him at all.  He usually does a lot better if he knows what's coming.  By the end of the ride his nerves had settled though.  

It was a pretty awesome view though as long we didn't look down!

We caught a few glimpses of the toboggan ride that we could take down if we so chose.  C wasn't so sure about it but the other kids were really excited about doing that.  

As we got closer to the top we could see sections of the Great Wall.  

Then I realized that I was going to have to help C get off of this thing while carrying G on my front (not any easy thing carrying around that buddha!) and got a little worried!

I did my best to explain to him that as soon as they lifted the bar we had to jump off and run to the side so the next ski lift didn't hit us.  That didn't really work though especially when I had a pretty hard time getting up myself with G strapped to me.  The seats were at an angle too so that didn't help much.  We had several Chinese workers yelling at us and gesturing wildly because we apparently weren't moving quickly enough.  I think Josh ran in and got C out of the way but it's all a blur to me now. 

After we all got off the lifts and met up again we walked to a scenic spot to take some pictures. 

This is looking in the direction that we ended up climbing.  There is a big patch near the center of the top of the peak in the middle that had some Chinese characters placed.  Kind of like how there's an M on the mountain in Manassa or a Y on the mountain near BYU.  Of course, I can't remember what they meant though.  My brain is pretty much useless now.  

After taking a few (thousand) pictures we finally made it to the actual wall and started our climb.  

There are watchtowers set throughout the wall that you have to walk through.  It was awesome to walk through them though because they were shady and the small windows built into them made the perfect natural air conditioning.  I did not want to the leave the towers!  Great views for pictures too. 

This little man walked/ran almost the entire way.  He wanted to be like the big kids and do it all on his own but we made him hold onto someone during the steeper parts, especially on the steps.  

That tiny little dot on the ridge is another watchtower.  This is a crazy huge Wall. 

On one of the watchtowers we could climb up to the second level.  C was not a fan of the Daddy-sized view!

M found a praying mantis and begged me to take a picture.  

Definitely some great views from up there!

One of the kids also found this scratched into the Wall. 

C, or should I call him Golom, wanted to pose by this cannon.  

So the others had to pose as well. 

I think we walked through 4 watchtowers (maybe just 3).  

There were several little "shops" set up on the actual wall - usually 1-2 people selling water or popsicles.  They weren't anything permanent though and those people had to haul all their goods up there to sell them.  Props to them because we were freaking tired by the time we got to them and we weren't carrying a ton of water bottles or anything!  They charge you for it though.  Not cheap!

The kids did talk us into getting them popsicles.  It was hot and close to lunchtime so we caved.  :)

The popsicles weren't any flavor that we could identify.  Kind of a mixture of coconut, vanilla, and something fruity - not pina colada though.  They were good though and not super sweet.  We found some shade and stopped to eat them for a bit. 

 I think we decided to head back right after this.  Our guide left it up to us on how far to go up the Wall.  When we finally said we were ready to turn around she said we had gone a lot farther than she though we would!  If it had been just Josh and I, I think we would have kept going. We weren't really ready to stop but we knew we had to climb back so we turned around.  It turned out to be the perfect distance though and we all felt like we had seen all that we wanted to.  We had planned to let whoever wanted to toboggan down but when we got to the toboggan place the line was CRAZY long - like a 2-hour wait long and we just couldn't do that with all the little kids and it being lunchtime - so we took the ski lifts down again, much to C's chagrin.  Going down was much better though and getting off was much easier too.  

When we were in the line to get on the ski lifts back down some crazy guy started pushing me out of the line for the ski lifts saying, "Let me by!" and I told him no several times.  He just kept pushing me though.  I was at the back of our group and Josh was at the front.  The guy started ranting in Chinese and wanting to go ahead of us.  I had HAD it with this Chinese attitude by this point and I was about to go ballistic on the dude.  I started yelling no to him and telling him to quit pushing me.  He obviously spoke some English.  Josh heard and started yelling even more when he found out the guy was pushing me.  The guy chilled out once Josh got involved but insisted to him that he hadn't been pushing me.  I wanted to punch him in the face!  I'm not really sure how it all ended as Josh pulled C and G and I through the line so that we could get on the next ski lift and not be around this guy anymore.  

We finally made it onto the ski lifts to head back down.  M and R were ahead of us this time. 

We made our way through the market and bought a couple of souvenirs.  Josh really wanted to get a worker's hat (like the one R got on Shaiman Island - we couldn't find an adult-sized one there) for one of his employees (at the employee's request) and we had asked every guide in every city where we could get one.  They all knew what he was talking about but looked at him strangely and would ask him why he would want one of those?  They were are seriously confused as to why he would want one because they are only worn by peasants or rural workers.  None of them had any idea where to get one.  But we found several shops in the marketplace that sold them and he was able to find a big man-sized one.  We bought some bananas for E too since that is the only fruit she will eat and the hotel doesn't serve them at breakfast like all the others did.  She and G had napped as we were walking on the Wall and had snacked some too but she was definitely ready for lunch like the rest of us by this point.   

Our guide took us to a restaurant near the Wall for lunch and said it was a really good place and cheap.  We ended up ordering more sweet and sour pork and a beef noodle dish for our little noodle girl, G.  

E started freaking out after only eating a few bites so Josh had to take her out of the building.  The big kids all ate a ton and said it was really good.  G ate a few noodles and then staring puking all over out of the blue.  Right as I am realizing what she's doing S drops his glass cup onto the cement floor and it shattered everywhere. I was trying to clean up puke, comfort S (he was devastated that he had dropped the cup and it broke - I didn't scold him or anything about it he's just really sensitive sometimes) and deal with R and C who were done eating and laughing loudly and rough-housing together completely oblivious to what else was going on.  We also still had to pay for lunch and Josh had all the money outside with him and E.  Needless to say, I was SO done with China at this point!!!!!  I hadn't even been able to eat anything since I was feeding G and helping S eat and clean up and calm down.  I managed to get G cleaned up and changed into some clean clothes with the help of M (thank heavens for her!) and told M to go out and get the money from Dad.  I got the older boys to quiet down a little and sent them out to Dad as well so they could get in the car.  I was able to pay our bill and get out of the restaurant with everyone alive - amazingly.  

Got back in the van finally and almost everyone fell asleep on the way home.  Unfortunately, I had two sleeping babies on me and no way to go to sleep without them falling off.  To my left. . .

To my right. . .

Josh had a sleeping baby as well but managed to catch a few Z's himself while keeping the sun out of her eyes.  Now that's a good daddy!

These two stayed awake too and played on the iPads for a while.  

Even our guide fell asleep up in the front seat.  It was nice to have some peace and quiet for a little while even if I didn't get any sleep.  Once we got closer to our hotel everyone started waking up.  G never threw up again and I think it may have just been a fluke or part of whatever had been giving her the hives.  C woke up with a fever and a major headache.  He was absolutely miserable.  He's allergic to ibuprofen and that's all I had with me (some infant Motrin in case G's fever came back) and he can't take pills yet so he couldn't have any of the Tylenol I had with me for Josh and I either.  He just laid down until we got in the hotel again.  On the way back to our hotel I finally remembered to take a few pictures of the city.  There were a couple of really interesting buildings that the kids kept asking me to take pictures of.  This building was all curves and very sic-fi.  

This one was definitely the strangest.  It looks like it's been some kind of accident or something!  Totally supposed to look this apparently.  

After we got back to the hotel I found a couple of snacks for C and got some Tylenol in him.  I had him drink quite a bit of water too.  He was so miserable though I finally moved everyone into one room and put him in bed all alone in the other room.  He felt super hot to the touch but was complaining of being cold.  I turned on the Discovery Channel for him and left him to rest for a little bit.  I checked on him a few times and after about 45 minutes her was feeling much better.  

The rest of us just chilled for a while in the other room.  We decided to do Pizza Hut for dinner again since that was fairly easy, didn't require us to venture out anywhere and everyone liked it.  Josh went down to the lobby to have the front desk help him order it again.  We waited and waited and waited and finally it was delivered to the room, except the hotel guy decided we should try something new so he completely disregarded our order and ordered us something else instead for us.  Beyond RUDE!!!!!  We had ordered three large cheese pizzas and he turned that into 3 large combos (similar to supremes) with huge chunks of bacony/ham/spam nastiness, sausage, hot peppers, and stuffed crust.  It was SO gross and no one wanted to eat it.  I was starving having not eaten anything at lunch and we were pretty much out of snacks too.  I REALLY hate China at this point!!!!  But tomorrow we leave for home!