Friends and Family,

Days 5 and 6 have been good. We've had ups and downs but mainly ups with LOTS of laughter. I don't think Conner Toth has laughed as much in the last 17 years as he has in the last 5 days. This little girl is a wild buckaroo with a gleam in her eye and shenanigans up her sleeve! She keeps us in stitches. Of course, oftentimes, we should not be laughing but it's difficult not to, so we turn our head. She tries to get away with things by using her quick wit, and all this with a big language barrier between us. So it's been interesting to figure out how to communicate. All she has known is orphanage life, so she's like a free bird, and we're trying to guide her in how to navigate this world out here.

Yesterday we had a day that I will never forget. We went to the safari here in Guangzhou. It's supposedly the best animal park in all of China and now I believe that to be true. We saw amazing things up close: panda bears, koalas, white tigers, more monkeys than you could imagine. We were walking through and there was a little monkey sitting on the park bench with a trainer. Carl and Conner got to hold it. It was so cute, just sitting there sucking his thumb, and then he'd run off to our stroller and grab our map and the trainer would grab it back. He did this 4-5 times. Of course, Collins was beside herself. Then we walked a little further and a man was sitting with a snake at the next park bench. We were all too chicken to hold the snake. Collins got to feed a giraffe, although she was not too happy about it.

Today we went shopping and Carl was cracking up because she would go to a rack and look at each item just like us ladies do! This at 4! A girl after my own heart. She and I went to the Mattel playroom here at the hotel twice today just to get some energy out. Tonight Carl and Conner played ping pong so we tagged along and played with one of those big exercise balls. I was pulling her along on it while the ball rolled. She wanted to pull me. So I climb up on that thing and when she started pulling me and we made eye contact, we both go so tickled. You know how you can have one of those moments when something just hits you when you're with someone and it's just hysterical? That was this! It was a big "connecting" moment for the two of us. We were both laughing hysterically, neither one of us could quit. Definitely a "you had to be there" moment, but it was such a great sensation to have with this little girl who was an orphan less than a week ago. We are so grateful that she seems to be bonding really well with us. She kisses all 3 of us on the cheek, holds our hands and wants Carl to hold her anytime we're walking somewhere. I had read that sometimes kids who come from hard places will need things they didn't get as babies. I've noticed that Collins stares at moms with their babies. Twice she's wanted to have me dress her after her bath, like you would a baby. She'll pretend to be a baby, pretend to cry and even make a fist with her hands. So we'll cuddle and swaddle and love on her and recreate what she missed. It seems to meet a need that she had. As far as food, it's an issue but we see progress. Carl took a tator tot from her plate yesterday and her face crinkled up, but then she stopped, seemed to think about it a moment and gave him the other one on her plate. At the safari yesterday we had to carry around her leftover lunch. She seems to feel more secure if food is within view.

Pray for a little girl here who is having a difficult time adapting to being adopted. She is 12 and we were there when she met her family for the first time. She did great and seemed excited. The next day when we went to the govt. office to make things official, she was sobbing hysterically. Then yesterday we saw her and her family at another meeting and she was extremely depressed. She was abandoned at 8 years old, so she is going through all those feelings of of losing everything she knows all over again. Her new family is really going through it and would really appreciate your prayers.