A Day to Bond

Wednesday was a quiet day for us to spend time together.  We didn't have
any scheduled appointments so we spent the day at our hotel which gave us
a lot of time to play with Ashlynn.  We are seeing a little more of her
personality each day.  She likes to be busy.  She loves to be moving and
always wants a toy (or just any object) in her hand.  She has an opinion
about what she wants and quickly becomes impatient when we are not able to
figure out what it is.  (Troy's happy to have another "determined" woman
in the house!)  Ashlynn loves to be in the walker and to follow us around
the room.  She has also discovered the full-length mirror in our room.
She'll make faces and watch her reflection for the longest time.  We see
some of her best smiles while she is at the mirror.  We spent more time in
the hotel's play room today.  She likes the musical toys the best and Troy
helped her dunk a few baskets in the kid's basketball hoop.

We gave her a bath today for the first time.  Much to our surprise, she
really liked sitting and playing in the water.  Of course, washing her
hair was a different story but we got her through that quickly.  As you'll
likely be able to tell from the pictures, her beautiful dark hair is much
more manageable now that's it's been freshly washed.  Brandi still needs
some practice at doing little girl hair.  Ashlynn is definitely going to
need an appointment with Aunt Holly when we get home.

Today (Thursday) we will attend a small ceremony at the government office.
The event is for all the families that finalized adoptions this week.
Then Vicki is going to take us for some time in the park and a little
shopping.  It'll be good to get out and explore.  And on Friday we fly to
Guangzhou, China for the second week of our journey.  We'll see how well
our first flight with Ashlynn goes.

Hugs to everyone back home!