Back Onlilne

After an evening of technical difficulties, my network is up and I'm back online. They are off to Guangzhou this morning (their evening), they actually should be arriving 8:30am our time. This is the final leg of the journey where Katerina will be issued her visa to enter the US. The US Consulate appointment is on Monday, March 20th and they will leave for Beijing and home on the 22nd. What's really neat is because of the time change their flight will only be 1 hour from Beijing to Newark. (If only it were true - I can't imagine 13 hours on a flight with a 17-month-old!!)

My staff, friends, and co-workers at JHHLS threw me a beautiful shower at work today. I walked into what I thought was our monthly department meeting; agenda in hand, handouts on a new policy, and of course some pictures of Katerina from China, to a chorus of SURPRISE. The room was beautifully decorated with balloons secured with baby bottles full of mints, rubber duckies floating in bowls of water, and of course a mound of presents. As soon as I receive the pictures I will post them. The warm wishes and smiling faces were just precious. These are the things memories are made of. A really great side benefit is that I have all these balloons for Wednesday. I hope they keep their buoyancy. I must've been quite a sight tooling up the West Side Highway filled to the brim with packages and balloons flying everywhere!

I then went to a lovely intimate wedding ceremony for a friend/co-worker. What a day for celebrations!

Guangzhou is the capital of the Guangdong province which used to be known as Canton (as in Cantonese). Read more Like Athens of Greece and Rome of Italy, Guangzhou also has a history of more than 2,800 years. There are a lot of interesting legends concerning its past. One of the beautiful stories which give the city its name Goat Town says that five gods riding on five goats brought the first grain to the city. So, it is also known as the City of Five Goats. Besides tales and stories, here and there stand monuments of the city's democratic and revolutionary past. The monument to the Anti-British struggle at San Yuan Li is in remembrance of the 1841 uprising against a British invading force. The Huang Hua Gang Park keeps alive the spirit of the 72 martyrs killed in a 1911 uprising against the Manchu dynasty. The National Peasant Movement Institute is the former cadre-training school founded and run by Mao Zedong and Zhou En Lai in 1925-1926. The Guangzhou Memorial Garden is in memory of those who lost their lives during the Communist Uprising in 1927.

I am working at home today awaiting the delivery of the "temporary" crib and changing table which is being loaned to us by the store where we purchased the nursery furniture until ours is ready. Off to work now. Will post more tonight after I speak to them.

One more picture of Katerina from the one batch I received. Hopefully, I will get more from Guangzhou.