A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

And that is what it is going to take to contain this little boy of ours. In case you haven't grasped his brilliance, let me give you a bit of insight. Today, to use up some time, Timothy and I went to ride the elevator and the escalator. He calls the elevator the ding dong, because a bell rings as it is called and as it arrives. Anyway, we rode down to the bottom floor. He then led me to the stairs and walked up one flight. He immediately turned left and led me to his favorite hangout, Starbucks. He walked in and stood there as if to say, "Well, are you going to buy me a cup of coffee, or not?" So,Brodie will have a fellow coffee fiend in the family. He has picked up several English words. He can count to five. He can say Timothy, Liz, Brodie, Emily, Bethany, OK, no problem, Nate, and most importantly, Go Hokies! He continues to amuse the Chinese ladies with the things he says in Chinese. Tonight on the way to dinner, he told Nate to get out of his way or he was going to beat him up. We happened to be walking with Amy, one of our guides. She had a little chat with him about being nicer. It didn't last long.

Our sightseeing today was to the Chen clan temple. It is a historic temple and used to be a local school for the arts. In addition to the buildings and rooms, there were some local artisans selling their wares. After that, we went to the Friendship Store, which is a 6 floor department store including an upper scale grocery. We got some provisions to last us for a few more days.

Timothy loves to play with the controls for the lights and the tv and radio. They are located on a central console between the two beds. He delights in turning off the lights when you are trying to read something. Tonight, he wanted to turn off the light by the front door, but there is no button for that on the console, only one on the wall. In his ever so ingenious way, he dragged a chair all the way across the room to stand on and turn the light off. Once there, he discovered that there were some cookies on the counter. He put up quite a fuss over only getting one. He is a big time sugar addict. He would drink coke and eat cookies and ice cream all day long. I am looking forward to regular meals and drinks at home!

Well, enough rambling for tonight. Here are a few pictures from the sightseeing.