Happy 14th birthday to Davina

The day started with Davina hearing 3 of her sisters singing "happy birthday to you."  It was nice.  Then to breakfast ...I think I shared that Davina is very artistic and makes portraits every day with her breakfast food.  Today she made a birthday cake.  It was really cute and decorated with items from the breakfast buffet.

Then we met up with other families to go to the zoo.  We started with a tram tour of the zoo so we got to see an overview of the park.  Then we were on our own. Davina had noticed my love for giraffes, so we headed there first and she took a lot of pictures for me :). We walked around in the heat.  Here are the main items  of interest:

• The zoo has a lot of tigers.  Multiple cages with multiple tigers in each cage.
• Raccoons are zoo-worthy animals in China
• So are deer (I mean, the plain, normal kind of deer we see in Florida)
• The panda cage was being refurbished so we did not get to see pandas :(

On the afternoon Davina just wanted to watch tv.  We have watched almost none, so that was fine with me.  She kept checking flight tracker so she could see where her daddy was.

At 5:00 we got called to a meeting...our guide informed us that due to an emergency at the consulate, there would be no visa appointments for the next two days.  At the meeting was a dad and his son who have been here for 6 weeks awaiting the results of the same type TB test that Davina had.  His son had shown up positive on a routine TB screen required of all kids over 2 and have been waiting on the results of the second test here in China.  He was cleared to leave at the same time Davina was and they were actually in the consulate working on paperwork when the facility was evacuated :(  The dad and his son were fun to visit with (the son nearly talked Davina's ear off!). The dad had a great attitude about all of their delays which I think was an encouragement to us all.

After Todd and Savana landed safely in Atlanta, we decided to go eat.  We went out to a different Chinese restaurant.  It was more expensive and not as good as the other one.  Davina got noodles--traditional for birthdays...long noodles equals long life.

We were back in the hotel room playing on the iPad and there was a knock at the door.  A bellman brought Davina a birthday cake!  The box and ribbon are made of chocolate bar and inside the box is a cake!  It is so beautiful.  A gift from the hotel.  Davina was dancing around the room with joy.  It was so sweet.

We stayed up until Dad and Savanna made it all the way home and then we went to bed...and so ends our Monday in Guangzhou.

Please pray for all of the families in China right now.  The consulate emergency is a developing situation and we don't know how it will play out.  Typically families leave 36 hours after their consulate appointments so many in our group are having to adjust travel.  We aren't sure when the consulate will reopen, so please pray.  Thanks.