Stone Forest

Yesterday we braved the walk to the Walmart about 10 minutes away.  We needed water and snacks and shoes for Declan. After searching 3 stores in Xi'an for a stroller I almost didn't dare to hope to find one in the smaller city of Kunming. Everything is fairly well-organized in the Walmart, so we headed to the baby floor to get shoes and a few other odds and ends.  Then, at the end of the aisle, I saw it.  The heavens opened, angels sang and my right arm throbbed with gratitude.  We had finally found a stroller.  Hallelujah!

Today we got up early and went to the Stone Forest.  It is a two hour drive outside the city.  The boys slept most of the way (all 4 of them).  I would have liked to have more time to explore this park.  It truly was beautiful. It is an area of tall limestone formations.  Some are knocked over and restacked due to a huge earthquake some time ago.  Stone paths, some ponds, and grassy areas were added which make a huge park worth going to see.

Of course, there were stairs.  Lots of them.  Our guide told me that the stroller could be used for 70% of the park.  This turned out to be true.  Sometimes we could just grab the front of the stroller (which Declan sat in fairly well thank you and Amen!) and lift it down to the bottom of the steps. The rest of the time I picked up my favorite lead-bottomed koala bear and hauled him up the uneven steps.  There was one point where you went straight up in order to get to a crow's nest of sorts so you could get a "panoramic view" of the forest.  Gorgeous!  Really!  However, I realized about half way up that there were not great safety measures taken for small children.  I posed for exactly 2 pictures and got out of there.

Reagan rode like an angel in the pack on daddy's back.  He even managed to play a little bit with his brothers from the safety of his nest.  Pictures really don't show how cute he is.  His hair sticks straight up and makes me laugh out loud.  He has a tiny mouth and a husky voice and babbles all the time.  I got to hold him three times while helping Billy get him in and out of the pack.  He barely tolerated it, but I was satisfied for now.  I really find it unfair that Billy got the light one by the way.

Lunch was at the Stone Forest.  It wasn't the best one we've had, but a few of us managed to get full. 

Since the little boys were still doing great, we went to a tea house on our way back to the hotel.  There you are served different types of tea by a lovely lady who hopes you will buy lots of tea from her.  I really liked our gal, she was so sweet.  She told Jarrett she would serve him tea so good he would like it better than Coca Cola.  Unfortunately, she failed.  She tried to get Cameron to try some too, but ended trying to talk him into buying some that could be aged by the time he was old enough to like to drink it.  No go there either.

Many of the tours we are doing are "freebies".  They are free in the hopes that you will buy lots of things from the helpful guides once you see how they are made. We have been a bit of a disappointment in that regard, but I have enjoyed them all.  It has been especially nice because we cut out a lot of the touring in hopes of saving money.  I haven't noticed the lack.  We have been busy, but not so much that we feel unrested.

It is difficult to post from here.  Our connection is slow and disconnects all the time.  It took hours to get the pictures posted last night.  We have watched others blogs before so we knew many would be waiting to see the pictures of Reagan.  There was no way we wanted to disappoint you all.  The connection has been even worse today but we will try to keep the blog updated as well as we can from here.

We love you and you're welcome :-)