6-28 Mon....pearl and jade shopping.

OK, so a quiet morning playing around the hotel with a loud girl. Shiloh is really catching on fast to a lot of things. We have decided she is very smart..she can do anything, she just has to be shown. She loves putting things in a cup or stacking items. She runs from our room to Poppy's room laughing and at full speed. She loves to have her hair fixed so notice the three piggy tails..very hard to accomplish with this short hair. We see all the families with children and it is so fun to watch. Some do have older children but the majority have those under two from what I can tell. Today we had to go back to the medical clinical to have Shiloh's PPD skin test read. It was negative, as I give and read these at work. So once we had this done we took off to meet Ann at the white swan. Instead of going on the scheduled or planned trip to the jade and pearl markets with our group, the renegade's took off with Ann to have a personal guide for shopping. We went by taxi to a very big shopping area with floors and floors of shopping. (Kind of like a high rise mall.) We would never have found this on our own. We first bought jade and then silver and pearls. Pretty interesting. When someone wanted to charge me too much for a simple Jade bracelet, Ann made one for me from another vendor! Pretty cool huh! We could not believe the prices and how you purchase pearls. (By the strand...so even if you just wanted a necklace, they can make a bracelet and or earrings out of the left over pearls from the strand.) These are real pearls from the southern oceans...not from cultured freshwater although they did have those. Jade was very cheap and fun to shop for in the store we went to. While the people could not understand us, Ann took care of business and we Renegades decided this was the best decision we had made for the trip. We could not have shopped like this with 16 families all together. Shiloh slept for most of the shopping trip and we have decided that we are glad to have Poppy along as he is a big help! Only 4 more days until we leave for home. I cannot wait to hug you Dakota!