July 25, 2005: We spent the night near BWI Airport. We had to get up at 4AM to catch our flight. Not a very pretty sight! Don't ya just love our hair?

Dad stayed to see us off. Good thing! One of our traveling companions locked his keys in his car. Steve has AAA, so he managed to get a locksmith out just in the nick of time for us to catch our flight. My hero!

The trip to China was l-o-n-g, but Air Canada made it as comfortable as they could. Great staff, good food, but the seats are too small for my rump, and I never can manage to sleep on airplanes. It felt like a cattle car. Moo!

Some people were already taking precautions to keep healthy, including this fellow from our travel group. Who was that masked man?

Aurora is 9 years old, so we brought her DVD player. We watched some episodes of Monk, and Full House. It seems Aurora is always watching Full House! We also brought Mad Libs - always good for a laugh - a deck of cards to play "Go Fish," coloring books, 5-minute mysteries, and her new Junior Girl Scout Badge Book. We watched some of the movies on the plane, and spent a lot of time talking about the adventure to come!

I was a little worried about what lie before us. Aurora has never had the opportunity to work with severely handicapped children before. One of her best friends in first grade was in a wheelchair from cerebral palsy, but mental handicaps are another thing entirely. I don't know what I was thinking. Aurora is a kind, gentle, patient person. She would be just fine!

Aurora loved every kid she met! She wanted us to adopt at least five of them. Every time I turned around, she had another child on her hip. These are just some of the remarkable kids at Philip Hayden. One of the girls here, Mary, has a beautiful voice. She just loves to sing! As a matter of fact, all the children in this class loved to sing!

The children were all beautiful and very loved. When we watched the interaction between the children and their "Ayis," we were struck by how much love and affection the children and their caretakers felt for each other. Each classroom was full of happy, wacky, mischievious, shy, wonderful children. Kids are kids the world over, but a child who is raised in a loving environment just thrives!

But we were here on a MISSION! To clean all the teeth of the children in the orphanage! First, we had to prepare an area to set up the clinic. The orphanage let us use a room that was used for the recreation of the staff. It was a bit messy, so we spent a good portion of the first day just cleaning up and setting up the space.

Once we got the room clean, we divided up the space with screens (and the pool table!) to separate the "clinic" from the "waiting room." In the Waiting room, we had stickers and face painting and a puppet show! The children loved it! Until they got to the teeth cleaning part - then they were a bit frightened.

Our hygenists wore masks and gloves and looked pretty scary to someone not used to seeing anything like that before. We put the children on their Ayi's lap, and they calmed down a bit.

After the cleaning they were all smiles!!!!