The Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, and the Forbidden City

We had a great time today on our Beijing tour.  We left our hotel at 8:30 this morning for Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.  It was a really interesting tour.  Really beautiful architecture and artifacts.  Marshall and Madelyn had a lot of people want to take pictures with them.  It was funny to see them surrounded by people waiting to take a picture with them!    After lunch we went to the Great Wall.  That is such an incredible thing.  All of us made it up to the first tower but only Shawn, Marshall, and Madelyn went on from there.  They made it almost to the third tower before heading back down.  They definitely would have gone up higher if time would have permitted.    We then headed back to our hotel.  We ate a light dinner and started packing for our flight tomorrow.  We have to get our luggage ready by 4:30 a.m. and meet in the lobby of the hotel at 5:40 a.m.  Our flight leaves around 8:00 and we should get into Changsha by 10:30.    It was pretty cold today but not terrible by any means.  It doesn't seem as cold when you don't have a Kansas wind blowing!    We all did well with the time difference today but since being back at the hotel it has caught up with us again.  The kids are both sound asleep, and Shawn and I aren't far behind!   We will post pictures tomorrow of the last couple days.  We just haven't had a spare minute to get any from the camera to the computer yet.