US Consolate Approval

Since our last post, we changed hotels from the Holiday Inn to the famous White Swan hotel on Shamian Island.  This is where the majority of adoptive parents stay during the process.  We wanted to spend the last 2 nights there to get to know some of the other adoptive parents and it made it easier for our transfer to the airport.  The White Swan hotel is very pretty, and it has a lot of great amenities, but it does have very small rooms and VERY hard beds.  If it weren't for the view of the Pearl River out our window, my vote would have been to pack up our stuff and head back to the Holiday Inn where Internet was affordable! 

On Thursday we loaded up in the bus and traveled from the White Swan Hotel over to the US Consulate Office to finish the paperwork for Lizzie's visa.  The woman who conducted the ceremony was wonderful and explained a few things before she had all the adoptive parents stand and take the oath.  All the parents stood and raised our right hands and swore that all information was accurate, etc.  (I need to go back and look up what the "etc." part was, but it sounded good at the time, but now I can't remember what else I agreed to!) We then got the famous brown envelope which we are to present to the customs officer when we land in JFK.  We aren't supposed to open it (or lose it) before then!  After the ceremony some of us boarded the bus and some had to leave to catch flights right way.  There are so many incredible families that are here adopting the kids!  It was great to get to know them and will be even more fun to watch the children grow over the years.  The bottom line is that now Lizzie can officially come home with us and everything is all set!  Yahoo!!!

On Friday morning before we left for the airport, we decided to take one last swim in the pool.  Lizzie really likes the water and we were having a great last morning.  Now for the bad news…. Connor dove into the pool and smacked his front tooth on the bottom and broke the tooth.  I'll have to get a picture of it to post, but now he and I will have matching repaired front teeth.  We are really counting our blessings though because it could have been so much worse.  We had read our scriptures and had our family prayer before going swimming and we were blessed with only an unsightly smile, which we have convinced Connor that it makes him look tough.  Any other type of injury probably would have required a trip to the emergency room and we would have missed our flight.  And since we couldn't find the other half of the tooth, Connor has left a little part of himself in China.

Anyway, we did make our flight and have arrived safely to Shanghai where we are staying with our wonderful friends the Meyers.  They have been so supportive of us through the adoption process and have now opened their home (and their Internet) up to us.  We are already having tons of fun with them and will have some more pictures to post in the next couple of days.

The other pictures included here are of Lizzie at dinner before and after she tried some strawberry dessert.  She has that same face after anything soft or sweet…..maybe I could learn something from her!  We also took pictures of all the kids in the group on the red couch in the lobby of the Red Swan.  This was right before the little boy in the middle named Mason reached over and pulled Lizzie's pig tail.  She responded with a shove to his face and that ended the photo shoot.  More to come from Shanghai…