January 13th Last full day in China and Zoo Visit

Today was our last full day in China. We went to the Guangzhou zoo. They have a nice zoo here. We walked around for a couple of hours seeing your basis animals. We were able to see a panda, this was a rare treat for all of us.

We had a little down time today between things and were able to hang out at the hotel. No real shopping today, but did go to pick up some special items that we had made while we were here.

This afternoon we along with many other families traveled in 3 buses to the US Consulate for the “Oath” This is a real non-event. You are herded into this building and through security and sit and wait for them to call your child’s name. You go up, answer a few questions and then sign two documents. You then sit back down and wait for all the other people to get done. Once everyone has been interviewed they have you stand up and solemnly swear that all the information you provided in the course of this adoption was true and accurate. Then you are done.

One of the cool parts is that you drive through down town and see lots of new buildings mixed with old traditional Chinese buildings. It is so funny to see cloths drying outside every apartment as you drive by.(See photos)

This evening we went to dinner at a local Chinese place. We were the only non-locals in the place. The waitress that spoke the most English spoke very little. We did manage to select 5 very wonderful dishes and had a great dinner of very traditional Chinese cuisine. After dinner we picked up ice cream for the girls at 711. Maria loved the ice cream (see photo)

Tomorrow afternoon Maria’s visa to travel to the US will be issued and we can pick it up on our way to the train station. We will then travel by train to Hong Kong. This may be our last post from over here as we may not have internet access tomorrow night. To put things in perspective we have to be up at 4 am Friday here (that is 2 pm Thursday afternoon for folks back in CST), we fly out at 8 am Hong Kong time and arrive at our home airport at 5:12 Friday evening a mere 27 hours after we started out. We pray that the girls travel well and that they are able to sleep some and that we can get a little rest.

We are all looking forward to being home and seeing friends and family. We are so thankful for the blessing of adoption and specifically for our 3 girls. We are thankful that Maria is doing so well and is bonding to us.

Thanks for following our journey. We will do our best to post updates weekly to keep you posted on how Maria is progressing at home.