Consulate Day

Thursday April 18, 2013

Today was the long awaited Consulate appointment.  We had to be up very early so we could get ready, grab breakfast and be on the bus headed over there for our 8:30 appointment.   You have to go through security to get into the Consulate area.  No electronics or camera’s permitted.

We all were seated and finally a lady from the Consulate came to the window and spoke through speakers to give us the rundown on what would happen, what paperwork we would receive and the process of coming home with our new child.  She then had us take the oath that all of our paperwork and information was correct to the best of our knowledge.  Kind of anticlimactic.  Then one family by one you go to the window and present your paperwork.   After the first few families I joked to Robin that someone had to go last, well guess what we got to go last.  Really did not matter as no one was going back to the hotel until we were all done in any case.

After the Consulate we came back to the hotel.  I had a meeting at 11:15 to go over all the travel items for the next couple of days.   Shaun finally took a short nap.   After nap time we took a walk down to the shopping area to pick up his stone etching. It turned out very nicely.   We checked out a few of the shop keepers and really did not find anything we had to have.   We walked across the street and checked out the Fashion Trade Center, it was a strange mall with a lot of empty stores and a number of closed stores. 

lady working on Stone etching like she did of Shaun.

Shaun was a bit restless so we went down to the outside play area in the courtyard of the hotel.  Shaun loved swinging and walking around. 

He loved being in the swing.

To wrap up the evening we walked down to a local Cantonese place and had a wonderful dinner.  After we got Shaun settled down we started the process of splitting things up between bags, trying to balance out the weight and to make sure any items we purchased are properly padded and cared for.   Hard to stay under that magic 50 pound per bag number but we should be able to make it.  So glad we brought our little baggage scale with us, it has been so handy.

he was spread out in the bed tonight.

Tomorrow is the last full day in China.  We head back to the US early Saturday morning here, Friday evening there.   We will be in airports or flying for just over 24 hours but then we get to see 4 of our kids and spend time with them.  We are ready to get home.  Pray for Shaun to travel well, he is still dealing with some temper issues and he does not talk much yet so communicating his needs is difficult at best.   We pray that he travels well and that he can sleep some on the flights but not too much.