Consulate Day

This morning we woke up early to get ready for our Consulate Appointment. Our bus took us about 20 minutes to where our United States Conulate is here in Guangzhou to apply for the children's visas. This and the medical exam is why we have to go to Guangzhou after leaving our children's city of origin. 

They are very strict, no electronic devices (so I have no pictures for you), no water, no watches??, and everything you bring in must be in a clear bag. So we packed Cheerios, and diapers this morning for the babies and left Mae with mom and dad one last time. 

The building itself is designed on the outside and inside very modern and cool. The downstairs was where the Chinese people apply for visas and it was wall to wall people - the second floor we were by ourselves with all other adoptive parents excited to get home! 

We all stood and took an oath together and then gave our paperwork for each child and got fingerprinted. Done! Our guide will pick up our children's Chinese passports with their Visas tomorrow and just in time for us to FLY HOME!!!

Today was our LAST full day in China and boy are we glad!!!! 

When we returned to the hotel we took our family/group pictures. Jovie was not having it! I mean this girl can throw a fit! I didn't even know what she wanted except that she must have been tired. I pray this doesn't happen to us on the plane tomorrow!

This silly girl is loving her red Chinese dress and is dancing all around.

Our group of families is incredible! I will be very sad to say goodbye to them - this may be the last time we see them ): We are bonded to these folks for life though. We've shared so much with them over the last 2 weeks... And today we are sharing our lack of sleep and tremendous desire to all be home. I think Jovie is just melting down for us all (: 

Here's where Jovie finally calms down... 

And we were able to get a family picture quickly and take her to the room and make her a bottle and put her down for nap. 

We took the river boat cruise on the Pearl river tonight. This is something we enjoyed last time too. We are kind of  through with dragging the kids on tours and really only went to be with the other families in our group one last time. We enjoyed our time but Jovie had another melt down on the boat. 

I took her to the top deck and she calmed down. It's very awesome seeing all the lights on the giant buildings all up and down the river.

Mae was pointing out lights on buildings all around and loving it, and you know my dad likes a boat ride (: 

Ian liked it too and dad told him that if he likes boat rides, he's in the right family.

There is this one building that stands out from all the rest. It's shape and height alone are impressive but the lights change and are simply beautiful. 

Look at all the different ways it changes.

It went from glowing colors to shining its lights out on the river, once we were right up on it... Almost like it knew we were under it. All the people were ooooing and awwing.

Very pretty. 

We went back to put everyone to bed... Ian had a melt-down at bed. We have generally had a hard time with him at night. Some nights though he's cried and gotten all three crying at once. Yep, not fun.  We are learning that it may not be all sadness but some being almost three and not wanting to go to bed and realizing we let him out of his bed when he throws a fit. So what do you do? Parenting an adopted child that only speaks Chinese, in a hotel room across the world is tough!!  We can't wait until we are home!!!!!!

So we've heard there's snow at home??? How crazy! Well that might make it harder to come to the airport but our 6am arrival's not that pleasant either. 

Either way, I wanted to make sure to let everyone know our plans. 

We depart Guangzhou at 9:30pm Wednesday and fly 12 hours to LA—We fly 4 hours from LA to Atlanta and land at 5:47am Thursday morning. Oh I hope the babies sleep!!!  (Please please pray for our flight home) We are flying in on Delta flight 1354 to Atlanta.   We should be out at baggage claim at 6am and if anyone loves us so much they are crazy enough to come, we would LOVE it!! Our plan is to go to Chick-fil-a afterward and we would love everyone to join us there for breakfast. (I have to say though, that if things really aren't going well with the babies, we will not go of course.)

So please know they will be pretty scared by new people and very tired by this point too. So a few things that will help them is if you do not touch them, and we know this is very hard because they are very, very cute and you've all prayed for these children with us for so long. For now, please just love being able to see them in person, because seeing them in these pictures is not even close to capturing them. 

Please understand that you know them and have loved them, but to them you are all strangers... and the last time they were brought somewhere with a lot of people that look like we do, they were left there (with us). 

Also, we ask you, please do not give them any food at Chick-fil-A. Please let us be the ones that do that for them. Right now food comes from just daddy and mommy. We are trying to form a bond with them and providing for their needs and being the ones to hold and comfort them are the ways we are doing that. If they bond with you and then you have to go home, this might be really upsetting and confusing to them. Things with them are not as easy as they were with Mae. These children are very fragile right now. If you can please pray for their hearts as they enter into their new lives and go home. This will all be very overwhelming to them. 

Please do not take offense to this and we really hope this doesn't interfere with you coming!! We really, really want to see everyone and are blown away that you'd come for us. 

We are so home sick and can not wait to receive your hugs and see your faces!! We have a photo book for Mae of her time in China and she always points out everyone she knows at the airport. It's very special to all of us. 

I will try to blog one more time before we are home!