Last Night in Guangzhou

Well I haven't updated the blog since Monday so I thought I better do it while I had the chance.  Today is Thursday and we had our U.S. Consulate appointment this morning.  It went well and it felt good to officially be at this point in the process. We had to take an oath with about 6 other families while we were there.  I actually got kind of choked up during it.  This whole week has been very emotional for me, so it is not surprising.

Getting ready to go to the Consulate

  

Outside the Consulate building waiting on our ride.

The girls are doing pretty well.  We had one meltdown with Ai the other day at naptime, but other than that she is doing fine.  She mostly just likes to hang out and play with toys.  She also watches Daniel play or listen to music on the iPad.  Ruby is busy and she likes to be doing things.  She checks everything out and loves to put her shoes on and take them off.  She also likes to watch Daniel play on the iPad.  They are really good and easy girls most of the time! 

Yesterday we had the girls' TB tests read and everything was fine with that. Yay and thank goodness!  Then we went shopping at Shamian Island.  It is a place where many adoptive families go to shop and used to be a very busy place.  There is a hotel there called the White Swan that many families stayed at, but apparently it is being renovated right now and so the island is not as busy anymore.  We didn't get to stay too long mainly because of the rain pouring down on us.  But we managed to get to a couple stores and picked up some things to bring home.  After we got back to the hotel, Daniel wanted to go swimming so we went back up to the pool.  It was cooler because of the weather we've been having but the rain had stopped. Unfortunately there were mosquitoes out, and the kids all got a few bites.  The mosquitoes here are vicious!  Here is what Ruby's back looked like after just one bite:

 I put some benedryl cream on it and it looks much better today.  

 

The rest of the day today we will just probably stay inside and out of the rain. We are planning to go out to dinner with a family we met here at the hotel so hopefully the rain will stop soon.  They are also adopting a little girl with DS so I am excited to get to visit with them!  

We have one more sleep here in Guangzhou tonight and then head to Hong Kong tomorrow afternoon!  Yay!!  I will spend tomorrow making sure everything is packed up, organized and ready to go.  Please pray for us for safe travels during our 3 hour van ride.  Also, please pray that the weather will clear up and that there will be no problems getting out of Hong Kong.  I have heard that it's supposed to be better, but right now it is not looking that way.

I will leave you with some sweet pics of the girls in the Chinese outfits I bought.