leaving China!

After a few days of consulate visits and paperwork, we left Guangzhou yesterday via bus and arrived in Hong Kong last night. We stayed at the airport hotel in Hong Kong and are now getting ready to board our flight to the USA! We have had a great trip and are delighted that we have experienced God's good favor in our lives. Becca Joy has bonded well with all of us and she is fitting in well. We have a long trip back and can't wait to see our other kids and family. Here we come!

Children's Park

On Sunday, our entire group when to a children's park at Liulua Lake park.  Although we had been there on our own the day before, we had not seen the children's park.  There were a lot of swings and self-powered rides, and a few that required a ticket.  There were hundreds of kids there. 

 Hopey's first roller coaster ride!

This is a shot down the street of the pedestrian mall ourside our hotel on Sunday night.  Thousands of people!

Medical Exam

Saturday's big task was getting Becca Joy's "medical exam".  The eight other families in our group had arrived the night before, and we were altogether for the first time on the bus around 9 am to go to the Medical Examination Office.  Although it was only about a 10 minute walk, it seems our guides thought none of the American's would want to walk, so we all boarded the bus.  After arriving, we had to first get a picture taken of Becca Joy for her physical exam form and her VISA. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Afterwards, we went to the medical examination office.  There were three stations:  height, weight and temperature; physical exam; and ear, nose and throat.  She passed with flying colors.  Basically, I think everyone does.  When we adopted Hopey, I remember the guide telling us to not say anything was wrong or we could have to go through a lot of red tape.  Becca Joy also had to get a TB test.  But the worse part was that due to changes in the Hague Convention laws, she had to be brought current on all her vaccinations.  Basically, that meant she received six shots all within about 3 minutes.  Wow.  I couldn't have even taken that.  In fact, I left her there with Priscilla and I went outside with Hopey.  Becca Joy cried quite a bit, but settled down after about 10 minutes.  She got two shots in each leg and one in each arm. 

      

After lunch and a nap, we exploring at the Qing Ping market, an outdoor market selling all sorts of strange creatures for your dinner table.  As fitting, we went on to dinner at a Cantonese restaurant where they had snakes and all sorts of things on the menu.  We stayed pretty safe with beef and fish.  It was delicious.

All in all, it was a great day.  Tomorrow is sight seeing and then we start winding it down to go back home next Friday.

                                                     

Liuhua Lake Park

Friday was a free day for us, and we decided to do some serious walking and sight-seeing on our own.  After breakfast, we walked to Liuhua Lake Park from our hotel.  Round trip, it was 4.5 miles. 

The park was beautiful, but the highlight was having dim sum at a tea house right beside one of the lakes.  It was very pituresque, and our two girls looked so grown up having the tea.  The dim sum was really great - even though we had no idea what we were ordering.

After walking back to the hotel, the girls took a nap and then we all went to the pool.  Rebecca Joy loved splashing in the water, although it was really too cold to go in.  She sat by the pool kicking her feet and really loving the experience.  It is probably the first time that she has ever seen a pool.

After the pool, we walked over to Shamian Island and found a kids play area.  The girls loved playing on the playground equipment.  They went down the slides over and over.  You can see Becca Joy on the right. 

After the playground, we finished the day at a Thai restaurant on Shamian Island. 

Becca Joy is starting to pick up a couple of English words.  She knows no, shoes, sit down, hi and bye bye.  So, not really fluent yet, but making progress.
Tomorrow, we are off to our doctor's visit.

Yun Tai Gardens

We spent Thursday finalizing some paperwork and going to Yun Tai gardens.  It was a pretty low key day, and we found ourselves trying to figure out what to do on our remaining days off.  Guangzhou is not really much of a tourist city.  Since we spent a week in Guangzhou 3 years ago, we had already seen many of the "attractions".  Yun Tai Gardens was very pretty, but pretty much all there was to do was to walk around.

There was a white carriage in the park, and we tried a number of times to get a picture where both Anna Hope and Becca Joy were smiling.  This was the best we could do!

The gardens were really beautiful - well maintained with lots of statues, including a number of comic book heros like Spiderman and Mr. Incredible. The picture at the left was beside some really pretty fountains.

After we left the gardens, we asked our driver to drop us off about 1 1/2 miles from our hotel, and we walked  back.  On the way, we went through a grocery store and bought some dim sum at the deli. We went outside and sat down on a little curb to eat our make-shift picnic lunch (see photo on right).  We were really the subject of a lot of stares - two white people with two Chinese kids eating dim sum on the curb. 

We finisned out the day with dinner at a French restaurant (served by a bunch of Chinese people) on Shamian Island, and then walked back to the hotel.  Lots of fun!

Getting to Know Each Other

We spent Wednesday getting to know Rebecca Joy (and vice-versa).  We also applied for Becca Joy's passport and received our completed adoption certificate.  Now all we have left is the medical exam and VISA application.  We left the U.S. one week ago, and now have about a week to go!

You can see that Becca Joy loves to play!  She is very ticklish and loves to be held and bounced around.

I had great fun picking Anna Hope and the Becca Joy and throwing them up in the air.  Becca Joy laughed and laughed.  After a few rounds of this, I had to take a break!  I remember doing this with my other children when they were little (17 years
ago), and I don't remember being quite so worn out.......

Anna Hope and Becca Joy played chase around and around the curtain in our room.  One would hide behind the curtain and just laugh and laugh, and the other would run in behind and chase them out.  You can see that Hopey was just beaming.

Adoption Final!

On Tuesday, Becky met us in the lobby at 8:45 am, and we went back to the Guangdong adoption center to finalize Becca Joy's adoption.  This included a family photo of Priscilla, me and Becca Joy, and an "interview" where we answered various questions about our health, satisfaction with Becca Joy and our promise to never abuse or abandon her.  Altogether, it took about an hour and we then went back to the hotel.  This papework basically meant that Becca Joy was officially our daughter.  The next 10 days will consist of a medical visit, obtaining a Chinese passport for Becca Joy and a U.S. VISA. 

We settled in for a restful evening, which turned out my first good nights sleep since last Wednesday.  Hopey and Becca Joy continued to bond, and we all got along well.  We did Skype video calls with our other three kids, and Becca Joy even said Hi and waved.  Our other kids were thrilled!