Sunday January 19, 2014
4:38PM
Less
then a week until we head home. . . Can you tell I am ready for that
day right now? It seems there is a lot of hurry up and wait happening.
Each day we have about 1 hour's worth of adoption stuff to do and then
the rest is just down time. Yesterday was the medical exam, today, it
was filling out paperwork. Tomorrow, families from this province get to
visit their child's orphanage. Wednesday some other families in the
group have their CA appointment and we have ours on Thursday. Then on
Friday our facilitator picks up the visa then we leave on Saturday
morning. Honestly, this all could be done in one day. Too bad it can't
be more streamlined. But it is government bureaucracy, from two
countries mind you, of course it will take 7x longer then it should.
At
least Ella and I are getting some great time together. I love this
little girl. She is sweet and so pure in heart, just finding joy in
jumping around :) Today we painted her nails. She is sleeping through
the night still and is no longer having meltdowns at bedtime. Although
she is getting tired of her stroller and today at our excursions she
wanted to run around, but she is very unstable and what mom wants a
"runner" with a tendency to fall around lots of sharp stone corners,
uneven ground and lots of steps. I did let her walk part of the time and
we managed to find a good balance. The architecture was lovely and so
detailed, it felt like an older time.
This morning on
our tour of the temples I got to meet 4 other families (all with our
agency). All the other families adopted from this province and have been
in GZ for the entire time. I am glad that at least we had a little
change of scene. I think being in the same hotel and hotel room for 2
weeks would make me a little nutty.
Of the four other
families 2 adopted "older" kids. One family adopted a 9 year old girl
with Hepatitis. The other adopted a 8 year old boy with epilepsy. The
other two families adopted kids that were just about 2 years old, a boy
& girl. The 2 year old girl was"non-special needs." The mom had
waited 7 years. . . 7! Wow, boy howdy that is dedication. Our original
LID was March 2008, so if we had to wait it out we would still not have a
referral having only put in 6 years.
It was nice to
visit with the other families. Tomorrow we are headed to Shamian Island
as a group to do some shopping. I am looking forward to it, they have
the "brother" "sister" t-shirts. I am going to get some for our little
brood. I also hope to find some traditional Chinese dresses for Ella.
We'll see what I can find.
I also had a load of laundry
done. Ella and I had clothes that needed laundered. I sent some clothes
home with Dave, hopefully saving room in my suitcase for those dresses
for Ella. I looked at the laundry prices at the hotel and almost fell
off the bed. You want me to pay $8 to have a t-shirt cleaned? That's
more then I paid for it. Fortunately our facilitator knew a guy :) He
came and picked up a bag of laundry, 23 items (socks, t-shirts, jeans. .
.) The grand total was $25. He dropped it off 24 hours later. Much more
like it!
Tonight we are going to McDonald's for
dinner, don't hate me. The McDonald's is next door to the hotel. I just
have to make it until Saturday. There may be one or two more fast food
runs in my future. The hotel offers room service, but who wants to pay
$15 for a club sandwich? Although I would pay $17 for a brownie with 3
scoops of ice cream. . . that seems reasonable :)
I hope you enjoyed the photos from the temples. I will post more photos tomorrow of Shamian Island.
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