The children had great fun as usual, riding the ponies, bouncing in the inflatable and getting their faces painted.  Can’t wait till next year!

To keep it in perspective, not having this paper would just mean more forms to fill out – it doesn’t really have much practical everyday consequence. And now that we have the paper, Uncle Sam doesn’t suddenly rush in and change those poopy diapers for us either.

We also recently had some family pictures taken. What a deal at Portrait Expressions – $100 and an hour or so and we had an inch-thick stack of photos and a CD with 80+ professional pictures on it. Sweet.

Jordan is quite the proud big brother, but he seems to be happy to have other people to play with beside just his little sister. He enjoyed being back in school, playing with friends and getting back to his normal activities this week.

Meanwhile, Sarah is really growing and learning. She’s learning to feed herself (and her dolls) and is heading full speed into being little miss independent most of the time. She is a joy and a challenge – sometimes both at the same time. She’s even beginning to enjoy meeting new people and is not so scared of going to unfamiliar places. On top of that, she likes to pet the animals (although she’s still not so happy when they run over to her). What a change in 4 weeks!

Just like her big brother, there are plenty of times that she wants to cuddle and hug mommy and daddy. In fact, to Jordan’s surprise, sometimes she wants to cuddle and hug him, and while he sometimes makes a sour face, most times he is quite happy to hug, play with and carry his little sister around.

I’m sure there will be plenty of fights in the future, but for this week, it is mostly peaceful in our house. I know – a dull blog with no drama – but sometimes that’s really quite a blessing. Peace.

Sarah has made great strides since we got back home. She was very clingy early in the week, with all the changes of a new house and all, but now she has really started to blossom again. She is walking around on her own upstairs today in her squeaky shoes and actually spent time in her playpen without screaming. As I write this, she was just put down for her nap and I’m listening through the baby monitor as she talks to herself. Yes, she really is blooming!

As you can see from last night’s dinner, she is also quite a character and loves to make faces at anyone who will watch. She is getting very good at telling people what she wants, although she is only using a few words so far. She loves to splash in the bath (far from the crying she used to do). Her beautiful personality is really beginning to come out. We are so blessed to be her family.

Sarah is, of course, afraid of everything. She’s never seen dogs or cats up close, never had this much room to roam in, etc. Throw that on top of two plane flights, riding in a car seat, not enough sleep and all of the trauma of the trip and you can see why. When she first came to us, she was scared for days before she started to relax, and even after 10 days she would still grind her teeth when she felt stressed. At least with this change, she has calmed down and is drinking a bottle an hour after we got home. She’s smiling and talking, now that we’ve put the animals up. I think we’ll introduce her to changes a bit at a time, but I know that in time she’ll be fine.

God has really blessed us with our daughter, just like he did with each of our sons. Wonderful!

Total distance traveled … 18,239 mi
Total time … 375 hours
Which, for all you math nerds out there is:
Average speed (relative to the earth’s surface) … 48.6 MPH

Jordan and Sarah are really hitting it off as well. Once we got to Hong Kong, we visited “Snoopy’s World” again at New Towne Center … what they call “the busiest mall in the world”. Sarah dropped Daddy’s hand and went over to take Jordan’s as they walked through the park. She does have a way of melting your heart – which simply shows that she’s related to Jordan. In fact, several people have commented on how much they look alike. Weird, huh?

We will certainly miss the friendly Chinese people we have encountered throughout this trip. In every city, people have said hello and stopped to talk with us. Maybe we’ll try to take a little bit of that home with us.

Another interesting part of the zoo was the “Goldfish Garden” where they have a bunch of aquariums with large and small goldfish of every color (even a few gold colored ones). Since Guangzhou never freezes, the aquariums are set out in a garden where you can walk among them. It was interesting to see the variety of colors, shapes and sizes.

Apart from dogs and goldfish, the zoo also had several squirrels and a raccoon. There were a few other things like elephants, zebras and pandas, but you see those every day, so they’re hardly worth discussing. Sarah was very interested in the animals and enjoyed the trip.

After the zoo, we came back to the hotel for a rest and then we were off to the Consulate. The trip was pretty uneventful, but it is critically important, because now Sarah can legally travel home with us. We are very ready to head home, and that visa is the last piece of paper we need to start the trip.

This evening, we had dinner with some friends down by the river and got to watch the light show. Lasers and searchlights light up the night sky twice every night. It’s choreographed to music as well which is pretty cool. One of the songs is “The Beer Barrel Polka” which I was not aware was apparently a Chinese classic.

At the end of the evening, we walked to the market to pick up a few things for the trip. Along the way, Jordan stopped to say goodbye to all the girls he had met, and they all said they would miss him and wanted him to come back soon. He’s been the most eager to head home, but he told every one of them that he enjoyed his time here and he wanted to come back to visit.

I think that we’ve all enjoyed our time in China, and certainly the little girl we’re bringing home is a great joy! I think that we’ll all take a little bit of China and the people here home with us as well – in our hearts.

Tomorrow … Hong Kong!

We spent the day walking around ShaMian island (the part of Guangzhou where our hotel is) and visiting the shops. Mommy bought Sarah two big bags full of clothes and a new diaper bag – all for about $120 US which is a great bargain.

We stopped by the “exercise park” again so that Jordan could play, and so that Mommy and Daddy could remember just how out of shape they are. It was a slightly painful lesson, but Jordan enjoyed his time there.

Wednesday … we get sworn in and get packing … Thursday … back to Hong Kong … Friday … home … hooray!

On the walk back to the hotel, we passed a number of people exercising in a park specially designed for it. In every city, we’ve seen people doing exercise, Tai Chi, dancing or some other form of morning group activity. Some people think it’s billions of Chinese doing this, but it’s not – it’s just groups of 2 or 3 or up to 20 or so doing something in the morning to get their blood pumping. We’ve even seen little old ladies doing morning stretches on their own. It’s really a great thing, and there seem to be a lot of different activities they do. Jordan and I tried out the exercise park, and then a little while later played Chinese hacky-sack with several Chinese people in the park (the old guy was great – we were not so great).

We also had an opportunity to tour Guangzhou. We visited a Buddhist temple where a few families chose to have their babies blessed by the Buddhist Master (not us, but a few did). It was interesting to see a 1400+ year old temple that is still in use every day. There was plenty of incense burning and people coming in for blessings and to “say wishes” as our guide put it. It was a completely new experience for us.

Later, we went to “Old Chen House” which is now the Guangdong (that’s the province) Folk Art Museum. We saw ivory and bone carvings, porcelain and many other traditional southern Chinese arts. One particularly interesting piece was an ivory carving that included an ivory ball that is 54 layers deep. To carve these, the artist starts with a ball of solid ivory and drills some holes into it. Then, using knives and saws, they cut and carve it in such a way that they create a ball-inside-a-ball. Then they do it again and again. Along the way, they carve intricate patterns on each layer. This one was 54 layers inside an ivory ball a little bigger than a softball. The pictures can’t do it justice, so I won’t even post them. This seems to be a repeating current in Chinese arts – extreme patience in creating an extremely intricate piece of artwork.

In any event, our part of the paperwork is now done and we’re almost free for the next two days (just a few little appointments to keep) until the swearing in on Wednesday afternoon. It will be nice to get home, but we will also enjoy the next couple of days of family time.

After lunch, we spent some time with our travel group and took some group and family photos. We have made some close new friends through the adoption process and this trip (it feels like we’ve known some of them for years, and in a way, I guess we have), and we will miss them as they head back to different parts of the country. All the same, I think all eleven families will be happy to be home. There are always group reunions…

By the way, I’ve heard that some links are not working right and maybe some pages display wrong on the blog. Hopefully being in Guangzhou with a more reliable connection will fix the upload procedure and so fix the broken stuff. If not, oh well. Sooner or later it will all work out.