Yep, it’s true. I caught Kim swearing today. We were in a crowded room with about 60 other families, all of us adopting children from China. It’s one of our last stops along the way here. We were at the American Consulate in Guangzhou for the official oath taking ceremony, in which we simply state that all the information that we’ve given the government is true, to the best of our knowledge and ability. Tomorrow afternoon, one of us will swing by the Consulate to pick up Annabelle’s passport and visa. When we hit American soil, Annabelle will officially become a citizen of the United States of America. Woohoo!
Today was the last day in Guangzhou for a couple of the families traveling with us. Our guide (Amy) has done a great job of preparing Annabelle for Lauren’s departure. It’s been so good for Annabelle to have a buddy to pal around with, and we’ve loved getting to know the Roux fam. We’re going to stay in touch, and Kim’s even planning a route through Indy on our way out to visit family in Missouri this summer.
We took a bunch of pictures on the steps in the lobby of the hotel. This has been a wonderful experience, and we are so grateful to have been able to share it with the other families.
Amy also spent a good bit of time talking with Annabelle about our trip back to the USA. Annabelle is a little sad, which is understandable. She’s facing a great many changes in the next few days. First airplane travel, first snow, first family…She wanted to talk to the ladies back at the orphanage tonight, so Amy let her use the cell phone again. It was fun to watch/listen to Annabelle telling her nanny all about her experiences. I have no idea what she was saying, but it was the most animated I’ve seen her.
We visited the park with all the exercise equipment again today. Annabelle and Lauren rode a couple of rides. There are some small amusement park kind of rides at this park, and Annabelle seemed to enjoy herself. She was a little big for the go-carts, but she was all smiles as she scooted around the track.
We spotted a Mary Kay storefront today while walking through the park. Kim says that MK has really bloomed over here, with lots of women finding MK to be a good business for their families. Annabelle took a lot of pictures while we walked around. She loves to take pics of the people posing for their wedding pictures. Apparently, Chinese families schedule wedding pictures for lucky days, rather than on the day of their actual wedding. The Chinese photographer shooed Annabelle away today, which was a first. We have lots of pictures of brides in beautiful gowns…
We’re ready to come home. We packed most of our stuff up today. We have one more day here, then a 5 am busride takes us to Hong Kong, where we’ll catch a 15 hour flight back to Newark. It’s been the most incredible two weeks, but we miss our other kids and Happy Valley.
I got an incredibly cool email from a Cantonese speaking grad student who attends midtown today. She offered to help us communicate with Annabelle. If you (or a friend of yours) speaks Cantonese and would like to help Annabelle, I’d sure appreciate it. We want her to stay fluent in Cantonese, and while she learns English it will probably get pretty lonely with no one to talk to in her native language. So feel free to shoot me an email (stacy at calvarysc dot org) if you want to join the Sublett team!
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