Parting is such sweet sweet sorrow as the old saying goes. We must say good-bye to the land which has given us our son, Andrew. We leave with such mixed emotions. We are so blessed and honored by the gift of Andrew. It will be difficult to take him from all he knows but we will do our best to teach him about his culture. It will not be the same because he will not be saturated in his culture as he has been here. The land here is beautiful and people have been so nice to us. We received many stares and questions yes, but no ugliness. Just politeness. It feels like we have been here a month or more not just 2 weeks. I will not miss boiling water so I can wash Andrew's bottles and spoons etc. It will be so nice to be able to get water straight from the tap! We're doing the last bottle washes now. Andrew has finally fallen asleep and all is packed except the last minute stuff. It will be a very early morning again. We'll be up at 4:30 to take a quick shower and throw toiletries and jammies in the bags. Our bags have to be outside the door at 5 and us in the lobby at 6. We get in to Beijing around 11 or so, collect our bags and recheck with United for the long flight home. We leave Beijing around 4:10 pm and get into Chicago around the same time on the 11th! We'll have approximately 2:30 to get through immigration, customs and baggage claim and then recheck luggage for the last leg. Hopefully, we and all our stuff makes it through to Greensboro at the same time tomorrow night. We look forward to seeing everyone there! We have made such dear friends with the group. It will be so hard to part company in Chicago and Beijing. They are like family to us now. We have all come to rely on each other so much and shared all our belongings as needed. Joshua went to the doctor today and had a bad ear infection and rash. He received several medications for it.
Rosa and Maggie told us we are now family and part of China since we have adopted China's children so we will always be family. We are taking part of China with us. For that, I will be eternally thankful to China and most of all to my heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, from whom all blessings flow.
Last night I promised you a picture of Andrew is his pj' that he walks out of the feet in. Here it is. The next picture is of our travel group taken in the lobby of the Asia International Hotel where we stayed here in Guangzhou. The third picture is me and my little emperor in his traditional Chinese outfit sitting on one of the famous red couches at the White Swan Hotel on Shamian Island. The fourth is of all our new blessings in their outfits. This is a tradition for all the groups who come to do the red couch pictures at the White Swan. Last picture is of Kevin and Andrew in front of the waterfall at the White Swan.
After taking the red couch pictures we headed to the consulate to swear all our info was correct and for them to make sure we had the right babies according to all our paperwork and it all matched with our passports and his. It all did. Soon as we make it through immigration tomorrow in the US, Andrew will be a US citizen! Yippee!! Thank you Lord! It's getting late so I need to get ready for bed. Must get my beauty rest! LOL! I know I could say much more but for now, I am at loss for words. Go figure, me at a loss for words! Night, night.
