6 planes, 5 cities, 4 weeks, 1 train...we're exhausted and so glad it is yet another holiday weekend here in China! After Zhengzhou, Andy, Joseph, Sue and Zoe (a late addition to the trip but she was real sad at the thought of us being gone for a week so we took her with us!) headed to Guangzhou to finalize Joseph's immigration status with the US consulate. A medical appointment, a bit more paperwork, the 5 minutes spent with the US consulate representative and then you pick up the Chinese passport that now has a US immigrant visa in it! Gave us lots of time to explore Guangzhou which included a visit back to Shamian Island, the area of GZ where we stayed for both Abigail and Zoe's adoptions. VERY fun to go back there, walk through the streets, see the White Swan hotel and, yes, eat at Lucy's. So many fun memories and it was great to have Zoe there and talk about all the stories of when we were there to adopt her 8 years earlier!
We are also thanking our father that his timing is perfect as we finished up in GZ on Thursday and could take the train to Hong Kong to see Kelly and Lindsey play soccer in the Asia Pacific Athletic Conference (APAC) tournament for Friday & Saturday. It was great fun to be in Hong Kong...we really enjoyed that the primary language was English, there were double decker buses everywhere, signs discouraging people from spitting on the streets and the school was located essentially in the mountains! The soccer games were the best...Concordia made it to the finals and after an excellent game lost in overtime. It was wonderful to see the team and our girls just give everything they had for each game. Kelly was also named as an All-APAC player...one of just 16 girls selected out the 120 at the tournament. A fabulous end to her high school soccer career!
Back in Shanghai now we are getting ready for our first post-adoption placement visit...there will be 6 over the next 5 years. I think they are trying to discourage people from adopting through the sheer amount of paperwork alone. Try as they might we're happy to keep doing paperwork for as long as it takes for our little guy...he's worth it and so much more!
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