Ellie - The Hof Finale

We're Home

Arrived at Detroit airport and headed to our on time departure.  As soon as we scanned in for boarding we rounded the corner and noticed that the jetway was packed with people. They weren't letting anyone board the plane because the ground power was not working.  We about passed out in disbelief when they announced that we had to go back to the gate area.  During this brief interlude, Ellie had a screaming tantrum, I think that her fun was done. Rob took her to the bathroom and was able to calm her down by allowing her to play in the automatic sink. 

The final flight to Peoria was uneventful. Ellie made it through most of the flight just fine, but ended up having another tantrum in the last 20 minutes of flight. Rob switched seats with Dana and then Dana was able to calm her down. Apparently toddlers need more than 10 hours of sleep in a 3 day period J.

Grandma Jo, Kyle, and Megan met us at the airport. It was a great coming home celebration and Ellie was not at all shy with the kids. We had brought a picture book that showed our family, house, etc. and Ellie would look at it several times a day. On one page, there was a family picture and Ellie would want us to go over each person's name and then she would repeat their names. When Ellie finally met the kids, it was like she already knew who they were. The kids played in the airport while Rob went and got the vehicles. We thought that Ellie was going to have a fit being strapped into a car seat, but it didn't seem to bother her at all. Finally, when we arrived home, Ellie got to meet our dog Tika (a.k.a Woof-Woof from the picture book). She wasn't at all afraid of Tika, but doesn't like it much when Tika licks her hand.

First night at home was a rough one for the travelers.  Rob and Dana and Ellie were all restless between midnight and 4am – but eventually went back to sleep. Ellie woke up getting sick at 6am, and again at 7.  Hopefully this is a temporary bug related to change in water and/or milk.

Nick returned home today as well, so we are all together again…. Feels good to be complete!

We will make one additional post in a few days once we are over jetlag and through the initial transition phase.

So close and yet so far

Made the 15 hour flight from Hong Kong and it was primarily uneventful.  We originally did not have seats together, but Rob was able to change his seat, so we had a row.   Ellie did great on the flight, slept for probably a total of 6 hours, which we were pretty happy with.

Arrived in Detroit at about 1pm we think (time is becoming a blur) – customs and immigration were smooth – Ellie had a near meltdown when we had to get rid of our luggage cart and go through security – but a sucker goes a long way with a 2 year old.

Our flight to Peoria was delayed an hour – not a big deal we thought – the hardest part will be staying awake.   Then the flight was delayed another hour, as they were waiting for our inbound aircraft.  Delayed again with a new departure time 8:15pm.  After our plane arrives and we see light at the end of this trip – they tell us there is no crew available and that the crew is arriving from another flight. After about another 30 minutes, they inform us that the flight has been canceled.  We had been in the Detroit airport almost 8 hours at this point.   To top it off, Delta claims that the flight was canceled due to weather problems even though it was a beautiful day in both Illinois and Michigan.

We waited in the line for meal vouchers and rescheduling.  The system had automatically confirmed Dana and Ellie a seat on the morning flight, but Rob was listed as confirmed, but without a seat number (which in airport talk that means you will only have a seat if there is room i.e. you are flying standby).  After waiting in line almost 2 hours, we all have confirmed seats on the morning flight and were able to get to an airport hotel (Delta gave us a room in the Days Inn, but we decided to use Marriott points to get a room at the airport Marriott), finally checking in at 1130pm EST.  All airport food had shut down by the time we were leaving, so we used some of the meal vouchers to purchase trail mix, juice, and a bottle of water for dinner.

We don't have luggage, Ellie is the only one with clothing choices, as we packed her as the priority passenger with our carryon options.  

Ellie was really great with our extended layover.  As we walked the moving walkways and escalators, we wondered if she thinks this is what her new life has become – hanging out in airports and waiting in lines.   After riding the airport tram, she blew her top when it was time to get off and screamed for almost 20min.  She then took a nap for about an hour.  All in all, she held up better then we did – we just wanted to curl up and cry when we realized we would not being seeing the rest of our family.

We went to bed at about midnight EST and woke up at around 4am (got to love jetlag). Ellie however is still asleep at 6:30 and we will let her sleep until about 7:30. Our flight is at 10am and we are close to the airport. Hopefully today will be the end of this long journey. We long to hug our other kids and to have them be able to finally meet their new sister. If the flight is delayed or canceled, you might see Rob on the local news being hauled off in handcuffs. We have been patient and understanding, but enough is enough.

Last post from overseas

Hong Kong really is a whole different world – street/traffic organization – it is just good to be back here.

Ride to Hong Kong was a ride for sure. We shared a minivan with the G family and we all had plenty of room.   The guy kept oscillating between about a 5mile an hour range – up and down, up and down.  The Chinese roads do not exactly support cruise control, but some sort of regularity would have been nice.  At one point we were cruising along at about 150 clicks (93mph!)  We  thought their son didn't look so good so we got a bag and toilet paper ready.  The driver took this wild clover leaf configuration to bypass some traffic – it was enough to put us over the edge – slow around corners would have been nice.   While we turned up the a/c and tried to look forward, Ellie couldn't handle it and puked.  As if the driver has been through this before he just handed us some wipes.

 We had joked with the G family that at the end of our ride we would all agree to be friends and live with the other kids tantrums. No tantrums to be had, but the last hour and a half of the ride smelled great!  The kids really did do great as far as attitudes.  They both started to get a little restless at the end (3 hours total), but did great.

Immigration and customs to Hong Kong were uneventful –although the passport guy got a supervisor to look at Ellie since her passport picture is about 6 months old.  But c'mon – who looks like their passport picture J

Marriott near the airport is great location   We made it in time for snacks/dinner at the Executive Lounge.  Ellie had a complete meltdown tantrum before bedtime.  She does not like the change and didn't eat much for dinner.  There was a party or some group of people make a lot of noise last night.  We are not sure if they are on a boat on the water (we are directly above) or in the hotel.  Between that and the normal anxiety of sleeplessness before a big trip- the adults are not exactly well rested to start this marathon home. 

We appreciate your prays for us all (and whoever sits near us!)

Tuesday night we had dinner on a Pearl River cruise.  Not the choice activity for a 2 year old, but we haven't had many choices in our tours. The cruise I am sure would have been a lot more interesting if we could have understood something.   Our facilitator did not go with us and they did not have any English handouts or anything.  We went up and down the river with a dinner buffet.   The way the assigned seating works, we ended up sharing a 4 top table with other people; Ellie didn't have a ticket, so she was on our lap. The food was very local – things with heads still on them. We had a lot of fried rice and noodles.  The bridges and buildings were cool – everything lights up at night.   We are not sure which Asian city started this trend of lighting up the buildings, but it is cool. We rode by this cool looking stadium, which only had seats on one side.  Later we asked our guide about it and she said they built it only for the Asian Olympic games (or something like that).  It was used for the opening ceremony and now is only used once in a while.  The floor is a floating floor and they can remove the floor and boats can come in and park.  They light it up every night for all to see - gives a whole new angle on government spending.

At the end of the cruise they had a juggling act accompanied by some Latin American/Salsa type music.   The music was refreshing and Ellie was totally loving the music. It was raining a bit and that added to the fun as Dana and Ellie danced to the music on the outside deck.

Wednesday - We will be sharing a van with the G family from Utah – going to Hong Kong to stay the night before flying home.   We don't check out here until late this afternoon, so it will be a slow and probably long morning.   Depending on which version of the story we hear from our facilitator the van ride will either be 2 or 4 hours.  

We are hopeful that Ellie will sleep a lot on the flight tomorrow.  She usually "shuts down" when out in public and becomes very shy – so we hope the stress of it all just knocks her out and we don't end up with a tantrum at 37k feet.   We are sure our fellow passengers feel the same J  15 hours to Detroit then a final 1.5 hours to home.

Today, we went to the U.S. Consulate for paperwork needed for Ellie's visa. We will receive the visa tomorrow and that is the last step in this long 1.5 year process to bring Ellie home. That seems like a really long time, but it is our quickest adoption yet.  Our visit to the consulate was uneventful and a simple process.

We talked to our friends who are staying at the Garden Hotel. They finally decided that they were going to switch rooms.  They were given a new room where the hallway smelled worse then the first one.  They then asked if they could be given a room on a floor that had tile and not carpet.  The front desk explained that the agency rate is for the old part of the hotel and that for $70/day they could upgrade to the new section.   They only had 2 nights left, so they decided to do it. The agency rate is about $125/night, so the extra $70 for a decent room makes the room rate $195/night. Even with our rate increase on Monday, our averaged rate over the 6 nights ended up being $142/night (taxes/fees included). Our hotel has been fantastic. Our room is a suite with access to the Executive Lounge where we have free breakfast (in the Lounge or the main restaurant), free beverages throughout the day (bottled water, pop, coffee), and finally free dinner at night including wine etc. The hotel staff have been excellent and attentive and most speak English very well. We highly recommend staying at the China Hotel by Marriott rather than the recommended Garden Hotel. We would have taken a cab each morning to the Garden Hotel if necessary in order to be able to stay at our hotel of choice. We also learned that the Garden Hotel does not allow Papa Johns to deliver to the hotel.  Don't know if that is because Pizza Hut is nearby and they have an agreement?  At the Marriott, there is a host of families that are using Bethany, CCAI, Holt and others, so there are plenty of other adoptive families here as well.

We are at the end, which is always the hardest – you just want to be home already.   We have watched more TV than we usually do and we can't help but think of all things we could be doing with all this "down" time.  It just seems inefficient to be doing nothing J.

Today we walked over to a city park across the street.  It is a HUGE park.  Guangzhou is the city of rams (or something like that) – there is a story about how the fisherman didn't know how to grow rice and some rams flew in with rice in their mouth and showed them how to it, and everyone lived happily ever after. Ok, that is the American ending to the story – but they got rice in the region.  Anyway there is a statue of the rams in the park, so we thought that would be our destination.   The park is maybe 100yards from the hotel – however we felt as though we had gone to the twilight zone again with all the people staring at us.   We joked when we would take pictures that we don't want to look like a tourist. Rob even changed out of his American flag t-shirt that he had worn to the U.S Consulate so that he would blend in, ha ha J  A lady even took a picture of Dana and Ellie – made her feel like she was an animal at the zoo. The maps at the zoo were not the easiest to follow, but we eventually found the stairs leading up to the ram monument. Dana stayed with Ellie and Rob forged up the several flights of stairs to get to the top of this hill where the statue was. The heat index was once again over 100, so after we captured the picture, we decided that we were done and headed back to the hotel.

We ate Papa Johns for lunch today – Ellie is not a big pizza fan, but she will eat the crust.  She doesn't realize yet that being a Hofmeister implies that you LOVE PIZZA.  One of our sons had this problem when he first came home, but now he has "seen the light" and enjoys pizza now and Ellie will in time also.  We are REALLY craving a big salad.  They have all this great looking veggies on the buffet, but if you can't peel it, we don't eat it.

Things we miss:

• Our kids
• Being able to brush your teeth with tap water
• Going out in public without feeling like you are a walking display for all to stop and stare at.

Things we love:

• Huge breakfast choices with no dishes (this one will be a huge wake up call for Ellie haha)

• Wide variety of coffee choices (Latte, cappuccino etc) all day
• Naptime

Sunday was shopping on the infamous Shamian Island.  You could Google the history if you want, but at some point the British owned it.  We think the British have done a fine job with things they once owned. The island is a popular spot for photo shoots – both wedding and just normal magazine stuff.   We will post a picture of this later.  They go into these little vans to change clothes for the next shot. The heat index was around 110-114 yesterday. I don't know how they are changing clothes in between shots, since we were sweating just standing in the shade!

Sunday night we went over to the Garden Hotel to have dinner with our friends from Utah.  The lobby is very nice, but our friends are not happy at all with their room. The hallway is being used as pet bathroom area, they got snubbed in the hotel restaurant and could not get served, she is seeing new bug bites on their son and is wondering if there is fleas or bed bugs in their room, English amongst the staff is not common so they have to rely on their facilitator to communicate with the hotel staff, and the internet is about as fast as dial up. We had considered changing hotels, since our rate increased early this week and our facilitator has repeatedly made it clear that she is not happy with our choice of hotels, but after hearing this couples problems, why would we move?   There are so many adoptive families in our hotel and Holt International even has an office here, so this can't be that bad.

We all went to Pizza Hut for dinner.  Other than the service being really slow, it was good pizza.  Both our kids did great considering the length of time it took to get all things done.

Highlight of the night was after Dana took Ellie to the bathroom she came running out to Rob and wanted him to lift her up.  That continued into the night and she let him carry her to the cab.   This is so encouraging and will make the return trip a lot easier if she can have 2 parents instead of 1.

On Monday, we had our follow-up medical appointment to check the TB test. Ellie was not happy to be back in the medical facility, but with a well timed fruit snack distraction (provided by mom extraordinaire), she only cried a bit. Afterward, we went to the zoo – heat index again over 100 and our facilitator says there are a lot of mosquitoes, sounds like a great day at the zoo!   We saw the panda bear as well as the usual zoo line up. Ellie wasn't terribly interested in the animals and didn't want to get out of the stroller, but all in all, it was a good outing.

For lunch we wanted to pick up some fast food noodle something on the way back to the hotel.  Our guide who has lived here for 30 years didn't know of any food near our hotel – only near the Garden Hotel, so we had to drive by that hotel on the way back to ours.   The lunch ended up being a little over $7 for 2 bowls.  That might not sound like much, be we can get 3 full meals at McDonalds for less than $6, so we were a bit taken back at the prices of this local restaurant.  Perhaps the prices were higher since it was right across the street from the Garden Hotel.

We are having a few issues with pictures, but hope to post more within the day.

Saturday was the medical exam.  Ellie was in all kinds of an attitude at breakfast and we knew we were in for a fun day! J The first station at the medical is the visa picture – just the picture.  Ellie went completely hysterical, crying and having a fit.  We will try to post her visa picture later – but we thought if the picture was bad, just wait till we have to deal with needles!

Ellie clung to Dana for her life during all the exam stations. At the ENT station, the doctor said that he didn't even have to use the tongue depressor since she was screaming so loud, he could just look down her throat. I think we won the award for the loudest child at the medical exam. It was exhausting for everyone.

We went back to the hotel for naptime (for Dana too! :) After nap, we decided to venture out to check out the local scene and see if we can pick up some additional clothes.  There is a children's market just down the street.  We saw a store selling shoes and as we looked in the window at the shoes, the store worker got up and turned off the lights. Apparently, he was now closed at 4:13pm.   We were not optimistic we were going to be successful. On the next floor, we found some willing shopkeepers and managed to pick up a few things.   The clothes are definitely more expensive than we were thinking they would be. We bought a pair of sandals, 1 pants, 1 shorts, and 2 shirts for $103 CNY which is about $16 USD. The shirts are very thin (actually 1 is a PJ shirt that we are going to use as a normal shirt). $16 doesn't seem a lot of money for what we bought, but the quality is also not very high.  We are struggling to find "simple" clothes.  Everything is blinged out with added bows, lace, glitter and such.

Later we went to the executive lounge for dinner. Whatever fight we have had with our agency about hotels – not having to pay for breakfast or dinner and having access to snacks all day is a blessing for sure. Ellie had been looking at our family picture book before dinner, so we let her take it to dinner. That was all fine until she started to tear the binding apart – like down to the staple level.  Dana took it away from her and she got upset and wanted it back. Well anyone can see where this is going….. When Dana wouldn't give it back to her, the tantrum began.  Dana and Ellie left and went back to the room for the all out screaming fit.  Dana sat on the couch while Ellie stood in the room and screamed while looking in a mirror. After about a minute, Dana calmly said "if you are done having a fit, you can have some banana".  As if a light switch went off, she took a big sigh, came over and had a bit of banana.  Dana then asked her if she was ready to go back and see daddy… another big sigh and then she pointed to the door and said "daddy".  So back to the lounge we went where finished out the night without event.

Earlier in the day we had met an adoptive family from NC that had just arrived in Guangzhou. We let them borrow our stroller that we had rented for 24 hours from the concierge.  Post dinner, we were giving Ellie a bath and the family stopped by to return the stroller.  Dana talked to the family for a bit and Ellie let Rob finish bath time, including letting him hold her all wrapped up in a towel.   Priceless night for Rob.

Bedtime is almost unreal.   We start the routine with yogurt and PJ's.  After she goes to the bathroom, she just goes and crawls in the pack-n-play without issue.   We are sure this won't last forever, but boy is it nice not to have that fight everyday.

Sunday we are off to Shamian Island to do some shopping.

Made it to Guangzhou..

It was a long day – we checked out of the hotel at 11 – went to the orphanage.  This has to be the nicest orphanage we have seen.   It is a like a small city – complete with a running track!  Pictures to follow later.   There is only 1 orphanage per city, which was surprising to us.   They had a music room, separate buildings – really it was remarkable.  Almost makes the required "donation" seem like it is going to the places it should for once.

As for Ellie – she did great with the whole trip – waived to some workers we knew, but held on to Dana for most of the time. At the end, her special nanny came to say goodbye…. Something we had requested NOT happen.  This involved a bunch of tears on Ellie's part and made for a sad exit….  Her fit wasn't long, and there was candy involved, but it was upsetting for us nonetheless.

Off to the airport (note no naptime or lunch in these events).   Security was a bit of heartache as Dana's passport number was on Rob's ticket.  We didn't book these tickets, our agency did.  They got a supervisor involved and all seemed OK.  Nothing like being held up with a passport issue in China to make your heart skip a beat J  The rest of security was fine, although they of course made Ellie take that precious backpack off, which proved to be a near on the floor tantrum – but backpack back on and 2 smarties later all is well.

We are all getting pretty hungry at this point – Ellie had just about exhausted our supply of cherrios we brought.  Rob went scouting for some food, but none of the airport restaurants had take out – all sit down.   We wanted to sit near the gate, so we ended up with pop, a candy bar, and a box of shortbread type cookies.  There was nothing to be found in the pretzel type category.  Most of the packages in the store were totally in Chinese and seemed to be meat or soup related.

Our flight was delayed – due to weather.  We couldn't figure that one out, nice day here and there.  On the board they just put "Delayed" – with no time.  They had a hand written sign on the desk that said under new time "not fixed yet".   Hungry, tired with no end date of departure – makes happy travelers.   Ellie and Dana road the poor man roller coaster while Rob hung out by the gate.  About 20seconds after we committed to going to a restaurant for food, they announced our flight – YEAH!

Bus to tarmac to plane uneventful, although very hot.   Shortly after wheels were up, Ellie fell asleep and slept until we started our decent.   We saved her food and had her munch on some as we were coming down.

A bit of a scuffle with our agency about hotels – classic example of REALLY bad communication, but we are in the Marriott that we had made a reservation for. 

Saturday morning is medical – always a painful part for the parents in the adoption process.   We are not looking forward to the TB test.  US Consulate things on Tuesday – we are back to doing a bit of paperwork, which is always more exciting than waiting around, as bad as that sounds.

Pictures and more tomorrow sometime.

Thursday was another tourist day.  We took a boat ride on the West Lake – which is what makes Hangzhou one of the biggest tourist towns in China.  We say "town" in jest however – there are over 7mil people who live here.

Ellie got hungry or tired or just decided she was 2 and comfortable today.  She was a little "atti-TWO-dy" while walking around.  Our guide asked her if she wanted to stay and play around outside for a bit longer and she stomped her foot with a "NO!".   It's been awhile since we have had a 2 year old, we are trying not to laugh out loud at her behavior.

After tourist stuff – we were able to find her finding spot (The place where Ellie was found after being abandoned).  Our guide was excited it was still there as sometimes buildings are torn down and new ones put up. She was left in a busy, but residential area, so she would have been found very soon we think.

For lunch Rob went with our guide to a nearby noodle place.  They were not at all happy about the westerner being in the store and were VERY slow in preparing the order – serving plenty others before ours.   We are convinced had we not had the guide, we would not have been allowed to order at all. The noodles however were fantastic, and we wanted some for dinner – so we asked one of the bell boys to go get us a bowl of noodles, which happened for him in lightening fast speed.  Even with a huge tip to him, our total was only $3 for a bowl at dinner.

Uneventful evening around the hotel – Ellie was a bit more fussy then she has been – we don't know if she is just becoming more comfortable and therefore more 2ish, but when it became close to bedtime – she actually started to whine and pointed to the bed.  As if to say "why are you keeping me up so late?".  It was funny and as a big bonus, she let Rob put her to bed, so that was a happy ending to the day.

Friday will be a big day for Ellie. We will start the day by going to the orphanage. We are quite nervous about this because of how withdrawn she became the other day when we were back in the room where we first met her. She will not have an official naptime due to the schedule (hoping she'll sleep on the flight), we are switching hotels (could be stressful for her), and finally it will be her first airplane ride. Please keep us in your prayers. I think that we'll make it through fine today, but it might be quite a rough day.

More pictures will be posted later/tomorrow.

Tourist time

Tuesday was a down day with nothing adoption related except for the adoption ceremony in the morning. We were going to take the bullet train to Shanghai on Wednesday, but decided against it.  The guide book we had and the concierge differed on which train station the train comes in to and whether or not it connects to the metro. We also were never able to find an umbrella stroller for under $38 USD, so without a stroller, a big day in the city was just not feasible. We have heard from other families that you can rent or even borrow strollers in Guangzhou, so we will wait until then.

On Tuesday night we went to McDonalds with some new friends from Utah.  They are on their 2^nd China adoption – have been to both Shanghai and Beijing and said Beijing is really where you want to go. We still don't have a clear picture of what our itinerary is going to be for the rest of our time in China.  This is disappointing because it makes it difficult to plan and to possibly see more of China than the two cities that we'll be visiting. Spending extra downtime in Hangzhou has been fine since this is Ellie's place of birth, so we have been exploring some and taking lots of pictures.

We went shopping in a local market on Tuesday afternoon and were not well received.  We'd be lying if we said that we have gotten used to the stares and didn't mind people stopping and staring as we pass by, but it just gets old. Many people talk with Ellie without telling us what they are saying. Ellie doesn't seem upset by their words, so we just smile and walk on. We also were snubbed while trying to buy some clothes for Ellie. The lady asked if the clothes were for her and then said they don't sell clothes her size, even though we could clearly see that they did. We also stopped in some other stores and were ignored by the workers.  Our shopping was a bust yesterday – Ellie will be packed light like us.  The couple from Utah tells us when we get to Guangzhou we will be a lot more welcome (shop keepers will offer to do your laundry and let you borrow strollers), so we will just do more shopping there. We also found out that Hangzhou is the fashion center of China and one of the wealthiest provinces, so a lot of people come here to shop, so that might explain the high prices that we are seeing.

On Wednesday, we went to the National Tea Museum in lieu of Shanghai.  It was actually better than we thought.  It was very beautiful and peaceful and was a nice break from the busyness of the city.  We discovered that tea grows in a hedge type plant. It was our "learn something new" for today!  We started to wander around through the suggested tour and were quickly escorted to the tasting room (and the connecting gift shop).  We were able to taste four different teas while they explained about the teas, what health benefits the different teas brought and how to best brew them. It was actually very interesting. Ellie was also game to try the teas and drank them all. Made us wonder if they drank tea in the orphanage or while she was with her Foster family. This place did have a stroller for us to borrow, although they had stairs all over the place, but we weren't carrying her the whole time.

We didn't get back to the hotel until after naptime – rookie parent mistake.   She didn't take a nap, but she did play in her crib by herself for a bit, while we had a short rest. It was actually quite cute. She was just talking the whole time and playing with her bunny and dog. At one point, the bunny must have been in trouble because it got a scolding, a spank on it's back side, and was placed in the corner. We recorded some of her naptime babble (just audio). We were encouraged by her self play. It shows that she has a good imagination and has normal brain development for her age. 

After our downtime, we ventured off to the pool. Apparently in China, it is a requirement to wear swimming caps – this should make our other kids less jealous of us having a pool in the hotel.  We found these stylish caps for $4 at a Walgreens type store, and our guide said Ellie could get away with a shower cap. The hotel pool was beautiful. They had a lifeguard and everyone who was swimming was serious lap swimmers, almost the whole pool full of them! Ellie was not too thrilled about the idea of the pool, but eventually warmed up to it.  I am sure she will be jumping off the sides before her next birthday!

Finally, we had our first bath tonight. There were a few tears at the start (probably due to the lack of a nap). Once she was in the water and playing with her stacking cups, she settled down and was fine. There is a window between the bath and the room, so Brit Nicole (a.k.a Bunny) and Dad were able to watch and take pictures. Finally, it was time for bed (about an hour early) and she was quickly asleep without any fuss J

Tomorrow (Thursday) is another down day (we are waiting for her passport), so we will be doing more tourist stuff…

Pictures will be posted later.

It's official!  She is a Hofmeister!

Today was the official ceremony where we got the adoption decree and all things are final.  We had a great morning with her, but when we went back to the same room where we initially met her, she gradually became more and more nervous.  She kept waiting at the door looking out as if expecting to see the orphanage workers come and take her away. She was very sad and withdrawn from us. Our facilitator tried to get her to come to Dana and she refused. Luckily she needed to go to the bathroom and Dana was her ticket out of there. When they came back, Dana was holding her and held her throughout the rest of the ceremony. Once we left the building, she bubbled up and began to smile again. She must have been thinking that she was going back to the orphanage. We are supposed to visit the orphanage on Friday, which is good and bad. Good to be able to take pictures of the people who have cared for her and to see her bed and playmates. Bad, because of what feelings that will generate. She was one of the nanny's favorites, so we are not looking forward to the fallout from that visit.

We went shopping to get her a few clothes and possibly an umbrella stroller. Coolest thing at the supermarket (sort of a Walmart has everything store) – the carts were all like a quad rolling suitcase, you can roll in any direction.   That is something we should definitely import from China!  It is so easy to pull your cart out of someone's way if you can go sideways! Interesting observation at the store – there was a line that wrapped around the store – almost like a Black Friday event.  We asked what they were waiting for, and apparently there was a special on eggs.   Everyone in line was a senior citizen and our guide told us they have the time to wait for such great deals.

We were going to buy a stroller – but it was $30 for an umbrella stroller.   We just thought that was a bit much, so we will attempt to find one elsewhere.  Failing that, Dana will have a really strong left arm by the time we get home.

Back to the hotel and she took off her shoes and backpack without issue.  She put her shoes next to ours and put her backpack by her Build A Bear's clothes and then clapped her hands to congratulate herself.   It became naptime and once we tucked the bunny in, and she could see what was coming there was no issue with naptime – YEAH!! She slept for over 2 hours and we finally had to wake her up.

She is loving pushing the elevator buttons (we only let her push the doors closing button).   We will have to break the bad news that she will have to share this privilege with 3 other kids when we get home. J

Orphanage director presenting our official adoption decree.

Ellie feeding her bunny. She has developed this cheesy smile for the camera now.