Swearing in at the Consulate!

Today is Thursday and the weather again for today was beautiful and 70-72 degrees. The sun was shining brightly!!!! We got up and ate breakfast at the buffet again this morning. Then we had to be downstairs and in the lobby at 9:30am to go to the Botanical Gardens. The gardens were beautiful. They were decorated first for the Chinese New Year and then they were also having a Tulip Festival. EG fell asleep on the way there and we put her in the stroller and she slept most of the time we were there. In the gardens there are several areas. Such as the greenhouse-that had a ton of orchids and cactus in it, the rock garden-use guess it rocks, friendship garden-that had gifts that other people and countries had given Guangzhou, rose garden-with roses and then a couple of other areas that we did not get to visit. It did struck me kind of funny that there is a major highway and there are buildings right next to the gardens. So you have all this beauty and then all the city life also. I guess that is how it is supposed to be in the big cities.

Rebecca was telling us today that if you live here in China you can not own land per say. What you do is sort of like you buy it from the government for 70 years and if you live longer than that you can get an extension to continue to live there. So what she said is that she has paid for her apartment to the government and now she can live there for 70 years and after that then it goes back to China to own. If you live longer than that you like I said above can see if China will give you an extension to continue to live there. Which in turn kind of explains why you do not see a lot of houses, just a lot of apartment buildings. Because you can not truly own your spot.

Anyway------

After the gardens we came back to the room at around 11:30 am and those who had laundry done needed to be in Rebecca's room at 12:30pm. So I took care of picking up our laundry while Chris and EG played. Then we got ready and we had to be downstairs in the lobby at 2:30 to leave for the consulate swearing in ceremony. This time Lily took us and Rebecca rested!!! Rebecca has been here at the Garden hotel now for over 3 weeks and she is ready to go home for the Chinese New Year. Once we got to the consulate we went up to the 4th floor and went in a large room to wait while Lily talked with them about our paperwork. Eg wore her dress that my mom made for her and then she wore a hair bow that a lady at work gave us for her to wera during the oath ceremony. Everyone in our group loved the dress and the hairbow!!! They thought it was beautiful and very special. Then each family was called to a cubicle style window (ours was window #20) and they looked at our passports and then sign a piece of paper. After that we had to have a seat and wait to be sworn in. It was strange a little because we were on American soil in this area and we were still in China. We were not allowed to bring any cameras, backpacks, phones or anything like that in the area. The only thing we could bring was a sippy cup for the child if needed and it had to be in a ziplock bag and then our passports of course. A lady by the name Brook came out and explained a little about the consulate and then we took the oath. She then explained to us that we would not have to come back tomorrow because their gift to us for the Chinese New Year is that they are rushing our VISA's and we will get them in a matter of approx. 20-30 minutes after the oath. PRAISE THE LORD!!!! That was a HUGE nice suprise for all of us. So we waited and when Lily came out she had our "brown envelope", then EG's passport and the final paperwork for us to review. For those not familiar with the adoption terminology the "brown envelope" is all the documents and information re: our adoption and for EG to become a US citizen. We can look at it but it is stamped 3 times on the back of it and the seal can not be broken or tampered with till the Immigrations officer does it in Chicago. We are to keep it in our possession at all times till we get to Chicago and turn it over to them. We did that and per Brook we are done with the paperwork and that was the final step in the whole adoption process thus far(we will do a little once we get back but nothing compared to what has been done). Now with that said.......EG is now a US CITIZEN (technically she won't be official till she steps on American soil in Chicago on Sunday)!!!!!! I did hold back tears, but it was hard to do. Because that is so huge for us for her!!!!!

On the bus ride back to the hotel it almost seemed everyone was a little more light hearted or things did not seem to be stressful!!! That may just have been my observation, but oh well. We got back to the hotel and EG went to sleep. Tomorrow we will visit the Chen Family Temple and we do not have to be downstairs to leave till 10:00am.

We are off to bed and please keep praying that the weather is good for us on Sunday to come home.

Truly Blessed and 2 day away from coming home!!!!!!!

Burbank's