What a Day!

We are all happy, but exhausted. Today was the trip to Chaoyang. We woke at 5:30AM and traveled 4 hours by minivan and just got back at 8:30PM. The girls, Fia Bao and Ling did wonderful for the whole trip. It was a lot of sitting, standing, waiting and hurrying, then waiting some more. First, we went to get the girl's photos taken at the 1 hour photo shop. Bao did not like it and cried. Then we went to KFC for lunch. Eric ordered a number 6 for Matthew and ended up we 6 pepsi's instead! The servers got a good laugh out of that when Grace explained what happened. Then we went back to the photo shop to get the photos, then to an office and waited for the orphanage lady to do some paperwork. Then we went to the office of immigration (police station) and waited for the Police Chief to give us permission for the passports. Apparently, he was in a meeting, so we could not contact him. The orphanage lady will need to get his signature tomorrow and overnight mail the paper back to Grace in Shenyang so we can keep going with the passport processing. Then we dropped off our gifts at the orphanage and got to see some of the older girls and men and women living at the SWI. They were very glad that our daughters were happy. Each of the girls was asked if they wanted to return to the orphanage and their beds and they each said "no" and reached for mama!

Then the long drive back. We all feel very exhausted. Like our bodies have been squeezed of every last bit of energy. My brain is swimming and confused. Hopefully, a good night's sleep will help. Tomorrow is an easy day and the only thing on the agenda is "shopping". We did not schedule a driver until 3:30 PM so we will have time to finally rest. We took lots of pictures of the city and country but I will have to catch up my photos tomorrow when I can think straight.

Ling is very wonderful and continues to amaze us with her quick learning of words and signs. She is all smiles. She has not shown any sign of distress except once when her arm fell asleep and she got an uncomfortable feeling, she made a little whining sound, which she very quickly stopped when I rubbed it. She loves to put her shoes in the closet and as soon as we come in the room she unties our sneakers and tries to get them off and help us put them away. She is also singing a cute song, but we cannot make out the words, she is to soft spoken.

We are getting a lot of stares and many smiles. It is quite an adventure. I cannot wait to see the bed!

We did not see the Lizana's all day today, but I will post about them tomorrow.