So this morning was a wild drive from office to office to finalize Leah’s adoption and start the process for obtaining her passport. At breakfast Riley and Jessie told us that they were going to be good today. They were perfect angels all day until we got to a late lunch. Then, it all went rolling down hill! Oh well … baby steps.

We started this morning getting Leah into the van. We are learning all new things through this process.

At the government office we had to sign and place our finger prints on a whole host of documents.

Then we had to compare all the information on our passports with the official documents.

Then Leah had to put her hand print on the one of the documents.

Then it was off to the notary office with all of us, our guide, and the two directors from Leah’s orphanage!

The directors asked to take a few pictures of Leah with Ali and Kelly.

We had to go in and get interviewed again that we wouldn’t leave Leah and that she was acceptable to us (still an irritating question). We passed with flying colors and then Leah had to go in and be interviewed. She came back and gave us the AOK sign … everything went as planned!

We came back to the hotel and Ali and Brittany wanted to go swimming, even thought it really isn’t that warm! So, we all went down to the pool, which was probably beautiful twenty years ago but is showing its age now.

As with everywhere in China, you have to wear a swim cap to swim.

Brittany kept up a steady stream of hijinks that kept the girls occupied.

While Ali ventured in a little more slowly due to the water being SO COLD!

We moved to the bigger pool and Brittany continued to play to her audience.

Of course, it was just TOO much to expect Riley not to get involved!!

And then Thing 1 & Thing 2 kicked into high gear!

I let Riley take a few more pictures for me. Here is one that she was particularly proud of!

We (and by “we” I really mean “me”) got into it a little bit with our guide here. She is a sweet girl, but very young and inexperienced. We have done this enough times that a certain lack of guide support doesn’t cause of too much grief, but I had hit my limit today. She felt bad and offered to walk us over to a local restaurant and we all had lunch together. All three girls had a melt down at lunch. Leah didn’t know that her orphanage directors had left and she was very upset about that. Jessie and Riley had been “good” as long as can humanly be expected and both became upset. The guide did a nice job managing a table full of crying girls as we had our hands full for a few minutes!

Things are becoming VERY boring!!! And I am starting to get tired of Chinese food! Just think, we are now in the single digits! Only NINE DAYS LEFT HERE!!! Lord help me… 🙂

Cameron