11:00 AM Wednesday
We are in the van on the way from Guangzhou to Hong Kong. We are about 45 minutes into a 4 hour drive, and our prayer that Katie be a good traveller like our other three children (whoa! Did I just say our OTHER three?!! ... That sounds really really cool!) ... Anyway, sorry, got distracted there ... Our prayer that she would be a good traveler has been answered. She is sleeping (in her mama's arms, of course) quite peacefully, and our experiences with her in short cab rides and the prior short van rides have all been good.
As we pulled away from The Garden hotel I couldn't help but to feel wistful, since we stayed there with Jaden's adoption and now with Katie's. I was cheered up by the thought that the Nichols family will be there in a few month when they come to get their beautiful daughter Naomi.
Katie started the day in a bit if an unusual mood, being more fussy and demanding than normal, but she has settled down a lot. Tracy said it seemed like maybe Katie had bad dreams last night, based on her crying out more than normal and being restless (she normally rolls around in bed a lot and does her adorable leg kick that I mentioned in a prior blog, but sleeps soundly nonetheless). Last night seemed different, though. Perhaps there is no cause, but we wonder if seeing us pack up again in preparation for leaving the hotel might not have been the cause. Or maybe a bit of bad potato ... who ever knows about our dreams?
As the morning went by she settled back down, though.
She and Jaden had a good time playing in the hotel lobby while we checked out. Also, this morning we got the last bit of paperwork that we needed to get her home .. her Visa to enter the USA. We didn't expect any problems, but you never know, and there was the issue of her abandonment decree having the incorrect date on it ... But it's all good now, and we are done with that part, so we are on the van now heading to Hong Kong for some blessedly non-paperwork-vacation time. We are glad we had these days at the back end of the trip, though, because if there had been a more substantial problem with the finding date being wrong on the paperwork then it would have involved getting corrected paperwork from Chengdu and then getting it to Guangzhou, which would have taken a few days.
As we are riding in the van, Jaden is "filling out our forms" to get us into Hong Kong ... Fortunately I had a set filled out also! He got quite a kick out of signing his name in the form we have it submit when we leave China, too. He is getting into this paperwork thing! I expect that this has something to do with the fact that the answer to his question "why" for several of our trips to government offices in the past two weeks has been "We have to get some more paperwork done so we can being Meimei home." I guess he has decided to start helping with the paperwork to be sure she comes home. (Gael, if you guys need help with the paperwork we can send Jaden over to help you)
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Thursday night ...
That's all I got typed out on the van trip because Katie suddenly decided that maybe I'm not such a scary guy and she has decided to interact with me more, even letting me hold her and give her some of her bottle in the van. Prior to that I had been able to give her some food via spoon but never to hold her to give her a bottle. What a very special time!
Then when we got to the hotel it was time to unpack in our fifth hotel of this trip, go swimming at both of the pools here, get settled in, off to bed, then up and around Disney for 9 1/2 hours on Thursday! We had planned to just go for a few hours and then come back to the hotel for a nap and swimming, but everyone was doing so well and the weather was perfect and the crowd was light for most of the day, so we just kept on going.
We really had a blast and will add pics and details when we can, but right now I am exhausted and need to get rested up to do it again tomorrow.
Almost everywhere that we went at Disneyland led to memories from last January when we were here with Jaden ... It is amazing how detailed a lot of those memories are, including where we were sitting during the shows, what order we did the rides in last year, memories within each ride, etc.
And adding to the specialness is that Katie let me hold her several times today! Disney is always a special place, but more so this time. :-)
I hope to put up more later, but I don't know when!
Goodnight all!
Tim
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