Last Day in China

Our last day in China turned out to be quite an adventure!! We spent the morning packing up all of our suitcases, then met the Caros and Kemps for one last chance to eat at the Uigher (wee-gur) restaurant. The food was delish, which made the intense heat bearable. After lunch we headed back for a photo of all the families in our travel group.

From there we headed to the White Swan Hotel, for a red couch photo of all our kids. The red couch in this hotel has become the traditional place to take pics of the groups of kids being adopted. Lets just say I've seen better.... ours was rushed and included lots of tears and maybe a few boogers!. What we won't put our kids through in the name of tradition!

After that we drove nearly an hour to the new office of the US Consulate. Unfortunately they didn't let us take photos in the office, so you'll just have to picture it. We went through tight security and entered a room of probably forty adopting families. We were all asked to stand up and raise our right hand to swear that all the documents we submitted for immigration were true and accurate. That was it.... pretty anti-climactic. Once we did that we were handed a brown envelope (containing all the important and necessary documents needed for Joshua's immigration) with the following instructions.... DO NOT OPEN!..... guard with your life....this is the most important thing other than your child you need to take home.... this is very important!!!!!.....You HAVE to have this to get your child into America.... Present this UNOPENED brown envelope to the first immigration officer you meet at your first entrance into the US..... Guard with your life..... Do not loose this.... this is important........... ( you get the point?)

Well here's a pic of us outside the Consulate just moments after having it handed to us! Don't we look happy!? We're so relieved.... that was the last step in China to complete... now we just had to insure that we got our child and this precious brown envelope home.

Take a good look at this pic, because it's the last time we saw that brown envelope until the next morning..... ummmm..... one of us (who will remain un-named to protect the guilty) did not guard said brown envelope with his/her life. It wasn't until almost 10 pm that night when we were packing the last minute things that it was deemed to be missing. Can you say PANIC!!!!!? Can you say furiously unpack all your bags in a mad search for it!!!?

We finally got a hold of our guide who then called our bus driver, waking him and asking him to get out of bed to go search the bus.

After what seemed like hours, we heard back from the bus driver that he had found the brown envelope. Our guide suggested that it might be nice of us to reimburse the driver for his taxi ride. You better believe he got reimbursed!!! He could have ridden across China in a taxi with what we slipped him! (not really, but almost).