December 7, 2009 Forever Family Day!!!
Happy Birthday Hope!!!
This is the day we have been waiting for!!! We are scheduled to get Hope around 2:30 this afternoon. Tracy and Hannah were both up this morning at 3:30 a.m. Holly and I slept in but were up and dressed for breakfast by 7:30 a.m. :0) The girls both love having watermelon for breakfast and we love the coffee! After breakfast we took a stroll around the hotel grounds. The temperature here today is 63 degrees with some occasional showers. Cordelia, our guide called and went over some last minute instructions for our Civil Affairs Bureau appointment this afternoon. I had to make some copies of our passports at the hotel business office because the copies had to be on a special size of paper. Tracy had to exchange some more US currency so we could pay the 3 required fees in the exact Yuan amounts this afternoon. The current exchange rate for one American dollar is around 7 Yuan right now. The girls took a good nap while I washed some of our laundry out by hand. I got our gifts for the orphanage staff all ready to go (It is customary and expected of us to bring gifts for the staff and the director of the orphanage-preferably items from the US-many families bring gifts that represent the state where they live). We were given a list with some suggestions on it by our agency. Our gift bags contain red nail polish, red lipstick, cute nail kit, US postage stamps and small boxes of Russell Stover Candy (which are manufactured in Kansas City, MO). The gifts will not be opened in front of us (Chinese custom). We have tried to prepare Hannah and Holly as best we can for the changes that will be happening in our family. Holly has went around for months saying “Hope will be sceered and I am going to help her” (too cute). Cordelia arrived at our room around 2:00 p.m.. She double checked all of our paperwork and made sure we had everything we would need for our appointment today. Now it is time to go get Hope!!!
HERE SHE IS!!!!!!! We got a glimpse of her setting with some of the orphanage staff before we had filled out all of our paperwork!! What a sweet little girl she is!!!! We were in a very small, very warm room with 39 other families who were receiving their babies. Most of the babies were crying and screaming!!!! After we had paid our fee’s and signed the Red registry book, one of Hope’s nannies (Miss Lin) and another member of the orphanage staff officially brought her out to us! Hope did not cry at all and so far has let both of us hold her!! Hannah and Holly were very good girls in a room filled with chaos. We are very proud of both of them!!! Even Cordelia commented that it must be a tradition in our family for us to have such good girls!! Hannah and Holly have kissed on Hope and rubbed her hair a lot!! We were at the CAB office for over 2 hours doing paperwork and playing with Hope. We had our picture taken with Miss Lin and the other staff member who had brought Hope to the CAB office. After leaving the CAB office we stopped at a Carrefour store to purchase formula, diapers, bottled water and groceries. At our request Cordelia had our driver to stop at McDonalds so we could purchase some food to take back to our room. After we had returned to our room Tracy said the blessing for our food and we all said Amen including Hope! We had been told that Hope only can make baby sounds and is not talking yet since she can’t hear very well but Tracy and I both heard her say “Amen”.!!! We couldn’t hardly believe it and Hannah acknowledged that she too had heard it!!! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!!! Yummmmmmy!! Our Big Macs taste as good as a steak right now. So far we haven’t been able to get Hope to eat anything yet. Cordelia had also arranged for a birthday cake to be brought to our room tonight!!! Happy Birthday Hope!!! We love you and thank God for allowing us to be your Forever Family!!!!!!
