3rd Day in Guangzhou

It's the third day in Guangzhou and we have an appointment at 3:00 to join with 30 other adoptive families here to finalize their child's visas. But before that, we had the whole morning and part of the afternoon to enjoy so I planned for us to go to a very large park which included several lakes, hills, an amusement park and a giant pool. I had Wade bring along his swim trunks "just in case." We took the subway again (since I am an expert at it after yesterday) and had a much shorter ride to the park. The park was busy with seniors and grandparents with their grand babies. The park was definitely not how it was advertised. The amusement park was not running and the pool was no longer. Many things were run down and old and a bit of a disappointment after such a beautiful safari park yesterday. Wade was impressed with this old airplane in the park. He really loves airplanes now since he has ridden in them. The park had no entrance fee so I guess the government is using their money to get things ready for the Asian games hosted here in November. We left the park earlier than I had planned and went back to a nice Thai restaurant near our hotel for lunch. It was a relaxing lunch and then we had some down time before our guide picked us up at 2:15 for our trip to the consulate.

At the consulate, each family is called forward to sign a final document in front of the consular officer. Wade was actually the one to sign. After each family signed their document, there was a welcome and congratulations speech given by a consular officer and then we all raised our right hand and swore that all the information we gave regarding our adoptions was true. Tomorrow we will pick up Wade's Chinese passport with the visa to the US and then head to the airport for Shanghai. He will officially be a US citizen as soon as he touches US soil this summer. We have completed a long, arduous process with the paperwork to bring Wade home but it is worth every minute of our time and I would do it all over again. Seeing him enjoy life as part of a family is such a tremendous joy!