Now, as soon as she steps off of the plane in Dallas in just a couple of days, she will legally be a U.S. Citizen and she is SO excited!!!
The next day, we picked up her Chinese passport complete with visa. We also picked up the "brown envelope" that we have to keep perfectly safe and absolutely intact at all costs (otherwise there is a chance that we may be sent back to China to get a new one)! We will hand this envelope to the immigrations officer once we reach Dallas.
She was disappointed when we got the passport to see that it showed her Chinese name (she has decided to be called Kassi!), as well as being confused by the fact that hers was red while ours are all blue. When we told her that she would only use this one once and when we got home we could get a blue one with "Kassi" on it, she was very excited!
As soon as we came back up to the room from having picked up her newly visa-ed passport, she started packing her bags and told us that she was ready to go to America! She is also excited to get on a plane again - she loved the one coming from Zhengzhou! We'll see how she feels after 19 straight hours on one... :)
Since the timing for this journey was so tight, we needed to add on extra days on both ends of the trip, in case we ran into "bumps". That means that we can't leave to head home until Monday! Although we have enjoyed being here, as always, we are very ready to come HOME!! The kids, friends and other family at home base have done such an amazing job, but everyone is getting tired, ready to be a family, and ready to work out our new normal.
We have been filling our days with crafts, shopping, and walking around Guangzhou as much as possible. However, walking around is very tricky here! Kassi essentially uses a wheelchair any time that we aren't in the room (even in her fancy new shoes that don't fall off every 2 minutes!!).
In the U.S. that wouldn't be a problem, but in China, wheelchairs do not have access in roughly 90% of the buildings.
Case in point #1: The fact that this wheelchair ramp is blocked to keep out vehicles - like wheelchairs?!
Case in point #2: the FIVE flights of stairs that Mama carried Kassi up at the Civil Affairs Office because there wasn't an elevator. Doesn't seem very "Civil" to us. Even less so considering the fact that this is where almost all of the adoptive families who are bringing home a child from Henan province come to both meet their children and finalize provincial paperwork! Mama said that this was just her labor with her new, larger sized, baby, Kassi!
We are so incredibly happy to be all together and so very thankful that we were able to make it in time! Kassi continues to be doing amazingly well!
We have been filling our days with crafts, shopping, and walking around Guangzhou as much as possible. However, walking around is very tricky here! Kassi essentially uses a wheelchair any time that we aren't in the room (even in her fancy new shoes that don't fall off every 2 minutes!!).
In the U.S. that wouldn't be a problem, but in China, wheelchairs do not have access in roughly 90% of the buildings.
Case in point #1: The fact that this wheelchair ramp is blocked to keep out vehicles - like wheelchairs?!
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