Day Two- Monday, July 16th

This morning we skyped with my dad, my step-mom, and their neighbor. :)  They weren't expecting it, but we just had to skype someone to show them our cute girl, all dressed and ready for the day!   We tried to skype my mom and the boys but they didn't pick up- they were probably out to eat celebrating Elijah and Jonah's 4th birthday!  Bittersweet....sad that we couldn't be there to celebrate with them. Wondering where they picked to go for dinner since it is their choice on their birthday.   I heard they chose pancakes for breakfast and McDonalds for lunch.  Skyping helps and makes it harder all at the same time.  I am always so happy to see the boys each day, but so sad at the same time- I can tell they miss us and their constant asking when we are coming home and Jayce's 'mama's' make it very emotional!  

Once we were all ready, we headed down to breakfast in our hotel.   We couldn't really get Lena to eat anything- she was so focused on everything going on around her.  She did eat a few small pieces of watermelon and also some more Gerber puffs, but she refused yogurt (which is supposedly one of her favorite foods), bananas, congee (a rice concoction that is very commonly eaten for breakfast and often a part of every meal in an orphanage), and a few other things.   She really wouldn't drink any water or milk either.  We've been told that Chinese children like their liquids at room temperature or warm.  They don't really like cold things.

After breakfast, we grabbed a few things in our room and met Penny and our driver in the lobby at  9:15 a.m.  We went to the Civil Affairs office to finalize the adoption.  We had to sign quite a few papers, put our thumb print in red ink over every signature, put Lena's hand print in red ink (she didn't like that one bit), and go through a few simple interview questions.   Penny showed us Lena's finding ad- she made a copy of it and is going to translate what it says for us and then give it to us tomorrow.   That is a real gift!    The Civil Affairs office gave us a gift of a plate with pandas on it for a moment for Lena.   Mrs. Huang from the orphanage was also there.  She gave us a nice certificate for the adoption from the orphanage.   She collected the orphanage donation while there too.  It was crazy to sit and watch a machine count out 35,000 RMB...which equivalents to approximately $5.800!!   WOW...definitely crazy to see that in person.  Hopefully that money goes for good things- paying staff, helping the kids, bettering the facility, etc.  It is hard to say.
We said goodbye to Mrs. Huang- we will see her on Wednesday morning for the orphanage visit.

We then headed to the Notary Office for a few more questions and signatures.  We gave both the registrar and the notary official a gift.   After that, it was all done....it is official!

Next  stop- Wal-Mart...China style!  I wish I would have taken my camera in and taken pictures, but I wasn't sure if you could.  It looks nothing like ours on the outside- minus the Wal-mart sign.   It was at least 3 levels.  Two levels of the Wal-mart had food and one had all the misc. stuff.   One guy was riding a bike around for a test drive I guess.  The other most interesting thing was that you took your cart on a moving walkway like an escalator- minus the steps.  In between the two moving walk-ways and on both sides of the walkways were various items...definitely a marketing ploy that probably works great!  Wal-mart is a pro at that.   We got a few things for us for the hotel since we aren't going out much for food.  Rick thought it would be a good idea to try a few new things so he chose an olive juice in a bottle....can you say nasty!?!?   lol....Can't wait to see his face when he tries that!  We also got  4 big packs of diapers for a gift for the orphanage when we go on Wednesday.  We got Lena a few things we think she'll like to eat and drink, hoping it will help her take in some more.  Evan and I grabbed a soda for the drive back.  Evan picked orange Fanta- Lena wanted that pretty badly.  She probably never had that before.  She kept wanting more- he happily shared.  We tried teaching her the sign 'more.'  We'll keep working on that one and see if it sticks!   When we went to check-out, we found that the conveyor belts were much shorter than ours.  They also scanned each bag and charged .03 RMB. for each bag.  That's not much, but I found that interesting!   They also had to manually swipe each item on this spot to make sure it wouldn't set off an alarm on your way out, I guess.   The costs were fairly comparable to home, I'd say.

We then headed back to the hotel.   Lena eventually fell asleep and she has been napping awhile so it is time to wake her up so she goes back to sleep tonight...because I am tired now! :)  Isn't that how it always goes!?!?  

Tonight we will probably just hang out in the room and continue bonding- maybe watch some signing time dvds to work on beginner signs.