Tuesday - China says she's ours!

Ok - I know I got my days out of order. When you email this stuff you sorta have to do it backwards, and I can't edit and fix it once I hit the Send button.

So, we will travel back in time to yesterday, Tuesday. We first went back to the Registration Office where we received the kids and were presented with our final adoption decree. I'd post a picture, but it has our address and passport numbers on it, so no... In China's eyes, she now is Brooke Ke Xin Myers and there's no going back. Yeah!!!! That was very easy, since the bus and office were air conditioned. Then we rode to the Notary Office where is wasn't air conditioned and hiked up the 6 floors to the conference room. We filled out some more papers for the kids passports (I think. We're at the point where you just sign where you're told...) and then got to walk back to the hotel. Brooke was so sweaty this time she almost slid out of my arms. Debbi stayed at the hotel with Olivia and that was the smartest decision I've made the whole trip.

The girls played some more and Brooke really started to show her personality. She has a foster brother (whom she refers to as "Mung") and I think she's learned to play hard, like a boy. She'll have no trouble keeping up with Olivia. Olivia may have a hard time keeping up with her! But Olivia took off her dress, since she likes to run around in her underwear (I wonder where she got that from, dad?) and Brooke picked up the dress and put it on. So cute! It seems she may play hard, but she is also a girly-girl! She loves shoes, too, and keeps switching what pair she's got on.

We went to WalMart and I got diapers a size too small. oops! I wasn't all that impressed with this WalMart, but it was ok. We Americans take for granted how good we have it.

As I mentioned in the previous post, Debbi is Brooke's favorite and she doesn't even have to do anything to make the girl dissolve into laughter. Harumph.

Last is a photo of the Crowne Plaza lobby, looking down the stairs from one of the restaurants. We ate Italian last night and it was delicious! It was our first venture out into the hotel. With Olivia sick and Debbi stoned from a Zyrtec pill, we've had room service the last couple days. I have to give Brooke credit again - she did great! She behaved wonderfully and has no problem wielding large size american cutlery. I have to think that the foster family who cared for her was in an upper economic range. She is too familiar with things the average chinese family would never have. And even tho she was not familiar with an american toothbrush (she tried to scrub her shoe with it), her teeth are too clean and white to not have been cared for regularly. I think she was a lucky little girl.

That brings us up to date! I'll try for more tomorrow (Thursday).