Counting the Days

Today was US Consulate day and everything went smoothly and Taya is not only ours now, but tomorrow she will also be a US citizen. It has been quite the process (mostly completed by Brooke over the past year) in getting to this stage, so it feels good to be close to completion. Other than a few formalities, like the "swearing in" that happens at the US Consulate tomorrow morning, we are done with the adoption process.

Taya was up a few times last night and was a little unsettled this morning, but later in the day and this evening she has been great! She is now wanting to walk on her own and loves to explore. She also loves to open drawers, containers and anything else she can get her hands on. It is actually quite amazing what she can do with her hands despite her issues with her fingers. Below are a few pictures that we took today.

Tomorrow we head for Hong Kong by train and I'm not sure that we will have Internet access while there. As I explained in an earlier blog, Brooke initially intended to write this blog. But it soon become obvious that she would have nearly full-time Taya duty so the blogging was delegated to me. We wanted to write the blog to capture some of our feelings and experiences as we had them, rather than relying on distant memories and pictures alone. For those who endured reading this simple blog, I hope that it was not overly boring for you.

Adoption is likely not something that anyone would take lightly. It is an eternal commitment. Brooke and I spent months and months thinking and praying about whether or not we should adopt prior to making the decision. While it may not be easy to explain why, Brooke and I (at different times and maybe even at different levels) received the peaceful confirmations necessary to know that it was the right thing to do. It is interesting to think that out of all the children out there in the world who need to be adopted, our path led us to Taya. Even though she has only been with us for a few days, we now can't imagine not having her in our family. There will undoubtedly be hard times ahead. She will likely have have multiple surgeries from which to recover. She will also have to adjust to life in an entirely different environment. But we feel confident that her life, and the lives of each person in our family, will be greatly blessed as a result of this adoption.

The trip to China has been wonderful! It most cases, it has exceeded our expectations. But, we now look forward to returning home soon to our family and friends and getting back into the routine of normal life. See you soon!

Back on Track

What a difference a day can make. After a tough day yesterday, today was a welcome change for the better! Surprisingly, Taya woke up this morning and seemed to forget yesterday altogether and picked up from her progress in prior days. I don’t have the picture to prove it, but she even stopped crying while I was holding her this afternoon. Brooke had gone out to run an errand while she was taking a nap and she woke up only to find me in the room. She cried for about ten minutes, but then finally warmed up to me and let me hold her. It was awesome.

It was Sunday today, but felt like just another day here in China. Unfortunately, there are obviously not any options for church here in Guangzhou (except maybe attending the local Buddhist Temple). The adoption agency had arranged for us to go to a Safari Park this afternoon. Within the park we took a train ride through an area that had all kinds of animals walking around and then it had another side of the park equivalent to a zoo. It was really nice and we were all enjoying it until a thunderstorm hit and we got caught in one the fiercest down-pours we have ever experienced. All of us were completely soaked! Oddly, Taya seemed to love this. She was giggling out load as we ran through the rain trying to get back to our bus.

Taya made some additional progress today (beyond letting me hold her without crying). She walked around, jabbered, laughed, and even teased a little bit. She still wanted to be close to Brooke, but ventured a few feet away at times. She was definitely happier overall and we were pleased to see the additional progress.

We are counting the days now to our return home. It will be fun to bring Taya home with us and to witness her integration into our family. Tomorrow we interview with the US consulate and then on Tuesday Taya will become a US Citizen. We will then travel to Hong Kong by train on Tuesday night. Only a few days left!

Here are some pictures from today, most of them were taken at the Safari Park.

They had an awesome Panda exhibit with about eight to ten Pandas.

This was taken while on the train ride.

This was the first time Taya would let us put her in a stroller. Brooke distracted her by giving her a cracker.

Here are a few pictures of her walking with Brooke in the rain (not the down-pour yet).

Brooke and Taya in front of the elephant exhibit.

This was after the down-pour and Taya (and everyone else for that matter) were soaked clear through as we ran back to the bus. It was crazy how hard it rained.

Brooke feeding Taya a bite of broccoli. She is turning out to be a really good eater.