Gotcha Day June 16, 2014

Incredible...we have her.  It is 1:45 pm in Zhengzhou.  She is sleeping next to me in the crib very peacefully.  T took the boys to get some food while she sleeps.  We are all starving.

What a morning.  We arrived at the Civil Affairs Bureau at 10:00.  There were a couple of kids already there, and several more cam while we waited.  We were all quite full of nervous anticipation and had to wait about 30 minutes.  When her car pulled up and the nanny and the orphanage director got out we could see it was her.  They told us that she loved her picture books filled with pictures of us and the rest of the family...she seemed to recognize us immediately came to us with huge hugs and held us each and then reached for all of us in turn.  She was was happy and comfortable and she reallly fell in love with her tub of apple puffs, which she gobbled up and fed to us.

It is clear that she has been happy and loved in the care of the LOCC and for that we are so grateful. She fell asleep in T's arms on the way back to the hotel and then I carried her up to the room so she could keep napping.

Bedtime in Zhengzhou....what a day.  T and the boys ran for sandwiches for us while she took her nap. We had a room picnic and then Dad had to go off to a hotel conference room to do paperwork for the adoption process tomorrow.  T and the boys played with her around the hotel util that was finished.  She needed shoes so Mom and Dad decided to take her on an adventure...a mile walk each way to Walmart in the Zhengzhou traffic to shop at Walmart....she loved it and though there was little to pick from we did find her a little pair of her own squeaky shoes that should suit until we can find a shoe store.

We all played in the room and then she had her dinner....which was really nothing more than an unbroken process of eating since she woke up from her nap, but we do have a fun game with her feeding and she LAUGHS so hard...it is so funny.  Mom and dad got her cleaned up and and dressed for bed, she laid down so peacefully....looked around a bit with her bunny on her arm and drifted off to sleep.

It was 8pm and he boys were dying to get a shot at the pool, so the 3 boys and one can of lukewarm Tsingtao made our way to the pool for a little swimming and goofing off while Mom got a quiet hour for a bath in the really great tub here in the new wing of the Crowne Plaza.

Tomorrow we go back to Civil Affairs, which we are told can be very hard for the little ones but has to be done.  We will finish the legal process for the adoption, get our adoption decree ant which point she will legally be our child.  We then take a van out to her birth city of Kaifeng to apply for a passport for her so that she can leave the province.

We are also hoping that tomorrow they will take us to her orphanage to see where she her home for the last two years and bring gifts for here nannies and the staff there.  We also have a list of children that we would like to meet and play with for parents that are waiting for their own chance to travel and meet their children.