Adoption Day!

Today was our official adoption today. Tiffany Grace is now legally our daughter under Chinese law. Now we need to wait a few more days to get her Chinese passport so that we can travel with her to Guangzhou, China. While in Guangzhou, we will complete the paperwork with the U.S. Embassy so that the United States recognizes our adoption and as a result Tiffany Grace will be a full U.S. citizen once we land on U.S. soil (September 19). We leave Xining this Saturday and will be in Guangzhou for another 6 days. We will miss the nice cool weather in Xining. The weather forecast for Guangzhou is 95+ every day during our stay (it will feel like we are back in Houston). The picture to the right shows us holding our official Chinese adoption certificate.

While we were waiting in the office for the completion of our adoption paperwork, Grace was laughing and playing and hamming it up. They couldn't believe how well she was doing and how clearly happy she was. When she put on her sunglasses the registrar said "she is too cool." When Joe came into the room (he came in after us because he had to go back to the hotel to pick up our gifts for the notary and registrar that we forgot to bring) Grace starting smiling and laughing. They couldn't believe it. Then when she kept calling me Ma Ma, they were even more amazed. To tell you the truth, we are equally amazed. I'm sure she will have many tough times ahead, but this part has gone unbelievably smooth. Grace is such an amazingly resilient child. She has been through so much in her short life, including many surgeries and many living

arrangement transitions. Even so, it is nothing short of a miracle how well she has warmed to us in such a short time.

It was raining all day, so we decided to stay around the Hotel. First we made a stop at the grocery store for milk for the girls (they like it, Joe and I thought it tasted weird). We also picked up some children's gifts to bring with us to the orphanage when we visit on Thursday. Grace wouldn't let us leave the snack isle until we bought her some orion pies. They are essentially moon pies, but MUCH better (softer and fresher tasting). I really liked them but they are 550 calories for a tiny little snack cake. I thought only Americans had such high calorie, low nutrition snacks. I guess we've rubbed off on the rest of the world.

While Grace took a nap, Donna and I decided to go to the Spa for a massage. Luckily, our guide went with us to make the appointment. Even with her fluent Mandarin skills, it took 30 minutes to understand what was offered and how the service would be performed. When they said we had to pay for a bath in order to get the massage I thought it was normal, but wanted to confirm that the bath was private. Through our interpreter, the spa host said it was not private. Well, Donna and I thought we had a deal breaker right there. No public baths for us. We asked if we could shower in our room and they said no. Before giving up, I asked if I could see where we would shower. After all, the spa was pretty much empty. She took us back and it was totally normal showers with privacy curtains. We then sought to confirm that they would provide us with robes, because we had to walk through a large room with many workers (male and female) to get to the treatment rooms. It took awhile, but we were relatively certain we would be provided with something to wear.

After our shower, they did indeed bring us clothing and paper underwear. I was happy to see these items. When I went to put on the underwear they didn't get very far. I starting laughing and said, "I must have stepped into them wrong." They were VERY small. I did get them on, thank god I've lost a lot of weight. If I were my old size, I wouldn't have gotten them past the knee. My niece and I were laughing so hard we were crying. She said, "You think they have a large?" I said, "I don't think many Americans come in here." I was pretty sure the panties were cutting off my circulation, but we were determined to get the massage.

We opted to have our massages done in the same room, in case anything bizarre happened. That way we'd have a witness. Did I mention that we chose the Thailand massage? While there were no laws broken during the treatment, we did feel like we had done a few karma sutra positions without being "completely" violated. Let me just say, this massage requires that you are extremely flexible and not very shy. I liked the part where they walked on my back the best. However, it occurred to me that they required that I take a shower first and then had some woman rub her feet all over me. I certainly hope they required her to shower first.

In the end, it was another adventure filled day in China with lots of laughs and much joy.