Today was a busy day for us. After breakfast, half of our travel group met at the red couch for the traditional red couch photo. It's very difficult to get babies and children to cooperate.
After the photo, we had an exit meeting for families traveling by train to Hong Kong. Bobby volunteered to attend the exit meeting, and I was more than happy to let him go. While he did that, Layne, Sutton, and I went to pick-up laundry. We were going to take our morning walk, but the island was packed with people and vehicles. Today is the first day of the Asia Games, and they are being held on the island.
I later found out that Bobby was told at the meeting that no one was to leave the hotel without their passport. The police were doing random passport checks and had fined some adopting parents from another group. Of course, we have been told repeatedly to leave our passports in the safe and not to carry them unless absolutely necessary. I guess I'm lucky that I wasn't stopped when we went to get laundry.
This afternoon we went to the consulate for the oath taking ceremony. (Since you can't take cameras in, I don't have pictures. ) This means that all of our paperwork was correct and tomorrow Sutton will receive his Immigration Visa. When we go through immigration in Detroit, he will be a U.S. citizen! It was such a happy moment for everybody. Layne was so cute during the oath. She stood up and raised her right hand right along with us, but I was crying too hard to tell if she was repeating the words or not.
To celebrate, we went on a cruise on the Pearl River on the Dragonboat. Since the food is awful on the boat, we all ordered Papa John's and had it delivered at the dock. It was almost like being home.
Sutton loves Layne and interacts with her, but we had never seen him interact with other children. For the first time, Sutton interacted with some of the other babies in our group tonight. He really liked a nineteen-month-old girl and kept smiling at her. We were very proud. He also became very serious everytime he heard one of the other babies cry. I think he may be tender hearted.
After the photo, we had an exit meeting for families traveling by train to Hong Kong. Bobby volunteered to attend the exit meeting, and I was more than happy to let him go. While he did that, Layne, Sutton, and I went to pick-up laundry. We were going to take our morning walk, but the island was packed with people and vehicles. Today is the first day of the Asia Games, and they are being held on the island.
I later found out that Bobby was told at the meeting that no one was to leave the hotel without their passport. The police were doing random passport checks and had fined some adopting parents from another group. Of course, we have been told repeatedly to leave our passports in the safe and not to carry them unless absolutely necessary. I guess I'm lucky that I wasn't stopped when we went to get laundry.
This afternoon we went to the consulate for the oath taking ceremony. (Since you can't take cameras in, I don't have pictures. ) This means that all of our paperwork was correct and tomorrow Sutton will receive his Immigration Visa. When we go through immigration in Detroit, he will be a U.S. citizen! It was such a happy moment for everybody. Layne was so cute during the oath. She stood up and raised her right hand right along with us, but I was crying too hard to tell if she was repeating the words or not.
To celebrate, we went on a cruise on the Pearl River on the Dragonboat. Since the food is awful on the boat, we all ordered Papa John's and had it delivered at the dock. It was almost like being home.
Sutton loves Layne and interacts with her, but we had never seen him interact with other children. For the first time, Sutton interacted with some of the other babies in our group tonight. He really liked a nineteen-month-old girl and kept smiling at her. We were very proud. He also became very serious everytime he heard one of the other babies cry. I think he may be tender hearted.
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Tonight is our last night at the White Swan. Tomorrow afternoon we will go to the consulate to get Sutton's passport with the visa. From there we will go to the enormous train station (wish us luck) and head to Hong Kong. We will spend one night in Hong Kong and get up bright and early to head home! We just hope Sutton travels home as well as Layne did when we adopted her.
