BEIJING: (Dec 2-5)
Holt orientation at the hotel. Sightseeing included rickshaw tour, Tiannanmen Square, The Forbidden City (Emperor's Palace) and Olympic Plaza.
KUNMING (Dec 6 - 11th)
What great memories of our time with my brother and family. The cousins enjoyed their time so very much. We got to do some great sightseeing (including the Wild Animal Safari Park...remember the lion feeding event??).
We also saw the Dinosaur Valley Theme Park (real excavation site in southern China with archeological discovery of dinosaur bones).
Visited the kids school and toured the orphanage.
Celebrated Christmas with Steve, Marlene, Ashlyn, Brayden, Mikayla and Sydney. Amazing, amazing, amazing.
Oh...and did I mention we got to FINALLY wrap our arms around our baby boy??? He, too, is amazing. God is good...all the time. We had several meetings during our time in Kunming to finalize the adoption (Hallelujah!!) and to file for a Chinese passport for Jack.
GUANGZHOU (Dec 12 - 19)
Happy Birthday to Paul!! We celebrated very quietly. (some might say not at all). But our hearts were truly focused on Jackson. We enjoyed seeing glimpses of his personality and watching him begin to accept and even love us. He is just a gem. The smile is contagious...and appears to be never-ending. He has warmed our hearts immensely.
We spent this last week in Guangzhou near the US Consulate in order to file for a US visa for immigration into the States. This included piles of paperwork, a medical evaluation with lots of immunizations (yuk!) and a final oath taking ceremony. Whew! This was the last set of hoops before heading home!!
All in all we spent our week in Guangzhou with 19 other HOLT couples each adopting from different provinces. They became our family and our friends and we wish each of them the best on their family journeys.
