so wednesday was our big day at the u.s. consulate, where we raised our right hands and swore that everything we have written down in our homestudies and other mountains of paperwork is true ... the last step before they slap that visa in the baby's chinese passport that will make her an american citizen as soon as she touches down on american soil.
we got the gals matching chinese dresses for the occasion.and of course, we reminisced... we had run out of diapers the morning of xia's consulate appointment back in 2005....in desperation, we put a swimmie on her, but it leaked, and jeff went through the oath-taking ceremony with pee-pee on his pants leg.
no such misadventures this time. chinese adoption has fallen so precipitously that the room we took the oath in last time was about 10 times the size of the one we took it in this time. no pictures allowed in the actual embassy, so here is a series of squirmy shots from the downstairs lobby. (note fuxi moving in to plant a big kiss on xia in the last photo!)
as if that wasn't enough excitement, we soon headed to the pearl market with about a dozen other families. guangzhou is a big gem center, apparently. we skipped the pearl market last time -- but, well, we were suckers this time. we bought a strand of subtly-colored white, pinkish and grayish pearls for xia, and a strand of brighter pinkish pearls for fuxi. i'm sure they'll fight over them when they're teenagers.
dig my ham xia wearing the pearls in this shot!
the pearl market is really a mall that is, seriously, about 7,000 floors high....
and then you exit to "shopping street" which is very cool, but which you search for sit-down chinese restaurants and find only jewelry shop after jewelry shop after jewelry shop.... until you give up and just eat the gelato.
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