Emery Days 7 and 8

We have had two very busy but wonderful days!!! First off, on Sunday, Judy Wu (the amazing Judy Wu as many like to call her)and her family took us to a wonderful lunch and then sight seeing around Guangzhou. Judy, her son Mike and her husband Steven were amazingly generous and really showed us a great time. We started with a lunch at our awesome hotel with Judy's sister Wendy and her daughter Emily. Emily and Judy's son Mike are coming to the US for a month and will be staying with us for about a week so Judy thought it was a good opportunity to get to know them a bit before they came to the US. We had a great lunch and then said goodby to Wendy and Emily and headed out to see the sights of GZ. Steven, Judy's hubby is high up in the largest China bank and was so interesting to talk to. He is a Christian and his father, back in the Chairman Mao days was imprisoned for his faith. It was so great to hear the stories he had to tell. Very interesting! They first took us to a Buddhist temple which was very interesting and we got to know more about Mike while we were there. We drove around the city and Judy pointed out the areas of GZ that use to be farming communities less than 20 years ago. It was crazy to see how much the city has grown. We then went to the second tallest Tower in the world-- The Canton Tower-- second tallest only to one in Tokyo. We went to the top of the tower and saw all the sights. It was pretty awesome to see all the sights from so high but also to stand on the glass floor and to get our pictures taken-- very cool!!! After the tower Judy, Steven and Mike generously sent us to the Pearl River Cruise where we met another family in our group- Jamie, Chris and Olivia. It was such a special day with Judy and her husband and Mike. They are such special people and I know Judy and I will continue to be great friends and we cant wait for Mike and Emily to come stay with us in the US!!!

Today had our consulate appointments at 8:30am which meant meeting our guide at 7:30am which meant getting up FAR TOO EARLY to get to the buffet and have breakfast before we met. The 3 families in our group had our appointments together where we take an oath and do all Emery's citizenship papers. It was fast and easy and tomorrow our guide will pick up the "brown envelope" and Emery's visa tomorrow- those who are in adoptions will know what that is- basically the immigration stuff but it is built up to be a huge deal. As soon as we have the visa we can leave China and come home but unfortunately, we could not leave that night (cant leave till after 7pm) so we are leaving Wednesday.

After the consulate, we came back to the hotel and took a nap-- we all were exhausted and then Jamie, Chris and Olivia and us went to Shamian Island to visit. Olivia is their first adoption so they had lots of dresses and things like that to buy. We ate a small snack at Lucy's and then shopped and walked around the island. We then walked over by the Holiday Inn Shifu and saw the sights. It is pretty amazing over there. We then had dinner together and then took a cab back to the hotel and got home around 8:45pm. We really like Jamie and Chris and little Olivia is amazingly cute and sweet so we really enjoyed our day!

Tomorrow we are just hanging out and may go swimming. We are supposed to do dinner with another group of people so we will see. We only have tomorrow and then we pack up and leave on Wednesday. We will be sad to go but happy to return home. We miss the kids terribly and we so appreciate our parents all pitching in to help out so we cant wait to get home to normal life.

Emery is doing super well. She is a kid with a BIG personality and makes people smile and laugh all the time. She is constantly on the go and a total wiggle worm. She is such a ham and people just love her-- so do we!! She is also a very strong willed little girl and fights sleep like crazy and when she does not get what she wants she screams and throws a fit. She is also super loud and will scream MAMA and DADA and BABA and whatever thing she wants to say. She again will fit into our family well. She currently has been fighting Kevin putting her to sleep for about the last 40 min and is still in there screaming It is crazy how long she can go on for-- she is fine-- she just wants to still play and not sleep although she is exhausted Anyway, I will post again soon!!! Looking forward to a relaxing day tomorrow!

At the temple

horrible pic but Judy Em and I

Long Pagoda

In the lobby before we went up into the tower-- that is Mike-- judy on the side

Going up in the elevator- crazy high-- ears popping and all

The views from the top

Mike and us on the glass platform

We had an ice cream up on top

At the boat with Jamie, Chris and Olivia

The tower we were in earlier in the background

Jamie, Chris and Olivia after our consulate appointment. We cant take cameras in with us so we only can take pictures in the lobby after the appointment is over.

The Gratz family and little Abby!!

Our travel group from Wasatch! They have all been so wonderful. We have enjoyed spending time with all of them--we were lucky to have such an awesome group!

Shamian Island