Headed for Home!

Today we had our appointment at the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, the last step in the process to bring our boy to his new home. We took a bus provided by the White Swan Hotel. The Hotel is heavily invested in the business of international adoption and there were at least 6 busloads of families all arriving at the same time for this swearing-in ceremony, which happen almost every afternoon.

We had to stand and raise our right hands and swear that all of the information provided in our application for immigration was true to the best of our knowledge, and then we were congratulated having survived the heartache and paperwork to get to this point. Even though we still have a couple more steps ahead of us in MN to formally make Ahn-Bao a full U.S. citizen, it was quite moving to have the speaker recognize all of the effort that it takes to have both the Chinese and U.S. Governments say we can really keep him!

We had to make our last decision about a meal and opted to go back one more time to Lucy's Cafe. Ahn-Bao ate french fries and Mom and I had "American Fried Chicken." Not too bad and pretty American.

We have set the alarm for 4:15 a.m., China time (that's 2:15 p.m. for those of you in MN) to be ready for the van that will pick us and one other family up to take us to the airport. Our itinerary for tomorrow is as follows:

5:40 a.m. Board a van with our guide Molly and one other family to drive to the airport

8:30 a.m. Board NW Flight #10 to Tokyo-Narita, Japan

4 hours, 5 minutes flying time

1:35 p.m. Arrive in Japan

3:00 p.m. Leave Japan on NW Flight #20 to Minneapolis

10 hours, 55 minutes flying time (Hey, it's better than the 13.5 hours from Detroit to Japan)

10:55 a.m. Arrive in Minneapolis

11:00 a.m. Purchase Diet Mountain Dew in the airport!

2:15 p.m. Leave Minneapolis on NW Flight #2863 to Rochester

3:00 p.m. Arrive in Rochester

Proceed through customs and then . . .

3:15 p.m. Hug and kiss Yasmin, Elias and Kia (oh, and Bob too) and introduce them to Ahn-Bao