Our U.S. Consulate Appointment

After this morning's breakfast, we got together as a group to take some photos. We ended up with two group shots since we had nineteen families. One group included all of the families that went to Hunan and the other, the families that went to many different provinces.

Next, we celebrated Ella's third birthday with her new family. She had a cake and it was great that she could share this celebration with all of us.

We got together with the Clark family (our hotel next door neighbors) and visited a beautiful park across the street. We got a bunch of attention from the locals, primarily because of the double stroller. Many people thought that Grace and Peter were twins. We were at the park for about an hour and that was plenty of time since it was very hot and humid.

The kids got a quick nap and we left for our appointment at the U.S. Consulate. We took an oath and got Peter's visa. We also have all of the paperwork that he'll need to become a U.S. citizen when we land on Thursday in San Francisco. It was an exciting time since this marks the end of our business in China.

We celebrated with dinner with several of our new friends at one of the hotel restaurants. The food was very good but took a loooooong time to arrive at the table. We were glad that we did have some entertainment, though! There was a band that roamed that restaurant that can only be described as a kind of Chinese Mariachi group that played such standards as "You are My Sunshine", "When the Saints Go Marching In" and "Puff, the Magic Dragon".

Well, we've packed and we'll be heading out to the airport at 5:45 tomorrow morning. We're going to Hong Kong for one night and we'll be visiting Hong Kong Disneyland. We'll be arriving back home at Dulles on Friday morning around 6:45. I don't have our itinerary in front of me but I know that's pretty close to the time if I'm not right on it.

Thanks for continuing to keep us in your prayers especially as we travel.

Our photo page for today is here.