Tuesday~ Oath Day

Tuesday was our big Oath taking day. Really, the most meaningful oath was the one at the civil affairs building though. This one was just basically saying what is on our documents is correct. I thought it would be more special/meaningful. He was 'ours' last week, so I guess I didn't see what the big deal was. Nonetheless, it was an Oath.

Once we touch down on US soil Evan will officially become a US citizen. For the last 6 days or so, he's been pointing to the computer and asking for 'meg wa' which is how he says America. He knows we are going on a big airplane tomorrow to meg wa. He knows his brother and sister are there as well.

We met up with some other families staying at the White Swan and traveled with them to the US Consulate on the mainland in Guangzhou. We all piled onto a huge bus, and headed off. We noticed that most of the other couples there were older than us..by at least 5-8 years, and their children were all babies. The oldest was about 15 months. Several were turning a year this month. I believe all of them were sn babies, but I'm not for sure. They were all so adorable. Mostly girls, with just a few boys tossed into the mix. We had the oldest kid by far. And, of course, ours was the only child with 6 stitches. :0) Gotta love that.

The room looked sort of like a really nice DMV place. We waited until they called either, Evan's Chinese name, our name, or our agency name. When they did, we went up to the window, and spoke with a woman...I can't remember about what though. It was brief. Evan, Mr. Chatty Pants, smiled and chatted with this official. After every family had their turn at the window, we said the Oath in unison, and went home.

The ride there and back was VERY interesting. The amount of people who live in such a small footprint of earth is absolutely incredible. Skyscrapers grouped together were all generally apartments. Some amazingly tall, some maybe only 9 or 10 stories. Lots had gardens/trees on the rooftops. Most all of them had laundry hanging up outside. It sure made me ever thankful for my washing machine and dryer. Can you imagine owning a super nice cashmere sweater and hanging it to dry outside your window on the 40th floor only to have it slip/blow off the line? It sure puts having expensive "things" into perspective.

We had dressed Evan in a traditional Chinese outfit and took pictures on the one of the red couches there at the White Swan. It's a tradition for adoptive families to take their children's pictures on the red couch in their traditional clothing. Here at the Victory we had some not so nice brown leather ones, however, just this week, they swapped them out with some even more traditional couches. I personally like the red velvet couches.

This afternoon, we thought we'd walk across the bridge to the 'real' markets. Should be interesting!

Tomorrow we are flying home!!! We'll leave Guangzhou at 8am, have a 5 hour layover in Beijing, then hop a teleporter (don't I wish!) er, um plane to Chicago.