Day 12 in China

Today we were at the US Consulate offices with some paperwork and taking our adoption oath. The USA now officially recognizes our adoption! Abby will become a US citizen as soon as we land in the US on Friday. We were fortunate to get this photo as they quickly confiscated the camera after us and made them delete their photo...guess we weren't supposed to take any photos in this area!

Abby does really well with younger children. She is like a little mother. We wonder if she helped take care of the younger ones in the orphanage. Here she is with her buddy Dylan who is 2. Like Abby, he has was born with a cleft lip/palete, though he has not had any surgeries yet to make the repairs.

Not only does Abby love french fries, she also loves ketchup. Here she was licking her plate clean.

We went to the Pearl Market today. Wow - a 5-story mall filled with stores and stores full of bags and bags of pearls. Amazing. We learned a lot...and bought a bit too!

Some of you may not know too much of Abby or our adoption. We started the adoption process over 5 years ago for a little girl from China. Originally we were going to adopt an infant. Earlier this year we decided to file paperwork for an older waiting child with special needs. We got our referral for Abigail just 3 weeks later. Abby will turn 6 on September 11. She is post-op for cleft lip and palette. She will be needing more surgery in the future. She graduated kindergarten here this June. She is very smart and spunky.