Day 11-Red Couch Photos and Oath

Well today is a bittersweet day.  We are excited to be packing up and getting ready to travel home to see everyone, especially our furry friends!  We are really sad to leave our new friends that we have had such a nice time with and have bonded with very quickly.  It is truly a great support group and it is nice to just have someone to share things with and that they totally understand what we are talking about/feeling/going through. 

We started out the day posing for the infamous "Red Couch" photos.  There is a tradition at the White Swan Hotel that all adoptive children and their families take their pictures on the Red Couch.  It is a fun tradition and we got some good shots of Siena as well as the other girls and their families. 

Then Trena and I decided to brave the taxi's and streets of Guangzhou and try to find the pearl market.  If I didn't think we could compete on the Amazing Race before, I certainly do now.  We were the only blond haired people we saw the whole 3 hours we were gone and everyone we asked directions from didn't speak English.  After several U-turns and a little luck we found the pearl market and had a lot of fun picking out some jewelry.  I purchased a couple of things for Siena for when she gets a bit older. 

This afternoon we headed to the Consulate to take our Oath.  It was about a 40 minute bus ride and we got to see new parts of the city that we haven't explored.  It really is an amazing city and quite large.  Across from the Consulate there is a beautiful park with a neat waterfall. 

At the Consulate we couldn't bring in cameras or any liquids and they screened all of our baggage and us much like at the airport.  The actual Oath ceremony was pretty short and non-descript.  The US Consulate Representative stood before us and talked a bit about their role, how many visa's they process per year and then she asked us to repeat after her with our right hand in the air.  The Oath was really to say that to the best of our abilities and knowledge all of the paperwork we have processed is correct and true.  Once that was over we were handed Siena's passport and visa along with the "Brown Envelope" that contains all of her entry paperwork.  It is in a sealed envelope that we are  not to open until we reach our port of entry, which is Newark.  Once we reach Newark, Siena is officially a US Citizen.  That is pretty cool!

We ended the evening back at Lucy's for dinner with our whole group including Minhau.  It was pouring down rain but we didn't care, the food was good and the company was fun. 

We are now in the process of finishing our packing.  We are taking a train to Hong Kong tomorrow and then we fly on Saturday from Hong Kong to Newark and then Newark to Boston.  If all goes as scheduled we will be landing in Boston a little after 5p.m., yippee!

We may not get to post for a bit since we will be traveling but will update the blog once we recover from jet lag early next week.  Take care all!

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