Wednesday, June 15, 2011
LAST DAY IN CHINA!

It has been another amazing trip to China! Each of our trips to China have been very special and unique! We are ready to come home and introduce the newest member of our family to everyone! We can't wait to see Sophia, Graham, Parker, Rocky and Wingo!! It will be so nice to be together as a family! We are looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend at home!

Piper continues to show us more and more of her personality! She is very talkative! She babbles all the time and it is just so cute to hear her talk! She had a great night of sleep. She slept through the night and didn't wake up once! We all needed the night of uninterrupted sleep! We decided that since the t.v. seems to calm her down we would turn on the t.v. and just let her fall asleep on the bed by herself. She went right to sleep and Erik was able to move her to the crib. She woke up around 7:00 AM this morning and was so happy! It is so great to see her so happy in the morning! We were able to skpe the children this morning! We were so glad to see them! We missed seeing them yesterday because of having to be out of the room so early for our consulate appointment! We had a late breakfast this morning! Piper ate really well! She ate all of her watermelon and even tried some french toast! We were so glad she ate a good breakfast! We took a walk around the island while they cleaned our room. We found some more gifts at one of our favorite stores called "A Gift From China". This store makes a donation from each sale to the orphans of China! We have bought things there on all three of our trips to Guangzhou! Erik took Piper to the pool and I stayed in the nice cool room! The heat and humidity still really make me tired if we are out in it too long! It was so nice to have a relaxing day in the room! Piper and I took an afternoon nap! Erik took a walk around the island while we were sleeping! Piper and I played in the room while we waited for her visa to be delivered. Our guide delivered Piper's U.S. visa this afternoon around 4:30 PM. We officially are done with the paperwork and Piper can now enter the U.S. She will become a U.S. citizen as soon as we land in Chicago tomorrow afternoon! We went to dinner again at Lucy's! I know we haven eaten there for just about every meal, but we know what Piper will eat there and that is the most important thing to us! She ate very well at dinner tonight! She ate rice with vegetables and egg as well as her favorite french fries! It was actually a nice evening tonight! There was a slight breeze and it wasn't as hot as it has been! We walked to the Subway to get a sandwich for me to take with us tomorrow! We also stocked up on some of Piper's favorite snacks to take on the plane too! We have plenty of oreo cookies and skittles for her! We have some other snacks that I brought from home for her too! We just never know what kind of food will be served on our long trip home!! After that we headed to the playroom to give Piper a chance to run around and play before bed! She loves playing with the toys! She also loves to dance to the music on one of the toys. Piper likes when Erik imitates her hand motions! We took lots of cute video of her tonight! I headed up to the room to write our update and to pack for our trip home tomorrow! It is hard to believe another trip to China is over and we will be bringing another China Angel home with us!

We would like to thank Mom Mom and Dziadzi for watching Sophia, Graham, and Parker while we were away. We know they had a great time staying with you! We would also like to thank Aunt Linda for watching Parker for us too! We would like to thank all of our family and friends who left messages in our guestbook for Piper while we were in China. Those messages meant a lot to us while we were so far from home! We would like to thank Living Hope Adoption Agency for everything they did for our family! Thank you to Sarah for matching us with our precious Piper (and Sophia, and Parker too)! We can't wait for you to match us with Zoe too! Thank you to Aimee who helped us get our dossier ready so quickly this time! Thank you to Elena for another wonderful trip to China! Thank you to Joe and Jennifer at My Adoption Website for creating and maintaining our website while we were in China so that our family and friends could follow our journey to Piper! We can't wait to follow your journey to your daughter very soon!

We are just about packed and ready to leave tomorrow morning! We leave the hotel at 8:30 AM (8:30 PM Wednesday U.S. time). We fly to Beijing from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM. We have a two hour layover in Beijing before we board the plane for Chicago. We fly from Beijing to Chicago from 4:10 PM to 4:03 PM (Chicago time) on Thursday evening. We have a three hour layover in Chicago before we board the plane to Philadelphia. We fly from Chicago to Philadelphia from 7:10 PM (Chicago time) to 10:11 PM. It will be a very long 26 plus hour trip home!

We have loved our time in China! China will always be a very special place to our family because three of our children were born here! We are so blessed to be a family of six! God had given us four treasures to love so far~Sophia, Graham, Parker, and Piper! We can't wait to meet our little man in September too! We will miss China, but we know we will be back again soon to bring Zoe home!