Officially Ours

I somehow missed the fact that that last Tuesday was Adoption Day and that when we left the Civil Affairs Building after doing the necessary paperwork, Lia Kate was officially ours in China's eyes! Here is a picture of us taken with the red book, which I believe is our official adoption decree from the Chinese government. Since then, we have been working on the U.S. side of paperwork to get our girl home. We applied for Lia Kate's Chinese passport, which will get her to the U.S. (she won't be a citizen until she lands on U.S. soil), and we have also completed paperwork for our U.S. Consulate appointment which was this morning (Tuesday the 29th). We just got the call that all of our paperwork passed the Consulate's approval so we have the all clear to bring her home! Now, all we have left to do is go to the U.S. Consulate this afternoon to take our oath (not sure what we are swearing to, but will tell you about it later), then we wait for her U.S. Visa to be processed, which takes 48 hours. Our guide Rebecca will go back to the U.S. Consulate on Thursday, the 31st, to pick up her Visa, then we will be on our way back to Hong Kong on an afternoon train to catch a flight home. Our plane doesn't leave until Friday, so we will spend one night in Hong Kong. We are so close to being home. We can't wait!!!