Its about 9:45pm here, Tuesday night. What a day it has been....
It started out fine with Elle devouring bananas and cantaloupe for lunch. We also found that she likes yogurt and cheerios. She prefers warm milk to drink. We headed out at 8:30am with a whole list of places to go and payments to be made in order to process the adoption and her passport. We arrived at the same place we were yesterday to do the first documents - to find the orphanage staff sitting at the table. At first, Elle paid no attention to the ladies, but the longer we sat there, she couldn't help but try to take her book down to them. I tried not to let her go as they were busy notarizing documents, and it made Elle mad. Her tears made them sad, and Ken had to take over because she is so incredibly strong when she is angry. We did a bunch of documents then, gave them our donations, etc.
After they left, we went downstairs to do her passport photos and some other documents. When we got off the elevator, guess who was standing in the hallway.... Obviously, the photos don't have a smiley girl in them because she got wound up yet again. We signed more papers and headed back upstairs to wait for them to be completed. After they brought them to us, we went to the Notary Office (I think anyway). Guess who was standing in that room when we arrived.... It was like going through this over and over and over.... I know she loved them and they cared for her, but it was becoming almost cruel to keep bumping into them.
We headed out again after more paperwork. The boys told us that the orphanage staff was in a silver van behind us. We were all going to Panjin to the Police Station then to do more for her passport. Panjin is about 2 or 3 hours away. As we were getting onto the toll bridge, our guide realized that the first office had written my address in the line where my passport number was to be and that number in another line. This would make the documents invalid, so we had to drive back into Shenyang. The office we needed to go to was closed until 1pm, so we ate lunch at KFC while we waited.
At 1:20pm, the form was redone and taken to another office that we had not been to before. Then, in a mad rush, we headed to Panjin again.... The police station was willing to stay open until 4:30pm because of the paperwork issue, so were were on a deadline. The traffic on their "interstate" is indescribable. Just as I was taking out my camcorder to film the last few miles of greenhouses, cows, and hay fields, something popped inside the van and smoke was pouring everywhere. It was freezing cold as we stood shivering along side the highway... But guess who came to pick us up - you guessed it, orphanage staff! At least it was a man this time instead of the girls, but he was the same guy who was with the girls both today and yesterday. Ken and I are not sure if he is their director or what his position is... Anyway, after crossing eight plus lanes of insane traffic to get in his van, he raced us through Panjin's crowded streets (Bryant does have a knot on his head from a pothole beyond description).
We arrived a the police station at about 4:50pm, and they did the paperwork as best they could. There were items that weren't going to be done after hours, however, so they will be mailed back to Shenyang. Hopefully, it will be speedy and won't alter our timelines. As a result of the van tragedy, another van was sent to Panjin from Shenyang to get us. In the meantime, we sat at a restaurant and waited the three hours for his arrival. As we left Panjin, we saw fireworks in the sky. Nobody seemed to know what they were celebrating, so we decided that maybe it was a good omen. A celebration that PanSuo was with our family now and that things would be good from here on out - and that we'd be home soon. Of course, I'm sure it just "ignited" the boys' wish to buy fireworks while we are here, but that's NOT HAPPENING.
Needless to say, now that we are back in our hotel room, we feel safer and more at ease, but we hope and pray that all the paperwork is done smoothly and without anymore glitches. We are thankful that we made it back OK, but we are not interested in doing this again - way too much excitement and adventure for us boring people! We have laughed about how we can put the van explosion in our Christmas letter, but that was only after we were on our way back to Shenyang.
Here are a few photos, but I promise to post more tomorrow morning when my eyes can focus again.
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