Blessed and Ready to Head Home

Today we spent the morning at the Six Banyan Temple where Katie was blessed by a monk. Only 3 families went to the temple and only us chose to have our babie blessed, the Kinnamon's and us. That was fine, more blessings for us! It was a neat little ceremony, but the most ironic thing to me was that the monk was dressed in traditional, simple clothes and had a Nike (brand) ski cap on his head to keep his shaved head warm. I had just slipped out of my Nike tennis shoes (no shoes on during the blessing), so I felt like that was a sign from Buddha that Katie would have much luck and a long and prosperous life. Everything is about good luck here in China, so sometimes I make up my own little sources of luck!

Mom and I shopped like maniacs today to spend the last of our Yuans. We shopped before leaving for the Temple, then shopped until we went to the American Consulate at 2:45. Then we returned home and I picked up a few more things. After dinner, I did the remaining little shopping and picked up an additional suitcase. (For anyone keeping count, I have added 2 bags that are both larger than any of the 3 I came with.)

The American Consulate visit was our last hurdle before traveling home. No cameras were allowed, so no pictures, but you're not missing much. We rode a bus for almost an hour, sat in a large room with lots of other adoptive parents, eventually were told to raise our right hand and swear about a couple of different things, then we got our Visa for Katie and could leave. And so we can now leave China.

We celebrated with a "group" dinner with me and 3 of the other families in our group of 9 families. Since arriving at the White Swan, our travel group has somewhat lost our bond to each other. Some families are sticking close to their room, mostly due to not feeling great and being ready to be home. It isn't as easy to just leave your door open here, and there is always a woman in the middle of our hallway watching us come and go, so it is a more formal environment. I have found that I have spent more time with different people than I did in Nanchang, so I can honestly say that I feel like I know everyone from our original group of 7 very well. I hope we can all stay in touch as our daughters grow up.

Afterwards, mom helped supervise my packing up of our stuff. The extra suitcase that I purchased tonight was needed. Everything is full, but not over stuffed like coming over here. We are definitely leaving with a lot more stuff than we came with. I figure about 1/3 of what is coming home actually came with us, the rest is from shopping. (Brad, don't worry! You won't believe how cheap it is over here. This is like Target's 75% of clearance EVERY day. No sale needed...plus I've gotten to be a pretty good bargainer.)

We take the train to Hong Kong tomorrow, then Friday morning we're on the plane to Chicago. I'm not sure I've ever looked more forward to coming home...

It's 11:30 here now, so I'm heading to bed since it is an early morning for us. Sorry, no captions on the photos. I'll try to add those tomorrow.

Mom and Katie were both astounded here, as you can see by the looks on their faces, to see Elvis is alive and well and living here at a Temple in China as a Monk. (Okay, not entirely the truth, but I loved this photo so much I had to include it. -L)

Katie's last night in mainland China...

Brad, you might need a U-Haul truck...