Formal Adoption Day!

Today (actually yesterday--Tuesday--I'm posting for yesterday) was the day that we formally adopted PH into our family.  We went to the Civil Affairs Office and they had a nice little ceremony for all of the parents who adopted this week--about 5 of us, I think.  We all were brought into a circle and formally presented with our adoption certificates (a document that we will need and use throughout PH's life) in a ceremonial fashion.  You can see a photo of the paperwork and of PH making his handprint to indicate that he is willing to join our family. 


Then we went to do several steps of paperwork.  First, PH needed a photo taken for his visa or passport application (not sure which).  This was interesting, because apparently the government had given permission and was somehow paying for an entire farming village to go to an area near Hong Kong.  They were all in the office to have their photos taken.  Hard to put into words the throng this created.  We were in the middle of it, but our guide somehow managed to get the village to let us get in front of them for PH's photo.  Otherwise waiting in that line would have been our entire day.  One man wanted to sell us local honey from his bike basket. 


After that we went to the police station and had some steps there.  I'm going to include a photo of JE standing in line for part of the process--the guide and parents stood in one line while he stood in another.  This was all great people watching and experience.  Many little children like to see L. and JE up close and sometimes both adults and children like to practice saying "Hello". The police official was a woman and was very kind to PH and to us. 


Next step... the notary's office to have documents notarized.  One step with this is that we all have our photo made with the notary to prove that we went through the process. 


After this PH started saying "Woh eh le." ("I'm hungry.").  Have I mentioned that he eats like our son P.?  Well, he does.  Jon says he is going to have to add a part time job at Kroger to get the food discount and I don't think he was kidding.  I think we had better get cranking on the garden when we get back.  Anyway, when I told PH we were going to have mian tou (noodles) again today, he informed me through our guide's translation that too many instant noodles were not healthy for the body!  Everyone's a critic.  :)



After this unhealthy meal, we walked and did a little shopping... you can see a few images here.  We made a lot of friends along the way.  It's hard to tell, but the little guy in the photo was wearing split pants and he took advantage of the convenience in the store floor while we were there.   Students might want to look up the tradition of split pants.  

We had pizza in an italian restaurant in our hotel for dinner.  P. will remember we ate Italian quite a bit when we were in Chengdu too.  We'll go back to Chinese for dinner on Wednesday. We swam after dinner--there was a lot of energy to manage, I will say.  The shallowest water was over 4 feet and the smaller two boys were floating around in little inflatable rings. Jon deserves some praise--the boys had a great time. 


We are goign to visit a province museum on Wednesday and take a big trip to the Shaolin temple (birthplace of Kung Fu) on Thursday, so if people from school are tuning in, don't give up on us...we will include some wider cultural education type information soon.  You might look up information on the Shaolin temple--lots to read about it.  Some kids might have seen Kung Fu Panda.