Day 6-8 Tianjin: Taking Care of Business

I'm sorry we're doing such a crummy job of blogging. I'm going to do a catch-up post to fill in some of the gaps.

On Monday we learned that our van driver was in the hospital. Apparently the company only has one van driver so that meant no van for us. Our transportation for the week turned out to be a fleet of special red vehicles usually used to drive wedding parties. Our car had a special theme - Hello Kitty! Anyone who knows me knows how appropriate that is.

After picking up Micah at the orphanage, we made a stop at the Carrefour market to get some supplies. One of our most important purchases was a stroller as 30 pounds gets heavy in a hurry!

Everyone wanted to have a picture taken with the white couple with a Chinese boy. Here's our little rock star with two of his fans.

Did we tell you about split pants? Here's our little clown doing summersaults in the room.

On Tuesday morning, we again took our Hello Kitty wedding car to the Registry Office to make our adoption permanent. We had to state that we were, in fact, adopting Micah and that we love him and would never abandon him. Here's the first official picture of our forever family. Their camera was broken so the picture was taken with our camera.

After the registration office, we had to go to the notary office to swear tin front of an official that we wanted to make the adoption permanent. No pictures were taken at the notary office as Micah had a minor meltdown which isn't tolerated at the notary office.

Mr. Micah is a boy on the go. He is happiest when out and about. We took a walk to a little park which is mainly used by older people to do exercises and practice tai chi. But is was fun for a little boy.

On Wednesday morning, we were actually free to do as we pleased. We took a walk across the bridge by our hotel. You can buy lots of stuff from CDs, to book shelves to live fish on this bridge. Micah was fascinated by the live fish - yu! yu!

Then we walked along the river, saying hi to the families our for walks. We encountered men swimming in the river, even though it was cold. We could hear their shouts from quite a ways away.

On Wednesday afternoon, we returned to the orphanage to pay our orphanage donation and take a quickie tour. This is Micah with Ms. Zhang from the Tianjin CWI. She was a tremendous help with paperwork and with learning more about his time in foster care.

I was concerned that this might be traumatic for Micah, espcially as it took place during his usual nap time. But I don't think he spent much time at the orphange. His biggest complaint seemed to be that we wouldn't take him outside to play and after a fussy period, he crashed hard. We were able to meet and present our gifts in person to the orphanage director. Unfortunately Micah couldn't stay awake for the occasion.

Here is our travel group on the front steps of the orphanage.

After the orphanage visit, we were able to visit (quickly) Micah's finding spot. He was found outside the outpatient clinic of the Children's Hospital. It's on a very busy street. I'm grateful for whomever found and comforted this child. It must have been really tough for a little guy.

I know I owe you more pictures, but I've got a hungry guy who needs his dinner. Tomorrow we move on to Guangzhou.