Lights Out!

The end of another wonderful but long & hot day... We started our day with a wonderful breakfast at the hotel. We are staying at the White Swan, which was the first 5 star hotel in China. We had heard great things about this hotel, but were blown away at how great it is. It's an amazing hotel with great food, shopping, and impeccable service. Heavy emphasis on the shopping for Mommy & Mia... That should help our two weeks go by a little quicker...

After breakfast we headed over to the Civil Affairs office to take our government family photo, followed by two interviews to confirm our intentions and formally commit to love, nurture and never abandon our child.

After the second interview the adoption was formalized and Mia is truly now Mia Sara Jia Lovell. Sara is in honor of Stacy's late Grandmother, Sara Grossman, who was a very special person in our lives. Jia was Mia's given Chines name. Actually it was Song Jia Feng. Song is the family name given to all children from her orphange, with Jia Feng being her unique name. We maintained Jia as a tie to her homeland. Unfortunately, the trip home from the Civil Affairs office wasn't so smooth. The bus driver decided to leave for a more lucrative job while we were in the office. So six couples carrying seven babies (twins in our group!) were stuck standing on a crowded street in 95 degree weather with about 100% humidity, and it just happened to be nap time for all the kids!! Thankfully our interpreter was able to negotiate for another bus to take us back after a slight delay.

After a busy morning we all decided to forgo exploring the neighborhoods today, and instead spent time in our rooms with our babies. We're still pretty exhausted and in fact skipped dinner tonight and I put Stacy & Mia to bed about 15 minutes ago... I'm sure it won't surprise any of you to hear that Stacy has not taken a moment to herself. With very little sleep or food, Stacy is the absolute picture of sunshine to little Mia. I'm pretty sure Mia has received more love, attention and stimulation in the past 36 hours than she did in the past 7 months in the orphanage. Even more amazing is that her caring and nurturing for Dad has not dwindled a bit. We're both very lucky to have such an incredible Mom & wife...

Good night!