We managed to finish all our business in Xi'an and leave on schedule. I know that by looking at the photos, you'd think we were here on vacation, and we have been surrounded by countless families here for just that. Xi'an is an amazing city. We have scratched just the surface of the things to do and see here and we feel totally overwhelmed by it. Yet we aren't here for any of that; we are here to complete the international adoption of our fourth son, Shen.

On the leg of our journey here in Xi'an, besides receiving Shen, we completed his adoption here in China, had a number of important documents related to this process produced, copied and notarized, and applied for his Chinese passport. Once all the paperwork was filed we had only five days here to get the documents before leaving for Guangzhou. Adoptive families pay expediting fees to make this all happen within this tight timeframe. You often hear of families getting their documents at the very last minute, or worse, having to arrange to stay longer, or get documents couriered to them after leaving the province for Guangzhou in order to meet the rest of the deadlines in the process.

When we adopted Kai things went pretty smoothly and we had all the documents in our hands well before it was time to move on. This time however, we were riding the edge. Our guide called us the day before we were to leave, and told us she had all the notarized copies of everything but the passport was still not ready. Hopefully, she said, it would be ready tomorrow. "Hopefully" is not a word you want to hear associated with anything on this kind of trip. The morning we were to leave Tori met us in the lobby and explained that we would check out of our room at 2:00 PM, She would meet us at 4:30 PM, we would drive to the civil affairs office to meet the official with the passport right at their closing time on our way to the airport to board a 7:30 PM flight. Since the airport is an hour drive, this timeframe was a little stressful. Amazingly, it all went according to plan, and we are now in Guangzhou with all the documents we need to file for Shen's U.S. citizenship and immigration visa.

There was a bit of a mixup around our flight tickets as they got scrambled with another families, and even after we straightened that out we weren't assigned seats together. My solution was to simply take seats that were together. When the Chinese speaking ticket holder for the seat I occupied tried to explain to me I was in his seat, I simply told him, "Yes, I know, but I'm sitting here now, you can take it up with the flight crew." As he repeatedly showed me his ticket I would nod, and suggest he find another seat quickly before takeoff. I felt bad for him, but I had my own problems; and as Kai and Shen were both crying hysterically when it was time to fasten seat-belts I think the ticket-holder for my seat began to realize he didn't really want it.

So here's a few pictures of our last day in Xi'an...

Packing up a hotel room with 2 preschoolers is a challenging task - especially when you're as bad at packing light as we are, but we managed to get it all loaded up...


We went to lunch one last time at Pizza Hut (yep - ate there three times, I'm such a hypocrite) Here's the guy who knew our order the minute we came in the door on our 2nd and 3rd visits...


We wanted to buy some more junk before we left so we hit the Muslim vendor street behind the Drum Tower one last time. Kai really wanted a cricket (they were huge!), but we thought getting it home would be tricky. Kai told us this one was his friend when he was a baby in China...


We picked up a couple little sequined Muslim caps for the boys, as these are specific to this region and not seen in Guangzhou. Shen had had enough at this point...


He did wake up in time to receive his passport though...