our consulate visit is done!

Now Alexander Fuyuan will be an American citizen when we go through immigration in Chicago!

We took a 40 minute bus ride with the other two families from our group who had their CA yesterday. Only families adopting kids under two went today, the other families in our group will go tomorrow.

Then we went up several floors on the escalators, showed our passports, and went up one more escalator. Then "American-style" security - shoes off, even for babies. People go through metal detectors, bags and shoes go through x-ray machine. No electronics allowed in, even baby toys with batteries.

We sat in chairs and waited for "the parents of Qing Fu Yuan" to be called, then we went up to the window. Richard signed a couple of places on YuanYuan's DS-230 form, then we sat some more and waited for all of the families to be done. Then one of the Consulate staff came out and talked to us about China, Spring Festival and its impact on travel, etc. Then we all raised our right hands and took the oath on behalf of our children, went down several floors of escalators, waited for the bus, and rode home.

Tomorrow we will go to the zoo. Sometime late in the afternoon we will receive Andy's passport and visa. The day after tomorrow, we leave for the airport at 6:40 am to catch our 10:00 am flight to Beijing. We get to hang out in Beijing for a few hours before we catch our flight to Chicago. It is an overnight flight, so hopefully YuanYuan will sleep. (please, please, please let him sleep!)

We are so excited to be coming home soon! We miss our girls so much.