Today is our last night in Wuhan--we leave for Guangzhou tomorrow for seven days to finish paperwork at the U.S. consulate. We have loved the friendly people of Caroline's birth province but are ready to move on. We had a scare today regarding paperwork (imagine that : ) I was in our guide Sherry's room finalizing some documents and she said there was an emergency call from Linekar the AWAA national guide. He said that the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou wasn't satisfied with my fingerprints (that's right six times was not enough). They were requesting an original copy of a police background check ASAP. Problem is it was nighttime in the US when they let us know and I wasn't for sure if I had the original at home or if it were at the Florida AWAA office. Since the AWAA office was closed I placed a call to our friends the Walkers (sorry for the wake-up call Roger) to be on standby to possibly go search our house for the document if need be. We stayed up late here to call the Florida AWAA office when they opened and Pat was on top of things (as usual), found the needed document and is sending it the fastest possible way to arrive at our next stop. Whew--as if we needed more excitement. Pray that what is sent is all they need.

Sorry not many pictures to post. Darrin had the camera with him on a trip to Caroline's orphanage and finding spot. He is so glad he got the chance to go as it really brought it all home for him. Hopefully he'll post more tomorrow about that but we've decided to not post her finding spot photos but keep them for Caroline until she's old enough to decide who to show them to. It's pretty emotional and I wasn't even there.

Caroline and I had a good time. She was napping when Darrin left for his trip and when she woke up she was't out of sorts with him being gone. I got lots of laughs playing peek-a-boo and letting her look in the mirror (she loves watching herself). She sat in a chair by herself and ate crackers while I had lunch in the room and grunted when she was ready for another. She is brave at trying lots of new foods as long as it doesn't require a spoon. We then took a trip around the hotel and ended up in the lobby and had an interesting encounter with a Chinese couple. We were sitting on a couch in a sitting area when the older man and woman came and set down on an opposite couch. They began a lively conversation in Chinese obviously about us that lasted for several minutes. I wasn't sure is it were a good lively or a bad lively. Then the woman motioned for us to come sit beside here. She wanted Caroline to come to her which I would have been OK with, but Caroline refused. She then settled to have Caroline sit in between us. Between her broken English and my horrible Chinese we tried to have a conversation about Caroline's age, size, personality and how long I had been her Mommy. She checked her over well and even felt of her clothing to see if she was properly dressed. She went back to a Chinese conversation with her husband and I got nervous. We stood to excuse ourselves and the lady said goodbye and gave us a thumbs up. It was such a nice experience as I'm never really sure how the Chinese view our being here. Hopefully it's evident how much we love her already.

Please continue to pray for Caroline. It's obvious that she's been loved a lot by somebody but she has a lot of catching up to do on the developmental side. She can hardly roll over on her own and sitting up and standing is not something she enjoys at all. She can only walk with us holding her hands and doesn't really want to do that either. We know she is a very smart girl--she loves to imitate lots that we do and has a great sense of humor. She's tiny too--by our scales about 20 pounds. She's older but smaller than most of the girls in our group. While she's content to be held, others are really moving about. We know she has been held and babied alot by some men folk : ) That's good and bad. When Darrin isn't around she's a lot more adventurous and willing to try new things with me. She just wants to cling to him, which he loves, but needs a break from sometimes. I must bag on him a bit. He is such a nuturer and has done a super job of soothing and cuddling her. He is a super dad, right Drew?

And did we mention she's beautiful. The pictures don't do her justice. She has the sweetest little face and we hope to capture it better soon. I've got to get those smiles for you. She has a very sheepish little grin-it fits her perfectly. She has lots of hair like the Souths and I'm just not sure what to do with it. To soothe herself she twirls it with her fingers, making most girly hair things near impossible. We might have to try a hat.

I'll try to post tomorrow, but it may be late when we get it.