Journey to AubriAnna

We had one tired little girl! She normally gets up at 6:30 a.m. at the orphanage, but she must have been exhausted from all the confusion & going ons yesterday. Jimmy had to wake her about 8 a.m. this morning. She took a full bottle of milk/rice cereal then ate steamed egg at breakfast with us.

We left at 9:30 a.m. & headed to the Civil Affairs Office again. There were several families there with their babies. Not as much crying this time. AubriAnna was a little trooper! She laughed & played! The vice-president of the Nanjing orphanage came & brought gifts for her. She gave her a yellow jade stone. It was a ball & the city animal on top. The dragon represents China & it has 9 sons. The youngest son represents Nanjing City. It is called "the Evil Dispellar". So this was a yellow jade ball & dragon on top. On the bottom of the ball, her Chinese name was engraved. Very nice gift. Jade is VERY expensive here. The other gift was for our family. It was a Brocade of the youngest dragon in a beautiful frame. There are only 30 looms left in China & they are worked by 2 people per loom. They only make 2-3 cm per 8 hours of work. Very unique & beautiful. We were honored by the gift. After she had been holding AubriAnna for a while & loving on her, AubriAnna reached for Jimmy! This seemed to make the vice-president happy. I suppose it was a ease to her to see how quickly AubriAnna was bonding with us! We could tell that they all love AubriAnna very much.

After she left, we spoke with the 1st official. We promised to never abandon or abuse her. To always love her & why we wanted to adopt from China. We signed some papers & put our right thumb print over our names on each page. We presented him with a small gift then moved to the 2nd official. We had to fill out some more papers & sign them. We presented her with a small gift then went back to the room we had been waiting in before. After about 10 minutes, Denise (our guide) came back in & handed us our Chinese decree & said, Congratulations! She is now your daughter! Such a sweet sweet moment!

We then went to a jade market to look around then to Wal Mart to buy her a few clothes. When we got back to the room, we video called Jess & Zac. Sure do miss those guys! I've never been away from them this long! AubriAnna showed out for them! She has laughed & played all day! She fell asleep in my arms while we were talking to them. She's napping now & so is Jimmy! We can't seem to shake this jetlag. I can't hardly sleep on the bed tho. I honestly think they put plywood in the top of the mattress & put a very thin layer of padding over that! lol Jimmy can sleep on a rock I do believe!

We've been videoing her & taking pics! And she is a camera ham!! She LOVES music & dancing! She has the best temperment! God has truly blessed us!