Bringing Home Elora: Day Nine - Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Today we just had to wait for Mr. Li to pick our completed items up at the US Consulate. We knew he wouldn't be around for that until around 4:30 p.m., so we had most of the day to do whatever. We did a morning Skype session with the family, and we had bonus family back home, as Don and Karen had come to visit everyone while we were away. We then had breakfast and wandered around the area some more. Heidi and Elora wound up having lunch at a karaoke bar. I ate at McDonald's and then came to join them.

As everyone can imagine, I was very tempted to do the karaoke thing. The way they do it here is different though. The perimeter of the restaurant had about 7 studio rooms that smaller groups rent to go have fun. Heidi said they had them in Japan, too. If only Steve, Angie, Lane and the rest of the summer cruise party were here, I would have totally rented out one of the rooms. I almost tried it anyway, as the worker said they had English songs. Unfortunately, her English wasn't good enough to explain to me how the rates worked, how long, if I could look at their songs first, etc., so we passed. She said it was 110 yuan (about $18 USD) for 7...Then she didn't know the word to finish her sentence, 7 hours, 7 songs, 7 people, until 7 o'clock??? I had no idea, so we passed.

We then went back to the 711 and another shop to buy a couple things. We got back to the room, and housekeeping was there. We have the worst timing with them. We hung out at the rooftop poolside area until housekeeping was gone.

Mr. Li came by later with our immigration packet that we can't open until we hit the states. They open it there and when we enter at LA Elora will be a US citizen! Amazing stuff!!! We visited with Mr. Li for a little while. He is very nice to talk with and we appreciate all of his experience with adoption, his familiarity with the US and English, and it is nice to talk about China and his family with him. He is going to take us to the airport tomorrow (Wednesday) 1 p.m. We took some pictures with him before he left for the day.

I started packing some after that, but it is a slow process for me. I guess I am just too last minute of a person. Between the dirty clothes, the clean clothes, the souvenirs, the snacks, what we need on the plane, what we need in LA in carry-on bags and not checked, etc., it was just too much for me to want to mess with. Elora was kind of distracting, too, pulling her bag around we bought for her and hiding in our other luggage. Got some cute pics of that though.

I got a couple of bags packed and quit to go get more of that great pizza from Calgary Stampede. Elora likes pizza. I finally got her to eat it holding pieces in her hands. We also did our evening Skype call with the fam back home. After that, no more packing. I decided to hang out with Elora, who had laid newspaper out on the hotel room floor to play hopscotch...LOL. I'm sure tomorrow I'll be throwing it all together. :)