09/15 Visa Processing

We woke up and Esther remembered she had put her tooth under her pillow. She looked right away to see if the money was there! (Yes, the tooth fairy did her job)
We had breakfast downstairs with the whole gang. Connie had directed us to meet in the lobby at 10:30 to walk a couple of blocks to get the children's passport photos taken and to get their physicals done. Both are required at the American Consulate for processing the Visa on Monday. The first place we went was to get the photos done...didn't take long at all... then we went a little bit further down the block to get their physicals done.
We waited a little while because other families were in front of us, but not long. There were three stations for the physical examination to be completed...for example one station weighed, measured height, took temperature, and blood pressure... one checked eye sight for color blindness etc.... one measured head, listened to heart, checked mobility... all three needed to be signed off on but it didn't matter which order, so we picked a station and began. Esther was not concerned at all, plus we were right after Gabriel, the Z family's son who is 8 years old. She watched what happened to Gabriel and then she knew what to expect. Everything went well and we were back to the Victory in about 2 hours total. Baba and big sister had stayed at the Hotel.
We all came back and changed into our bathing suits intending to go swimming but the pool is closed everyday between noon and 4:00 pm. That makes sense... the hottest part of the day... of course. So went went and played ping pong instead. I don't think Esther had ever played before.
At 2:00 we needed to all go to the White Swan Hotel... Connie had reserved a room for us all to do the paperwork together. Both parents needed to come but only one paper needed signing by both parents so the paper was signed and then that parent took the chidren to go do something else. Baba signed and then took the girls around the White Swan, it is a very beautiful hotel with fish ponds, water falls and the famous red couch where adoptive families traditionally take their children's photo on this couch. We will probably pose for this on Tuesday just before our swearing-in appointment at the Consulate.
It took us "paperwork parents" about 2 hours to fill out the papers. Then all the gang went to Lucy's for dinner. Lucy's serves real American food and is well known to the adoptive community. Esther had her first hamburger and fries! There was a little confusion on Mama's part though... Esther scarfed down every fry on her plate before she ate her burger, well she had only taken one bite, and then she wanted to start on my fries... I told her to eat her burger first. She then cut the burger in half and looked a little disinterested in the burger. I thought she was not really wanting to eat it so when she finished the half I switched plates with her and gave her my fries. I then said to Baba, do you want her half burger? I don't think she really likes it... he ate it while she ate my fries. When she finished my fries she looked for her burger and I said, I'm so sorry honey I thought you didn't want it! We were going to order another one but the H's little one had half a burger she hadn't finished, so we gave her that. Just an example of the language barrier and how it works some times....
After dinner we all went swimming. As we invaded the pool with our 11 children the other Chinese guests left one by one...I can't figure out why...
The pool is not as big as at the Dolton but it is on the top floor of the Hotel so you can swim and see the city at the same time...cool! We swam until the pool was closed at 9:00
We all changed and went out shopping. Esther brought her tooth fairy money. She found a Barbie cell phone she wanted. It plays Chinese music... VERY LOUDLY! Much to our dismay. We went back to the hotel about 10:00, the stores were closing.