September 10, 2007 GOTCHA DAY!!

Well the day is not over but I just had to write...
Things are going unbelieveably well!!!!!
We got up this morning and went to breakfast and while we were in the restaurant Jacky called and said that Esther was delayed an hour, we would meet in the lobby at 9:40 instead of 8:40 to go to Civil Affairs Office.
We arrived at Civil Affairs about 10:00 and we went up to the third floor. There was a large waiting room with several families waiting for their babies. We were one of two families waiting for older children. The other family is Wendy and Kent from Ohio, adopting a five year old little girl. We met them at breakfast this morning.
The moment we have been waiting for came shortly after 10:00 ... in she walked...There was quite alot of crying from the little babies so it was very noisy in the room... she looked a little nervous... but not for long. She came over to us and we hugged and said hello. A few minutes later she kissed me on the cheek all on her own! I was somewhat surprised but thrilled beyond belief... my first kiss! She then kissed Ba Ba and Jie Jie.
The assistant director of the SWI gave us some of Esther's school books she has been working on. We were then presented with a very large scroll; an older boy in Esther's orphanage hand wrote a very famous poem on it for us. We will have to have it translated. They told us he and Esther are very close... he probably is going to miss her very much. We gave her gifts to her... a doll and a teddy bear... she loved them.
We went back to the hotel and Jacky went up to our room with us. We showed her her clothing and she wanted to put on a new dress of hers... she picked a white dress with pink flowers. The sandals I brought fit her but not with much room to grow. We went to lunch at K.F.C. Jacky was surprised at how much she ate. Jie Jie and Esther played at the inside play area.
Then we went to a department store and did a little shopping. She had never been to a large department store before. We let her push the cart around but after running into a couple people including Jacky and almost knocking over displays, we took over the steering. We took her to the toy department which consisted of only about 30 feet of toys, unlike our stores which would have aisle after aisle. We let her pick out a toy and she chose a Kelly doll with a bed. The doll gets the chicken pox with cold water and then gets better with warm water. (I hope that is not a sign of things to come). Then we let her pick out a nail polish color which took her a while to decide... Baba said, "well she is a girl..." She chose pink to match her dress. We caught a taxi back to the hotel and said good-bye to Jacky until tomorrow.
This evening we took a walk down the streets. We were looking for wrapping paper for the gifts that we brought for the officials we will see tomorrow during our adoption process. We found some at a flower shop... mission accomplished :)
We walked back to our hotel and stopped in the playroom down the hall from our room and we all played ball. Then we took Esther to see the pool, she is very excited about that. We called the Z family and their adoption of Gabriel i sgoing well also...we can't wait for the kids to meet! We had dinner here in the hotel again tonight but this time a table for four please! Esther eats everything, no problem there. Her favorite food is apples and watermelon so we ordered a plate of watermelon just for her for dessert. I think she was full but when that watermelon showed up her eyes lite up and she found room.
The girls just finished bathing and big sister is showing her the ropes. They look so cute in their jammies... night... night...