Feb 21st, 22nd, 23rd

Hi Folks, 

Today is Wednesday (23rd) evening and things are winding down for the day. Today we had our "red couch" pictures (a tradition where all families adopting from China have their children sit on the White swan hotel red couches for pics in their native clothes)!!! I debated about letting Aiden wear his outfit to breakfast but "my FAMOUS LAST WORDS" told ray he does not get stuff on his clothes so we should just let him wear it.......well, he spilled a whole thing of orange juice on his pants then when brushing his teeth spit toothpaste down the front shoulder/chest area of his shirt....Go figure huh? I told ray this should be great since Aiden is older and wont be acting up on the couch and we should get good pics and i hoped the other kids would "corporate" for a good pic,   because it is usually hard to get a good picture of all the babies when sat on the couch alone they tend to cry but with our group everyone did great EXCEPT Yeap thats right, our Aiden. He was NOT happy that he had to sit on the couch with the "babies" and told me MOMMY I AM NOT A BABY I do not want to sit with them. So i had a pouty pic and rolling eyes pic (see below)....finally we got him to smile.....After pictures we went to chinese market to find a chinese book store for Aiden so he could buy some books. There were animals EVERYWHERE for sale. Aiden kept saying. " Ah mommy the puppies are so cute can i have one?"  I said, "NO!!!! You have Justin the great dane." Aiden, " But i need a puppy, Justin is a dog".....We had our USA consulate appointment today and it was official last document signed AIDEN is officially our kiddo!!! The consulate will not allow cameras but there was one of those fun picture machines at the entrance so we took a picture with the rabbit card (due to Year of Rabbit) as our official first family photo!!! (see below)

Yesterday (Tuesday 22nd): we had LAZY day where we watched movies, played DSI and Ipad games until our dinner river boat cruise!!! The lights were so pretty on the water and it was a fun outing with the group! The tall tower in the picture is the Canton Tower. The tower is the tallest tower in the world, replaced the CN Tower at 553 m in Canada, which previous held the title for 34 years. Also the tallest structure in China (preceded by SWFC) and East Asia, the Canton Tower is the fifth tallest structure and the second tallest freestanding structure in the world (after Burj Khalifa). It is named after "Canton", the traditional European name of the city.

Monday 21st: We went to the Guangzhou Zoo/Safari trip! Aiden LOVED the zoo! We saw the typical animals but the PANDAs were really cool to see. It was a very LONG day of walking and playing followed by a group dinner at a Thai restaurant. 

Our trip is slowly coming to an end. Tomorrow we have another free day with not much on the schedule and then Friday evening we will pick up Aiden's USA visa from the US consulate and take a flight back to Beijing. Saturday, we will meet up with our photographer in Beijing to get our photos and do some final shopping then head to the airport Sunday morning for our flight back to America. The minute we land in America and they stamp Aiden's passport at customs, he will officially become an American!!! Pretty cool!!!

There will probably only be one more email from China going out right before our flight then when we get home