White Swan and Lu Ming

 Sunset view from Baiyun Mtn area

We started our day with a trip to the US Consulate.  We said our oath on behalf of Quinn for citizenship and turned in some paperwork.  We'll receive our sealed envelope of documents from the Consulate tomorrow.  This ppwk is what we've been waiting for in order to leave.  Once we arrive in the US, we'll turn in the sealed envelope to Immigration and we'll receive Quinn's certificate of Citizenship sometime later in the mail.  That simple!  Ha!  If only everything else thus far had been this simple:)

After that appt, we got all our gear ready for another trip to Shamian Island to take the traditional picture of Quinn on the red sofa at the White Swan Hotel.  I wish I knew more about this tradition.  All I DO know is that the White Swan hotel used to be THE place for adoptive families to stay when they were adopting.  Now it is closed for renovations, but they have left the lobby area open and there were still many visitors inside. I'm assuming the tradition developed to take a "lucky" picture of the children in traditional Chinese attire on the sofa.  Chris was not too thrilled about completing this tradition, but he humored me so I could get a few photos:)  Notice the obligatory and stunning Christmas tree in the lobby to compliment the waterfall!





SO ELEGANT! ( As we were told her name means in Chinese today)

Shamian Island is beautiful, as I mentioned before.  There are many sculptures scattered around the island.  We thought this one was pretty cool, displaying the changes in the culture of Chinese women over time.  Here's Quinn checking out her ancestors:)











Then we hit a playground at the Shamian Park.  Quinn has NO fear as you can see...she's gonna LOVE hanging out with her fearless older brothers!



After a brief siesta, we headed back out for dinner with Jack.  It was our "Thank you for being so great and we'll miss you" dinner.  We went back to the Baiyun Mountain area and went to a top-notch restaurant on the lake.  I cannot begin to describe the beauty and extravagance of this restaurant, Lu Ming.  We had our own private room.  There were lights twinkling EVERYWHERE!  My pictures don't do it justice, but here are a few, including sunset by the lake.  You can pick out your own seafood here.  Notice this big, bad fish.  No, we did not feast on this grumpy-looking beast, but we did eat sea whelk, a sea snail...not half bad:)



Chris and I are working on our top ten list of things we miss about the US and things we'll miss about China.  I'll report the entire list tomorrow, but the top of the US list are Colin and Owen....one more night and we'll be heading their way:) 
P.S. Chris has been getting on me about not using spell check.  Sorry for all my errors, but it's amazing enough I am writing every day!
P.S.S. I can't delete the following pictures for some reason so here they are again...enjoy!