We are in Urumqi!

I missed a day of posting but it was one long day and I'll try to post twice today to make up for it. We had our bags ready by 6am and left for the airport around 6:30. Our flight left at 8:45 and we arrived in Urumqi at 12:50. Lily slept for about 30 mins on the flight and was going strong the rest of the time, I wish I could say the same for her parents. It really helped to have ViVi for Lily to play with. Becky was great at giving the kids stuff to do on the airplane. They had a laptop with a cartoon DVD and it was funny to watch other passengers sneaking peaks of what the kids were watching. We met our local guide Wendy and made our way to our hotel the Hoi Tak. It is located right in the center of this huge city. The city looks different from other Chinese cities we have been to. Not sure at this point how to describe it, I think there is more space between the buildings, roads are not as narrow and more trees. We did see some interesting hillside dwellings that appear to back right into the hills. Our hotel is ultra modern and it took us some time to figure out how to make things work. Everything is run off one master control panel, the lights, the AC, the TV and DVD and it took us awhile to even discover the panel. Lily pointed to a box on the top shelf of the closet and asked me what it was. I had to explain that it was a gas mask. She was very interested in the picture of the adult with a gas mask on helping the child put on one. We are not in Springfield anymore.
While the Dad's took the kids swimming, the Mom's struggled to do the paperwork. The four of us met in Elsie's room and I think she had her heater turned up to 100 degrees. (meanwhile we are running the AC in our room) Elsie told us exactly what to put down as all the paperwork is in Chinese. We finally finished up around 5:30. We had run out of snacks at this point and needed a grocery store. Elsie and Wendy took us over to a shopping center. When you walk in you think you are in Macy's, the typical make-up counters are everywhere but in the basement is a full scale grocery store with live fish and turtle tanks. It always amazes me the number of employees in these places. I think realistically it was one employee per customer. I remember many times covering an entire Walmart with no help in site. We bought some snacks and headed back to the hotel. We were so tired at this point that room service was the only option. Lily fell asleep around 8 and had a restful night, thank goodness. John and I also caught up on some missing sleep, although the bed is made out of a sheet of plywood. I had time yesterday to unpack the suitcases and get the gifts ready for today.
It's about 6am and breakfast starts at 7. We leave for the civil affairs office at 9:40 to meet the kids. Urumqi is on the same time zone as Beijing but being so far West the sun does not come up until 8-9 so the people here have adjusted their time to coincide with the daylight. Normal work day starts at 10am, so we are meeting the kids bright and early. It will be a very hectic day. After our 2 hour "harmony time" with the kids (yes, we have 2 whole hours to bond before the adoption) we eat a quick lunch at the local KFC and then have two more stops to get the adoption finalized and send off for Luke's passport. There is no backing out at this point, not that we would no matter what but here we are all four families getting special needs children who are 3-5 years old, we've never met them, traveled halfway across the world to get them and in a few short hours they are legally our children. Am I excited? you bet. Am I scared? You bet! I see why the Chinese are so confused by our desire to adopt these children. Sometimes you just have to forge ahead and do what you think it right.
Lily is very excited to meet Luke and we are bringing lots of activities to keep them busy while we wade through the paperwork.
More later........