Today we swore we told the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Oh, I can't wait to be home!! We are really itching to have life back to normal a little. It will really be quite some time yet, with the wedding this weekend, but even landing in Chicago will feel good. All those people who speak English! I will really appreciate that when ordering food at a restaurant. I have enjoyed the cultural experience though. It makes my view of the world that much more accurate, I guess. The Chinese people people are very warm even though they push and shove a lot and don't say excuse me. I suppose that comes with having more people than your average country.

OK, so today was pretty average for us. No one got hit by a car or anything extraordinary. We skyped our community group during their weekly meeting to start our day. That was fun. It made us long for home a little more. Dave stayed in the room for Sophia's morning nap while Lauren, Marcus, and I headed to a park about 3 blocks away with our travel group. The Chinese people do parks very well. We've been told that they have such grand parks because their homes (apartments) are so tiny. They spend time outside instead of in. The park we went to today is huge, has a lake, paths, an exercise park, a toddler park, an amusement park, gardens, dancers, a couple of restaurants, food stands (to us, they are mostly ice cream vendors) and that was only the part we went through in an hour.

Another interesting cultural thing we've found out is that professional wedding photos are not taken on the day of the wedding. They could be weeks or months or even a year apart. They could come before the wedding or after. Also, the parents of the couple set the date. They don't necessarily pick Saturdays of even weekends either. They pick a day depending on it's luckiness. I am not sure what determines luckiness, but apparently, that's the key. Anyway, we keep seeing brides and grooms in various parks we go to. The brides are always breathtakingly beautiful. And there is always a photographer handy. Today we saw two of them at this particular park.

After lunch, we had a very important appointment at the US consulate. We, along with about 40 other adoptive parents and their children had to sign an important immigration paper today and then take an oath. We swore that we, as our child's representative, have told the truth. I guess we have to do that so that the US government can trust these tiny immigrants. I could solemnly swear that Sophia is just immigrating to be my little girl, and that she isn't going to be a terrorist or anything like that.

Tomorrow is visa day. We will pick up Sophia's Chinese passport with a single entry US visa in it! We will also get some very important documentation that will make her a US citizen as soon as we touch down in Chicago! Soon and very soon.