I hate to say it but...

Anna really is the CUTEST one here!! I mean I know I'm her mama and am suppose to think my child is adorable but after seeing all the children with their new forever families there is no comparison, Anna is the most precious one here! Even Abby will look around and whisper to me 'Mommy, Anna is the cutest baby here'...such the proud big sister!

It has been a nice change of pace and scenery being here in Guangzhou this past week. It is much different than the last city we were in. The sidewalks are safer to walk on, there are many more shops, the hotel is super nice with beautiful landscaping as well as a swimming pool with a water fall (the big girls favorite part). Before we came here, our last day in Nanchang was spent getting an 80 minute foot massage for only $8.00. That included tip too! Definitely can't find that good of deal back in the states. They even massaged our arms, legs and back too! For that price, we all went, so Jaime, me and the girls split one and that costs us all a whopping $25. We flew here Friday night and that was Anna's first time on a plane. Thankfully the flight was only about 1 1/2 hours and she did pretty good except getting a little fussy at take off and was crying a bit at touchdown. We have one other short flight (tomorrow to Hong Kong) before the long one to California which is Thursday. We are praying that one goes smoothly and she can sleep some, as well as be occupied by her sisters.

The first day we were here, Saturday, we had to take Anna's picture for her Visa and then went to have a medical exam done. Not much to that exam so we will definitely take her to see our pediatrician when we get back home. We did some shopping and walking around as well, and then that night we had a group dinner with the other families from our agency (13 families total). The following day, Sunday we had made arrangements with our agency ahead of time to not go to some temple the group was going to but instead go to the safari and boy was that an AWESOME decision on Jaime's part! That was an incredible safari! There are two parts to the safari, first on a train (or car) where you drive through to see all the animals and then the other part is on foot walking around just like at a zoo. This place is by far better than any zoo I've been to! So many animals to see and many were up close and we were able to feed some too. I'll include the link to our website so you can see all the pictures of that and others we've taken on our trip. If you click 'view slideshow' it goes pretty quickly to view all the pictures to music.

After the safari we took the girls (all three of them) swimming and they loved it! Ok, the big girls loved it...Anna, well, not so much. She did ok, she cried a little bit and then tolerated it and then was ready to get out, but hey, at least she got in. The water was very cold so maybe if it was warmer it would have been a different experience.

Yesterday was a low key day, we slept in, went shopping and then in the afternoon we were finally able to meet Jenny, the executive director of True Children's Home, where Anna has spent the majority of her life. We would have LOVED to tour the place but it's almost 2 hours away from here and then we weren't sure what to do with Anna because we didn't want her to go in and see the place as it might make her sad seeing her old friends and caretakers and she has made such great progress. We didn't want to do anything to cause a setback. But we were so thankful to at least have met Jenny...she is the one that always kept us in the loop about Anna Wei Wei, sent us pictures and video footage of her, so that was wonderful getting to meet her. And another amazing thing about Jenny, in talking to her yesterday, is she is a Christian, so how much more comforting that was to find out the place in China where Anna was is run by a Christian woman. She even told us they'd sing Jesus Loves me a lot to the kids....just precious!

Today we had to get up early and go to the US consulate for an oath taking ceremony (on Anna's behalf) for her to receive her Visa which will be ready tomorrow. Once we touch down at our first stop in the US she will officially be a US citizen...woohoo!! Right now Jaime is swimming with the big girls while Anna is napping and I'm getting this blog caught up. Probably the last time I'll post in China, as we will be packing tomorrow and then heading to Hong Kong tomorrow evening, where we will stay one night and then fly home on Thursday!! We can not wait!

This has definitely been an amazing journey that we will always cherish and never forget. I'm so glad we brought our older girls and they were able to experience this with us. They have done an amazing job and we are so proud of them. Yes, they've had their moments but considering they've been stuck in a hotel room for 15 days with just each other (no friends from back home, no backyard to play in, no pets, no tv, etc.) and in another country as well as getting used to a new sister, I'd say we coudn't have asked for them to be any better! Thanks to everyone for their prayers and we ask for continued prayers for our flight back home!!

Our website link if you want to view our pictures is... http://www.reyesfamily.phanfare.com/

Thanks!
~Melissa