Hurry Up! Wait! Hurry Up!

If you have been reading the blog, you know about our constant delays. Then all of a sudden two weeks ago, we were told your leaving on five days, HURRY UP! Then we got here to HCMC, received our Christmas Angel, only to be told that we need to WAIT! five days to make the adoption official at the Giving & Receiving Ceremony. Then all of sudden in one day we needed to HURRY UP! again and complete the G&R, the passport and the medical exam, so that we can fly to Hanoi tomorrow. Talk about your whirlwind. Let's just keep praying there is not another WAIT! in this system. The good news is, she is officially ours.

We got down stairs early for the drive out the Ministry of Justice in the province where we adopted Katelin from. There we saw the director of the orphanage and proceeded to sign everything in triplicate-triplicates. After all of the paperwork had been processed, we signed the big book and the Minister of Justice had us stand and proceede to hand us the certificate of adoption. For which Katelin and her quick strong hands, quickly grabbed. Luckily it was just a bit wrinkled, but all was OK.

After the G&R, we high taled it back into town where we had to get to the Passport office and apply for Katelin's passport. It was so close. They stop for lunch at 11:30, and they sometimes will just go to lunch even if you are still waiting. Luckily we got our receipt and were out of there by 11:45. On the trip back, Katelin wanted to sit with Lilli, so Lilli fed her, and pretty soon Katelin was sound asleep in her lap.

After a quick run to the hotel to drop off Lilli and Trina and grab sone lunch, Kristi, Katekin and I headed over to the hospital for Katelins medical check-up. This was the same hopsital that Lilli was checked out of. It had changed a bit in six years. When we here with Lilli we sat on benches outside to with to be called, now we are inside. It is still crazy what and how they do things. She checked fine, and everything is good to go, although if you could ask Kaetlin she would tell you that it was absolutely horrible. As soon as the doctor tried to weigh her, she roared. I mean very loud, and she didn't calm down until she was safely back in moms arms.

One of the things we did when we adopted Lilli, was take a picture of all the kids sitting on a couch in the lobby. This became known as the "class picture." Well we had to keep the tradition going, so may I present the Valedictorian and tops in her class of December 2009, Lan Xuan Nguyen, now know as Katelin Lan Foster.

We have now finished the Vietnames portion of our trip. S he is officially ours?As soon as we get her passport and health report tomorrow it is off to Hanoi and the US portion of our game. We;ll talk to you soon.

Talk to you tomorrow from Hanoi.