Day 6 Adoption Day

Yesterday we were only guardians of Kai, but today we officially became his parents.  We completed a few more documents, made the donation to the orphanage, and took our family picture. We were given a doll in traditional Chinese minority dress, a necklace, and a photo album with a few pictures of Kai, the city where he lived, and a photo of the local orphanage.  Kai only stayed at the orphanage a few days, but he went there on a regular basis with Miriam to visit while she taught English to the older children.

I'm so glad that we brought our other kids with us. They have had a fun time playing and helping with Kai.  Russ and I would be exhausted if it was just the two of us.  Kai loves to play and doesn't tire easily.  We kept him busy all day and we didn't let him or the other kids look at a screen except for 20 minutes before bed.  This went better than we anticipated, but Kai is just like any kid-electronics have a draw that is hard to break.

Today was Kaden's, who is our oldest son, 17th birthday. We sang and signed "Happy Birthday" to him on our way to the Adoption Center this morning.  One thing he wanted to do for his birthday was find someone to play basketball with.  Our guide took Russ and Kaden to a university and Kaden was able to join in a pick-up game.  For dinner we ate at a restaurant that was about a 15 minute walk from our hotel.  The food was delicious and inexpensive. The seven of us ate our fill for about $15.  We are thankful that Kaden had his phone and knows how to use Google translate, because there wasn't one word of English on the menu.