Fujing Arrives!

It's been an incredibly long but joyous day of celebration and thanks. After getting up at 4am to catch an early flight to Jinan in the Shandong province, we landed safely and checked into our hotel just a few hours before the orphanage arrived in the lobby with Fujing. Accompanied by the orphanage director, a driver and the nurse who had taken care of her since the time she was found (at just four days old), Fujing immediately lit up the room with her wonderful personality. Somewhat shy and reserved at first, Fujing has a very playful and energetic side to her that is already starting to come out the more time we spend together.

The staff of the orphanage is clearly very fond of Fujing and spent a lot of time telling us about her interests and daily routine. We also learned that in Chinese, her name means lucky (Fu) and crystal (Jing) and that the staff call her Jing Jing for short. Unlike some families who have little to no access to their children's caregivers, we were incredibly blessed to spend much of the day with Fujing's nurse who is just twenty-three years old.

After meeting in the hotel and getting acquainted (which went extremely well) we spent a leisurely lunch together at a local restaurant listening to stories about Fujing, her love of singing and dancing and how much she likes animals. She has been to the zoo one time, knows a few English words and is already bonding with Ethan. He gave her a small panda bear that she has been carrying around all day and fell asleep with this evening. And the photo book we sent ahead of time clearly helped her become familiar with "mama" and "baba" and our family and the staff told us she has been looking at it everyday since it arrived.

After lunch, we spent the rest of the day traveling between local government offices working on adoption papers and applying for her passport. It will take several days for her paperwork to clear and to obtain her passport here in Jinan before we can head to Guangzhou to begin the immigration process, so until then, we'll spend it together getting to know one another even better.