Thursday, we made a trip to Naperville, IL to complete our immigration process. We found the illusive fingerprinting office (a big thank you to those who offered directions and photos!!), and within 20 minutes, were done. Now we wait to get our '797' approval form from immigration before we send all our documents to the Chinese Consulate for authentication.
So, we decided to make the most of the trip and have some quality family time and enjoy some fun Chicago area attractions. All the boys spent Thursday afternoon at Legoland, and had the best time! They got to build and design lego models. They were able to go on a couple of rides and check out all of the lego created sculptures. They saw the mini Star Wars scene, the Chicago skyline scene, a jungle, Harry Potter, etc. They are looking forward to going back again soon. Meanwhile, Brianna and I were able to enjoy some girl-time shopping at nearby Woodfield Mall!
All Ethan wanted for his birthday was a trip to Medieval Times, and were were able to enjoy that on Thursday night. The dinner and show were great and all the kids were cheering for their knight and were excited for all the jousting and dueling. It was a great time to end our year study of the Medieval times at school too!
Friday we visited with sweet family and then went to IKEA. While at IKEA, we got an e-mail from our adoption agency with updated pictures, videos and information on Fulian! I saw the updated pictures and had to sit down in the bunk bed section of IKEA and just cried. He is so beautiful (my boys would tell me I have to say handsome, and he is that too .. but he is also very beautiful)! We read through the information and understand his vision needs a little better. Of course, my phone could not open the videos, so I immediately went to work finding an internet cafe nearby. The kids thought I should be patient and wait until we got home, but if there was a video of my son at my fingerprints and I needed to wait 6 hours to see it, well, I would find another way.
So, our other super surprise was to take the kids to Xtreme Trampoline. I found a library next to Xtreme Trampoline and used their computer lab to review the 2 minutes of videos. So glad we did! He is so sweet, has a great disposition, sense of humor, and it seems his care givers are sweet too. We couldn't understand anything they were saying, but they were gentle with him, laughing, and allowing us to see how he writes his Chinese characters (of which Ethan has now copied all of them, just like Fulian). After the video excitement, we made it to Extreme Trampoline where there were several trampoline pits, including a dodgeball pit, a foam pit, and other pits with trampolines on the floor and the walls. We were all tired and sweaty after that.
The drive home reminded us how grateful we are to not live in Chicago with their lovely traffic congestion. But, it also gave Chris and I time to reflect on the prognosis of Fulian's vision needs. We know that God is sovereign over our adoption process and we are lifting this up to Him for wisdom on how to proceed. We do appreciate your prayers for Fulian, his care, his health, his care takers, and his heart - to be open to feeling the love of a family, with siblings, and the love of our almighty God. We ask for prayers for discernment for Chris and I, and for us to follow God completely and wholly!
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