Oh, what a wonderful day!

Oh, I can't even put into words what our day was like. Our new daughter is just beautiful! Her social worker met us at our hotel this a.m. at 9:30 and took us by train, bus and MTS to New Territories, where Laiya lives with her foster family. She walked down and met us and we just hugged and hugged. Her social worker kept telling us that she is very ready to take this step. She has already said her goodbyes at school (we will still have a going away party with her teachers on Wednesday), and her foster family had a family get-together for her last night. She is a very soft-spoken girl and looks younger in person than in her pictures. We went back to her foster family's apartment to meet them - I have never, in my life, seen a smaller apartment. I can't believe 4 people live in there. It really is smaller than our living room! Laiya isn't going to know what to do with her bedroom at home! She has all of her earthly belongings packed in one suitcase. She has always worn uniforms to school, so she has very few clothes. She wants to start school as soon as she can when she gets home too. So, anyway, when we were at her foster parent's home, she presented us with gifts that she has been saving her money to buy. The social worker said she wants to express to us how thankful she is that we are giving her a "forever family". She gave me a beautiful Asian jacket and she gave Dave a beautiful pillow cover. She also has gifts for her brothers and sisters, to let them know how much she appreciates them accepting her into their family. I have been hoping to get a few pictures of when she was younger. Well, her social worker, Rukiya, gave her/us a beautiful scrapbook of her life - beginning when she was a baby! I started to cry when I saw it! Laiya also has her own photo album of pictures from when she was very young, and her foster mother's sister made a book for us, too, of pictures taken over the last 8 years - while she was with them. We all went out for a traditional Chinese lunch (ugh - coconut pudding, shrimp fried rice, etc. - but I did pretty good!) and her foster brother even had a break from school and met us. He is 12 and a very fun boy. He reminded us so much of our nephew, Kenny. Laiya is really going to miss him! He even got teary-eyed when we talked about it, so Wednesday will be a very hard day. After lunch, we stopped back at the foster families home and they gave us a gift of Chinese tea leaves. Then we took a bus back to our hotel to show Laiya where she will be staying Wednesday through Friday nights. She is just so quiet and so sweet - you are all going to love her! We are both feeling very emotional right now - we both had a slight melt-down a little bit ago. Well, we are hoping to get a real night's sleep now. Tomorrow just the three of us are going to Ocean Park (it's like Sea World). I am so tired I can hardly see straight, so if there are mistakes in this, I'm sorry. Hopefully by tomorrow I'll have internet in the room and I can attach some pictures. Love you all! Marva

[We chose this hotel because they had internet service in the room, and of the 600+ rooms, our room has a bad connection! So I am down in the business office writing this, and therefore, can't attach a picture! Dave's up in the room waiting for another computer tech to try to fix it, but . . . three people have already tried. Sorry!]