April 3rd - Our last day as a family of three!

I guess I should have not spoken so quickly, or knocked on wood or something when I said that we had turned the corner in the jetlag issue yesterday. Last night Naomi woke up at 1am and did not fall back to sleep. A rather frustrating moment for me when I awoke this morning and found this out from Joel, who had suffered from her sleeplessness as well.

So, we elected to opt out of the tour today in favour of a quiet and more restful day. An excellent decision as it turns out. Naomi did finally nap at 10:30 am this morning and slept fitfully until 2pm. She got up happy and we decided to take her to the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium. We all had a fabulous time on our last day as a family of three.

The SOA is indescribable. We walked through several tunnels within aquariums filled with sea turtles, sharkes, eels and fish of every colour imaginable. We saw penguins, sea lions, spider crabs and dragons. Naomi was so entranced by it all she spent the afternoon with a wide open mouth. One of her favorite books right now is Rainbow Fish, so she was thrilled to be surrounded by them. I’m so glad we decided to take in this venue – not sure who had more fun, Naomi or her parents watching her thrill. We were delighted to be spending a fun day together, in fact our last day as a family of three.

Saying that is joyous, exciting, scary and sad all at the same time. On one hand I am so thrilled to finally be meeting Lilah. I can’t wait to plant a big kiss on her chubby little cheeks and to soak her up tomorrow. On the other, I know that tomorrow we’ll be rocking the worlds of two little angels. Lilah will be torn from everything she’s ever known and Naomi will have a new curve to deal with in her 2 year old life. Fortunately, the joyous and exciting parts outweigh the scary and sad. While I may not be able to imagine life being any better than it is right now, and the change is very scarey – I feel certain that Lilah will bring such new joy to all our lives.

When we arrived back at our hotel at 5:30 pm, we checked in with Papa. The rest of our group had a terrific time touring a Water Village, the Yuyuan Gardens and the Pedestrian Mall on Nanjing Road. They left this morning at 8:30am and did not return until 5pm, so it made us feel even better about our decision to not go with them.

Along with our “Adventures Under the Seas” photos, I’m posting some of the group photos for our travelmates to our blog because several of them are having trouble posting messages and pictures to their own loved one’s at home. We are unable to actually view our own blog, or the blogs of our companions in the Guangdong group because blogspot is blocked by the Chinese government. Fortunately we are still able to upload to the site though, so we’re trucking right along in keeping you all up to date. I’m thinking of our Guangdong families as they were to have received their babies today!

Finally, I’m posting a photo of Naomi with one of the waiters at our hotel. He has been very kind to us during our breakfast meals, despite the fact that Naomi hasn’t always been the sweetest kid. Yesterday she let him read her translation card and in doing so we found out that Zhuzhou is also his hometown. Small world in such a big place.

Tomorrow our luggage must be ready for pickup at 5am and we leave the hotel at 6am. We will fly to Changsha around 8;15am, arriving at 10ish. After checking into the hotel and having some lunch we'll head to the notary office. At approximately 3:30pm (3:30am your time) we’ll be reaching the summit of our journey to Lilah and meeting her in person for the first time. We can’t wait till tomorrow to finally meet this little person who has already stolen our hearts. Next time I post we’ll be a family of four - 18 hours to go!