Orphanage Visit and on to Guangzhou

It's been a long couple of days. On Thursday we went to Xuzhou to visit Carsen's orphange and to see his finding place. It was a 4 hour drive each way, so it made for a very long day. Carsen did really well in the van and didn't fuss too much. The director of the orphange was very kind and too us out to lunch when we arrived. It was nice, but some of the dishes were a little too extreme for our tastes, things like the lining of a goat's stomach and shrimp that were not deheaded or anything. She then took us to the place where Carsen was found. He was found at the entrance to a park at about 7pm one evening and they estimated him to be about 2 days old. That was a very emotional place for us, it was hard to imagine him lying there cold and helpless. But that was just a small part of God's plan for his life, because if he wasn't left there we wouldn't get to be his parents. We went back to the orphange to see his nannies and the places where he had slept. We meet several other sweet children, some that are waiting for their parents to come and get them. They care about the children there and do the very best they came in this situation to provide for the children, but its just not the same as a mom and dad. On the way back to Nanjing Carsen really started to play and giggle with us. He is becoming more open to us and reaches for us and likes to be cuddled. Overall he continues to do very well.

On Friday we made the trip from Nanjing to Guangzhou, where the US Consulate is located. Our guide got us to the airport very early and we sat there for hours and then our flight was delayed for 45 minutes. We did not get to Guangzhou until after 7 and it was after 8 when we finally arrived at our hotel. We were all exhausted and pretty much went straight to bed and the boys are still asleep as I type this. Today we will go to the medical examination office and get Carsen's exam, apprently this is just a very quick exam and he will not have to receive any shots because of a new law that allows us to do vaccinations when we get home and he is under 2 so he does not have to have a TB test.

Carsen and daddy at his finding place

Having fun on the van ride