Day 4, 5, and 6 Day 4 wasn't much, but got us a bit closer to Gracie.  We flew from Beijing to Taiyuan and checked into our new hotel, the Shanxi Grand. 

Taiyuan is the capital of Shanxi Province.  It is the largest city in the province.  This was a pretty clear day, but much of the time it was hard to breath outside.  They have a large coal burning electrical plant that contributes to the nasty air.  The people were all very friendly, and always shocked when Tom would speak to them in Chinese.  This was our view across the street.

The best day yet came on December 12th.  We called it Gotcha Day, because it is the day we finally got our Gracie.  We headed to the Civil Affairs office around 2:30 pm.  We arrived before the children.  There were several couches around the room and we camped out on one.  We were getting our paper work in order (there was a lot of it) and then we heard that the children had arrived from their long trip from Datong.  That is the city where Gracie was born and where she had lived in the Datong Social Welfare Institute since birth.  

She came walking in with her green and yellow Hello Kitty jacket and the funniest ski cap with yarn braids attached to the sides.  This is our China coordinator Lisa, introducing us.

  It was obvious that Gracie was very scared.  We tried to make her feel more comfortable and gave her some snacks.  We soon learned that food is a great distraction for her.  Gracie loves to eat.

We stayed in this room for a while, waiting for our turn to do the paperwork with the officials.  Then we had her picture taken next door and were able to head back to the hotel.  She was a tired little girl, and we were still jet lagged, so we went to bed early.  Gracie did not want to sleep in the crib.  She was only happy if I was right next to her, so we used the crib as a bed side, to keep her from falling off the tiny twin sized bed, and we squished in.  It was odd that both in Taiyuan and Guangzhou we ended up with two twins instead of one larger bed.  It must be because we wanted the cheapest rooms.  She fit right into Daniel's old PJ's.  She didn't seem to mind wearing boy jamies.

Day 6 was pretty low key.  The big event was going back to the Civil Affairs office and signing the final paperwork to make the adoption official.  December 13, 2011 Gracie officially became our daughter.  Here we are with the orphanage workers who brought her from Datong and our adoption decree.

The rest of the day we spent wandering around the neighborhood.  Tom can't sit still for long, and the room was so small.  Too bad it was about 20 degrees outside.  We bundled up and checked out the deserted parks, that must be very busy in warmer weather.

We found a noodle shop to go in and warm up.  Gracie ate a bunch of noodles, meat, and her favorite and mine were the boudza, steamed dough balls filled with pork and cabbage.  Yum.  I wish I had taken a picture of her gobbling one up, and they were huge.  It was a good day.