China Day 6: Orphanage Visit

We hit the road at 7:00am for the long drive to Yangjiang City in southern Guangdong Province.  This is the city of the orphanage, or Social Welfare Institute (SWI), where both Lucille and Helen lived before coming into our family.  You'll recall that we tried to visit during our 2012 trip but a typhoon kept us away.  We're not going to share many details of today's visit because this is both Helen's and Lucille's life story; they get to choose to share as much they see fit when they grow up.  Suffice it to say that it was tough.

It was great to see Lucille open up to her nannies and friends during our time in Yangjiang.  It feels like she got closure by seeing everybody one more time and then leaving with us.  We got to spend dedicated time with two other little ladies that are being adopted from this SWI later this year (by adopting families we've made deep connections with online).  It was so much fun to give them gifts from their forever families and watch their reactions. 

After we got back to Guangzhou, Steve and Ella went out on an afternoon date for ice cream.  Heather and Lucille stayed back in the hotel room, and our little lady opened up and got crazy silly.  If Heather hadn't caught it all on video, Steve and Ella would not have believed it.  Lucille decided to crawl back into her shell for the rest of the day after that.

Because the SWI visit took up most of the day, we don't have much else to report.  We ate dinner at an amazing noodle restaurant near our hotel and that about wraps things up.  You'll notice in today's pictures that Lucille was hiding a very cute dimple that comes out when she's happy!