Xiao-Ling, All-American

Well, it's official. We went to the American consulate this afternoon and took the oath of citizenship on Xiao-Ling's behalf. She even raised her right hand when asked to do so!

We now have an IR3 immigrant visa pasted into our daughter's Chinese passport, which means that once we land in Newark and go through passport control, she will automatically become America's newest citizen. We really have quite a family. My ancestry is Russian, Jacquie's is German, our son is Korean and our daughter is Chinese. If all that doesn't make us 100% American, we don't know what does.

Tomorrow morning, we fly back to Beijing for a couple of days before we head back to America on Saturday. Most of the other CHI families, whose kids were scattered around China, were taken on tours of the Beijing area when they first landed. Because Xiao-Ling was actually in the capital when we met her, we were unable to do that. We thus plan to do a little touring there before we head for home.