Last Load of Laundry

Our little fam (minus little man Eli...soon little one, soon) just got back from dropping off a few last minute items of laundry over on the island. It is a short 20 minute walk but it isn't simply a walk in the park. You go through five different sections of street fair people selling their goods. As said in previous posts, there is a little over everything: animals, fish tanks, dried plants used for medicinal purposes, etc. Getting a little punchy, I wondered how many birds I could free from their cages before being attacked. Rob said he would count the birds for me....what about having my back??? For those of you that know me, I would never do something like that...but I couldn't help but wonder! So over the bridge we went to make our way to the island when we were stopped by a young man on a bike wearing a Cleveland sheet. He said he wanted to practice his English on us (gotta love an honest person). He would have loved to run into my brothers as wanted to talk sports. When asked his name, he told us James aka Lebron James! He is a true fan of Lebron. He was whipping out sport facts left and right. The rest of our adventure was pretty calm. Jace managed to stay awake (probably because he has mastered the art of waving) for the entire trip. He is now taking his daily nap.
Getting home is definitely on our minds. My mom was saying that Eli was looking at the pictures on our blog and wondered where Uncle Mike and Aunt Lynda were (he is having a lot of fun bugging Unc Joe). He is in for a surprise Sunday! Tears are in my eyes just knowing how close we are to having the four of us together!! Rob and I predict Eli and Jace are coming to have some altercations to work through. If Jace doesn't want something, he doesn't have any problem letting it be known. Two strong-willed children ought to keep us in line.
Jace now can sign: more, eat, done, and play. We tried to get him to sign more milk but didn't want anything to do with the milk sign. Yesterday we spent some time in the pool. He was hesitate about the floatie we had brought for him but with a couple of tries, he decided it wasn't so bad...even smiled on several occasions!
Last night, we found a McDonalds for supper. We also ran across this big display for the Asian Games which starts in 100 days. Then last night on tv, they had a huge special celebrating that it is only 100 days until the games. It is crazy to go around to the different buildings and see signs that say, "As of May 7th, the Government has ordered complete remodeling of this building." This is going to be a brand new city in 100 days.
Our guide told us that we have to go to the Embassy today (not Friday) for our swearing ceremony. Friday night we get our visa, and Saturday at 4pm we begin our journey home. One family that we met had their ceremony yesterday. Fourteen years is that aging out year for kiddos to be eligible to adopt. There were two families adopting two 13 years old kids at their ceremony. There was also a family there that was adopting their 7th child.