Today was a good day. It’s so funny to me that on our trip with Lilli and now this trip how the tone of the trip changes for the better once we get to this city. There’s just something more relaxing about being here. Or maybe it’s just saying goodbye to the child’s province that starts the beginning of the transition to going home? I don’t know what it is but I am thankful for today.

We started the morning early and met the group (there are 10 other families we have met up with here) at 9:30 to go for the medical exams that are required to get a Visa. Eliana had to get 4 shots. Boooo! She is a tough little cookie though and said she didn’t care. She said “owww” on one of the shots but other than that she didn’t even flinch. Anyone that’s adopted here before knows what mass chaos the medical exam is and today was no different. It took about an hour and a half I think to get through everything and then we walked around the island for a bit before heading back to the hotel. We are not staying on the Island this time because the major hotel there is closed for renovations. We really like the hotel we are at though and it’s nice to be in a new area.

We grabbed a quick healthy lunch at McD’s and then came back up to the hotel room to get some things together. Then we headed out to visit our friends that live here. They are the brother and sister in law of my close friend at home Danielle. We went to their apartment and spent the afternoon. They are so sweet to let us do our laundry there for free. And they even have a dryer! They have a little girl and so Lilli was in heaven actually getting to play in a normal house with some toys! Some of their friends came over to hang out with us too. One of the girls is a college student here. She was really sweet and I think Eliana was happy to see someone who looked like her. At first Eliana was really quiet and this girl went over and started talking to her and within minutes you would have thought they were best friends. We went all went to dinner this evening and at one point the college student basically told Eliana about our Father. When I’m home and not worried about who might be reading this I would love to go into more detail about this. This was the first time Eliana had ever heard anything about this. It was a very special evening and I’m very excited to be able to continue to share more with her.

Tomorrow is Eliana’s 14th Birthday!! We are going to go back to their apartment to hang out and have a birthday party for Eliana. Our friend is baking her a cake and their friends are going to celebrate with us and make it a fun time for her. I brought presents for her from home that I’ll wrap tonight and some gifts from friends and family too. I hope it is a special day for her! I’ll be sure to post pics tomorrow.

Although it is tough to tell what Eliana is thinking and feeling most of the time it was so nice to hear from the college girl tonight that Eliana kept telling her over and again how happy she is. She also told her that before she never smiled and now she smiles a lot. I know she still will continue to grieve the life she is leaving behind but it is comforting to know that she is happy. We also had the college girl translate and read an email to her that one of her friends from the orphanage (who was adopted 3 years ago) sent to her. If you read it you would cry it was so precious and sweet to Eliana. After she read it she said Eliana said she wanted to cry (happy tears) because her friend said how much Bill and I love her. Yes, today was a happy day.

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