Best of times, worst of times

I have a love/ hate relationship with the US Consulate right now. We arrived at 8:30 Monday morning to take our oath to bring Asher home. This is the last step before they issue his visa and citizenship papers. Unfortunately, in our case there was a computer glitch. So instead of a one hour appointment we were there almost all day. And we left at the end of the day stressed, exhausted, and unsure if we were going to go home on Wednesday as scheduled.

Monday evening we went on a dinner cruise on the Pearl River. It was a beautiful night, and a nice way to take our minds off of the rough day. 

This morning we got up and headed back to the consulate. At breakfast we realized our story had made its way around as family after family came up and said they were praying for us. Determined to have a positive attitude, we walked back in and were told everything was fixed. We finished the processing, and were told they would do everything in their power to get our visa before we were scheduled to leave this afternoon.

We wanted to enjoy the day so we went to the Canton Tower, one of the tallest buildings in the world, pictured lit up above.  If you're amazing race fans, you'll recognize the "bubbles" they rode around in from last season.

We came back to the hotel and Asher napped while we packed. We even had time to take him swimming for the first time! 

We packed up, checked out of the hotel, said lots of prayers, and... Asher's visa was ready! I have never been so happy to see a passport. Tonight we're checking into the Hong Kong airport. Tomorrow we're headed home!