Civil Affairs Ceremony

http://picasaweb.google.com/Greenwoodfamily6/CivilAffairsCeremony#

This morning we attended a very special event. We all met at the Civil Affairs office in Beijing. The head of the department and several other officials, along with the CCAA director and director of BLAS welcomed us with a slide show of photographs we sent prior to our trip and arrival photos at the airport. The room was decorated in red with a huge banner. We listened to special speeches about our daughters and how happy they were that the girls were happy, and thriving in their countries and with their families. There were families from Denmark, Norway, Canada, The Netherlands, England and the US. We all had individual family photos taken with the directors and they presented us with special gifts. Diana received a red "ox" since it is the year of the ox. We also received a glass etched Great Wall statue and a welcome letter. We then took a group photo. The television station was also there and they interviewed several families including Mindy, Hannah and Lilly. We were overwhelmed with emotion at the end of the ceremony and were so happy and thankful we were able to bring the girls back to attend this event. The link has more photos of our event. We are back at the room packing up and getting ready for our flight to Nanjing. Next post will be from Yangzhou!