Firecracker Dani

it's 3:30pm and we have had dani since about 10:00am. we drove to the civil affairs office with ivan this morning, and he spent some time explaining how dani might appear. being five, he explained that she would probably be crying, and that she might prefer one parent over the other. we arrived at the office, and went to the floor where we were supposed to meet. we were there for a small wait, and than we were told that we were to meet on a different floor. when we got to the escalator to go down, it was full of people with cameras and video cameras. we predicted that they also might be adoptive parents. the escalator opened, and they all swarmed to the rooms, and we followed. everything was a whirl, very busy, lot's of parents finding their new children. we walked towards the left of the room, and immediately saw dani. she was hugely animated, she speaks very well, and had a big smile. she went right to jeff, and was comfortable with him holding her. she knew who we were, and later on, she pulled out the picture album that we had sent her, and pointed to who we were. she pointed to john, and we told him that he was her brother, which i think she basically said, "i know". we spent some time talking with ivan and the ophanage director, and going over paperwork for tomorrow. the orphanage director was very nice, with lot's to say about dani. she had a backpack with clothes in it, plus the outfits we had sent her, and a white dress in a bag, maybe the one she was wearing in the first video that we saw of her. she had a bag of toys from her foster family, a picture album from the foster family, and a picture album from the orphanage. we were given her finding ad and a special gold coin with a picture of the orphanage, a gift for dani. dani was very talkative, and mischevious in the car ride home, pointing out parks, and the lake and talking about them. she liked being tickled, and she had a great laugh. back at the hotel, it was a rambunctious time, and she played hard. she is very interested in alex. after playing hard, she did have a time of grieving. she grieves like she plays, and seems to be quite a passionate and strong little lady. jeff and alex found mcdonalds, we had some lunch and thought dani might take a nap, but i guess dani though other wise and we've been playing with her since. a couple off-topics, the group was from spain, i think, as i spoke with one dad who was from spain. he was adopting a little boy and was concerned because he had a serious heart condition. he introduced me to his daughter, who is chinese. the other off-topic, we know that dani's foster family called her dren dren, and ivan explained that children often had two names.