One Year Family Day Celebration

We were fortunate to have a one year anniversary dinner with another family from our travel group last evening. We met Michelle and her Mom Linda, in PAC when we were all first starting the process. At the time, China was referring entire months (adoptive parent lingo, if you have questions, just ask), so it did not seem it would be impossible to travel with her and her parents when the time came. Forward two years, and they are referring maybe a few days to a week each month. In a strange twist, we did end up traveling together. Just before leaving, we thought we were down to just our two families in our group. Since we liked each other, we were quite okay with it. In the end, there turned out to be four other families in our group, but we were not aware of them until right before traveling, or until we got to China. Although we liked the other families, we had not had the chance to build relationships with them that would last after we came home. We were always thankful that we had met Michelle and her parents, Rick and Linda, before we had traveled and had the opportunity to get to know one another. We had hoped that others from our group would join us for this dinner to continue some relationship and perhaps even grow it. Although that did not happen, we were fortunate to have the ones who meant the most to us here to celebrate.

Attached are pictures of Malia and Libby playing together. Yes, there is even one with Libby doing the "Libby lean in". They are both nuts and it only took them a few minutes after reacquainting to start playing. On their own, they figured out how they could both sit on the Sit N spin together (opposite sides, legs overlapping) and spun in perfect harmony. It was a sight to see. They laughed and played the whole time, when they were not arguing about who got to push which stroller. Libby even had a few tears when Malia dared to go potty on her potty chair.

The past year has zipped by so quickly and it was so hard to believe these are the same two little girls we met a year ago. They have not only grown physically, but verbally, socially and are just two of the sweetest funniest little monkeys there are. There were a few times during the evening that I was laughing through some tears.

Today at church, we stood up for a blessing for our one year family day. I really marvel and am humbled at just how blessed we are.