Our Last Day Without AnnaClaire

KFC with the Martins!

With a sweet, curious Chinese woman at the Summer Palace

December 10, 2006 was the day before we got AnnaClaire. I will never forget that day as we experienced so many "lasts before AnnaClaire." The excitement just overflowed as all 10 of the families in our group (there were 11, but one family skipped Beijing) experienced their last full day without their newest additions. Everyone was just overflowed with excitement and emotions. We had such an amazing travel group (did both adoption trips!) Many of those families remain some of our closest friends. The highlight of that morning, it was a Sunday, was going to Church at the Beij*ing Inter*national Fellow*ship Chur*ch. It was such an amazing experience to be worshiping in C*hina. It did sadden me that we had to show our passports in order to get into the Church. Our guides waited for us outside, as they were not allowed inside of the Church. That breaks my heart. I will also never forget that there were people from Philip Hayden at the Church and they were selling 2007 PHF calenders. We bought one, having no clue that in 2007, our sweet Kate would be born and brought to Philip Hayden, where she lived until the day we adopted her! Amazing. We went to the Summer Palace that day, which was BEAUTIFUL. We had such amazing weather in Beijing for both adoption trips. After touring around (mainly just enjoying the time with our sweet friends, who are more like family!), stopping for some hot cocoa, and avoiding the mobs of people trying to bargain with us, we headed to the airport. Another amazing memory that I will never forget happened at the airport. Our gate was right next door to our dear friends, the Martin's gate. We had made it all the way there and had a while before our flights. We were all STARVING, but there were no restaurants in our terminal. So we headed out into the main part of the airport and found a KFC. We literally put our bags of KFC onto the conveyor belt to go through security, laughing the whole way. I will never forget that memory. We had a little over an hour (I think?) flight from Beijing to Hunan so we got in pretty late. Our guide Amy met us at the airport, and we exhaustively drove to our hotel... where we slept for the last time without our precious AnnaClaire...

"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." John 14:18

And here's some pictures form today, two years and two babies later :)

Kate reading her "Pat the Bunny" book, her very favorite!

Sweet AnnaClaire watching her Christmas movie! Can't believe 2 years ago today, we had our last night without this precious girl!

Kate has been so incredibly SWEET!

Me and my two sweet mei meis!