The Shore Part 3

After waking up and having a delicious pancake breakfast, we packed up the wagons, strollers, and bikes and walked a few blocks down to the beach.
We were quite the site walking down the streets of SL! There were 17 of us total!
AnnaClaire just lit up at the sight of the beach! She's quite the beach girl, that is for sure!
Love little ones from the back :)
Kate was a little more apprehensive, but did like walking in the sand!
It was chilly out, because of the rain on Friday. So, so different from the beaches here in June!
The girls were all really brave. If only you knew how cold that water was. My feet were numb after a few seconds! They loved it though!
Mia, Emily, and AnnaClaire jumping over waves
Three sweet friends in the waves!
Grace helping Lucy, AC, and Mia make a sand castle. The sand was a big hit for all the little girls!
Kate, Emily, and AnnaClaire all had the same bathingsuit (from Mini Bo*den!)
Here's all the China girlies... Kate, Claire, AnnaClaire, Lucy, Shaungshaung/Grace, Shaoey, Mia, and Emily on the beach! What a site we were :)
Sweet sisters in the sand...
A few of the girls were just begging to be buried! I buried Emily and AnnaClaire with mermaid tales! They just thought that was the coolest thing ever!
AnnaClaire and Shaoey gave eachother rides on the boogie board...
AnnaClaire and Claire running away from the waves.. look at the joy on their faces:)
AnnaClaire, Grace, Laura, and I went on a walk to look for seashells. AnnaClaire loved finding shells!
Grace, AC, and Laura taking a water break
AnnaClaire found lots of pretty shells on the walk!
Kate and Mom went back to the house early because Kate was in desperate need of a nap, so Claire rode with AC on the walk home. It was so funny to hear their 3/4 year old conversation!
All the girls were wiped and a few fell asleep. We got a good laugh over how completely OUT SS and Shoaey were!
The two Emilys at the boardwalk!
AC, Lucy, and Mia could hardly stand waiting for the elephant ride, the first ride of the night!
One of my favorite pictures from the weekend... AC and Lucy (Chenzhou sisters!) riding the elephants :) AC called Lucy her "riding buddy" the entire night. They rode almost every ride together!
Lucy and AC again! Last year AnnaClaire screamed on the one ride she went on. This year, she was completely into them!
Grace, AC, Emily, and Lucy on the helicopters!
Claire, Mia, Lucy, and AnnaClaire riding the alligators, another favorite of the night.
The 8 little girls with their zeppolies, a must have in NJ! They are soooo good :) just think... fried dough balls with powdered sugar.
We have looked forward to zeppolies since last year... AnnaClaire loved them, too!
Laura, Mom (Pam), Claire, Charlene, Nichole, and Keri! 6 of the chatty girls!
Me and Booie at the Boardwalk. She talked about how much fun she had all night long and begged to go back the next day. She just had the best time.
Lucy, Emily, and AnnaClaire were the only three to go on every ride. They had an absolute ball! Here they are on the boat ride!
AC riding "Dori" on the fish ride!
Kate only rode the train and the merry-go-round, but she loved every second of both. She was so cute on the train... waving and smiling to EVERYONE.
one last picture of the night... me, AC, and Emily on the train! We had so much fun on the boardwalk... can't wait for next year!

The Shore Part 4

On Sunday, we woke up and had to say goodbye to three families. All of the girls were running around giving hugs... it was very sweet. AnnaClaire and Emily were two of the girls that stayed Sunday, but they didn't quite understand and gave sweet hugs anyway:)
Ring a round the rosie was a popular game this trip... I really can not say enough how well these girls played together. It's so sweet! Here AnnaClaire is enjoying one last ring a round the rosie before Claire and Laura, Grace and SS, and Mia left!
After we said our goodbyes and the van came to take those families to the airport, we headed down to the beach! AnnaClaire loved running away from the waves with Lucy and Emily!
Kate perferred the sand to the water. She had so much fun shoveling sand into the buckets... and looked extra cute doing it :)
Here is beautiful Lucy who was so sweet with all of her friends and was so good about sharing all her toys and her house!
Did I mention that Kate loved the sand? She's quite the beach babe, although she didn't love it nearly as much on Saturday, she adored the beach on Sunday!
AnnaClaire, Emily, and Lucy had so much fun together! They built sand castles, jumped in the saves, ran away from the waves, ate snacks, and just enjoyed being around eachother. Here they are making a sand castle!
This is what the girls thought of the water... did I mention it was 61 degrees in the water?!?!?! They were in it up to their belly buttons!
Here's my two beautiful sisters! They adored being at the beach and loved having friends to be there with!
Me and my two sweet girls!
Emily, AnnaClaire, Lucy, Kate, and Grace wearing their Cinderella bows! (Grace's is in, you just can't see it!) They are from Sara Beth Bows and are the special edition Cinderella clippies! They are chinese cinderellas and they benefit Maria's Miracle Fund!
We went for a little walk through the town and grabbed some ice cream...

All of the girls loved sitting on the bench and eating their ice cream. And yes, we got loves of "awwwws" as people walked by. We also played at the park, walked across the beautiful bridge, picked flowers, and just strolled the streets!

Amy, this one is for you... Laura and Mom reading on the front porch! They didn't do much of that this trip though!

Lastly, here the little girls are heading home... they were both so wiped out from a fun weekend at the shore! They were so good for the 10 hour drive home although very sad to be home. AnnaClaire has been talking about all her friends at the shore and begging to go back all week!

One Year Ago...

I became a big sister once again! We were in Hall*mark shopping for Father's Day presents when Mom's cell phone rang (thankfully she had it... she doesn't always!) She took her phone out of her purse to answer and I noticed that it was a 703 area code. My heart started pounding as a realized that a 703 area code was most likely America World calling. I think my heart just about beat out of my chest as I realized that this was THE CALL. The call we had been waiting for. We were told her special needs were anemia and that she had a hemangioma, that she was 15 months old and was from Jiangxi. I immediately called Dad while Mom was talking. We had a huge storm the night before and had no phone or internet at home, so we decided to drive down to Dad's office, about 30 minutes away, to pull up her precious pictures. Mom wanted to wait to see her pictures before we locked the file (we knew it was AC by her pictures) but the coordinator warned that she was on the shared list and she might be gone in 45 minutes. We prayed about it and decided that her special need was definitely one we could handle, she was a great age... why wouldn't we lock her? So we did. Mom, AnnaClaire, and I could not have gotten to Dad's office fast enough. Mom and I were hypervenalating the entire time. We called Laura (one of the "chatty girls") to tell her that we had just locked the file of a birthmark baby (her sweet Lucy is one of the reasons we marked hemangioma on our special needs check list!) and to let everyone (as in all the "chatties") know and to pray. We finally got to Dad's office, where he met us and brought us up to his cube, where his computer was on. This precious picture was pulled up... Our sweet girl. Our "Ling XuLiu" who would become Katherine MeiLing. The baby girl we had been praying for. The pictures confirmed to us that this was our girl. We had 48 hours to get her file checked over by our pediatrician and to write/submit our LOI. We stopped for a quick lunch, brought her file to the ped, left it with a nurse, emailed our pediatrician (on Dad's blackberry... yes, we still had no internet!) to tell her that Nurse Emily had the file of a sweet baby girl, and to let us know what she thought. Mom and I then went off to Panera (free wifi!) because we just HAD to let friends know that we had locked the file of a baby girl. Mom then dropped me off at my summer league swim meet and when I got home, our ped had emailed back, letting us know that XuLiu was a "keeper", and our LOI had been written and faxed to AWAA.

So that's the story of Kate's refferal day. It is a day that will forever be engraved in my mind, and I do not think I will ever forget the details of June 12, 2008, the day my heart grew once again... to love three sweet pictures of a little girl we honestly didn't know much about. We knew she was 15 months old, was anemic, and had a hemangioma, and was from Shangrao CWI in Jiangxi, China. (although we later found out she was living at the Philip Hayden Foundation!) We were told that she was active, restless, adorable, in love with her nanny, and that she sometimes lost her temper. We were told some of her developmental skills and that she was a deep sleeper. We were told that she smiled readily, liked to play, and loved listening to music. If you really think about it, we had barely any info on our sweet girl, yet I was so in love with what we DID know about her. It's fun to look back and see how she was described... you could still use all of those descriptions in talking about our precious Kate. Yet, a year later, she is so much more than 3 little pictures and a page of information. She is our smiley, playful, music-loving, active, sometimes crabby (but always cute:)), deep sleeping, adorable two year old little girl. And I love her oh-so-much!

I am so thankful for the way that she became a part of our family, through a phone call we got while standing in the middle of Hall*mark! I cannot believe that day was a year ago today! What an amazing, perfect day that was. So glad that this year, we can celebrate WITH the little girl who June 12, 2008 was all about. I love you so much, Katherine MeiLing! Happy Referral Day!

O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done marvelous things, things planned long ago. Isaiah 25:1

Holding you Over...

We had such a wonderful time at the Shore! Can't wait to post all about it! I have 996 pictures to go through, edit, and decide which ones to post. So to hold you over a bit, here's one that is extra special to me! This is Kate and Shaungshaung, who although you'd never guess beacause of the height difference, is the other two year old of the group. However, that is definitely not the reason this picture is so special to me... I love this picture because the two girls in it have lived together for longer than they have lived with our families. Yes, that is right. Kate and SS lived at Philip Hayden together. They lived in the same house for most, if not all, of the time that they were both there. They even lived in the same ROOM for the last 3 or 4 months that Kate was at PHF. SS has an older sister, Shaoey, who is AC's age. We received AC's referral the same day that Shaoey's family got her referral. Then, last year, we got Kate's referral and the next day, they got SS's refferal! 2 months later, we find out that both girls are LIVING together in CHINA! A country of over a billion people and hundreds of orphanages, and our girls are together! God is so good! Just had to share... here's two pictures of Kate and SS in China!

God made me, chose me, and brought me home...

Lucy, AnnaClaire, Kate, Shuangshuang, Mia, Shaoey, Claire, and Emily
...and blessed them all with lots of sweet friends!

We got here late last night and all of the girls have just played like they've known eachother forever... they're loving it, we're loving it! :) It was rainy all day today, but it's supposed to be warmer and sunny tomorrow, so hopefully it'll be a beach day!

Oh, and the shirts... (are they not adorable?! They say what the subject line says) are from here.

Off to...

The beach with some sweet friends of ours!

I just got back from My*tle Be*ach with some friends... and tomorrow morning, we are off to the Jer*sey Shore with our chatty sisters for a girls weekend! There's going to be 8 adorable little Chinese girls between the ages of 2 and 4 and a few of their big sisters... Can't wait :)