Today we put up the Christmas tree!!! Always a fun time...the boys have always called the tree our Charlie Brown tree, because its smallish and OLD!!! Tim and I have had it since we first got married. Its pretty sentimental and we LOVE our Charlie Brown tree:) The Angel on top we have also had on our tree every year for the past 25 years!!!! Blessed to have traditions!!
Thanksgiving week...YES week...was wonderful! Big Daddy took vacation days and I was off during the week...so we had a mini Staycation!
Monday Momma and Daddy had DATE day!!! Yes that was our second date since Kerrigan came home 15 months ago:) Grandma watched the girls and we felt like we were getting by with something sneaking away for a whole 11 hours;) We went Christmas shopping...for the kids of course! We went to Rafferety's for lunch...YUMMY steak! When we picked up the girls they were having a wonderful time at Grandma and Grandpa's!! Everyone had a great day!!!
Tuesday evening Dayne and Steph came home! Girls were thrilled...as were Momma and Dadda!! We spend the evening visiting, and Dayne even made us a Mexican desert from scratch!!!
Ribs and twice baked potatoes for supper!
Dayne making desert!
Waiting for desert to be served!
Always a helper!
Princess waiting to be served desert!
She approves of the desert!
Big Brother did a great job!
Wednesday was OUR Thanksgiving...since Dad and I both work actual Thanksgiving!! Dayne and Steph were still here, Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Tami came out and Megan came after work!!! LOTS and LOTS of food!!! We even got to Skype with Keagan!!! Wonderfully Blessed WEEK!!!
We met Mike and Sam 6 years ago when we both got our referrals for our little Jiangxi girls!!! We emailed a time or 2 before traveling. Then met face to face the first time Oct 10, 2007 in the Detroit airport!! From that time on for the next 2 weeks, it was the 4 of us....and soon to be 6:) We toured Beijing together, the Great Wall, Summer Palace etc....all the while anxiously awaiting the Gotcha day to come! The morning of Oct 14 we all boarded a plane and flew to Nanchang, Jiangxi! At 4 pm we were all together for the "delivery" of our sweet girls!! We all laughed together and cried together...especially poor Gretchen!! It was one of the most amazing moments of our lives and we shared it with them! No one else can even begin to understand the emotions of that day! We share a special bond with them that in a short time made us
Family!
Happy Mommas!
We toured Nanchang together....now with babies in tow! They started introducing us to Chinese shopping....since they had been there before and had it all figured out!! Then we all left our little girls home Provence, Jiangxi and flew to Guangzhou for our next adventure!! The White Swan...OH MY it was nice... we could walk around the hotel and there were shops....which I thoroughly enjoyed! We ate dinner at Lucys Place...they had "real" American food!!!
Family Dinner at Lucys
Gretchen and Ava 2007
Then when we had no appetite for anything else....the 4 of us ate Papa John's pizza every night for the last 3-4 nights!!! Then it was time to say good bye! We thought we had to Detroit together, but at the last minute realized that we had different planes in Tokyo ....so quickly we said our sad good byes and off we went to make our girls American Citizens!!
That's the story of how it all started!
This weekend we had a Jiangxi Family reunion!!! We had so much fun! We met at the hotel, the girls swam and played.... while the Mommas and Daddies talked and talked and talked :) We had dinner at the hotel and Mike even talked the manager into letting us use the conference room...WHICH was HUGE!!! The girls even had room to dance!! The girls all crawled in bed and watched a movie while the parents....well you guessed it TALKED some more!!!! In the morning we visited until we had to check out...even with a late check out it wasn't long enough!!! Kerrigan even let Mike hold her...which I'm sure Mike will tease Sam about!:)
We all had so much fun...we can't wait to do it again!!! Taking Ava to school Monday she said "when do I get to see my China friends again?" I said we hope to do this every year! She YELLS "WHAT?? next year??? your killing me...I will be 7 by then!!!!" I think that sums up how much fun EVERYONE had this weekend!!!! She really was hoping we would see them next week:)
Jiangxi Sisters together again!!
China girls ready for a fun weekend!
Kerrigan and Gretchen
Dancing in the pool!
Sweet friends
Family Dinner in our private conference room !!!
Monkey in the middle :)
Finally got Kerrigan to understand Ring around Rosey!
.JPG)
