A walk down Memory Lane...

Well, it's been a week and there have been no updates until today. Unfortunately, there has been nothing really to update you on except maybe that the weather has gotten back to normal. It's 27 degrees and there about 3 inches of snow on the ground. Other than that, nothing much has changed. So, I decided to take you all on a walk down Memory Lane. Today's featured girl is Drew! Starting with a picture her orphanage took of her on the day she was found, June 8, 2002. She was found at the steps of a community residential building. They estimated that she was approx 2 weeks old and gave her the birthdate of May 20, 2002. I marvel at how tiny she was, comparing the size of her little head with that of the hand of the person holding her. She actually had more hair in this picture than when she did on Gotcha Day! With the exception of the first six pitures, these were ALL taken between March 2, 2003 and March 17, 2003.



We received the next 3 pictures while on our trip to China. They were taken by the orphanage staff while she waited for us to arrive!

Look at that face!

This is the first time we saw our daughter's face! We received or referral call (or rather, we got the good news when I happened to call our agency) on January 20, 2003! We drove 2 hours in a snow storm to see these pictures!

Gotcha!! We found out after 40+ hours of traveling, plus another 12 hours spent in Hong Kong with a 6 hour Hong Kong bus tour of the island, that we were getting the babies THAT night!! I nearly died! I hadn't slept one wink in all that time and I was exhausted! And though I was beyond thrilled to meet our new daughter, I secretly hoped it would be the next day. Somewhere inside my second...er, 22nd wind was billowing and gave me the energy to do this!! After arriving at the hotel, checking in, going to our room and waiting for our luggage, we were told to go to a ball room in the hotel to receive our girls. We were among the last to arrive as we had to wait quite a while for the luggage. But in the end, it was a wonderful moment!

Considering it around 10pm when we received her and then went to dinner afterwards, it was, to say the least, a VERY long day for this tired little cherub...and for her emotionally and physically drained parents as well!

This is the next day, where we finalized the adoption.

Drew's three favorite things, being strapped into the Snugli, being with her Daddy and sucking down a bottle!

Though I was definitely not her favorite parent during the trip, she tolerated me well enough when she was in the Snugli.

Drew LOVED taking a bath! Come to think of it, she STILL loves it!

This is one of those "Awwwww!" pictures!

This is Marilyn. Normally Frank is the facilitator for our adoption agency, but our travel group was huge...28 families!! So they split the group in half, Marilyn(Frank's wife) took 14 of us and Frank took the other 14 in a different province and then we met up in Guangzhou for the second week.

If you look closely, you'll see that Daddy had rearranged some letters on the mat.

At the Guangzhou zoo. The funny looking guy in the back with the orange hat pushing a stroller is Art! (You know I love ya, Art! ;-P)

And here we have the two BFF's! Sara and Drew playing at 10 months old!

How Dean got his butt wedged into that slide is beyond me! Sitting to his left is Jim with Julia. On his right is Mackenzie (I think) in the stroller and child from the other half of our group. There were way too many of them to get to know them all!

In the airport getting ready to say goodbye to our wonderful guide, Smile! He was awesome! He was also our guide on Luci's adoption trip!

Dancing at the Hard Rock Cafe in Guangzhou! They had closed down by the time we went back for Luci which is indeed a bummer as the food was wonderful after eating all that Chinese!

Meema's first look at her first granddaughter fresh off the plane! Drew had had just about enough newness for one day, as you can see by her pout!

Home a couple of days and feeling much better!

Hope you enjoyed the stroll. My next post will be about Luci!