New Beginnings...

This last week was a fun filled week of new beginnings...

Life with the new puppy continued to be very entertaining. I think she is the mellowest puppy I have ever seen! With Mike and Josh at wrestling camp, we took Cocoa to Oregon, and she is a great traveler. We took her to a couple parks and bought her a puppy pool to keep cool in the heat. She is definitely ALL labrador, completely loving the water. In fact, when she is at our house, she thinks the fountain we have out front is her personal bubbler to drink out of.

When we returned on Monday, Mike got to meet her for the first time, and of course, he adores her. Romeo is still not sure what to think of her. Josh comes home from football camp tomorrow and will be surprised to meet her.

While we were in Portland, I got to meet and hold our newest Williamson family member, my Great Nephew Bradyn.  As an extra special bit, he was born on his Great Great Grandfather's birthday, 93 years apart, on June 27. Bradyn is adorable and loved by all. My niece Tiffany and her husband are adjusting well to parenthood.

Lastly, while in Oregon we attended a beautiful outdoor wedding near Mt. Hood to celebrate a new marriage. The wedding was held at the Mt. Hood Bed and Breakfast, where the majestic mountain loomed in the background. My photos do not do the scenery justice, but you get the idea. The girls wore their new dresses I bought in China, and they looked adorable. The wedding was for a childhood friend of mine's son, but the girls were more interested in the horses they found on the grounds!

Welcome Cocoa!

Remember this post last month about a new puppy? Well guess, what, dad is gone, so the girls and I took advantage of the situation couldn't resist this cute puppy! Actually he gave me the go ahead to get a dog while he was gone, but I don't really think he believed we would do it. 

 As I type, she is sleeping between my feet as Romeo is keeping an eye on her just a yard away. The girls were giddy today as we brought her home. She is really sweet and mild mannered. Let's hope she stays this way. We are trying to keep her a surprise from Mike and Josh until they come home next week from wrestling camp then football camp.  Let's hope they don't go online between now and then. We were going to wait to name her until they came home, but we realized we needed something, so we chose the obvious, but very appropriate, Cocoa (or is it Coco?). I'm sure there will be many more cute photos to come. This one was shot before we got her; I haven't got her to sit still this long when awake without Romeo or the girls hovering around!

Then and Now...

I was looking back over my orphanage trip photos from the past six years, and I thought it would be fun to post some "then and now" photos.

2008:

 2012

 2008

 2012

2008

 2012

 2007

 2012

2007

 2012

2007

 2012

2012

2008

 2012

2007

 2012

As you can see, many of the children are better off now; some are not. I leave you with one wonderful update though.  Here is Min Bo in 2008, when our team member Jake took him under his wing...

After receiving a wonderful update on him through the LIGHT physical therapist who works with him in his Chinese foster home, here he is today...

He has been a light to his foster family and a beacon to his community. It is amazing how orphans can be used to touch lives in ways that we cannot even imagine. I was so thrilled to hear this amazing update. It encourages me to continue on...

Fourth Festivities...

Josh and I have been home nearly a week now, and we feel we have come out of our fog. We have had out of town company since Tuesday, so that forced me to get back into the routine sooner than my lazy body probably would have done on its own! We watched the parade, went to the carnival, the park, the beach, and endless time on the trampoline and the front yard.  We are so fortunate the weather turned more cooperative for us to enjoy the outdoors. I hate to complain about the cool weather though, as the rest of the country seems to be burning up right now. I love our own little eco system up here in the PNW!

As we ran into another friend at the carnival, the four girls had a blast together. My favorite comment of the day came from Kaia, as she exclaimed "We are all adopted!" with such enthusiasm as she pointed to her group of friends. I hope she always feels this good about how she came into our family.

 Not a bad photo, just Jaelyn pretending to fall asleep on me. In reality, it was me who could've closed their eyes and rested:)

I loved the teamwork to haul the kelp up the beach! Three determined young ladies, and yes, they did manage to move it up to the rocks.

Chaoyang Video

One of our team members made this video of our trip. He had his iPad with him, so was able to have it completed before we even touched ground in the states! What makes it fun is that he has a lot of video incorporated into it, so the 10 minutes of your day is worth it; I guarantee it will make you smile!

Propoganda Production....

What I thought was going to be a simple ceremony turned out to be quite the propaganda production.  Let's just say there was lots of clapping, beautiful flowers, girls in traditional dresses, tv cameras, etc., all put together in less than 24 hours. The speakers before and after me gave quite lengthy speeches, but as you can see, I kept it short and sweet. I was so nervous and sweating, afraid I would say something offensive. I told Ying, who was interpreting for me, that if I said anything wrong, he was to correct it as he interpreted! Later the director told me I did a good job, and that it was to the point. I think that was supposed to be a compliment:) I was thankful for this part of the trip to be over with.

Birthdays, Bye-Byes, and back to Beijing...

I will apologize up front for any typos in this post, as our plane back from China landed at 4:55 am this morning and I am trying to stay up until I normally would so that I can get onto the right sleep pattern as soon as possible. With that said, I realize I may not make sense at times, but wanted to post about the last day of the trip before my memory faded even more than the current state I am in!

For some reason we had a different bus on the trip to the orphanage today. I'm guessing maybe because we had to check out of the hotel and have all of our gear loaded before we left in the morning, so we needed a bigger bus. This was the fanciest bus I have ever seen in China; brand new inside, two microwaves, and two couches that fold down to beds. As much as I enjoyed it, I have to say I felt guilty driving around in it as we passed the poorer regions in Chaoyang as we approached the orphanage. As we pulled up, I wanted to grab the kids and take them for a cruise around the city!

It was fun to see some of the children dressed in their tutus for our annual birthday party. Before the festivities began though, many of us wanted to hang out with the children upstairs one last time, as we knew they would not be coming to the celebration. Josh snapped lots of scenic photos out of the third and fourth story windows, so you can see the beautiful farmlands around the facilities.

Lychee fruit, bananas, nectarines, watermelon, etc., were brought out in plenty to begin the celebration. We sang "Happy Birthday" to all the children and then ate the elaborately decorated cake. They even had such details as "AWAA" written on a white piece of chocolate, in honor of America World Adoption Association, which Visiting Orphans is a branch off of. My birthday wish was that these children have access to this amount and type of food everyday (well, minus the cake). They were so enthusiastic about all of it. Some ate until we thought they would pop!

We did things a bit backwards today, as after we ate cake, we went with the nannies to prepare dumplings for lunch. This year the new administrative director joined in the fun, and created some unique dumplings that demonstrated he is a "master chef!"

I was pleased to be able to hang out with Flower for a bit. I first met her back in 2007, and she now attends a massage school, but is back to the orphanage for the summer. As we said our goodbyes, some of the nannies handed out gifts of bracelets and necklaces. Saying goodbye is never easy, but it is through this experience where I truly feel like we mean something to the nannies.

I am excited to say we will be joining up with LIGHT to provide extra nutrition and protein to the children at Chaoyang, particularly those in the upstairs rooms that don't get much. They have a program that has been up and running, but the funds were running out, so was good timing for us to step in. I am hoping we can partner with this group even more in the near future. I have a few more specific stories I want to blog more about later, but for now I must get some sleep. Thanks for all the prayers that went up to make this trip so successful.

*A special thanks to my husband and to Liz Gividen for updating posts in my absence!