Our little one's Special Day!!

We had THREE celebrations for Our little Princess...

We celebrated her Christening...



She has 2 sets of God Parents...



We celebrated her 1st Birthday...



And of course we celebrated her joining our family!!!



The entire day was AWESOME...we had lots of family and friends join us and Elena had a blast - she loved all of the kids but she really LOVED the cake...


I can't say it enough - we are SO BLESSED to have such a wonderful little girl!! Every day I look at her and watch as she learns new things and I am sooooo amazed at all of the smiles and giggles she shares - she is SOOOOO AWESOME!! We are ALL so very much in LOVE...

More pictures...

We are so BLESSED to have so many people involved in our lives...Elena has been SO AWESOME with all of the places we have gone and she LOVES meeting everyone - there are still so many people waiting to meet her but for now I wanted to share just a few pictures of ELENA AND...

We are home and Loving it!!

Here are our Greaters...


Elena will have several first...

Here first time in a car seat


Meeting her brothers:


Meeting her Grandparents:
Chance (in his new jammies), Elena and my mom...


Elena with my Dad..


Bob's mom, Elena & Chance...


Bob's dad with Elena...


Elena with Chance's 6th Grade class...she was a BIG hit and enjoyed all of the attention!!


We took these to hand out to all of the kids in Chance's class...

Our last day in China...

Our last day in China was a day we will NEVER forget!! We went to the US Consulate for our swearing in...



On our last night we did a dinner cruise on the Pearl River - it was a beautiful night, the dinner was good and it was just nice to sit back and relax and enjoy the sights...







Here is a picture of us with our Connie (our guide) as we are leaving to catch our flight home...

I am SO glad that my friend Murry could be there with us through-out this entire experience - she was SO AMAZING and Elena just LOVES her Aunt Murry!!!




Our flight home - we were able to get the seats where we could put the baby in a bassinet - Elena did GREAT for the flight home - she slept for a couple of hours in the bed as well as a couple of hours with me... We had the BEST seats - there was SO much leg room and although Elena couldn't stay in the bed the entire time she was sleeping (because of the turbulence) we were able to use the bed to change her and set stuff in so it was easy to get to - but most of all having the leg room was GREAT!

Elena was easily entertained...

We are SO glad to be home!!!

More of our Guangzhou trip...

We met up with Mina and Li Li for a red couch picture!!! The girls are so BEAUTIFUL...

Elena all SMILES...


Mina, Elena & Li Li... - I am sure Del got better shots then I did!!





Li Li looking very stylish...


Mina with her Mom...


It was SO GREAT spending time with Mina & Li Li (and of course with the rest of the family as well) - I am sure that Suzy & Del are home enjoying every minute with their daughters!! We are so looking foward to keeping in touch!! Suzy please give the girls a hug for us!!!

Lots of catching up!!!

It has been a while since I have updated so let me first catch you up on our trip!!

The last I posted we were in Nanchang - let me just say that when we got to Guangzhou it was totally different then Beijing or Nanchang! There were lots of places to visit and a very enjoyable place to walk around!!!

Guangzhou was really nice - one of the things we did was go to the Safari Zoo - it was a lot of fun - the Safari part was great but it was nice walking around and just enjoying the entire day.



We stayed at the Victory and met several really GREAT families!! One of which we got to see almost every morning:

Kim was our entertainer the entire week - she loved to dance and keep the babies smiling!! She was there with her mom and dad to adopt her new little sister Anna. Elena LOVED seeing them every morning at breakfast as well as seeing them out and about. Kim and Anna are probably home now in Australia and we hope to keep in touch with them.

And of course it was GREAT catching up with Suzy & the family...we met for dinner at the Cow & Bridge and it was GREAT - we had a fun time with the kiddos and walked to Starbucks after!! Of course it goes without saying - it was so nice to spend time with them and the girls truly are AMAZING!!! Elena loved playing with them!!

Our visit in Nanchang

We met a family in the Beijing airport that were going to Nanchang to adopt their second daughter - it was GREAT meeting them and we made plans to catch up in Nanchange!!

Here are some of the things with did:


We went with Suzy & her family to see one of the largest ferris wheels in the world.

We went to the Water show - which was really nice as well!!


A picture of the group - the oldest little girl was Suzy's guide's niece - she was really adorable and the girls really enjoyed having her to play with!

There wasn't really much else to say about Nanchang. I can tell you that the hotel we stayed at was nice but there wasn't much to do outside - although on our last night there we discovered that if we walked approx 4 blocks straight up from our hotel there was a walking mall - we had gone there before but when we had specifically asked to be dropped off by the McDonalds so we didn't know how close it was - it was nice walking around there but we really didn't do much shopping - it was basically all clothes and all of which we could purchase in the states - so I had NO desire to buy anything like that!!