Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful trip out to Philadelphia for Thanksgiving. We flew out on Wednesday and spent a few days with Karen (Henry's sister) and Steve. We saw my grandparents, an uncle and some cousins on Saturday. Then we drove home in our new (to us from Karen) car! Here are some pictures from our trip.

Going for a walk on Thursday.
The weather was absolutely BEAUTIFUL!

Checking to see if the turkey is done.
(It had been cooking for 5 hours and we were getting hungry!)

Still waiting for that turkey...

We headed to the park on Friday.
(Meili is wearing her Chinese tiger birthday hat.)

Meili, Nigel and Pookles at the park.
The wind was ICY!

One family picture before we leave.

Meili with her great-grandpa (Gramps).

Meili entertained herself for a while in the car...

but was tired and fell asleep.
She slept for over 3 hours - that's a record!

Happy Birthday Meili!

We got the call one year ago today!!!

One year ago today... I was out on the playground at school doing recess duty with another Oakdale teacher. I had my cell phone turned on (just in case someone from Bethany tried to call me). It rang during recess! It was our caseworker - calling to say that we had been matched with Meili! I felt very calm when I was on the phone but fell apart after I hung up. All of the kids wanted to know why I was crying. I wanted to tell them but I could hardly talk! Plus... I still had to call Henry to tell him the news. Here's our post from that day...

MEET OUR DAUGHTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here she is:
Meili Jiang XinYi Kingma (pronunciation: May-Lee Gee-ong Chin Yee Kingma)
Date of Birth: November 21, 2005
Current Home: Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, China
Estimated GOTCHA DAY: January 2007
Proud Parents: Liz & Henry

one year ago

This was a big week for us last year. It's fun to go back and look at what kinds of things we were posting on this blog. It's strange to remember that last year at this time, we knew about Meili but didn't know that she was going to be our daughter. Here's the post from one year ago today.

"Please keep us in prayer this week as we consider two different girls from the "Children of Promise" list. These are two young girls who have some unique needs and are waiting to be placed with a family. Pray for wisdom for those in the decision making process - that they will find the best placement for these two special girls."

laughing during prayer

What are you supposed to do when your kid does something HILARIOUS when you are trying to pray? Lately, when we pray "God is great, God is good..." with Meili she tries to pray along. It's hard for us to make it through the prayer without completely cracking up. First, Meili sees that we have our eyes closed so she squints hers shut - not all the way because she still wants to look around. Second, she tries to say the prayer along with us but for some reason, she pulls a funny face when she's doing it. It's hard to explain. Take a look!