Celebrating Adoption Day!

We celbrated Adoption Day with yummy homemade dumplings from the restaurant next to the Xi'an Sheraton. Fabulous. We went back several times! The little peeper is enjoying her noodles too!

Adoption Day!

Let make this adoption official! On the bus to get our papers to say we are officially a family, I cried afterwards of course. This baby is happy! Who wouldn't be wearing a cute hat like that? Thank Rhonda!

Home at last posted by Mama

Ahh, what a sweetheart!
all tuckered out from her first night

Hubby's cousins met us at the airport and I almost cried as soon as I saw them! Something about having come full circle on this journey is very overwhelming. I could tell they are as smitten as we over Natalie. She is charming, funny and full of giggles. She loves us and we love her. It is so wonderful to see her eyes light up when she sees me. I can not tell you how amazing it is to have such a stong bond already. She loves being in Daddy's strong arms. She loves her new room and is exporing more everyday. She crawls over to her book shelf and pulls all the books down and gets very excited. So I pick one and we read it. She loves watching the birds out the window while she eats in her highchair and saw her first squirrel. She was very curious about that!

We all have the flu, glug, so will write more later. We have tons of pictures to post and will do so asap.

There's no place like home...

From Dad:

Glenda the Good Witch had it right. "There's no place like home."

After almost 2 years, over 35,000-some air miles between the 3 of us, bus rides and quite a few tears here and there, we're home. And yep, there's no place like like it.

As much as we enjoyed the journey, the sights and delights of China - there's nothing like coming home. So home we are, the three of us. And it feels right to finally be a family.

The cats met their new sister yesterday and the dog met her today. Natalie seems thrilled with her new 4-legged siblings.

That's it for now - more pix and stories to come this weekend.

Heartfelt thanks go out to my family, friends and co-workers who wished us much luck and love and without whose support this blessed event wouldn't have been possible.

- Natalie's Dad