Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Travel Group Reunion

We had the great pleasure of meeting up this past weekend with several of the families we traveled to China with back in 2005. All of our daughters came from the same orphanage and within our group, several of our girls shared a room together. Several families live in Kentucky but others are spread out as far as Virginia, Texas and Chicago to name a few. You just can't imagine what a treat it is to see the girls, see how much they have grown and then to watch them all playing together. We're so thankful that it's important to many of us that our girls have as much of a relationship as they can have.

We met up on Friday night and let the girls just hang out at the pool together and then on Saturday we went to the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington. It's hard to believe we've been here since 2001 and had yet to have visited there. What an awesome place!

Here's some pictures from the Horse Park on Saturday, I'll post some from the pool party later.



Pony rides were a huge hit with the girls!
This is Emma and her friend Jubilee. They really seemed to hit it off and played a lot together. Which is funny, because we really hit it off with her parents when we traveled with them. Their son John Randall is the same age as Ryan and they had taken him on the trip so he and Ryan had lots of fun hanging out together. In these two shots, I caught the girls playing this little game of peeking around a pole at each other which really made the little dumplings giggle!

This is Mary with Jubilee and Emma. She is from the Virginia area and is just as sweet as can be! What's even neater ... and a long, long story - but her older sister named Rebekah traveled to China recently to do some volunteer work. You'll never guess where she ended up? The Starfish Home! Which is the home our Rebecca lived in. Isn't that too cool! Her mother figured it out in a round about way & sent me an email asking if that's where Bex was from. Really, what's the statistical chance of that happening?
More shots of Jubilee & Emma.


From left to right: Rebecca, Jubilee, Emma, Sheridan & Mary
We met up at the fountain first thing that morning to get a quick shot before it was too hard to get them all back together again!

Left to right: Erin, Amy (a new little sister to Jillian), Rebecca, Sheridan, Kate, Jillian, Emma & Jubilee

7 comments:

Courtney said...

Great photos. Looks like you had lots of fun!

Lori Lynn said...

What a fantastic group shot! Emma's getting prettier every day. What stunning cheek bones she has!

Lori Lynn

fleur de lis cottage said...

What fun. Oh how I wish we had travelled in a group!

Melissa said...

Those little ladies are so stinkin' cute! I love the Horse Park, used to live just a few miles from it..makes you proud to be a Kentuckian. Love all the photos!

Marla said...

Its so neat that you guys get to see each other. The park looks like lots of fun too.

Becky said...

Funny, I have lived here my whole life and have NEVER been to KHP. Can you believe that?

What great pics of your group! I am sad that our group hasn't gotten together this summer -- we ALWAYS do (usually at the picnic - sigh)! Looks like a great time was had by all....

Unknown said...

I love getting together with our other two families. And we really do feel like family. No one else shares such a impactful journey as those who have traveled that road with you. Even our Sweet Pea Yahoo group is our "extended family"! What a bumpy journey that was for most of us who had not traveled down the China adoption road before.

Like you, we really feel it is important for our Chinese children to have contact with those we traveled with and especially those from the same orphanage. Our other two families live in S. CA like we do and one family is in our same town. It really is a tremendous blessing too.