St. Louis

We have arrived, in more ways then one praise God.

We are in St. Louis for the weekend. It is the annual Children's Hope Reunion. We try to make it out here for the weekend for a couple of different reasons. First off, we do our best to stay in touch with the other families who we went through the adoption process with. A total of 10 families stayed together for the entire trip. We came from all over the country and found our way to Beijing. From there we were together to Changsha, the capital city of the Hunan Province and together still for a nice stay in Guangzhou, We have a bit of an emotional bond from this shared adventure and most of our little princesses were at the same orphanage. We call them 'sisters' and we come here each year in hopes of visiting with Gracie's sisters. Normally we have a gathering as guests of one of the families who lives here on Chinese New Year. This usually draws about 7 of the 10 families. This event was not possible this year so we thought it was important to make the CHI reunion to visit with one of the sisters this year anyway. Gracie talks about her sisters quite a bit and it will be really nice for Gracie and Grace Bean to see each other.

About the event. The adoption agency, Children's Hope International, holds a reunion in the city of their headquarters. People from all over come into town for the weekend. Several hundred internationally adopted children, and their families, get together to break bread and just experience each others company for a while. Angie refers to it as the Mini U.N. meeting, because there are kids from all over the globe hanging out together. It is a difficult visual for people to imagine, so I will try to get some relevant photo's tomorrow and post them when I get home.

About the trip, something around 7 hours for me driving a small car with my wife next to me and my daughter behind me has the makings of a post all its own. For now I will just say, we are here, and we are all alive, some of us are happier than others, but life goes on.

More to follow................