Annual "Reunion"?

In August, I followed Christie's adventure to China to pick up her 5th "sunflower". She has 5 gorgeous Chinese daughters. This most recent daughter, Tessa, was from the same orphanage as Shaling. She has been with Christie's family since August 23rd. Christie took two of her daughters with her and left two at home with dad. I remember aching for Christie while reading about her "Gotcha Day" -- the day she got Tessa. Tessa cried and cried...wanting pretty much nothing to do with Christie. Fortunately, she did bond with her new sisters.

Since then, Tessa has been slow to bond, but is blossoming. Christie was showing her some pictures of some of the other kids from Long Gang that Christie knows are being adopted. Tessa got excited and pointed at each of them, asking Christie to "click here". She remembered all of their names (Shaling was one of them). She told Christie that she does not want to go back to China, but she does want to play with all of her friends again. I thought that was very heartwarming & poignant. It implies to me that Tessa recognizes she's in a good situation with her new family, but simply misses her other "loved ones".

Christie suggested that those of us who are interested could perhaps plan a once-a-year reunion of sorts with all of our kids. Several of us are interested in doing just that! Christie lives in Kansas. Tim (see previous post about our visitors), who is adopting Star, lives in Tennessee. I know another family lives in Minnesota. Of course, there's another one here in the Rochester area as well. Seems a lot of us are in the mid-west (or neighboring it).

One family that I know isn't in the mid-west (mother is Kim) is on pace to travel at the same time as us. Their daughter, Natalie, just turned 8. Kim's family lives in Florida. I suspect she'd make every effort to join us though.