Friday, December 9, 2011

A Reconnection & a Flag Performance

When we brought Shaling home last January, she brought with her a folded up letter from her "big sister" at the orphanage, Yu Bei. It was obvious that Yu Bei is pretty special to Shaling, because she would open up and re-read that letter often. I knew that Yu Bei was going to be adopted, because I had met her parents at an older child adoption training seminar in June, 2010. I told Shaling that Yu Bei would be coming to Illinois to live, but a couple of hours away (I believe she is in Mendota).

Over the last 11 months, Shaling would ask me from time to time if Yu Bei was with her family yet. I was in occasional email contact with Yu Bei's mother. Their process took longer than ours, partially because they decided to get two girls at once and they were from two entirely different provinces. Last I heard, Yu Bei was going to be coming home in October or November 2011. Apparently she DID make it home, because yesterday I got an email from her mother asking for our phone number so Francine (as Yu Bei is now called) could call Shaling. I told Shaling she was going to be getting a surprise phone call and she was very intrigued, though she never correctly guessed who it was going to be. As you can see from the glow in the picture below, she was thrilled with the chat.




Shaling participated in a flag camp this week. It was run by the high school flag corps and culminated in a half-time performance at the JV girls basketball game last night. Though it may not be obvious in the video (below), she really did enjoy it and expressed disappointment to me that she was only going to get to perform once. She was all smiles during the rehearsals, but not so much at the performance because she was distracted by the fact that a certain boy was there watching her (I think it made her nervous).

***Remember, the video shows up on my blog, but not in the emails that some of you receive.



Quick update on my cousin Joanna - she was able to come home from the hospital on Wednesday, but is currently on a liquid diet until her bolster is removed (which I think may happen on Monday). She is already uttering some words and though they took more tongue than they planned (found more cancer), it is not going to be as obvious as I thought. I'm convinced she'll be able to return to teaching quicker than I originally expected. Thanks for the prayers!

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