5 Years of Lin-Ley Loving!

Although we loved her long before we ever met her face-to-face on March 2, 2003, today marks the fifth anniversary of Lin-Ley’s adoption.
Following are the first three photos we ever saw of our Spicy Hunan Girl:

We traveled to China with a group of 14 families. When we finally arrived to the city where we were to meet Lin-Ley and the other babies it was around 10PM and we had been traveling for over 24 hours. We were originally told that we would meet the girls the following morning. But... the girls were all at the hotel lobby waiting for us. We had to check into our hotel room and wait for our luggage to be delivered before we could go to the banquet room where we would meet our babies. It was pure torture!

Finally our bags were delivered and we bolted from our room. There she was! Her nanny handed her to us and we stared at her and she stared back at us. There were no tears - just an instant sense of relief, comfort, and family.

Our first few minutes together in our hotel room.

A few days later. A happy family of three.

Below is a photo of our travel group with Frank (far right) and Marilyn (fifth from the right in a yellow top) who were our guides. The folks you see in this photo are now the dearest and closest of friends even though we only see each other once a year or less. It is amazing just how much your life can change while traveling half way around the world.

This is one of my favorite photos from our first days back at home in the U.S.

Although our trip to China was hard at times we now only remember the fondest of times.

(And of course we can not forget the whole SARS saga...)

We love, love, love this baby girl!