Gung Hei Fat Choy!

Hannah and I are blessed to have many friends to celebrate CNY with!
Back in the years when I was waiting for Hannah I met many others who were also waiting for their children.  Friendships were formed as we met a number of times as a Waiting Mommies group.  We still get together a couple of times a year now to celebrate Chinese New Year/Tet and the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival.  We are beyond blessed to be parents to these amazing children!!
And on the other side of this pic….(Our group is old school.  Not a camera phone in the group!)
Happy year of the monkey!
Our dragon parade.
Hannah enjoyed opening her red envelopes when we got  home.  Gung hei fat choy!!

Gung Hay Fat Choi!

Happy New Year!

Hannah and I celebrated with a group of friends earlier this month and what fun we had!  Many of us became friends a number of years ago while we were waiting to become parents and now it’s a treat to celebrate with our children home!  I still marvel all the time at how blessed we are that God brought Hannah and I together in this most wonderful way to become a family!

It was sweet to look in and see some of the girls gathered around listening to a story being read to them.  (At first I thought it was a CNY story but then I looked closer and realized it was a ‘Frozen’ story.  No surprise there!)

After dining on an Asian potluck dinner, there was the gathering of red envelopes.   This was new to L but she caught on quick and as the most recently home member of our group, everyone oooed and ahhhed over her!  Welcome to Canada Baby L!!!

The kids disappeared after gathering their envelopes so after a few minutes I went to see where Hannah was.  This scene just made me giggle!  Red envelopes ripped open and coins everywhere.

The kids all took turns wearing the dragon as they paraded around playing musical instruments.  We’ve sometimes done this outside in the past but frigid temps easily determined this parade was happening in the warmth of the house!  (LOL…check out some of the boots!  There were almost 50 of us gathered together!  Oh how we cherish these friends who share similar stories to ours!)

Gung Hei Fat Choi from Hannah and I!

Daytona Beach Meet Up with Old Friends!

After leaving Sam and Margaret we drove a few blocks away to meet up with bloggy friends we’ve met in Daytona Beach a couple of other times.   (see posts from 2011 and 2010 – funny wave video included). 

We hadn’t seen Don and JMei in a few years and it was SO good to connect again!  (Alyson and Ford, we missed you!!  Hopefully next time!)

The other times we were together the age difference seemed bigger between the girls because they were so young but now 3 years later they had lots in common and were quickly goofing off and having a fun time hanging out together!

So glad we shared this time together!  Until next time Don and JMei!!

This is our final post from The Villages 2014. It was a wonderful week once again!  So very thankful for this week of family time together!!!

5 Year Forever Family Day Celebration!

Sunday, November 2nd, Hannah and I celebrated 5 years together.  She loves to look back at the pictures and videos of the day we became a family and asks me to share the details over and over again.   She is so sweet and one of her favourite things to do is re enact the photo of her with her hand on my face.  My friend had it printed and framed and it sits beside our TV and on a regular basis she crawls in my lap, puts her hand on my cheek and says something like, ‘Mommy, this is just like when we became a family.’  Such a precious moment then and now too.

This year our Forever Family Day was a busy one.  We went to church then travelled to Toronto to celebrate Hannah’s little friend’s 5th Birthday.  Happy Birthday S!

The wonderful connection that these girls share is that they were both in the same SWI in China.  Hannah left DaoXian SWI on Nov 2, 2009 and sweet S arrived there shortly after that.  S and some other friends we part of the travel group after ours who also travelled to Hunan so Hannah and I went to their travel preparation meeting in 2010 and were taken under their wing and now get together with them numerous times a year.  What a blessing to have not just 1 but 2 travel groups to grow up with and Hannah is blessed to call these girls her friends! 
Charlotte and Hannah

S’ birthday party was a cooking class and Hannah loved it!  They made pizza, fruit kabobs and decorated cup cakes.  I’ll need to keep this idea in mind when Hannah’s birthday rolls around  if I decide to do a birthday party for her.

When we left the party we hit the road on our way to our annual celebration with the families we travelled to China with.  It is always a treat to spend time with these families as we shared such an amazing, life changing time together!!!
The girls have grown and changed so much from the babies they were in 2009!

And a walk down memory lane…2013

2012

2011

2010 (aka ‘The Year of Herding Cats!!’)

Thank you so much for hosting our celebration again this year Anna and Peter!  What a treat it is for our families to have the honour of getting together every year and catching up with one another.  I cherish each of these families and am so thankful that we continue to share this most amazing journey together!

Sun, Fun and Sandcastles

Last Saturday Hannah and I joined Auntie K, Uncle J, K & G at a beach less than an hour away and oh my….why haven’t we been before?  They go often and yet last Saturday was a first for Hannah and I.  It’s a beautiful beach and we shared a great day together!! 

The kids played in the sand and water for hours and hours!

At times I think they were seeing if they could coat their bodies with every grain of sand on the beach!

Time out for lunch.

Our cartwheelin’ girls!

There was also a sandcastle building contest the day we were there and it was amazing what some of these people built, especially the ‘amateurs!’  WOW!  Check out Dusty!

Thanks so much for the invite Auntie K!  We had a GREAT time with you at the beach and cannot wait to join your family there again!

S’more Fun Anyone?

Recently Hannah and I shared a wonderful time together with special friends who truly are like family!  The kids get along famously and when they’re together the laughter and chatter abounds!

In the evening we gathered around the fire pit, roasted marshmallows and enjoyed, s’mores, s’mores and more s’mores!

Marshmallow anyone?

Helping out my sweet girl.

Our families love spending time together so as the sun set the kids watched ‘Frozen’ and the parents visited some more. 

Hannah and I had such a great day!  Cannot wait until we do it again!!

Meeting a New Bloggy Buddy

When Hannah and I were at Disney one of the gals who visits here and comments often realized we were both there together.  Cool!!  She dropped me a note asking if we’d be interested in getting together if it worked out.  As it was everything lined up perfectly so we arranged to meet an hour later!

In the meantime Hannah and I headed to Fairytale Hall to visit with Rapunzel and Snow White since we’d run out of time to do this earlier in the week.

Originally we had planned to meet up at ‘it’s a small world’ but due to the strong winds the ride was closing early so that they could close the area for safety reasons before the fireworks started.  Hannah and I hopped on the very last ‘cruise’ of the evening and enjoyed a wonderful ride for 2!  We sang, chatted and danced our way through this sweet little ride.

(This next picture was taken about 30 mins after the fireworks.  Guess they knew what they were talking about when they were concerned about small fires being started.  Cast Members said it’s not unheard of on windy nights but thankfully this smoke and the smell left as quickly as it arrived so they must have gotten the small fire under control quickly.)

When we exited ‘it’s a small world’ we walked to the carousel and met up with MaLeah, her husband and son Marin.  What fun!  It quickly felt like we were old friends and we chatted for a while and the kids ran around and got to know one another!  The instant friendship kids can strike up is so refreshing!

We quickly realized that the kids enjoyed similar rides so we rode Goofy’s Roller Coaster a few times followed by Dumbo around, and around and…around! 

We stayed until park closing and used the final bit of time to visit the characters since there were no lines.  What a treat to walk up to all of our favourites without having to wait!

After too brief a visit it was time to go our separate ways as MaLeah and her family were driving home the following day.  It was great to meet you!  Who knows – maybe we’ll end up at Disney again some day MaLeah!

Both kids woke up the next morning disappointed that they weren’t going to see one another.  Sweet!  Hopefully another time!