Esther's Reunion

Get ready for lots and lots of pictures!!

Thursday we drove down to Fredericksburg, Virginia in anticipation of a long awaited reunion for Esther and her best friend, Jing Chen. After stopping for lunch, we drove to Belvedere Plantation and awaited our friends. The only bathrooms available were the portable type and our aching bladders were all less than pleased to discover this. (Especially Emma.. note her face as she exists the portable restroom!) While we waited, the girls and Ian picked daisies and wildflowers and explored the plantation. And then our friends arrived. A year and two months later, the two best friends who survived three years together in an orphanage were finally meeting again. Yep.. Esther and Delaney!
We were fortunate enough to be able to get together with Delaney and her parents, brothers and sister while in Maryland. It was so good to see them again. (For those who don't know, we traveled with Delaney's father Charlie and brother Britt last year when we went to China. You can see more about that here.) Britt has probably grown about 5 inches since last year! He's the same age as Ian, but a lot taller. The two of them got along just great! Delaney is beautiful and has grown quite a bit since our trip. She no longer looks like a young child, but a beautiful four year old with the same funny personality!!
Esther and Delaney were a little skittish around each other for the first hour.. they both preferred to stay close to their other siblings. We took a hayride down to the fields and picked four boxes of strawberries! The kids had a blast picking, throwing and eating all those yummy strawberries. We were lucky since the Plantation had only opened up it's fields to picking the day before! We had such a great time remembering our trip, and meeting new friends. We hadn't yet met Delaney's mom Elizabeth, or her brother Will and sister Eliza, so it was great to finally meet them after corresponding through e-mail the last two years!
Laney & Esther finally started to engage with each other after the first hour.. and they started playing like they had just seen each other yesterday. Esther strongly remembers Laney and for the longest time we couldn't show her pictures of her friend because it would send her into tantrums and crying spells. She finally got to the point where she could see the pictures and video and be fine, but she would always talk about her Jing Cheng.
These two had such a close relationship, they were more like sisters. The Lord was so good when he allowed both of our families to adopt Laney & Esther at the same time, because I strongly believe their adjustments would have been MUCH worse if they hadn't been together. For the first few days after we got Esther, she would scream when we would have to say goodbye to Jing Chen so we could go up to our hotel room. Esther was very protective of Jing Chen and would always hold Laney's hand, or feed Laney much like an older sister. They were so cute together in China and we are so glad that we were able to get them together again.
The girls have a lot in common, like the fact that they were both born with a cleft lip and palate and each has a sister close in age. When we got together, not only did we have ten children between the two families... but FOUR four-year-old's!! (Esther, Emma, Laney & Eliza) The girls were very cute together and really enjoyed playing.
Afterwards, we took the kids to a local Chinese restaurant and enjoyed the yummy food.
It was such a nice visit with Laney's family and we look forward to keeping in touch and meeting at least once a year! Enjoy the pictures!!