California Meets Florida

Well.. I thought this was too cute to not post.
I love it when she's sleeping like that.

MAY..
was an exciting month for our family.
Lots going on including my High School Graduation celebrations,
family visiting from out of town,
Mothers Day,
Esther & Asher's baptism.. just to name a few events!

The first week in May we were blessed to have Dad's brother and family visit from California. If you've been a longtime reader of our blog than you might remember how we traveled to California to visit with Dad's family before we made the trip to China to bring Esther home, back in 2006. While visiting, I shared with our extended family the video I had made of Emma's adoption and many other photographs since they hadn't yet met her. After we left and arrived in China we got a call from Mom and she excitedly shared with us that Mauri & Norma wanted to adopt a baby from China! This was pretty shocking, yet wonderful news to us. My cousins were 17 and 15 at the time and both adopted from Chile as infants. I have to admit.. I thought they were a bit crazy to be adopting a little girl when their kids were already almost grown!
Fast forward to March 2007, nearly a year after the seeds of adoption had been planted in their hearts, my aunt and uncle made the trip to China to bring home their daughter and our new cousin, three-year-old Frida.
Frida was born March 1, 2004 in Hunan, China and was later abandoned by her parents because of a heart condition. She had surgery in China to correct the hole in her heart and is now a healthy, strong, beautiful little girl. Frida has been home a year already and has brought so much joy to my uncle, aunt and cousins. She's very spunky, oh so smart and sweet!
We were so excited to have them visit from California so we could meet her and finally get the Chinese cousins together. (We have four Chinese children in our family now!) The girls had a blast getting to meet each other, even though they only got to spend one day together.
It's so neat to think that the girls (and Asher!) will have each other as they grow up. It's also funny to think that my dad and his brother will both be in their 60's when the girls graduate from High School!! =)

Esther..
who played an important role in her Aunt & Uncle's decision to adopt from China.

Brothers; Mauricio and Claudio

Brothers, with their daughters.

Cousins Juliana and Frida going down the slide.

Sweet Frida

Esther and Frida


Frida..
quite the Spicy Hunan girl!