Hangin' with Darby

Yesterday we had the treat of getting to visit with Darby (one of Kylie's "Lianjiang sisters") and her parents. We would have invited them to come to our home, but for some unknown reason our power went out early yesterday morning. For a while it wasn't a big deal, but as the temperature steadily rose outside it got warmer and warmer inside our house. When I broke a sweat walking upstairs we knew it was time to bail out and come up with an alternate plan.

We decided to meet at a local mall (with air-conditioning!) that has a kids play area. When we first spotted C.C. and Stephen we began to exchange hugs but the girls were a bit reserved at first.

"Do I know you from somewhere? You sorta look familiar..."

It didn't take long for the girls to fall into playing together. They were so cute mimicking each other and offering to share snacks, drinks and most importantly, hugs.

"Oh yes, that's right ~ I do remember you! I've missed you girl!"

After we let them burn off a lot of energy (and we adults got caught up on the past 6 months ~ we last saw each other on Feb 16 at the Chicago airport) we decided to grab dinner before Darby and her family had to hit the highway to go home. Despite being tired out of their minds, they were well behaved and even endured one last photo shoot before we parted ways.

"Whatcha lookin' at?" They copied one another much of the time.

Friends for life

Ian, Kylie, me, C.C., Darby, Stephen

It was so nice to see some of our China friends again. We reminisced about our trip, laughed about our common ways of thinking, shared some of our fears of parenting, discussed the joy we have watching our girls grow, and of course took about a hundred pictures of our girls interacting with one another. We can't wait to see them again!