Squeezing in a few friends

Lands I'm behind!  Between our two 8+ day trips, a week with two marathon appointments at Duke, and just trying to re-organize our tiny house after the suitcase explosions from said trips, not to mention squeezing in a few play dates with friends we've missed from here at home AND just enjoying some relaxing family time together, I've failed to post about some of our "firefly moments." And since this blog serves as our family scrapbook ~ cause who really has time to upload pictures, print them, and then put them into albums ~ I've got to retrace my steps and document some of the fun we've had in the past month.

(Month?  Did I just say MONTH?  Yikes, am I really THAT far behind?...)

Our eight day, three state road trip was primarily focused on taking Darcy Ohio to meet my grandfather (and the slew of aunts, uncles and cousins that still live in the area) and then on to DC to meet Ian's dad.  However, as we typically try to do, we managed to squeeze in a 24 hour visit with Caroline's family while we were in Ohio, and then managed to find time in our tight schedule to catch up with three families while we were in DC.  Our time in the greater DC area is always busy as we have Ian's dad, an aunt/uncle, two cousins, the best man from our wedding, another groomsman from our wedding, my high school best friend, one of Kylie's China sisters, and several other friends we've met though the adoption community.  We try to rotate who we see when we're in town, but schedules don't always work out.

Anyway, this time we were lucky to catch Jim with some flex time from work on his hands.  He and his wife Anne treated us to a delicious lunch and their sweet daughter Abbey shared her toys quite well with our "traveling play group."  Anne and I lingered around the table, swapping thoughts on motherhood, Jim and Ian had several "nerdy engineering" conversations, and many a picture was snapped of our kids playing in the same areas.  I'm not too sure what Abbey thought of our family, probably something like, "Hey, is anyone else noticing that each time we see these people they have one more kid?  And what is it with the boy anyway?"

All too soon it was time to head out, but many hugs were exchanged and promises made for a stop in NC on their way to the beach later this summer.

Later that night we got to meet a family that I've considered friends for some time now.  Melanie and David live pretty much in my father-in-law's backyard, and Grant was eventually successful in getting Melanie and I in touch with one another when he discovered last fall that we were both adopting again through the same agency.  As it turned out, our families were not only with the same agency, but also on the same timeline.  In the end we missed traveling with them because our TA was held up for reasons still unknown, but we are grateful that they live so close to family and hope to add them to our visiting schedule on a more regular basis.

Kylie and Indigo are just a few months apart in age, and they had great fun bossing around leading their younger siblings.  As we adults got into conversation, Melanie and I suddenly noticed that the background din of five young children had gotten very quiet, none were to be seen, and the bathroom light was on.  So I did what all bloggy moms did and grabbed my camera before heading to check out the situation.  Here's what we found...

I'm pretty sure the only reason Isaac wasn't in the tub with them was that he was too short to get his legs over himself.  Unfortunately Indigo ended up not feeling well and their family had to leave a bit early.  Course who knows what kind of trouble these two four year olds could have gotten themselves in if they had just a little more time to scheme...

And just before we headed to the national mall (I still sometimes wonder what is up with that large plot of land being called a mall, I remember being so disappointed as a teen that there were no shops there ~ and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only gal who has ever mistaken that, right Abby M?) on our way out that last day, we had brunch with Kylie's "China sister" Kristin.  Maria and I sat at the table for a long time after we finished eating, discussing her upcoming trip to China.  (She's since traveled to meet her third child, a darling little boy, and I was offering my thoughts on surviving China with three small children).  Kristin couldn't be bothered with posing for any formal pictures, but I did manage to catch this one of the two former orphanage roommates while playing dress up without her noticing. 

From there we headed home.  Bags were unpacked, laundry was redone, confirmation was made with the dog sitter, and before we knew it bags were repacked and we were gone again.  And as far as blogging and email go, I'm still playing catch-up...