four minutes

Four minutes.

That's about how long it took for Kylie and her "China sister" Nellie to fall back into step with one another.  Never mind that it had been just over two years since the girls saw each other last, by the time we'd finished dinner and made it to see some rain delayed fireworks along with Lottie and her family too, the three were running side by side, holding hands and finishing each other's sentences...as if they saw each other all the time.

Later that night Caroline arrived.  And the next morning after both Kylie and Caroline were awake, it again took about four minutes for them to get past the "so I haven't seen you for a really long time awkwardness" and start playing as if lazy morning doll play dates happened every Saturday morning between the two...

With both Nellie (who stayed at Lottie's house) and Caroline in town, we took advantage of our pool membership and spent a few hours beating the heat by splashing around.

Nearly all the siblings...both Caroline and Nellie are missing older brothers who didn't make the trip to NC

Of course swimming for a few hours worked up some appetites, so our mini-reunion headed over to Lottie's house for a southern feast of pulled pork, mac 'n cheese, green beans and plenty of melon.  One more of the families from our first travel group lives local and they were able to join us for our dinner.

Darby hadn't seen Nellie or Caroline in two years, but once again it was about four minutes before the five had settled in and made it clear to their younger siblings that they needed some "Guangdong girl" time.

While only a few hours passed, the girls watched most of Mulan,

had bonding time over some pedicures,

huge kudos to Caroline's big sister Mindy who ran the "salon"

and graciously (well, mostly graciously) endured more photo sessions than they would have liked.

We grown ups?  Well, we just sat and talked.  About adoption and parenting and how we met our spouses and life in general.  And as we caught up on each other's families, we watched our girls  ~ who knew each other before they knew us ~ just fall back into that state of familiar.

It only took about four minutes...

And Sunday morning when four of our families were able to attend worship together, I was so very thankful to have shared a "delivery room" with these three (and seven other) amazing women.  Our backgrounds are different, our families are different, but we share two mighty important things in common.  We are daughters of the King, striving to spread His love in this world.

And we love some pretty amazing seven year-old girls!

Looking forward to the next time these girls from VA, IN, & NC (along with all the rest of their "China sisters") are together again.  I expect when they first get together that they'll stand in silence for a minute, trying to break the ice.  

But I won't worry, because I know it will only take about four minutes...