Thursday night after AWANA

Colton:  "I just LOVE obstacle courses!"

Harbin Pics

McDonald's, Walmart, and the buildings going up for the ice festival.

China Pics - Meeting Leedy

Allee takes off for the first time...

Sunday, Allee and I were inside my mom and dad's house.  The others were riding snowmobiles.  They were pretty far away.  I am cooking some pizza and snack food.  Allee wanders outside to the front yard, and then comes back in.  She is munching on crackers and checking out what I am making.  She tells me she's hungry.  I finish getting the oven figured out and starting the pizza.  I notice Allee is not in the house.  No problem, I go to the window to see what she's doing in the yard.  No Allee.  I get my shoes on, go out, and start yelling and looking.  No answer.  I yell and look some more.  No Allee.  I come back in to get my cell phone to take with me so I can call Tim while I am looking.  The phone rings.  It is Tim.  Allee has walked all the way down the driveway, across the street, and down the road to the field where they are riding.

Never once did she ask me where everyone went!

She needs watched WAY more closely now.

Last Night

Me:  Tell Allee to do something that I can't remember what it was.
Allee:  "I don't understand what you mean."
Me:  "Yes, you do."
Allee:  ~laughs~

School

Allee started school on January 20.  To say she loves it would be an understatement.  The following Monday, she did not have school and the other kids did.  She cried for about 2 hours.  Tim had to use Google Translate to try to explain to her that her class was not there that day.

She only has school 3 days a week and she keeps track.

In my rush, I totally forgot to take a "first day of school" photo.  :(

Home

As one might guess, coming home on December 24 with a new 6 year old family member who we just met 10 days before sort of knocked me out.  Slowly but surely I might write about the time between then and now.  Or maybe I won't.

I never wrote about the trip home.  It actually went great!  Allee is a fabulous traveler.  We didn't hear much complaining at all. 

In Tokyo, we met another adoptive family who lives very near to us and, in fact, stayed at our hotel in Guangzhou!  Too bad we didn't meet them earlier.

Allee did start to throw a bit of a fit when the movie screen wasn't working (because it is not functional until after take-off) on the plane, but it didn't last too long.  She watched movies and slept most of the way between Tokyo and Seattle.

Immigration in Seattle was a cinch.  No problem at all and it did not take long..

The Seattle airport had people dressed up all over for the holidays.  There was Santa, a Christmas tree, Snowman, a One Man Band, carolers, and many others.  It was very festive.

I was only focused on getting home to my boys.  It was most definitely rougher on me than it was on them to be away so long.

The whole trip home went fine and we arrived in Spokane on time! 

We were blessed!