Almost 1 year anniversary! Blog to book time!

As we approach the one year anniversary of adopting Sam and Leo, I'm finally motivated to add the photos and "blog to book." I created a book out of the blog I wrote when we adopted John and Ben (http://petersadotpion.blogspot.com) and all the boys look at the adoption book regularly. On the (recent) three year anniversary of adopting John and Ben, we all sat around and read parts of the book together. Of course, Sam and Leo asked me where their book was. Ummm. It takes a longgg time to upload photos onto the blog, and I promise I'll get it done soon. So, if you've read old posts and suddenly you receive notification that the post has been updated, it's only me adding photos.

Huge progress!

I just re-read a post from four months ago, and I am simply in awe at how much has changed in such a short time! In fact, in mid-February I actually took the three little ones (Ben, Sam and Leo) to Florida for a week! We are no longer in "hunker down" mode, we are in go, go, go mode! It all started when Cheng, his friend Tong, and Cheng's mom (Cheng was our exchange student 2009-2010) came to visit us for two weeks over Christmas break. We took the crew (11 of us) skiing at Holiday Valley (2 hours away) for a few days. Yes, even Sam learned how to ski! The boys did so well traveling, and everyone enjoyed skiing so much, that we bought season passes to a ski resort 40 minutes from our house. We skied several more times during Cheng and Tong's visit , and then Cheng's mom decided to stay with us for the rest of her USA visit!  Yes, she flew from China (and she barely understood English) to visit her son at college, and ended up staying with us for TEN weeks instead. It was like having a younger sister! Slowly, she did begin to understand English (and me Chinese), and we toured, exercised, shopped, ate and cooked together everyday. The boys LOVED having Ayi here. She cooked all their favorite Chinese dishes, and she tried hard to help them remember their culture and language. Although our house was crowded (11 of us at times!), we laughed a lot. While she was here, I decided we should fly to Florida for a week. What's a visit to the US without a quick trip to Florida and to Disney? And then Xia (Cheng's mom) was having so much fun with us that she convinced her husband to fly over for two weeks too! He joined us in Florida for a week, and then we returned home and skied for the second week of his visit. They were so amazed at the boys' progress (only ten months after their adoptions) that they keep telling me I need to write a book. They loved it here so much that several times they asked me what they would need to do to move here. Ummm..I don't think that would be allowed by either government. But do come visit again, and of course I'll let the boys visit you in China when they are old enough to fly there alone. Austin (age 17) has already spent two summers in China, once with Xio's parents (our exchange student 2008-2009) and last year with Cheng and his mom. So..... will I ever get to China again?