What a great day!

Yesterday the kids and I journeyed over to Disney (about 1 1/2 hours from our house).  The goal was to meet 2 fellow families with adopted kids.  But the journey got even sweeter. 

On my way over, I got a call from Sherrie.  We've known each other for 11 years now.  We met because we were both adopting transracially.  But turns out our paths were quite entwined.  For example, our daughter Kaley was born 11.11.99 and taken to St. Joe's Hospital in Tampa.  On 11.18.99 Sherrie's son Jordan was born in that same hospital.  Cool part is, Kaley was still there in the nursery at the time.  So we know they were there at the same nursery at the same time.

2 years later, they adopted a daughter, Kaylena, who was born on the same date as Jacob July 7.  Cool, huh?

So we spent the day wandering Downtown Disney.  Hot but fun!

Then about 6pm Maureen got there with Olivia, her daughter (adopted from China like Zoe).  And bad blogger than I am ... I got NO pictures! Yikes.  Maureen did though and will be uploading them soon she said. 

About 7pm, another family arrived.  Tamara with her son Logan, daughters Meison and Greyson (adopted from China as well) and mother Penny.  I found it amusing that out of 10 kids, only one was "home grown". 

Logan (16) and my Jacob (12) seemed to hit it off nicely.  Jacob loved asking questions about school mostly since Jacob is just entering middle school and Logan is a Jr. in High School.  I don't think there was a pause through all of dinner between them. 

Manny did great (as expected). Cooing, talking, smiling. I know many of them have been reading the blog regularly and wanted to meet and hold him. Since we'd been outside sweating all day, I know he wasn't 100% himself but they still got a sense of his sweetness and his general personality.

All the "littles" sat at one table and the "bigs" sat at the other.  Dinner was over all too quickly and we were saying our good byes, just after it got started it seemed. 

We drove home and the kids were chatting the whole way.  Asking when we would see our new friends again.  11pm and they were tucked into bed. 

I muse on the world I'm in ... where there are kids who are of all different races; kids have various special needs; kids come from all over the world; kids were wanted and chosen. 

"Adopted" ... one of the BEST words in the world.  And I am blessed to be a part of this glorious world.