Thursday, August 30th~
After school, we loaded up the RV, made a pit stop for dinner at Chick-fil-a in Louisville, and ended up in Wytheville, VA at a KOA for the night. Traveling with lots of kids is the best in the RV. They were all in bed and asleep before 10pm even though we traveled for several more hours after.
Friday, August 31st~
We spent the first half of the day driving to Wilmington where my cousin Candyce lives. It was her wedding day! Everything was beautiful!
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| Before the wedding. Little BellaMei running off some energy up in the right corner. ☺ |
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| Granny loves spoiling my girls. She brought some outfits and a puppy for BellaMei. |
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| This baby loves her Papaw! |
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| I snapped some pictures of the girls while we were waiting on the hall to be transformed for the reception. |
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| Beilyn AnnaKai is so beautiful! (And wild and quirky and just plain cute!) These pictures were all taken in a matter of seconds. |
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| Terri (my mom's best friend) and my beautiful momma |
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| My mom and Aunt Juanita (mother of the bride!) |
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The 10 Egnew Grandkids ♥
We live spread out now, but as kids, we all lived in a very small radius. So much fun growing up together! |
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| Granny & Pa |
Saturday, September 1st~
We had plans to spend the rest of the weekend with several of my adoptions friends! I hosted Thanksgiving at my house a couple of years ago and now we were all getting together at Kristi's house. We were so excited to see everyone! The kids had been begging to see each other too! While we had had a Moms' Weekend last year, this was the first time getting to meet each others' newest kids in person- added to our families from China again... Kristi's son Henry, Angie's son Bowen, and my little Juan!
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| Braylee was the first to get her hands on Bowen. He is the happiest little guy! |
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| Kristi & BellaMei |
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| Our China babies! |
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| All of our sweet kiddos. It's simply amazing to see how God has grafted us all together. |
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The girlies who brought us all together.
They are all within 4 months of age and all came home the same year. |
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| All of the girls! Brittany's husband and 3 sons didn't come. Between missing those 4 and the fact that I have all girls, the boys were definitely outnumbered! |
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| Easiest way to transport all of these kids? Throw them in the back of the RV. ☺ |
I knew we were in for a fun day, but sometimes, God just far exceeds my expectations! This day was one of them! We all went over to my friend Amy's house. Amy and I met in a FB group for moms with heart babies from China. Since she is friends "in real life" with Kristi, we had an instant connection. I had hoped we could meet up while we were in NC, but then she graciously invited all of us to spend the day at their beautiful home on the water. As we walked up, my kids were in disbelief that this was their real, everyday house instead of some amazing vacation getaway! They live on the intracoastal waterway behind Topsail Beach.
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| Check out the view from their backporch. 😍 |
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| And there goes half of our crew headed out to the sandbar. |
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| While we waited for the boat to return for us, the littles swam and we ate lunch. |
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| Derek (Amy's husband) and Alex have a lot in common and never seemed to run out of things to talk about. |
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| These two hit it off too! Caroline, Amy's daughter, is just 6 days older than Brynna. |
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| The kids found tons and tons of sand dollars. |
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| Henry! He reminds me so much of our Beilyn. He has a quirky, big personality. ♥ |
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| The girls thanked Caleb for his muscles. ha! Later, the big kids went tubing on the boat. |
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| These girlies were so happy to be together again. |
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| Back to the house for dinner. |
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| We celebrated the September Birthdays! |
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| Juan let Angie hold her. ♥ |
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| Beilyn is just a couple of weeks younger than Emie, but Beilyn is a runt. 😉 |
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| The kids finished off the awesome day with some ziplining in their backyard. |
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| Back at Kristi's for late night snacks |
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| Kristi knows me well! Handed me a three-for. 😊 |
Sunday, September 2nd~
We met back up with everyone at church the next morning, tacos and nachos for lunch, and then a relaxing day at Kristi's house. The big kids went swimming for a little bit. Then in the evening, we went to their youth area at church to let the kids run wild.
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| Little Attention-getter |
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| Poor Grayson! Without Brittany's big boys there, he was surrounded by all the girls. |
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| Our China babies |
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| Two peas in a pod |
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| Adoption has brought us so many gifts in so many ways. |
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| Six years ago, this is what our families looked like. Then China adoption changed everything for our 3 families! These big siblings are some of the sweetest, most compassionate kids I know. ♥ |
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| Beilyn was in heaven! Kristi was so patient with her. |
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| This day also marked 4 months with our precious baby! |
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| No one wanted to say good-bye! |
Monday, September 3rd~
On our way home, we stopped at Cracker Barrel for breakfast since no road trip is complete without a CB stop. Then we officially marked West Virginia off our 50 States list after stopping in the Appalachian Mountains at New River Gorge National River. It was interesting to learn that until this bridge was completed in 1977, it took 45 minutes to cross the gorge by car and now takes only 45 seconds! It is the 4th longest single-span arch bridge in the world and the 3rd highest vehicular bridge in the US. It was pretty cool to see how it was built and think about how one project could make such a difference for travel in this area.
What an amazing weekend! We loved spending time with my family and our adoption friends (who feel like family)! We still agree that Dora, our RV, was one of our best decisions ever.
