November and December have been kind of wild months for us. On Nov. 12th we flew to St. Pete Beach, FL to meet up with 2 of the other families in our China travel group. We had a great long weekend at the beach with the Corless and Roebuck families. We were really glad Jill went with us! It was so great to see how well the girls were all doing - we laughed about how the girls are still so much like they were when we first met them. Thea is still the leader of the pack, ready to boldly go anywhere and to oversee whatever activity may be happening; Emma is the artsy, sensitive girl who also has a wild side (she's the only one brave enough to actually sit in a pirates lap!) and Charis just loves to be with people and is pretty easy going as long as things go her way! And they all three fit so perfectly in their own families! What beautiful girls we are blessed with - or as my friend Jackie likes to say "we won the baby lottery!".
After we left St. Pete Beach, Jill, Charis and I went on to St. Augustine to spend a week at Jill's in-laws Florida home. We had a great time - Charis especially loved the turtles. She had her first carousel ride and loved looking for shells at the beach. But while we were there I had an incident with my eye which I later found out resulted in a detached retina. The rest of November and most of December I ended up being off work and mostly bed ridden trying to recover from the detached retina. Finally on Dec. 17th, I was allowed up out of bed and finally back to driving on Dec. 23rd. Don't know what I would have done without my very supportive family - Jill and Jane and their families took care of both Charis and I for several weeks. But I'm back to work now and hopefully on the mend permanently. Charis thought it was great fun to live with Aunt Jill and Aunt Jane for a while and I became a big fan of "House Hunters International".
Our second Christmas together was wonderful despite not being able to participate in very few pre-Christmas festivities or shopping. We did get to have our annual get together with her friends Anna and Sasha. Charis was a little leary of the Santa, but was very interested in the whole idea of reindeer. She mostly just loved being with her family and of course loved the presents.
As the beginning of the new year approaches my mind once again turns to Charis's birth mother. Two years ago she was 8 months pregnant with my daughter. I imagine she wonders about her and I hope she somehow knows that Charis is in a family who loves and cares for her very much.
