Our Travels Have Ended

Another awesome trip is done and I'm now up to my elbows in laundry, unpacking, dusting, etc., etc. However, I had to take a moment to share some of the details of our trip and will share more over the next few days.

First of all, for all families who have adopted from Guatemala, please put GAFE on your calendar for the summer of 2011. I can't even begin to tell you how wonderful this event was. It started Friday evening with a Meet n Greet. It was a room full of families with their beautiful children enjoying some snacks and drinks, meeting each other for the first time or reuniting with old friends (Josh & Nicole). I was able to meet a couple people I met on Facebook and realized while talking to one of them that I had read her blog while they were in process of bringing their daughter home and immediately felt like I knew her and her entire family. Got to love "blog world."

Saturday morning we gathered for a buffet breakfast before involving ourselves with the many break-out sessions, crafts and/or shopping the vendor tables along the hallway. For a moment I felt like I was back in Guatemala trying to decide what Guatemalan goods I wanted to bring home with me.

That evening, everyone enjoyed a buffet dinner and the DJ provided some great music so everyone could hit the dance floor to work off some of the calories :-) I have to say that one of the highlights on the dance floor was the long conga line that the kids formed. I think that conga line went on for about a 1/2 hour and gave us all some great photo ops. What beautiful kids!!!

Granted this is just a little taste of everything that happened during GAFE, but again let me encourage all Guat adoptive families to make every effort to try to attend in 2011. I don't think anyone would regret going. Lili was certainly enjoying herself.

And what's better than sitting on daddy's shoulders to dance.

I'm not sure it was quite as enjoyable for daddy's shoulders though.

And Lili got to see her 'future' husband again.

Believe it or not, these two are only 2 weeks apart in age, but her little boyfriend, Joe is a peanut. Also, notice how she is pretty much pulling him along. It's a match made in heaven :-)

On our way to GAFE, we stopped in Pennsylvania so I could meet one of my blog/email/Facebook/phone friends, Emily. For about 2 years we have been following each other's blogs, have chatted via email several times and spoken on the phone a few times. We were finally able to confirm that we existed in body and were able to see the each other's girls in person. Emily and her husband own a dairy farm, so we took a little side trip and got a tour of the farm. Lili was in cow heaven. Dave and I also enjoyed the tour and I learned quite a bit about cows and dairy farming. Granted, not enough that I'm ready to go buy land and start my own dairy farm, but it was educational none-the-less. So, thanks Emily for taking the time to meet us and show us around the farm.

There is more to post about our trip, but it will have to wait for another day.