Saturday, August 15, 2009

Road Trip to Des Moines!

Our friends, Brian and Jen Gibson, have been in the Haitian adoption process for 29 months and they came home today with their three kids!! We just had to be there for this momentous occasion! We left our house at 7:20 am and drove to Des Moines. Before we went to the homecoming at the airport, we had lunch with former Minnesotans Chris and Linda Wilde and their daughter Ellie. It was fun seeing them, too, and they really enjoyed meeting our comic relief, Olivia.Here is the sign I made (made with more love than artistic skill) Here we are with Gibson's beautiful son, Christopher, who is friends with Patricia and Philippe. All three Gibson kids were from P and P's orphanage. We didn't count how many people were there to greet them, but I would guess 75 or so!
Here we all are! It was such a joy, such a blessing and such a miracle to witness this lovely, long-awaited for, prayed-over event!! It was our first airport party for a Haitian adoption and it brought us great comfort to know that Haitian kids DO COME HOME!!! WAHOO!! So happy for you, Gibsons!!!
Olivia did great the whole day. We knew she would after doing so well flying from Hong Kong to Tokyo to Seattle to the Twin Cities with hardly a fuss. She had breakfast and her morning nap in the car and her afternoon nap and dinner in the car, and she had a great time playing with Mama in the backseat.
Here is one of the many goofy faces...
Olivia waves hello and goodbye, gives high fives, does "SO BIG" and now, plays peek-a-boo.


Laughing, or shall I say squealing with delight over this wonderful game :)
And then, no less than two seconds after this picture -

Hmm, this looks like a good teether...
We got home at 7:20pm, exactly 12 hours to the minute from when we left! We had a great day and a fun drive. Olivia had fun crawling around for a while and playing with Daddy before she was ready for bed. She crawled over to me and wanted up and that was that! What a sweetie. Have I mentioned that we loooooove her??

10 comments:

Jennifer said...

We looooooooove that she is home in your arms. xoxo

CG said...

Lots to thank God for in this post. Hooray!

Kathy Cassel said...

What a great homecoming at the airport for the G's.

O. is an absolute doll.

I met a lady at cranio facial camp who is a single mom (her husband died this year) to SEVEN special needs children adopted from China!!! She said it's getting so much harder to adopt.

Dori's Mommy (Diana) said...

She is so adorable! Cute feet!

linda said...

I prefer the term Minnesotans-in-exile. :) It was fun to see you.

Fliss and Mike Adventures said...

It has been a while since dropping by... a few computer problems... so I am trying to play catch up... oh she is so gorgeous... hope you had a great trip... take care

Anonymous said...

She said it's getting so much harder to adopt.

___________________
Julie
Naton wide cash is easy and fast

Dan and Karen said...

I can understand why you loooooooove her! Olivia is precious and such a gift! I love her "teether" :-)

Karen

Unknown said...

WOW!.... What a great homecoming,
She is so adorable!
Thanks for sharing..

--
Jhon
Home Security Systems no CREDIT CHECK everyone is approved

Tracy said...

How great that you went there for the homecoming - and their three new children are so precious!!

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