More Houston pictures

While we were in Houston we went to the carnival at the rodeo grounds. Max was so excited to ride this dune buggy ride. When it started bouncing around he wasn't so sure. The grin never left his face, but you could tell by his eyes that he couldn't decide if he loved it or hated it. This kid has a very expressive face, you can always tell just what he's feeling.



The friends that we stayed with have a beautiful 3 month old daughter that Ellie fell in love with. She adores Max with all of her heart, but if she had been in charge we would have an infant daughter as well. (Thank goodness she's not in charge, because as cute as this little girl is, momma doesn't want to do baby again.)

Last year at just about this time, we received the referral file of a cute little guy from China. As soon as we saw his picture, I started learning all that I could about who he was and where he came from. Part of my research included joining a Yahoo group for parents who had adopted from his area of China. One of the very first posts I saw when I logged onto this website was from a family who had recently brought their daughter home from his province. While their daughter had been in foster care, they had sent a disposable camera for her foster family to take pictures of her. In some of these pictures their daughter was playing with a young boy. The family was trying to locate this boy and see if he'd been adopted. Before I even looked at the pictures, I knew that it was the same boy that we were adopting. When I checked out the photos, it confirmed what I already knew. I emailed the mom right away and waited anxiously for her reply. When she saw Max's referral pictures, she agreed that it was the same boy. We have corresponded by email, followed each others blogs, and chatted on facebook since that time. This weekend, while we were in Houston, this family drove there to meet us and we spent a great afternoon getting to know them at the park. They are an awesome family and we are so blessed to have connected with them and to have this connection to our children's past.