New Friends and a Power Outage

I still find it amazing how much the internet has changed our lives and how it helps us make friends. Just yesterday, I was contacted by a fellow blogger Mom who happens to live in the lovely town we are vacationing in. Stacey invited us to meet up with her two adorable children Austin and Ryleigh at the local children's library. How could we pass up such a great opportunity?

Only moments before heading out the door of our vacation home (to meet with Stacey and family), our power went out. I called the rental agency and hoped they could fix it while we were gone. After all, we weren't going to cancel our plans just to wait around for a repairman.

As it turned out, the power situation was a lot more complicated than anticipated and required the services of an electrician after hours in the rain. It was very cold, so we made a fire to huddle around. He finally got the power reestablished (temporarily) at 7:30 PM. We were warned not to turn on too many things at once until he could return the next day and add some larger breakers.

In the mean time, we met Stacey and family at the library. I just love the opportunity to meet fellow moms who have also adopted from China. Sometimes I just cannot think of things to say, even when I have so many questions swirling around in my mind. So Stacey, forgive me if my social skills were lacking, but I found your daughter (and Austin too) totally charming. I can tell that Ryleigh is a very intelligent little girl and she seems to have a gentle spirit about her. I can hardly believe she is still three. Austin seems like a wonderful son and his interest and excitement about learning is refreshing. I truly hope we will have more opportunities to get together.

I have attached some recent photos.

Below is what it looked like in our home for 2.5 hours,

The following pictures were taken with a flash,