Picnic redux

Last summer, about a year after our dossiers had been sent to China, our travel group had a picnic. Most of us had met at an adoption preparation seminar months earlier and exchanged email addresses, and we decided it would be a good idea to get to know each other a little bit better before we embarked on this life-altering journey together.

This August, we had another picnic:

(That's Linnea sitting on the stool and Ting Ting standing facing her. Seated behind them are Linnea's grandmother, Barb, and mother, Tamara, and our travel-mate Regina, mother to Karma).

If it doesn't look much like a picnic, that's because it poured rain all weekend. Although we had reserved a picnic shelter in a local park, we couldn't use it. At the last minute, our travel-mates Jacquie and Mickey graciously opened their home to us, so we picnic-ed indoors.

(Now we have Jacquie and Mickey's daughter Tabitha on the stool and Linnea facing her).

Some other things made this picnic different from last year's, too. For one thing, it was a lot noisier! And while last year we calmly posed for photographs, this year we were all chasing toddlers and could grab only a few photos of whoever was standing relatively still.

(Dani with her big sister, Alexa. To the right of them, Jacquie holds Tabitha).

(Leanna)


(Tabitha)

We weren't able to get photos of everyone who was there, unfortunately. And a certain someone seems to show up in most of the photos, too


(You can almost see Karma in this one)

(Mickey and Tabitha. Who's that sitting next to Mickey on the couch?)


(Of course)

In other words, it was a bit chaotic -- in a good way, of course. We hope to make the picnic an annual event, so next year I'm going to insist we line every everybody up for a big reunion photo. It'll be easier, then, right? I mean the girls will all be about 2 1/2 . . .