Happy Memorial Day! 

We've been home a little over a week.  We're still trying to settle into a new normal, and it's happening sooner than I thought.  Winn has adjusted so well to everything.  He's such a happy and easygoing little boy.  We've been greatly blessed and are just so thankful for how smoothly everything has gone the past three weeks.

We met Winn on May 7 at 2:30 in the afternoon at the Civil Affairs Office in Guangzhou.  There were 40+ children there being united with their forever families.  It was very emotional and chaotic.  When we walked into the building, standing at the elevators were some nannies holding baby girls.  We cried because it reminded us of the night we got Tessa.  We went up to the fifth floor and there were already some families there waiting.  The room quickly filled with many families and then with many babies and small children.  Winn came in with Miss Zhong, the orphanage director, and a nanny, and he came right over to us and let us hug him.  He was a little quiet but didn't seem afraid.  He sat next to Jerremy, who handed him his iPod.  He loved it!  He's really into any type of technical gadget.  He walked out with us and never looked back.  We had planned on visiting his orphanage.  We even packed a huge bag of 350 Dum Dum lollipops to hand out at the orphanage, but our guide discouraged us from going, saying it would take 2 hours one way, and would cost us an additional $200.  The only time we could go would have been when all of Winn's friends were in school and we wouldn't have gotten to meet them or take pictures of him with them, so we reluctantly decided not to go.  We gave our bag of lollipops to our guide, who was going to give them to another family who was going to their child's orphanage (a different orphanage closer to where we stayed.) 

We're so thankful for how the orphanage prepared him for his adoption.  He wants to help in any way.  While in China, he folded his clothes and put them away every day.  He made his bed and our bed.  He was always looking for a way to help.  It continues here at home.  Baba (Doug/Dad) and Uncle Scott are working on the deck today, and Winn's made numerous trips in and out to get them cold drinks instead of playing with his siblings and friends here today.  He's actually been too helpful!  I took him out to the chicken coop on Thursday to let the chickens out (we don't let them out until at least 11:00 most days because otherwise they'll lay their eggs outside somewhere random.)   Friday morning the chickens were out running around at 9:00 when I got home from taking Tessa and Jerremy to school.  I thought Doug did it and he thought Scott did it.  Saturday morning I came down and the back door was ajar and the chickens were out.  Winn was trying to be helpful and let them out at 8:15 a.m.!

We've had some crying, mostly due to him falling and getting hurt (and blaming it on Jerremy, haha), but he doesn't seem frustrated or cry about the lack of communication yet.

I'm trying to figure out how to re-do my blog layout.  I don't want it so flowery; more simple and modern looking.  But I just can't figure out how to do it.  That and adding pictures.  I work on a computer every day, but I'm very computer illiterate.  Since we didn't blog in China or have internet access for a week (our room's wifi didn't work for the first week and they finally sent someone up and had them install a modem), I'm going to try to blog some more about our trip in another post.    

We have a cable TV interview scheduled for June 5.  We are to come up with five questions for the interviewer to ask us.  We can't come up with five questions, so if anyone out there reads this, and you think of anything you'd like answered about adoption, please, please let me know!

Hope your Memorial Day was fun!