Introducing Mia Meinen

I know you want to see the pictures first...I will not disappoint...


anticipation feels soooo good...










But I have to build in the order we lived...




Can you say spilt pants....

We are getting closer....

And closer...

and there you have it.....

Presenting the Meinen's

(we were drawing Mia's attention upward, obviously it worked on Maddie as well, it would have worked on Dad but he had seen this trick before)

and now for the story of the day....

We all awoke rested, if not completely on time schedule had breakfast and prepared for our short 2.5 hr. flight to Nanchang... Believe it or not everything went smoothly, we all made it, no problems, no lost luggage, almost too easy... In Nanchang we met up with the other 3 families to make a total of 11 adoptive families. As a special treat to us, Gongzhan Wu, the director of the China program for Gladney is in China (Shanghai) and flew over to Nanchang to meet with us. I am not sure how much influence his presence is but things are different this time around (we have been told this might be a one time thing). Previously the adoptive families received their babies at the CCAA office, and from personal experience chaos (allbeit wonderful) is describing it lightly. For us the babies were brought to the hotel and were to be delivered individually to each room at 4:00. Well if I thought the anticipation was thick yesterday (could have cut it with a knife), you would need a chainsaw at 3:55 today...

On my (Darrell's) way down to check on Val and Dale one baby came out of the elevator, I did a double take and was 98% certain is was Mia... I had them stop for a minute (while I tried to get everyone in place) took another look was 99% certain and they came to our room, stopped for an instant (by now Melissa had seen her and was also 99% certain it was Mia) but the people form the orphanage said no and went down the hall........ although we had fairly recent pictures of Mia, we had not seen the pictures of the other little girls... about a minute later (add in a little confusion, chaos, second guessing) and they came back to our room and the above scene is how it officially transpired.... a Mom and Dad will always know their kids even with only a few pictures as was our case!!!

Mia was delivered first most likely because she came from a different orphanage than the other babies, thus a different car...

We can't thank Val and Dale enough for the support this afternoon, and of course the pictures (and video - we have not see this yet).

After we got "settled" (well at least a little) we had a group dinner and during dinner Mia cracked her first smile (after dad walked away). She has warmed up to Mom and already (less than 2 hours later) became visibly upset when Mom left the dinner table... although Dad can't yet hold her without her getting her upset, she does like to laugh, yes laugh at dad so I am sure she will warm up very soon. Maddie has been wonderful, and can't wait for her little sister to play with her. She is gentle, and so loving I don't think even the people at Hallmark could put it into words...

Bed, at least tonight, hopefully not, but probably due to the exhaustion and stress of the day was pretty easy. I am actually updating this blog about the earliest of the trip...

Don't worry more to come tomorrow as our adventure truly begins....

Love,

Darrell, Melissa, Maddie and Mia

Dale and Val