Amelie, Reagan and Nadia.
The adoption agency Dillon International hosts a China Heritage camp in Tulsa, OK each summer. We have known many families that have taken their bigger girls, but children must be 4 to attend so this was Nadia and many of her buddies first chance to attend. We made plans with local friends and with friends from the Internet that I had never met in real life. All of the girls were in the same class – The Dragonflies. Each day we dropped them off at 9:30 and then picked them up at 3:30. Throughout the day the girls did Chinese language, cooking, Kung Fu, crafts and more. On the first day they had a ceremony for the parents and children complete with a lion dance.
Amelie was not excited about the lion dance. She kept covering her eyes like above.
The first night we invited everyone to our hotel for a pizza and pool party. Our friends the Cannons who live outside of Tulsa came out that night so we got to see them and Alyssa again. After we had pizza and before the swimming the girls played and played. It was so adorable that I actually teared up watching them because I was so overwhelmed by the fact that God brought them halfway around the world to be a part of all these families.
The next day we dropped the Nadia off and when we got back to the car Amelie was saying, “Nadia, Nadia” and pointing at her empty car seat. We told her that we would come back to get her later. Then at the hotel she wandered around the room saying, “Nadia, Nadia”. It was cute to see her wondering where her big sister was. The second night they had a picnic and swim time at a local park, but we were fairly tired and the girls were very sleep deprived so we grabbed some to-go food and had dinner with the Landy’s at the hotel.
At the end of the last day we joined the kids for a Chinese lunch and their program. The kids were all so cute and there were a record setting number of kids attending this year – 258!
After the ceremony we got some photos of the girls (Kiy we missed you). They were SO.TIRED. from going for 3 days.
Nadia fell asleep in the car when we were less than a mile down the road. She slept about 90 minutes and then woke up and talked for almost 2 hours about everything she had done for the last 3 days. We asked her every night, but she didn’t say much; she apparently saved it all for the ride home. We plan on going again as do many of the families who have attended.