A Look Back

Daddy went to piano class today - alone!  Yep, that's right, it was a meeting for the parents only.  Mommy watched over Madison, while Daddy ventured in with all the other moms, and together we all sat and listened to Mrs. Pam talk about the upcoming year.  It looks a bit easier than last year, which is good - last year was slightly tough, but Madison stuck to it.  Unfortunately, she has not been practicing her keyboard as much lately, so the first few weeks here might get rough.  Fortunately, we've got some video games coming in the mail that might serve as a really nice motivation:  do your homework and keyboard practice for some more Mom Bucks!

Tonight we ate spaghetti and watched My Little Pony cartoons, and in Daddy's case, "Dinosaur."  It was that Disney movie from 2000 that Daddy has never seen before.  This weekend's message is about dinosaurs, so I've been in the mood for some dino-flicks.  This movie, fortunately, we watched after Madison went to bed.  It's a little heavy.  Not quite as heavy, of course, as the Jurassic Park movies we've been watching this week as well, but still not quite a movie Madison is ready for yet.

Madison had her show-and-tell today, which was essentially just her speaking about herself.  She selected three items from a ziplock bag, each one having something to do with herself.

This item we picked up in Guang Xi, obviously - it says it right there on the magnet.  Notice the cross up there roughly in the area of Beijing though.  Christianity isn't the majority religion of China, but there are Christians there - back in 2008, we met a few of the Chinese that said they were.  One was a shop keeper we met on Shamian Island in Guangzhou, who we spent a great deal of time talking with.

Of course, it may have been an elaborate sales technique, but we were convinced of her faith, and promptly bought a whole lot of stuff from their store.  We remember she was not wanting us to be so generous - but in truth, the amount of money we spent there was not that much, especially when compared with a visit to Disney World or even certain places in Atlanta.  We bought some wall hangings, dolls, and other things.  The magnet above came from elsewhere, but we got a lot of items from this woman that day.

Shamian Island was such a wonderful spot to be stranded.  After touring China for a few weeks, the former English colony area had a familiar sense about it, and even a restaurant serving American food called Lucy's.  Though it didn't exactly taste like American food, enough of an effort was made on it to serve as a reasonable temporary replacement.  It was certainly better looking than the wild food across the street, most notably the scorpions on a stick.  Of course, at the White Swan where we stayed at, Daddy tried some sea hedge hog, which did not taste like chicken.  That was pretty much the most unusual food that Daddy tried, along with the prawn-flavored potato chips.

Shamian Island even has a Starbuck's on it.  Though we're not coffee fiends anymore, we did pick up a nice mug from the place.

One of the nicest things about the island is the beautiful walk.  The trees created a nice shade as we strolled - yes, strolled - by the storefronts, walking by parks and cultivated landscapes.  We didn't see many vendors confronting us here, as most were inside their stores instead.  This made it easy to walk around the island, not feeling like there was a huge target on our heads so much.  We had Madison in a stroller, and the three of us would take our walks up and down the island, under the canopy of trees and beside the old English buildings.

This week, we lost a friend.  She was there with us at Shamian Island - her name was Peggy.  She dreamed of adopting a little girl, and with us, she waited for years for the dream to come to pass.  In 2008, she and her husband adopted Faith.  Later on, she actually adopted another child from China.  Before going overseas, the three of us met in Pigeon Forge one time.  Mommy and Daddy were up there for a Perry Stone Conference, and we thought it would be nice to meet with this woman we'd never met in person before.

Until that time, we had known Peggy through the online group she set up.  It was a group of people from around the country, all of us with the same log-in date.  All of us would be going to China to adopt our little girls at the same time.  When the group was set up, we were estimating about a 6-8 month wait between that log in date and the actual adoption.  Our log-in date was January of 2006.  Most of us thought that we'd be adopting by the end of the year.  Of course, that changed dramatically for all of us.

Peggy's online group was a place to dream about the future, a place to talk, a place to vent frustrations.  We were all quite anxious, and somewhat nervous.  What started out as a six month wait eventually turned into a two-and-a-half year wait for us.  But Mommy needed that time with her diagnosis of cancer, and the necessary recovery time - it was all part of God's plan.  We went to China just as Mommy had completely recovered.  Still, it was good to keep in touch with all of the waiting families during that time.

The last occasion we saw her was at a one-year reunion that Peggy organized in Tennessee.  That was in 2009.  We returned to Pigeon Forge with a few of the other families, renting a cabin for the night.  Unfortunately, Madison had a very high fever as soon as we got there.  I think it was 102 or something like that.  Regardless, we had to make our apologies and head home quickly (this after a long night).  We didn't get to spend much time with everyone, but all the families understood.  We'd all been through that.  I remember that weekend well - the big news of the day was that Michael Jackson had passed away.  We were planning on doing this or that in the Tennessee area, but never got around to much of course.

Peggy's family is without a mom now.  She had some health complications arise between then and now, and for the most part, she kept it quiet.  Her funeral is this week, where people will spend time talking about her remarkable testimony.  She was a model Christian, sharing her faith with others, and always strong with her beliefs.  We'll always remember her for bringing our group of hopeful adoptive parents together years before we ever met our babies.  Rest in peace, Peggy.