Awesome Friday!

Dan, Nicholas, Matthew and I were invited by our adoption agency to attend a reception on Friday at their offices in Sarasota in honor of some Vietnamese officials who were in town from Ho Chi Minh City. When the invitation arrived, we were so excited to have the opportunity to participate in this. Of course we said yes to the invitation and started asking some questions. Would we get to see An Na, who was our facilitator/life saver when we were in Vietnam?! Would we be able to meet Bonnie, who was our coordinator/life saver before we traveled to Vietnam? To our surprise and utter delight, we were told that both An Na and Bonnie would be at the reception. This was such great news, because when we left Vietnam, we thought we'd never see An Na again. She is such a wonderful young woman, and truly went out of her way for us while we were in country. Until this week, she had never traveled to the United States, so this was a really amazing opportunity for her. Bonnie, our coordinator, lives in New Jersey, and while it's possible we would have a chance to meet her one day, we weren't sure when/if that would ever happen. Suffice it to say that this was a great day, and that doesn't even begin to cover the government officials that we were able to meet.

I couldn't decide on which pictures to share. We took 40 while we were at the reception, but I tried to choose some of the better ones...

The boys were exceptionally cute today. :-)
(Matthew left, Nicholas right)

The MacDonald family (M, S, N, D)

With Bonnie
(M, S, Bonnie, N, D)

With An Na
(I have no idea which boy is which)

MacDonald family with several of the Ho Chi Minh City, VN
officials. (Also pictured, a little girl who was just adopted.)

The boys received gifts from the VN officials.

Matthew and Nicholas model their new t-shirts.

Nicholas and Matthew, getting the chance to meet one of the
VN officials!

Being able to go to Sarasota was such an amazing experience. When the invitation first came, it was for Wednesday. We were very bummed because even though I could go with the boys, Dan was going to be in Iowa. But last weekend an e-mail came and the date had been changed to today. With some work, Dan was able to catch a three-legged flight from Iowa to Orlando, and he got in around 1:00 this morning! We've talked about how this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We feel very blessed to have been able to go, and honored to be able to share our children with these women who came from so far away. We were continually complimented on how wonderful the boys were (behavior, looks, personality, etc.). We've seen them grow for the last five months, and we know there have been great changes in them. We hear from family and friends all the time how great the boys are... But it was just so neat to have people like An Na (who saw us at our worst!) say nice things to us. And it was just awesome to have the VN officials tell us what a great job we are doing.