Christmas was well...not my favorite this year to say the least. The kids got too spoiled as usual. I really feel the need to SIMPLIFY it next year. It's too much. Too overwhelming. Too expensive. And takes away from the whole meaning of Christmas! We did get in some fun holiday traditions though. Stella and I went with the Duffin's for our annual Christmas girls night out. We went to Tepanyaki for dinner and then to see The Forgotten Carols. We baked the gingerbread cookies and had our usualy Christmas parties. Stella and I also went to see Suzanne play with her music group at The Nutcracker. Stella had her first orchestra performance and did such a great job! She also had her hip hop dance performance. That was a lot of fun to watch! Emily and I bought tickets for my mom's birthday to The Forgotten Carols so Bill and I joined them for that as well. I was totally excited and in the holiday mood up until Christmas day. Such is life.
My REAL gift this year was meeting Sheyanne just a few days after Christmas. We flew down to Arizona early Monday morning. We had a heck of a time getting there. First they had to de-ice the wings. Then there was a "minor technical difficulty" (yeah, right) and sat on the plane for an hour. I was so nervous to fly and just plain nervousness of the whole situation so that did not help! Since our plane was late we rushed, but still missed our connecting flight. We were luckily in Phoenix and it's only an hour away from Tucson so we got a rental car from there and drove. I was glad to be on the ground.
We had literally 15 minutes to spare as we finally arrived at Sheyanne's caseworkers office. We were surprised to find out when we got there that we would actually be meeting Sheyanne there! We were under the impression that they don't do first meetings at the agency. On the drive there Bill and I both felt pretty calm and not nervous at all. As soon as Sheyanne got there though we were all sorts of nervous! Bill shook her hand and introduced himself. I asked if I could give her a hug and was thrilled that she let me! She was obviously nervous to meet us and quiet. She went over and wrote her name on the dry erase board and smeared it the eraser and some liquid not meant to clean up the board.
Sheyanne wanted to go to Chuck-E-Cheese so that's what we did! We met them over there and ordered our food. She had never been before. She looked around in wonderment. We followed her as she quickly ran from game to game. She loved getting her tickets. Bill and Sheyanne had a fun game of air hockey and she even did a little victory dance. We were pleasantly surprised how much she talked at dinner! We had been told by her caseworkers and therapist that it would take her a while to open up to us and that she was really shy, but once she came around to the idea of us she was a sweetheart and funny. It didn't take her long at all to warm up to us!
We gave her the pj's and presents from the kids we had brought down for her. The kids both picked out a special gift just for her from their schools Santa's Workshop and she was very happy with her gifts. Our only disappointment that day was that we didn't get to spend more time with Sheyanne.
Tuesday we met at the office at 11:00. Sheyanne willingly went with us alone. We thought her caseworker would be joining us but Sheyanne didn't have any problem going with us! She wanted to go to the mall hoping to ride some kiddie ride they had there. She talked the whole way there! She told us about where she lived and where she had gone to school. Unfortunately for her the ride was no longer there. We grabbed some lunch each from a different place at the food court. I loved that we bought her lunch and she actually ate everything! That's a foreign thing for me! We went to the Disney store and a shoe store.
Next we decided to go miniature golfing. She was so happy rushing from one hole to another! She would hand us each our ball and then run to the next hole. She rode the mechanical horse and when I asked if it was everything she'd hoped it would be she simply said "no". Made me laugh.
On our way back we had a few extra minutes so we stopped by Coldstone. She wanted every flavor so I had her narrow it down to 2. She was thrilled! We got her for 4 hours that day.
The next day we got her the entire day! She wanted to do a movie marathon. We went and saw Minion's first. She was so happy and sang (fairly loudly) to all the songs she knew during the previews. Then we had some lunch at McDonalds before our next movie. She wanted to play in the play place so she would go in there and then a few minutes check back with us, grab some more fries and head back. We even had a dad come up and compliment our parenting because she was so helpful with his little daughter! He offered to buy us all ice cream cones - we let him buy just one for Sheyanne. I thought that was amazing that our 3rd time spending some time with her we had a random parent compliment what a sweet girl she is!
We spent a few minutes walking around Michaels and then went to our next movie. We saw Hotel Transylvania 2 in 3D and that was fun. She seemed to be enjoying our time with us and we were bonding better than I had ever imagined! We grabbed some dinner for her family on our way to drop her off. It was a wonderful day!
The morning we had to leave we picked her up and grabbed some breakfast at one of the only places we could find in Vail. We went to Dunkin' Donuts. She was very quiet and wouldn't really talk to me for a few minutes. She just kind of shut down. I think she was trying to think about and process everything. Once I offered to buy her a donut for the road she perked right up! As we dropped her off back at home I gave her the necklace I had bought for her for Christmas. It was silver and had a plaque that had the word "daughter" inscribed on it. I debated on giving it to her so early on but felt like after our morning I wanted her to know that we were serious about this whole adoption and that's how I think of her already. My daughter. Mine. We gave her a hug and were on our way back home.
This trip was like a dream! She was my dream come true. She was sweet, funny, happy, opinionated, animated, childlike and thoughtful. We were surprised that even with her age and all she has been though how much she loved the kid stuff! I think she just hasn't had a lot of opportunity to do so many things like what Stella and Tristan have done and she is excited about them all! In some ways she seems very mature. But in others she is very innocent and childlike. I love it.
Bill and I had some down time - especially the first 2 days. We went to Joe's Crab Shack and to a couple of movies ourselves. It was such a fun little trip and although we missed the kids, it was nice to get away and have some time to ourselves! Coming home to some of the biggest hugs I've ever gotten was amazing!
