Update from the Houston's!

Hi all!
We have just spent the better part of an hour or so Skyping with the Houston's! Jeni and the kids, Chris and Kimi, and the four of us were all in on it, so you can only imagine how many conversations were going on at once. Here's a sneak peak of what we saw! I was so excited that I told Scott to grab the camera and take a picture of the computer!!! This may be wordy...I'm trying to soak in all they said to share with you! Here goes! They are pretty tired, and taking care of two little beauties is consuming them (in a wonderful, wonderful way!) so they haven't had a chance to blog as of yet, so they wanted me to update. Well, tired plays a factor, as well as the fact that Rick blew out the power on their entire floor of the hotel they are staying in!!! Not sure exactly how, but something to do with converters, etc etc... ;) They are so happy, the smiles are priceless. Skype is priceless, let me tell you!

*Sophie is the most happy, beautiful, fun little girl ever! She knows Michele is Mama and Rick is Baba (mandarin for Daddy). When we would wave at her, she would wave back! She also would blow kisses to us! She already fits into their family perfectly, and seems to know that she just belongs, and is finally with her forever family.

*Simone is the most amazing big sister. She is just thrilled, and kept saying "this is my little sister! See my little sister! I got my little sister!!!" She plays with her constantly and is just in love with her. At one point she leaned over and kissed her on the shoulder. We were all tearing up!

*They showed up with matching pigtails with matching hair pretties and matching sundresses! Too cute! They were chasing each other all around the hotel room, while Sophie was belly-laughing! They turned the camera towards them so we could watch!

*They are the first adoption from the earthquake zone since the earthquake happened. In fact, they are the first civilians to arrive in Chengdu since the quake (besides the relief workers and media). It's pretty crazy there, and the relief efforts are going on all around them. There are special lanes in the roads just for the relief aid. They are feeling aftershocks every two minutes or so. Rick felt a pretty good rumble this morning.

*Being the amazing teachers they are, they actually asked about how things are going at school! China gave them a 24 hour "grace" period before finalizing their adoption with Sophie. I told them that if they changed their minds, I would take her! ;) So today they are going to do the paperwork to make it final. I guess that's just another formality they had to go through. Tomorrow they may get to go to the Panda Research and Breeding Center. Michele is very excited about that!

I hope I got a big chunk of what we talked about, but I'm still so excited I can't think too clearly! My head is just spinning with images of Sophie, and Simone and Sophie together. What a blessing!

They are loving the comments. Michele very briefly got to see them last night. We'll let you know as soon as we know more! ~Becca