Coming to you tonight, this Christmas Eve, from Grandma & Poppa's house in East Grand Rapids, MI.
As I walked by the clock on the way to the computer, I saw that time was short in order to be able to post this note while it's still, in fact, Chritmas Eve. A little under two hours until the magic hour of midnight and calendar turning to December 25, 2011.
We drove from Phladelphia to EGR last night and so we're all still a little car-lagged from the trip. We've changed our long-trip logistics with Ashley's arrival, opting to drive all night instead of calling it a night in Cranberry, PA. We had very good luck and a cooperative crew last night an we pulled in around 2:30 AM. This was about about 11 hours and 45 minutes after rolling out of the Malvern Train Station. I watched every one of the over 700 miles pile up on the odometer.
It was a great trip by all accounts - kids went down early, and Mom only popped up a few times with her trademark "Are you OK?". The weather cooperated almost the entire way. It was colder that we'd seen in Philly (in the high 20's when we crossed into Michigan from Ohio). And there was only a slight hint of snow flurries with little impact (we dialed our speed back to 70 from 80). We did see two cars that were not as luck. One went down an embankment off to the right shoulder, while the other spun out halfway across the median to our left. Both stayed upright on all 4 wheels, so were hopeful everyone was OK.
Five years ago at about this time, Kyle was spending his first night with us - his forever family- as the our first son. Here is a photo of him just shortly before we fell asleep:
What a wonderous Christmas present...
Five years has since melted off the calendar, and that day is still vibrant in my memory - you can read about it all as it happened earlier in this story- just scroll back to the post from Christmas Eve 2006. I can still feel the warmth of his little sweaty body as we peeled off the layers of clothes to get to him so we could give him a bath...
I still have flashbacks to Kyle's first few days with us in Nanchang whenever I hear the Vince Guaraldi Chistmas album ("da da-da da-da-da da-da, da da-da...") - what a time in our lives it was!
We frequently flip through our adoption photo albums with all three of the kids - it's really fun to hear the stories they tell and see how they react to seeing their pre-Lockhead days captured forever in photographs.
Kyle turned (6) years old a few months ago - my last post before this one - and his personality is really unfolding. He loves his Brother Dylan and Sister Ashley - and has taken on the mantle of "big brother" proudly and well. He enjoys school and enjoys all of the friends he's made. And he's anticipaing the excitement of FIRST GRADE this coming fall.
I just wanted to stop by briefly to mark the occasion of Kyle's first 5 years. The pace of our family's life is accelerating and we're doing the best we can to mark the special days, like this one. The times like we experienced on our Christmas Eve in 2006 are momentous, but fleeting. We hope to never let these memories fade, or to let their anniversaries slip away without marking them...we don't want to have to carry around the regret of missing one.
To any of the families of our China travel group who shared our journey in 2006, and may be reading this, we offer a special wish for a Merry Chrsitmas and a Happy New Year.
I better turn in soon, I just overheard that the weather channel forecaster is picking up Santa's sleigh on radar over Newfoundland.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.
C
PS We've migrated a lot of our online activity to Facebook - so please look us up under "Charlie Lockhead" for more news and photos.
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