ALL PICTURES(Get ready. Set. Go. This is a whopper of a post)
Over the weekend of June 12 -13th Dillon International held the 3rd Annual Vietnam Family Heritage Camp. There were over 75 children in attendance (Vietnamese children and their siblings- either biological or adopted from other countries) A total of 200 people.
All camp attendee's have had a child born in Vietnam join their family. There were eight different provinces (birth city/orphanages) represented among the children.
Camp is a time for your child to be submerged in the culture of their homeland through song, dance, art, food, dress, language and interaction with other Vietnamese adoptees. Most parents have followed each others adoption journey's and it is a great time for us to meet, talk and make lifelong friendships as well.
Many staff and volunteers worked tirelessly to make sure camp was a success and for all who attended we hope the time you and your child spent at camp was very rewarding!
Here is an overview of the events...
FRIDAY:
Camp Director Whitney McIntire welcomed families and introduced Dillon's founders
Jerry and Deniese Dillon. Deniese reminded the families of their heart for orphans and how the staff at Dillon prayed for our children even before they became ours forever. Jerry opened the nights events with a special word of prayer, asking us to pray in our hearts along with him as we went before our Heavenly Father.
Ten Tigers came out and performed an exciting Dragon Dance for camp! The kiddo's loved the dragon and accompanying Asian music.
Then each group of tables (14 total) were called up to the stage and the families were introduced. Everyone then enjoyed dinner from Jason's Deli. All children went to activity rooms and the parents went to Coffee Talk. All three of these (introductions, dinner, Coffee Talk) were implemented as requests from last year. Parents wanted a time to know the families by name/province, enjoy dinner and have a time to mingle and relax without the children. All were a perfect addition to camp.
Families also had a chance to reunite with their travel group. It is wonderful to see one another as they were literally "in the delivery room" with you. It is also fun to see other travel groups you followed (sometimes up to 4 families blogs at a time) and see their children together. Precious!
From our second travel group we were able to see the
Razavi's from St. Louis and the
Robbins from China, who are on furlough. Both we traveled with in January. Here is a precious picture of Annie, adopted same day as Nehemiah. (And of course we are always able to see the
Homans from our first travel group, but were not able to meet up with the
Davis',
Reeders or the
Le's this year.)
SATURDAY:
The morning started off with lots of pictures. Each family with their children in traditional dress, a whole group picture, then each province had a group picture.
The mid-morning was filled with 16 different activities for the children to do with their parent. Some of the most enjoyed were the slap bracelets, fan painting, Ox handprint bags, Tet street scene and motorbike races. Here Avi Joy is sticking her people and lanterns to her Tet scene.
We had the most delicious Vietnamese lunch catered by
Ri-Le's! We had a sweet time hanging at our table with the
Sweets. We became good friends with the Sweet family when we were both in the Kazakhstan program with Dillon when it closed and we both switched to Vietnam.
The children returned to their activity rooms and Tonnie opened with news about
OrphanCare and how every dollar we give impacts children. Jynger talked to us about Vietnam's plans on re-opening adoptions hopefully in 2011. Then parents were blessed to hear speaker
Kim-Lan who shared "The fingerprints of God".
Her grandmother domestically adopted her mother. Then her mother adopted her during Operation Baby Lift from Vietnam, then she continued this legacy of adoption by adopting her daughter from Vietnam. Let me just say, she did a great job... very thought out, transparent and most of the time not a dry eye was seen in the room.
Two of my favorite one liners she said:
When talking about how her grandmother died 2 weeks before her wedding she said, "God showed me that she had the best seat in the house." Ohhhhh.
About adoption she said (something like), "Love transcends country, race and gender. Love is about belonging." Ohhhh, again.
Then we were dismissed by a teary Whitney. Thank you Whitney for all your hard work!
OVERALL: (THE GOOD. THE BAD. THE UGLY)
First- I LOVE camp. I LOVE multi-cultural families. I love everything that it does for our children and I love heritage stuff, period! (or exclamation point!)
Second- I will admit that after the last two years of camp, all I could see was that everything needed to improve. So this year our committee (
Nadra,
Heather,
Kerrie,
Leigh and myself) worked very hard on trying to make it as best as possible and truly make every change that we wanted to see happen from last year.
(And yet... there is still SO much room for improvement. Maybe I will feel this way every year? humm.)
Third-When I see others maybe not-so-much not enjoying themselves, I get sad. When they are frustrated with the rooms, crafts, food, details, not following the schedule on purpose, I guess I am just take it personally, but I shouldn't. We volunteered almost 40 hours putting this event together and trust me, we want it to be great too!
There were bloopers this year (and I had some personal disappointments that are too ridiculous to share, mostly art project related...)
No plates or serving utensils that delayed lunch. (this was a mis-communication)
No mike in the morning. (it was working later)
Rooms were too small for crafts. (we were in one room last year, so we tried dividing them, it still was over-crowded)
Not enough volunteers to run rooms. (more moms/dads need to help)
Not having crafts/activity ready for families right at 10:30. (this was because pictures were right before and us mom's didn't have enough time to finish pictures as a group and set up crafts)
No Q & A session (a speaker was booked instead)
Now mind you we have not had our debriefing yet, so I am sure between Whitney and us volunteers, we will come up with more changes to make.
BUT, overall... Camp was Awesome!
The children loved it. Families loved the fellowship.
Like Kim-Lan said, Love is about belonging.
Each person in this group of 200 belonged.
We love you and hope you will continue to come to camp.
(And some advice for you from my friend whose been volunteering for Korea camp for over 10 years, "if you want to make it better... please give Dillon your ideas and volunteer!")
AND
TRICIA, Oh girl. You spoiled our committee with thank you gifts. Thank you for your thoughtfulness! xoxo.
"In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ..." Ephesians 1:5
The Perryman Family
Each playdate I have posted pictures and each time I picked a favorite. This one of Karsyn is precious. She actually got the 1st, 2nd and 3rd favorites this time. She was having a cute day!
Oh the tushie love.
I spoiled the moms with Sweet and Salty Bars. (Chocolate, butterscotch, pretzles, oat crust) They were good and melty when we ate them, yum.
Thank you friends! You are each a blessing.
"Do you hear what these children are saying?" they asked him.
They had lots of things to do on the inside: train sets, pools, shops and many restaurants. Here are two little cowboys hanging at a saloon.
In 5th-8th grade I lived in Arlington, TX. My childhood best friends name was Jenny and we have stayed in touch all these years even after I moved back to OK. Here we are in the early 90's hanging out at the lake.
We met up with Jenny and her boyfriend Lear for dinner at the Blue Fish. We were able to catch up on life now and share fun memories of old times. I was glad that they were able to meet our children and show them what is in store for them in the future!
Then we headed to Heritage Park and Botanical Gardens for a playdate.
We met Amy and William at the park and the kids played until they dropped! William and Avi Joy loved the spider web, overall the park was perfect. Amy traveled a couple months after we traveled for Avi Joy. We take every opportunity to get together with Vietnam families and Amy was such a joy to talk with all morning! Thank you for meeting up with our family.
The hotel had two great pools and we were able to go swimming one afternoon with The Logan Family.
My mom and Patty (and Gary) became best friends while we lived in TX. They have also kept in touch all these years. We all met when I was about 11, so they have seen me grow up. Here they are with their oldest daughter Olivia.
After swimming we went to their house for dinner. Avi Joy had a blast playing with Olivia and Isabel. (the baby from above is now 12 and holding her sis) Our kids pulled a serious push-through as we did not leave there house until almost 10pm.
On our last day we walked the Grapevine Mills Mall. After they hopped on this ice cream truck, I became totally inspired for their Halloween costumes. So be on the look-out for that! (Yes, I know, most of our friends do not celebrate Halloween, but we do. We are in the world and not of it... but you never know, maybe we will be out and get to share Jesus with someone dressed-up as a serial killer. I LOVE dressing up, it is fun for us and we will attend events for Halloween that I feel are family friendly.)
Here was the sad part of our vacation. We could tell Nehemiah was not feeling well by the 3rd day of the trip. By the time we reached home (10pm on Wed night) he had vomited all over and was running a 106.5 temp!!! Can you believe that, oh poor guy. So we took him to the ER to get the fever down and to see what was going on. He has an acute eardrum infection and is now on antibiotics. He is doing ok. Not healthy, still really fussy, but no fever.
Anyone who knows us knows that we are total foodies. We were so grateful to have Adam's daily per diem to spend for food. We asked the locals for recommendations for restaurants. We ate a lot (as most do on vacation) but our fav's were Anamia's and Flips. YUM.
Then I surprised Adam with a night out. We were blessed that the Fishers came over to babysit. We started the evening with a Fathers Day Package through Love Your Skin. He was treated to a deep back/neck massage while his car was detailed. Since he has scoliosis he deserves a good beating to release those knots. And when he came out his car was pristine.
When we came home the Fishers said the kids did great and that Nehemiah had to have Jarad at all times! Avi Joy hammed it up by playing, "watch what I can do" all night: singing, dancing and the like for their entertainment.
Nehemiah: January 4, 2009. Can Tho, Vietnam.
I asked Adam on our date some of his favorite and least favorite things about being a daddy...
Then we made banana bread with Vietnamese banana's.
We then wrapped them up, put them inside the box and sent it to Atlanta. We included pictures of the kids making the project and baking the bread.
"I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness."
Jen's daughter Maddie, 7 months.
Avi Joy's favorite spot.
Lindsey's son James. He introduced Avi Joy to mud. I know folks, she had yet to have the desire to play in the mud, but she had a great time. They all had as much fun playing in the mud as the splash pad itself.
I am in charge of spoiling the mom's who come to the playdate so today was... chocolate covered strawberries (rolled in all kinds of goodies).
In other news- Our handsome man turned 13 months today. We have been a family of four for 6 months now! He just looks totally kissable in this picture. But I am slightly biased.
While Nehemiah slept yesterday Avi Joy and I played Beauty Shop. She got the works: nails, toes, full make-up and for the first time ever, I flat-ironed her hair. It was truly a "who are you child?" moment!!! (and that was probably the first and last time be/c I am totally head over heels for her curls.)
My precious gift from God.
Heartlight.org stung me again this morning with its daily email...
Then each group of tables (14 total) were called up to the stage and the families were introduced. Everyone then enjoyed dinner from Jason's Deli. All children went to activity rooms and the parents went to Coffee Talk. All three of these (introductions, dinner, Coffee Talk) were implemented as requests from last year. Parents wanted a time to know the families by name/province, enjoy dinner and have a time to mingle and relax without the children. All were a perfect addition to camp.
Families also had a chance to reunite with their travel group. It is wonderful to see one another as they were literally "in the delivery room" with you. It is also fun to see other travel groups you followed (sometimes up to 4 families blogs at a time) and see their children together. Precious!
SATURDAY:
The mid-morning was filled with 16 different activities for the children to do with their parent. Some of the most enjoyed were the slap bracelets, fan painting, Ox handprint bags, Tet street scene and motorbike races. Here Avi Joy is sticking her people and lanterns to her Tet scene.
We had the most delicious Vietnamese lunch catered by Ri-Le's! We had a sweet time hanging at our table with the Sweets. We became good friends with the Sweet family when we were both in the Kazakhstan program with Dillon when it closed and we both switched to Vietnam.
The children returned to their activity rooms and Tonnie opened with news about OrphanCare and how every dollar we give impacts children. Jynger talked to us about Vietnam's plans on re-opening adoptions hopefully in 2011. Then parents were blessed to hear speaker Kim-Lan who shared "The fingerprints of God".
Vietnam families,
I think I could make crafts like this every day!
And ohhh boy were they good!
Decided on a new camera. We got the Canon Rebel T1i. The whole only looking through the viewfinder (on full-auto) is really hard to get used to after a point-and-shoot, but I am getting used to it. I do LOVE the clarity and I can catch every detail quickly. Here are some upclose ones of my little man.
Adam snapped this one of Andrew. Super cute!
Avi Joy snuggling with daddy.
Then bam. A smile. And I was able to catch this nano-second smile with my camera : )
I like the sharp and out-of-focus look too. Nehemiah is sharp while I am slightly blurry.
We had a perfect playdate at the zoo last week. (The Lydens, Mooris, Whites, Butters and us.)
All our children lined up for my favorite thing at the zoo: The Elephant Demo!
Sweet pic of Caleb.
My favorite picture from the zoo. The Ostrich was doing a mating dance to a nearby gulf cart, the zoo keeper says he always thinks she is another Ostrich! (minus three kiddos)
Ever ridden a camel? Me neither. But Karsyn, Avi Joy and Kamryn so enjoyed riding a camel at the zoo. Money well spent I think. We paid for the memory and supported the zoo.
We have a very busy week! Creative Kids Art Camp Tues/Thursday for about 20 kids at Newheart Fellowship followed by Vietnam Family Weekend. Whoo hoo, its going to be wonderful!