the hardgrave family

What can I say about yesterday? Meeting Lily for the first time was unlike anything I have ever experienced. As we and the Whitlocks and our guide (whose name, believe it or not, is Lily!) sat in the Civil Affairs office Monday morning, waiting to meet our children, my emotions ran the gamut from nervous to excited to anxious. Finally, the door opened, and in came the officials with our babies. I saw Lily and couldn’t wait to hold her. She, however, had other plans! She cried and cried–I am glad I was prepared for that! The orphanage director held her for a while, and we let her slowly warm up to us. She finally started coming to us and feeding us Cheerios. By the time the paperwork was done and it was time to leave, she was laughing and playing games with us. She got a little upset back at the hotel when the Whitlocks left us with their little girl, Meileah, to go to their room, but quickly recovered.

Lily ate well all day, took a 3 hour nap, had a fun bath time(we can‘t believe that went so well!), and went to sleep at 8:30PM and slept until 6:30AM. I was worried that she would come unglued when she woke up this morning and saw where she was, but she woke in a great mood! Praise the LORD! As I write this, Lily is dancing with her daddy, having a great time. We are so unbelievably blessed and happy. We can’t wait to get home so she can meet everyone.

P.S. David is working on a video of “Gotcha Day” and should have it posted soon. Keep checking back!
-Angela

David adds:

There is so much to say, but believe it or not, Lily is just attaching to us so well, it’s hard to sit at the computer to type. She just keeps running from one of us to the other wanting to play games or just be held. It’s just unbelievable. It’s almost like she’s always been ours! We know that there’s bound to be some difficulty for her along the way as she mourns the losing of her Chinese foster home, but so far it has been smoother than we EVER imagined.

We KNOW that you are praying for us and Lily and can feel the tender hand of our gracious God upon us as it were a warm blanket wrapped around us.

Indeed the Lord is good and “His tender mercies endure forever!”

Wow. It’s been an incredible morning! We’ll post much more tonight, Lord willing, but . . . for know, we want you all to know that we have a new daughter, Lily Faith!

Lily and Mommy on the Bus back to Hotel

Lily loves itunes and sits with Daddy Dancing to music

We’ve arrived!!!

We got in Saturday night, Beijing local time 10:30pm, after about 26 hours of airports and airplanes. After a few hours of sleep we woke up to the great breakfast pictured above.

I recognized only about 20% of what I ate, but hey . . . as they say “Its All Good!” . . and it was.

After attending a worship service this morning and breifly touring Tiananmen Square, it was back to the airport and off to the Jilin Province.

Tonight we are in Changchun City. We’ll be meeting our new Daughter for the first time at 9:00am tomorrow morning which will be about 8:00pm on Sunday evening back home.

Can’t wait. (!!!)