Charlton's Birthday

Forget about keeping things simple for our first days with Joy. Sunday was Charlton's 14th Birthday. We started with our traditional Birthday breakfast - here you can see what it looks like to have everyone around our table.

Then we had church. We think Joy only heard about Christianity two weeks ago - when we met her. Little did she know that her whole family is Christian and that her Daddy is a pastor. We had a difficult time this morning when it was time to get dressed. Joy prefers to wear track pants. She saw that all the girls were in dresses. Mommy and Daddy told her that she could choose what she wanted to wear to church. She had some tears deciding what to wear: I don't believe she's ever worn a dress, and women don't wear dresses that often in China. It was a big sacrifice when she decided on her own to wear a skirt.

This afternoon Max took the kids to the overlook here in Culver city of downtown Los Angeles.

Then we had a fun family dinner, including Grandma (Nai Nai), Grandpa (Nai ye), Uncle Brian (Shu Shu) Aunt AnneMarie (Ayi) and the cousins. Grace took dozens of pictures saying, "Mommy, I'm helping make memories". Although dark, you see what a great picture she took of our 'memory'.