{"id":1778,"date":"2011-07-11T23:15:29","date_gmt":"2011-07-12T03:15:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.handsful.com\/?p=1778"},"modified":"2011-07-11T23:21:51","modified_gmt":"2011-07-12T03:21:51","slug":"hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/archives\/1778","title":{"rendered":"Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/70803758@N00\/5928833366\/\" title=\"Hope and Dylan by marleyec1998, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6030\/5928833366_c6e4b602c4.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Hope and Dylan\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Remember this picture?  Somehow, Dylan managed to always get in the middle of everyone else&#8217;s birthday pictures!  The lucky girl getting &#8220;iced&#8221; here is named Hope.  She was adopted a couple of months before Dylan, and her mom Amy is a cyber friend of mine.  They live in Orlando, FL.  <\/p>\n<p>As only God could ordain, one of Amy&#8217;s travel mates lives in our small town, her son also being from Luoyang.  Amy and her family drove down to spend a few days with them.  Hearing that we lived here too, Nickie was gracious and invited us to their home for dinner, so we could all meet.  Dylan and Hope would see each other again!  This time, with their forever families!  <\/p>\n<p>I printed the above picture for Dylan, and told him about our upcoming visit.  He was very excited, telling me over and over that he liked Hope and wanted to see her.  <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/70803758@N00\/5922681641\/\" title=\"DSC_3906 by marleyec1998, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6017\/5922681641_fba2c6b99c.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"332\" alt=\"DSC_3906\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>All the kids spent time playing while the adults talked and finished cooking.  Hope has 2 older brothers, one of which became an instant friend of our boys.  Nickie and her husband have 4 kids, including Alex from Luoyang (he&#8217;s younger and was in a different room from Hope and Dylan).  <\/p>\n<p>Hope and Dylan were obviously happy to be around each other, but they were kinda coy about it.  <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/70803758@N00\/5923244276\/\" title=\"DSC_3905 by marleyec1998, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6147\/5923244276_67c5f4218f.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"332\" alt=\"DSC_3905\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/70803758@N00\/5922676895\/\" title=\"DSC_3903 by marleyec1998, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6026\/5922676895_bf0e74fa54.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"332\" alt=\"DSC_3903\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Hope has the biggest smile, and most adorable laugh ever.  <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/70803758@N00\/5923253652\/\" title=\"DSC_3912 by marleyec1998, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6144\/5923253652_b6401d87a5.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"332\" alt=\"DSC_3912\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>After dinner, they played upstairs while Amy and I snapped pictures and talked about our Luoyang buddies.  <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/70803758@N00\/5923259474\/\" title=\"DSC_3923 by marleyec1998, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6128\/5923259474_1ae13e4b99.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"349\" alt=\"DSC_3923\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Hope wasn&#8217;t too smiley, but every time Dylan would hug her, she&#8217;d blush and look away.  It was too cute.  <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/70803758@N00\/5923261200\/\" title=\"DSC_3926 by marleyec1998, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6150\/5923261200_d6b1e7f47f.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"352\" alt=\"DSC_3926\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Speaking of smiley&#8230;gracious, we look happy huh?  I promise no alcohol was consumed that night!  <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/70803758@N00\/5923264500\/\" title=\"DSC_3932 by marleyec1998, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6005\/5923264500_d068f5ba2f.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"332\" alt=\"DSC_3932\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We ended the night with a take on the Red Couch pictures in Guangzhou&#8230;this time, it was the Striped Couch picture :)  Alex, Hope, Dylan, and Lainey.  Our China blessings.  <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/70803758@N00\/5922702213\/\" title=\"DSC_3933 by marleyec1998, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6024\/5922702213_e1cd289c20.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"332\" alt=\"DSC_3933\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Last shot of the night.  Dylan decides to plant one right on Hope&#8217;s cheek.  Lainey is laughing, thinking &#8220;yep, that&#8217;s my brother!&#8221;  Alex is thinking &#8220;hmmm&#8230;why didn&#8217;t I think of that?!&#8221;  <\/p>\n<p>We LOVED meeting Hope&#8217;s family!  We feel very blessed to be able to connect with an orphanage mate of Dylan&#8217;s.  Can&#8217;t wait till we can get together again!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Remember this picture? Somehow, Dylan managed to always get in the middle of everyone else&#8217;s birthday pictures! The lucky girl getting &#8220;iced&#8221; here is named Hope. She was adopted a couple of months before Dylan, and her mom Amy is a cyber friend of mine. They live in Orlando, FL. As only God could ordain, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-yu-hai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.handsful.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}