Home At Last For Autumn

I've been inundated with emails the past few days with people asking, "Why haven't you blogged!" Well, in Hong Kong our hotel wanted to charge me $20 to blog. Does than answer any questions? Well, for all the Autumn-fans out there, here is an update!

We've actually been home for one full week and have been busy enrolling Autumn in school and introducing her to all the people we love. Here's a photo of her with both of her new grandmothers! She asked if we would please take this photo for her.


While we were in Jiangxi, her province, we took Autumn to a fine China shop to select a gift for her grandmothers. (Her province is famous for the blue and white Ming dynasty vases.) She selected a boxed set of blue and white tea cannisters for each grandmother and dutifully began to memorize the English words, "This is a gift for you from my province." Here she is presenting it to her Grandma Gresh, who immediately broke into tears.


Donna and Troy VanLiere, our dear friends from college, surprised us by being in our house the night we arrived home. We were delighted to share our first few days at home with them as they "introduced" us to Autumn just eleven months ago. Autumn bonded with them by their second day and can't wait to go meet their two daughters from China, Grace and Kate, as well as their brand-new son David!


You may recall that Troy met Autumn on a trip to China with the Christian singing group Newsong, who'd gone there to learn more about international adoption to promote it at their concerts. Well, Newsong almost never plays this far North. However, two days after we arrived home, they were in York, Pennsylvania so we loaded into my dad's cargo van and went to say "Thank You." They threw a little "Welcome Home" party for Autumn backstage where we met them and enjoyed a big cake. Here's Bob, Autumn and I conversing with Eddie Carswell from Newsong.


The concert was GREAT! It was in a baseball stadium. We worshipped and enjoyed great musical talent from the whole Newsong band. Then, Eddie shared Autumn's story before announcing that she'd found a family and had just arrived in the United States two days earlier. Lexi literally had to push Autumn on to the stage, but the crowd loved it. Here they are on the "really big" screen.


A highlight of our first week was Autumn's first sleepover. The neighborhood girls got together Tuesday evening to sleep at our county fair. (Yes, I just wrote "to sleep at our county fair." That's another story and a side of me that I don't like to expose, but my family has been known to sleep at the Grange Fair.)

Here's Lexi, Tatum, Jen (SKG Superstar) and Autumn on the Tilt-a-Whirl, which was a huge success. So much so, that Autumn drug me on to it the next afternoon. I do not do rides well and paid for it all night!


Here are the girls sleeping in the Cramer/Johnson/Barker tent at the fair. From left to right you see Michelle Lenze, Lexi, Autumn, Tatum Stauffer and Amanda Wiebel. They had a blast.


Thanks for following our wonderful adoption story and for praying for us. The Lord has been so present in every stage of our story...and we're just on chapter one! I can't wait to see him write the rest of it. Stay tuned and we'll keep you up-to-date. And...let me know what stories the Lord is writing in your lives these days. I love to read them!