CCAI Reunion

We were among the 400 or so people at the CCAI Mid Atlantic Reunion on Saturday. Doodle was part of Group 114, and more than 1,000 groups have followed over the past eight-plus years. Kind of mind blowing. Tootle was adopted through another agency, but in some ways I feel that her connection to CCAI is stronger than Doodle's. Tootle spent the first nearly three years of her life in foster care through the Lily Orphan Care Center in Hangzhou, funded by CCAI's charitable arm. CCAI trained Tootle's foster family, and they must have done a terrific job because Tootle was developmentally on track, or even advanced, when she came home. This reunion was my opportunity to thank CCAI's president and founder, Lily Nie (pictured with the girls), for setting up LOCC in Hangzhou. Lily told Tootle that she probably held her when she was a baby because she went to Hangzhou every summer at that time. The reunion also gave Doodle a chance to reconnect with her preschool pal, who we don't see often enough. I got to meet up with a few families with children from Hangzhou, spend time with old friends, and talk with some awesome single moms whom I hadn't met before. If there were an award for laughing the hardest at the puppet show, Tootle would have won it. And a lion dance in July is pretty cool, even if it was 95 degrees and the guys in the costumes must have been drenched.