reception at the chinese embassy

A couple of weeks ago we were sent an invitation to attend a reception (this evening) at the Chinese Embassy here in Ottawa. The evening was hosted by the Ambassador's wife (Madame Gu Langlin) for all the families in Ottawa with adopted Chinese children.

We were so thrilled to be invited to the reception. I dug out a new qípáo for Lilah, in her absolute favourite colour at the moment. Pink. Who knew! She wanted curly hair, but with the heavy rain we had all evening it just wasn't going to happen.

We arrived a little late and unfortunately missed Madame Gu Langlin's speech, our friends said the jist of her message was thanking us for looking after China's adopted children. There was a huge buffet and the food was outstanding. Also, when we arrived Lilah got 6 red tickets and there were games set up all around the room. To play you had to give up one red ticket and you got a blue one in return once you played the game. There were prizes depending on how many blue tickets you had at the end. Lots of fun for the children. Lilah tried her hand at throwing balls into a bucket, hmmm...luckily the rules were swayed in her favour! However, she was exceptionally good at picking up popcorn with chopsticks, she played that game twice. The children had to get five popcorn onto a plate and you'll see in the photo below that playing that game is all in the way Lilah opens her mouth! (Also, the little girl standing beside Lilah in the chopstick game is our next door neighbour. Yes, we live in a semi-detached house and she lives under the 'same roof' as us! They're both from the Guangdong Province. How blessed are these girls to have each other. There is a 2 year age difference, Lilah is younger, however they are becoming fast friends.)

It was such a fun positive evening and Lilah had a lot of fun with all her friends. On the drive home she asked if she could go back tomorrow.

[ more pictures here ]