Reunion Day

Today, we had brunch with our travel group -- the first time we've all been together since Hanoi -- and with two families who recently returned with their new daughters.

It was great to see how the four kids have grown since August. Everyone's bigger with fuller heads of hair -- yes, good nutrition works wonders. The three formerly floppy babies are crawling and incredibly mobile. Everyone commented on how big Owen's getting and how much he's changed.

We posed the kids for a group photo just like the one we took on the couch in the lobby of the Somerset Grand in Hanoi. (Of course, we forgot our camera, so I hope I can get a photo from one of the other parents to post here.)

We also watched a short video that one of the dads put together from his trip footage. We all had cameos in it, and of course we all started groaning at the G&R footage, remembering how hot it was that day. Dan chose the most relaxing, soft music for the background, and we had to laugh at how that changed the tenor of the video, since we remember how hectic and stressed parts of the trip were (and don't get us started when the Halong Bay footage came on-screen). But it was so sweet, we were all wiping tears away by the end. Puts my little memory book that I made for Owen to shame -- I wish we had taken more video. Dan did it all with a Flip camera, and it looked terrific.

It was hard to find a weekend when all four families were in town, so I don't know when we'll all get together again, but we talked about an annual photo, on a couch somewhere, with all the kids in a line (Owen on the far right).