Riley's Gotcha Day and Flowers from My Friend

I wanted to share a picture of the flowers my sweet friend, Denise sent me. I have them on my dresser here in my bedroom and they really brighten the room and my spirits. Isn't she awesome??!!

I am super lucky to have her as a friend!

I did the rest of this post before my surgery since I didn't want to leave everyone hanging with nothing to see if you happened to be dropping by.... soooooo read on......

I did this two page layout for my son Riley's "Gotcha Day". He was adopted by us from Taiwan. We took our two 5 year old boys with us and my mother too. We left our 3 year old daughter at home because we didn't think she would be able to handle the super long flight to Taiwan.

We flew into Taipei and spent a couple of days there before flying down to Tainan to get Riley. Unfortunately when we got there he was sick in the hospital with pneumonia. So we had to extend our stay in Tainan for a few days.

And even though he was sick and we were so worried we still had a marvelous trip. All the people there were so kind to us. Our friend, Mei Chun, helped us get our hotel room extended even though they were booked up solid. She and her family took us out to eat many times and we had many visits and meals with the nanny's at St. Lucy Center where Riley had lived.

The funny thing about this trip was that we had only planned to be in Tainan for 2 days (just overnight) so we only took clothes for 1 day and left the rest at our hotel in Taipei....and then ended up staying for 4 days. Pretty much all my pictures are of us in the same outfits! lol (we did have them laundered at the hotel) Lucky for the boys, they had brought their swimsuits with them. The hotel had a fabulous pool that no one else visited and we spent many hours down there.

Riley was let out of the hospital eventually with strong drugs and they brought him to us at our hotel. We took a few pictures with some of the people from St. Lucy Center and Mei Chun. Hopped in a taxi and headed to the airport. We had to make it to our appointment at the US Embassy in Taipei the next morning.

I plan to add tons of journaling to the pages but wanted to do that later.

I started these pages in Seattle at CKC. It is pretty great how well they worked with the pictures I wanted to scrap.

The pictures on the first page are of me and Riley at the airport, us all at the hotel when we first got him and my dh and Riley in the hospital before we got him.

The pictures on the second page are in front of the hospital where Riley was staying and were he and his brothers had been born. (oops it looks like I uploaded the pictures in the wrong order...you should be able to figure it out though)

I haven't really scrapped on Kraft paper before. I like the look of it. It really brings attention to the pictures. What do you think?? Like working with Kraft paper??

Anyone want to tell me something interesting?? Maybe you are the type of person who can't live without something?? What would that be?? Or do you do something a bit odd that you just Have to do?? Comment!! I'm sure I am still lying here bored-recovering..... Hugs!!