Here's a testament to the power of family ties as well as the power of the internet. A couple of months ago we got an email out of the blue from a family who had adopted a boy who lived in the same orphanage as Ben in China where this boy had apparently been designated as Ben's honorary younger brother. Turns out, they found the smokerblog through a web search for Ben's Chinese name. How cool is that?

This past weekend, Ben got to meet his "brother," Reid, along with Reid's sister Brenna and parents Paul and Rebecca after they all flew out to visit for the weekend. Despite the heat, we had a lot of fun. We took a trip to the zoo, but otherwise mostly sat around and talked (and played) and got to know each other.

Paul knows more Chinese than either Kari or I do, and he got Ben to at least admit to recognizing some Chinese, although it is clear that the language is slowly slipping away from him. We would like to maintain some of Ben's cultural ties, and it so happens that Paul and Rebecca run a website that will help. We look forward to poking around, learning more about, for instance, the Dragon Boat Festival (and perhaps buying some tea!).

I'm not sure how much Ben and Reid remember of each other in China (Reid is younger and was adopted almost a year before Ben was), but we feel blessed that the two of them got along so well during the visit and that we hit it off so well at the family level. We're already talking about the possibility of a future visit so that Ben and Reid can sustain their relationship.

The only bummer of the weekend is that I didn't get more and better pictures of the kids, hopefully Paul will have done better.