By Michelle Sutherlin

For The Transcript

Annie Grace Wood, 11, and Hope Wood, 9, are the typical American pre-teens. They love to laugh, especially at each other and also are a little shy around strangers.

Annie Grace loves to sew and knit and Hope loves basketball and softball. They both love to read.

What makes them special is where they came from. Annie Grace was adopted from a Chinese orphanage when she was 27 months old, and Hope was adopted from a nearby Chinese orphanage when she was 21 months old.

Their parents, Bim and Nancy Wood are typical American parents. But together the parents and there daughters have made a fascinating Chinese-American family in Norman.

Birthland Tour

In June, the Woods and several other families who adopted children through Dillon International, an adoption company based out of Tulsa, took their children to China so they could see where they came from.

This was Dillon’s second Birthland Tour that they had arranged for the families, Nancy said.

The families stayed in the same hotels they stayed in when they picked up their children and even went to the orphanages where they were adopted from.

Annie Grace and Hope were orphaned in the same Chinese province. The family toured Annie Grace’s first home.

“We went to the rooms where the babies were and saw them,” Annie Grace said. “It was fun.”

Nancy said although the babies looked clean, healthy and well-fed, they didn’t look happy.

“Their little faces were forlorn,” Nancy said. “They weren’t playing or giggling or laughing. They were clean and their beds were clean and they seemed healthy. They just needed parents. They needed a family.”

Not only did Hope get to visit the orphanage she came from, she also got to meet her caregiver from when she was a baby.