“Her caretaker came out and hugged her and talked to her and held her hand,” Nancy said.

Hope said although it was a little uncomfortable being the center of attention, meeting her caregiver was the best part of the trip.

“It was fun,” she said.

When the Woods were there they asked the orphanage what they might need. Bim said they needed a washer. So one day the family stopped by a Chinese factory, bought a washing machine and delivered it to the orphanage.

A washing machine wasn’t all they got.

Nancy said she made each orphanage a photo album of each girl as they had grown up.

“We wanted them to see how each girl has changed over the years,” Nancy said. “We wanted them to see that the work they had done when Hope and Annie Grace were little was worthwhile.”

On the last night of the 12-day trip, the girls wore authentic Chinese dresses that were made especially for them. The girls had been fitted for the dresses and picked out the material at the beginning of the trip.

Annie Grace’s dress was made of pink satin with little flowers and butterflies that were a slightly darker shade of pink all over the dress. Hope’s dress was made of red satin and had gold trim with gold Chinese symbols written all over the dress.

The girls, who are both taking Chinese, struggled to read the characters as they admired their dresses.

“The writing is too sloppy,” Hope laughed.

How it all started

Nancy and Bim fell in love and were married in 1994. Neither had had any children.

“I began thinking we weren’t too old to adopt,” Nancy said.