xmas 2010

With Love Chartreuse Christmas Card

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Our Wed at Grand Canyon

We woke up bright and early and went to the airport. Boarded a small plane and flew over the Grand Canyon for about an hour, landed in Page AZ and got on a 4x4 truck for a visit to Antelope Canyon. To get in and out of the Canyon it was a pretty long wild ride through deep sand. Jonah got some great pics which he will put on his blog when we get home. There is just not enough bandwidth here to upload them. Then we went to the Glen Canyon Dam and boarded a raft to cruise down the Colorado river for a few hours. Had lunch on a little beach on the river, got great pics and then pulled out at Lee's Ferry and boarded a bus, stopped at Cameron then back to the airport. By the time we got back to the campsite it was getting close to dark. Took showers and sat by the campfire for awhile then rested solid! Good day.

Grand Canyon pics

Route 66

Me and the boys are making great time.  Heading to the grand canyon via route 66.   Light traffic and other than Albuquerque there is no light pollution so the stars are beautiful. 

Not sure if this picture will show up but will add later if needed. 

Grand Canyon

Me and the boys are going to go camping at the Grand Canyon this week, if everything is working correctly you should be able to see our location on the blog. It is the first widget on the top left. Let me know if it works for you and we will post some pics when we are able to.

Family weekend

April started out with lots of activity and family stuff. Here are pics:



Melissa's Sister Colette brought her grandson Evan down for a quick visit. So the little 18 month old cute guy in the frog pj's and then hanging out in the rest of the pics is "baby Evan" as the girls call him. This poor little guy is having to play with pretty much all girl stuff so we are sorry Noah for your son being in a whole bunch of pink stuff.

Family got together yesterday for a really good bbq prepared by Melissa's bro Mark who drove up from Austin with his family. So lets see when you look at the pics of the family (four of them so hopefully everyone is looking at the camera in at least one) --- back row, starting from left. Mat, Mark, Jonah, Jeremy, Sean, Melissa, Daniel. Next row... Beth (baby Zoe in her lap), Margie, Baby Evan, Colette, Grandma Patricia, Grandpa Gary, Lucy. Next row... Savannah, Madison, Jill, Hannah, Baby Cristina... last row in the laps and front row is Emma and Lily.

And that wraps it up, I am caught up and now I am gonna go take a nap :)

Takes a sick day to get a post done... sigh

Lots of activities in the family since I have posted anything of substance. Sorry for the lack of updates.

Let me try and get caught up!

Back in Feb we took a day trip to Austin to visit family and friends... So there are pics in the last post where there are just pictures of us spending time with Melissa's brother Mark and family. We went to his grandson's baby dedication service at their church and spend the afternoon with them. On the way home we had dinner with Bob, Teresa and Cari. We met them on our first trip to China when we brought Lily home. Lily and Cari were in the same orphanage and we always consider that they may be related. It was great to catch up and Lily had a blast hanging out with Cari. Usually Lily takes a little time to warm up but not this time! So the pics of the girls in purple hats on the last post is Lily and Cari.

Okay, that brings us to March.

Well, here are the pics and I will explain



We celebrated Melissa's Jan birthday in March by going to Olive Garden together, whole family seems to like the ol' Olive Garden still. I just want to eat authentic greek/med food but oh well, maybe for my birthday.

Jonah took some pics of the girls outside that came out really nice, they include the girls in the jeep, playing with flowers etc. During a trip back to Tally Lily and Emma got to spend some quality time with friends including but not limited to Manna, Lily, Adrianna, Hanna, Kristina. They went downtown, the park, museums and friends houses.

Back in TX a new kids place opened within walking distance called doogoland which is perfect for Lily/Emma age. lots of activities to do inside. Then I think we end March with picture of the girls having a tea party in their room.

Better late than never

Here are some pictures of the last six weeks or so... lots to get you up to date on but no time to write it all right now. Will try tonight!

Happy New Year

Sorry for lack of pics and updates.  Here is what has been going on (typing this on phone while I am sitting here watching girls play beads so excuse typos).

Let's see, last post was the great news about our friends getting travel approval.  Well they are in China right now and have completed the adoption process and officially have their son Drew.  He is very handsome and just captures you with his eyes and smile.  We have been able to do video chat with them in China and they look great together.  They are staying in the same city and hotel that we were in just a few months ago except it is bitter cold for them. 

Okay, then Emma's first Christmas was great, she really got into the spirit of things and she still sings jingle bells as of this morning.  It is really cute, you hear mumble mumle mumble then something that you can kinda tell is one horse open sleigh and then a nice loud "hey"! 

We have some pics to share that Jonah took but the bad news is our car got broken into a couple days ago and the camera with all the pics for last few weeks was in Melissa's purse they stole.  So, we have been replacing all the stuff and getting van fixed etc.  All is well, nobody hurt but sad we lost those pictures we can't take again including Christmas. 

So, today I took the girls to breakfast and then we stopped by hobby lobby to get some craft supplies.  We just finished making homemade snow globes and Lily is sewing.  Emma want to go outside now so that's it for now.  Happy New Year everyone. 

Congrats on TA for our friends

Pretty much our whole family is overcoming sickness right now... Emma is on antibiotics but the rest of us seem to be getting better with vitamins and OTC medicine. Everyone is doing alright, just not 100 percent.

Good news today is that our friends Donnie and Heather Thompson just got travel approval and will be heading over to China to pickup Drew right after Christmas and should be back home by Jan 10th which is quite the Christmas present.

You can follow their journey at: http://thompsonslatestmiracle.blogspot.com/ and pray for them to be healthy and strong. We traveled at this time of year when Lily came home and it was pretty cold during the North China part of the Journey. They will be staying in the same town that we were in to pick up Emma a few months ago and will have the same guide that we had which is pretty cool.

Family Friday

Sorry, we boycotted "black friday" and just had a nice family day.  It is disgusting to me how people act all to save a couple dollars. 

We took Emma to her first movie "Bolt" and she handled it pretty good.  Probably because there was food... For our friends in Tallahassee do you remember mugs and movies?  They have a bunch of those in TX which is really fun but surely contributes to the TX waistline conspiracy. 

She liked the movie but not all of it, there are some intense action scenes that are pretty loud and she would be happy to skip those parts. 

We had cousins Hannah/Jill/Madison with us for the day which was great.  Everyone took turns with Emma and she seemed to really enjoy the day. Lots of laughs and smiles.  We drove through the Grand Prairie lights which was fun, www.gptx.org and came home to have smores in the fireplace. 

Emma is trying to say more words and is continuing to get more and more comfortable. 

Thanksgiving pictures

More pictures of November

Happy Thanksgiving

Emma had her Doctor appt today, she was absolutely great about it.  She opened her mouth for him and let him check the progress.  He said it looks perfect and she can eat anything so we have much to be thankful for.  We stopped by build a bear workshop on the way home because her sister has one and this seemed like the right time.  

They are playing with them together and just put the bears to bed.  Very cute!

Will get some new pictures posted soon, have a happy Thanksgiving everyone!

pics from last week