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

18 hours too many in car

We went from Tallahassee up to Durham NC for my cousin Kelle's wedding and it was also a family reunion for us.  Emma got to meet my Mom and my side of the family which was probably pretty overwhelming for her but she did really well.  Could you imagine if a bunch of people you have never seen before knew your name and talked to you like you were family?   Has to be a little tough., but not as tough as driving from NC to TX non-stop.... Um, don't recommend it but the thought of another hotel just was unbearable, we had to get home.

Jonah helped drive and when the girls finally fell asleep things were better, that is until we had to get gas in TX at 3:30 am and Emma woke up.  She did not fall back asleep with 97 miles to go. 

Anyway, tough trip on everyone but definitely worth seeing friends and family.  There were friends and family that we did not get to see on this trip but hope to remedy that soon.  Jonah took lots of great pictures so I will post them as soon as I get them off his camera.  By the way.... 1.89 gas when we got to TX, much better!

Emma's first time in Tallahassee

We traveled to Tallahassee and were able to attend the TFWAC (Tallahassee Families With Asian Children) event at Tall Timbers. Kevin Robertson hosted and was his usual incredible self. He organized games, bonfire, hay ride and beautiful weather... the guy is perfect and it is always wonderful to see them. Quick story about this guy Kevin, the night we were moving 2 years ago from Tallahassee to Texas I had put the moving truck up against the front door of our house. We filled the truck and then I pulled it out onto the street so we could put the van on the car carrier, click here to relive with us.

Okay back to the story, so as I drive the fully loaded very very heavy truck off the front lawn I run over the water meter connection to the house and bust the pipe. After a full day of packing and schedule to leave first thing in the morning you can imagine how inconvenient this little setback was. It is a bit of a blur now but all I can remember is Kevin Robertson coming to our house very very early in the morning and repairing the water pipe somehow so it was all repaired and we could take showers before driving to TX. Yeah, he is my hero but wait there is more. He learned Chinese so that he is really pretty fluent, I mean he certainly does not know every word but he can definitely hang with someone who only speaks Chinese and keep up the conversation really well. The thing that makes that so cool is when they adopted their third child from China she was actually a teenager and did not know much english, so he has always been able to speak to her in Chinese and if he is not your hero yet, hold on. One night we went over for a visit and he and his teenage daughter are sitting on the couch. He is reading a childrens book in chinese and she corrects him on anything he gets wrong... then she reads an childrens book in english and he helps her with words she needs help with. Oh man, that was so cool to see and we definitely need to get a statue made of this guy in town.

Right then, back to Tall Timbers... so Emma got to meet a bunch of people that have been waiting to meet her for three years and she had a blast. Here are some pictures of right before we left Texas and then some of the night and a visit to Church today at the Tallahassee Chinese Church.



She loved playing with the kids and really just enjoys everything we are doing. Some things Emma still does not like in order of how much disdain she has for it: going to bed, sitting in car seat on long trips. Yup, that is about it, everything else she just seems to enjoy and does not fuss about and cries pretty rarely. She mainly cries sympathy cry's whenever her big sister starts crying. She has been pretty happy... she sang all the way to church and plays with everyone that will pay attention to her. She ran around with the girls at Tall Timbers and had a great time. They had watermelon so that was a hit, she enjoyed the hay ride and most of all like playing ring around the rosy with the girls. Her mouth still seems to be healing well and we are being very careful about what she eats. We met a little boy at Tall Timbers who recently came home and will be getting the palate surgery soon, it was nice to be able to tell them about our experience and hopefully help them be more prepared then we were.

This week I have to work pretty hard all day everyday but if I don't get anything posted we will catch up at the end of the week. Melissa is great about taking pictures and will tell me stuff to post.