Memorial Day Thanks

Thank you to all the men and women who have served to keep our country free. These are the men in our family who have served in the military (or in Ralph's case, still serving!)

My Dad!

My brother-in-law Shawn.

My nephew Ralph.

We live in a great country and we are grateful for the years and hard work you dedicated to keep this country great.

Elise's Birthday Party

Elise's birthday party was today. Oh My Gosh, it was heavenly NOT having the party at our house! Elise decided to have a gymnastics party at our local YMCA. She had such a good time!

I still have a hard time believing this little girl is my baby, she is growing up so quickly.

The kiddos started by having the full run of the gymnastics room. They danced, bounced, jumped, balanced, swung and hung to their hearts content.

We discovered this little girl (bright pink shirt) lives just down the road from us. She also attends kingergarten in Elise's school and they have gotten to know each other in the after school program. Her mother is Asian (Chinese) and her father is caucasion. She said their daughter is often mistaken for being adopted when she's out with her dad. :)

Elise loves, loves, loves pepperoni pizza so instead of cake and ice cream, we served cake and pizza! A little indigestion, anyone?!?

It was a great party (very low key for me!). Elise had a great time and she truly has some wonderful little friends.

5 years ago (a day early)

I'm posting this a day early because tomorrow is Elise's b-day party and I don't want this day to pass in the craziness.

On May 25, 2003 (5 years ago!), Elise was placed in my arms in a hot, stuffy hotel hallway in China. Perry and Carson weren't able to travel to China so it was myself and Aunt Carol who first met Elise. Many adoptive families celebrate Gotcha Day, but we decided to celebrate Family Day instead and celebrate on the day the whole family was united at the airport when we returned to the US.

SARS was in full force 5 years ago and our travel plans changed several times before we actually landed in China. It was a tense time to be in China.

Here's an e-mail I sent from China 5 years ago:

We have officially adopted Elise in the People’s Republic of China!!! Yeah!!!

We’ve had a little bit of a rough time. Elise is definitely grieving and doesn’t really like me too much. That’s pretty typical of the little girls in our group. Some don’t want anything to do with one parent.

Elise was crying when we met her at 11:00 am and didn’t stop for about 4 hours. It was a rough day. I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast (lunch was served RIGHT after we got the babies and I spent the entire time walkingher). The air conditioning is still off, so we were both pretty drenched insweat by the time she zonked out! She refused any food or bottles and finallywore herself out and took a 15 minute nap. She did a little better once she woke up from that short nap. The hotel has supplied us with a stroller and we discovered she really likes that (she doesn’t have to look at us in it!) (The air was off because of SARS and it was HOT!)

She also HATES the elevator, which is a bummer because we are on the 17th floor!

She did finally take a bottle last night and drained it! Perry and Carson called last night and it was so good to talk to both of them!!! Elise was taking the bottle at the time, so she got to hear her daddy and big brother over the telephone.

She slept from 8pm until 7:30am! She woke up at 3:30 for a bottle, but went right back to sleep. Her sleep was a bit restless at first. When she first went down, I’d walk by her crib and see that she’d be laying there with her eyes open just looking around, then she’d fall back to sleep. She wasn’t too thrilled to wake up the morning and discover that Carol and I were still here! She’s been pretty fussy today, but is taking a nap at the moment, so that should help.

One of the little girls in our group has pneumonia and they had to visit the local hospital twice overnight. The hospital wanted to keep her there, but mom said no. She said it was filthy and they even saw a rat! Grace seems to be doing a bit better today, but keep her and her mom, Carol, in your prayers. (remember, we were in China during SARS so this was especially frightening news!)

The other little girls are all grieving in their own ways, some are fussy (although I think Elise is the fussiest!), some are just withdrawn, others are clinging for dear life to their new mommies.

We completed some more adoption paperwork this morning and finalized the adoption in China. I believe we also started the process for her visa…it’s hard to tell what you are doing because no one speaks English, you are just told to go here or there.

Our facilitator, XiXi, is wonderful!!! She’s an adoptive mom herself and knows so much about the process and what is important to adoptive parents. She made sure we all got a Chinese newspaper today and has been so helpful as the babies adjust to their new parents. Elise loves being around XiXi when she’s talkingChinese!

We are off to do some shopping this afternoon. Should be interesting!!! We should be quite the spectacle! Carol and another member of our group ran to the market yesterday to pick up baby supplies and she said they caused quite a stir. Folks kept coming over to see what they had in their cart!

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from those first days.

This is Elise after she'd cried for HOURS and wiped herself out!

And this is one of the first smiles we saw. She loved this little walker (especially when it was turned to face AWAY from me those first few days!)

Elise, you are such an amazing little girl and we are so blessed to be your parents. We love you, Princess!!!!

Mom, can we keep her?!?

In the past week, my son found and helped an injured bird, took in a box turtle that a friend found and now take a look at what followed him and some friends back to our house....



She's a beautiful dog that has apparently been roaming the neighborhood for the past 4-5 days. Some neighbors behind us have been feeding her and would love to take her in but it's not a good time for them right now.


She has clearly been someone's pet. She's well behaved, very good around children and other dogs. She has a collar with a charm, but no registration tag or contact info.

We took her to a vet in town to see if she had a chip but nothing. The kids, of course, think she's now ours. It's a little too soon for me, but I hate to turn this beautiful dog into a shelter. We're keeping her in our yard for the weekend so she stays safe. We'll post signs up around town and see if anyone comes forward to claim her.

In the meantime, we're calling her Trixie.

Neighbors

We have new neighbors! Our cranky neighbors finally sold their house and moved away. See ya!

And in moved a really nice young couple. They are horse lovers and this beautiful critter showed up this weekend. They have 6 acres and our house looks directly onto their pasture. We were a little nervous about WHAT might be moving into the pasture. The cranky neighbors had cows (not quite legally, however!). We had contacted the county and learned that only recreational animals were allowed...and a limit of 2 animals (old cranky farmer dude had up to 5 cows and the flies were a MAJOR problem).

I can live with this guy with out my front window. There is one more horse coming. We've all taken turns just sitting on the front porch, relaxing while watching this gorgeous animal.

Our neighbor on the other side works with a local animal shelter and often has a foster dog at their house. She's a wonderful neighbor and I've really enjoyed getting to know her over the few years we've been neighbors. They were going out for the evening, so her current foster, Wrigley, came to spend a few hours with us tonight.

Elise and Mollie showed her all around our yard.

Mollie kept a close eye on her new friend!


At one point, they all ended up in the corner where we buried Sneakers. Elise just stopped and paused for a few minutes. We all still miss Sneakers so much. We never used to do much in that corner of the yard, but we find ourselves down there much more often these days. We typically find Molly laying down there. (OK, we have also found her digging around down there...that's a little too Stephen King for me!)

These pictures totally cracked me up....

Ahhhhhhh.......

Choooooooooooooo......

And I just love the imp look on Elise's face in this pic.

True to form

Carson's cub scout graduation was today. Put my kid in any setting in nature and he's sure to find some living, breathing creature that needs help. Sure 'nuf, he found this injured bird. What I didn't get was a picture of the group of younger boys following him around. It became quite a mission to save the bird and release him back into the wild.

Toys

Who needs big expensive toys when you have a box and Dad's lawnmower?!?

Carson managed to fold himself completely to fit inside of this box (he's inside the box, you just can't see him.)


And it also becomes a fairly comfy tv-watching "chair."

Elise caught a ride on the lawnmower with Dad. At the end of mowing, he lets her steer all around the yard. Yes, only Elise can get away with mowing the yard while wearing a dress.

I took the ones of Elise with my 300mm lens (from way up on the deck), my 28-80mm doesn't seem to be focusing properly :( Anyone have any ideas?!?