Olivia and Mei Mei

It's May Already!!

2011-05-03T22:05:00.056-04:00

A friend reminded me that I hadn't blogged in a long time and I realized she was right. There just don't seem to be enough hours in the day... So here are some pictures from the last several weeks.

Olivia's elementary school had a Spring Fling in March to raise money. It was fun! Olivia got to meet the Chik-Fil-A cow! (Brooke would have nothing to do with him!)

Of course, if there are kids - there are bouncies. Olivia is usually good about keeping an eye on Brooke and helping her over the obstacle courses or up stairs.

Brooke loved the Tangled movie. I saw this project on another woman's blog and totally copied it, and it came out great. It's a DIY Rapunzel tower! First we put together a few empty boxes... (Thank you, naked Ken.)

Then we spray painted them purple...

And then we added brick and mortar, trees, leaves and flowers... Disney has nothing on us!!!

Brooke on the sofa with the Bostons.

Olivia on the sofa with the Bostons. (Notice a theme...?) Actually, Olivia came home from school with an ear ache this day. After a trip to the doctor, she ended up on medication and was back to school after another day of taking it easy. That was one month ago - and we've just now been back to the doctor with another ear ache in the same ear. New medicine this time. I hope this isn't the start of a trend...

Feeling better and clowning around...

Brooke is letting her hair grow out. She wants it as long as Rapunzel's (ugh). Now she wants me to braid it all the time. It's not quite long enough, but I'm doing my best. It doesn't show very well in the picture, but I got it all swept up and back. She ran to the bathroom to look and came out to proudly say, "I look Chinese!!" (Like that was something new?) I don't know what it is about having her hair up, but she loves to say she "looks Chinese" when it's done that way. Who knows what was imprinted on that young mind from her time in China?

Brooke pointing out that she didn't fall asleep like her big sister.

Mark on the sofa with the Bostons.

Olivia on the sofa with her Boston Terrier "pillow pet".

During Spring Break, cousin Ivey had the idea to eat at Medieval Times - where you eat with your hands and watch a joust. We'd thought about going there, but just hadn't gotten around to it. We were off to ye olde England!

It turned out to be great fun!! We were glad we went! The girls LOVED it! You are assigned seats around a large arena. Each area is loyal to a different color and knight. We were loyal to the red and gold knight. Huzzah!!!

The knights acted out a whole story as we ate - sometimes in the dark. Kinda tricky when you're already eating with your fingers (no utensils!). But it all worked out. They gave us tomato soup in a tiny pot with a handle, 1/2 a chicken (a full 1/2 - it was huge!), a couple ribs, garlic bread, a roasted potato, and pastry for dessert. The food was actually really good! When a big group is all fed at once, you never know - but we were quite happy. I knew about the "no utensils" thing beforehand, so I brought plastic ones for the girls' food. I was glad I did. It made eating very easy for them.

Our handsome Red and Gold knight! Too bad he got his butt kicked later in the show.

Brooke just looking cute with her shades and her panda.

Uncle Dave was around when Olivia tired to ride her bicycle (a.k.a. the death-mobile) again. He looked at it and touched it (literally - he didn't DO a thing to it) and Olivia suddenly declared that it was "fixed". She said that "Uncle Dave is magic!!!!" She was excited to ride again! (Daddy was left feeling like chopped liver.) We went back to the park and she rode like the wind. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Whatever it takes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just a nice shot of the stream at the park.

It was "Breakfast with the Bunny" time at Brooke's pre-school. Here's Mr. Bunny, looking very dapper in his teal, velvet waistcoat. Brooke wasn't afraid at all and hopped right onto his lap.

Daddy and Brooke at the buffet table before the egg hunt. Lots of yummy things to eat!

We had a new cat showing up on our porch at night. I assumed she was female because of the pink rhinestone collar she wore. We thought she was trying to make friends with Oswald until she climbed the 6 foot fence and tried to wale on him in the backyard. He fled to the top of the skinny, flimsy canopy on the deck. (We lost the canopy top when it caved in under many pounds of snow this past winter.) I heard the fight from indoors and when I got out back, this is what I saw. Poor Oswald was panting like he'd just run a mile. I had never seen any cat so upset/frantic. The Bostons had heard the fight and run out back, frightening away the attack cat. He spent the next full day and night in the basement, refusing to come upstairs. Finally he came back up, but would not go outside. He's back to normal now and I ran the other cat off with a water gun. He may have been the one "tree-ed" but it was mostly the other cat's fur that was in the grass. He gave as good as he got...

This is Gracie. We were pet sitting for her mom and dad during Easter weekend. I think all our Easter dinner guests had a mini-panic as they arrived, thinking we'd adopted yet another dog. Ha! She is a super-smart, well behaved little dog. She has her own wardrobe, but she goes naked when she stays at our house.

Brooke dressed up like an Easter egg! She is getting so tall!! (Polka dots are Aunt Debbi's favorite!)

Olivia's Kindergarten class had an egg hunt, also. Here are some of her classmates. She is acting like a bunny before the hunt.

Run around like crazy looking for eggs!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stop for a second so your pesky mom can take a picture of you with your sister...

And then run aroud like crazy again looking for all the eggs you can carry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Brooke, Olivia and her classmate, Jordana, after the hunt.

How Olivia sees the Easter Bunny... plaid.

Time to put the big table together for Easter dinner! Brooke takes her turn with the power drill.

And then it's Olivia's turn. Bbbbbzzuppppp!

Oswald napping in my bathroom sink. He is a most curious cat. He's getting older and more romantic all the time. He's such a handsome fellow.

Having cocoa/coffee and cookies with Daddy and talking with Grandma Helen on the phone!

We didn't do big Easter baskets this year. We took the easy route and gave each girl a gift. Brooke got a Hello Kitty doll and Olivia got a diary with a lock, plus they shared a Tangled DVD. We did a small egg hunt. Oprah helped with the egg hunt, even tho she slept thru the whole thing. (She sleeps most of the time anymore.)

Lots of chocolate eggs - what more could you want?

Grandma Sally with Lucy. Pink suits her! (Sally, not Lucy.) (Well... Lucy, too!)

Grandpa Howard...

Aunt Deb (different from Aunt Debbi) giving Smoochy some love.

Olivia and Ivey playing badmitton in the backyard against...

Dave and Dave! (step-cousin Dave and Uncle Dave). What form!!!!!!!!!!!!

After everyone left... Mark and the Bostons on the sofa. (Mark worked midnight shift, came home, got an hour's nap and then was the "Host with the Most" for Easter, so we can't blame him for z-z-z-z-ing out on the sofa.)

That's all for now! More later!!! At least I got current to Easter!

Happy Birthday Gramma Helen and Grampa Bun!!!!!!

2011-03-20T13:29:00.002-04:00

Lion Dance

2011-03-05T22:33:00.011-05:00

Just for fun, the girls got to take a whirlpool bath during "winter break". They LOVE the whirpool bathtub. Unfortunately, it takes about 100 gallons to fill (not really, but almost), so we only do that a few times a year. They really love all the bubbles.

Here is the dangerous bicycle trail we forced Olivia to risk her life riding. I know - what more could you ask for? It's flat, clean and beautiful... The first trip out went fairly well, but the second one was disasterous. (One step forward, two steps back?) What goes on in the mind of an overly cautious 6 yr old? Olivia peddles about as fast as a sleepy infant crawls. Brooke, on the other hand, is perfectly happy running right off the path, down the embankment and into the stream. (That didn't actually happen because Mark was able to grab the back of her shirt in time.) But, she'd laugh about it and do it all over again.

How's this for scenery while you ride?

Today was a fundraising carnival put on by the new China playgroup at Georgia Tech. The highlight was a Lion Dance!!

Several of the kids loved the lion, but...

some definitely did NOT. Poor Ella!!!

Brooke wasn't sure how she felt about the lion. As long as he kept his distance, she was fine. But when he got too close - she climbed up Daddy's leg! When the dance ended and the dancers took off the costume, she said loudly, "There's a man in there!!!!" Ah ha! She saw them before the dance, but somehow didn't make the connection. After that, she was happy to have her picture taken with the fearsome beast.

We got to try several boxed drinks they sell in China. One was sugar cane water, so you can guess what that tasted like. Another was "green gourd", which they said tasted like melon. Wrong! It tased like coffee. Ugh! (Of course, Mark and the girls loved that one.) My favorite was the green tea with jasmine.

Here's Brooke and Ella. Now that the lion is gone, Ella is happy again. The girls attend the same church and pre-school, plus - Ella and her mom, Laura, are our classmates in Chinese class! Ella is very good and pays better attention than Brooke. (She's 6 months older.)

After the carnival, we drove around the corner and had dessert at Ikea. We just love that place! Plus, we ran into the Perry's! We met Kim, Michael, and Sheridan during the wait for Brooke. Sheridan is from China and he's about Olivia's age. They had planned a cruise for "winter break", but Michael had to stay home, since he's a teacher and his county had to make up the snow days (week) lost in January. Argh!! Mother Nature strikes again! (Kim and Sheridan had fun, though!)

Winter Break

2011-03-01T22:50:00.043-05:00

Grandma Sally went all-out and cooked another Thanksgiving Dinner! It was delicious!! Brooke really loves turkey, so Grandma Sally got a special hug for all her work.

One morning when Brooke had the sniffles, Olivia made breakfast (banana, cheerios, grapes and water) and left it on the floor outside Brooke's door before she left for school. (Brooke was sleeping late.) The note says, "Love you, Princiss!" One minute they are trying to kill each other, and the next minute they're in love...

Olivia's after-school art class presented the school with the winter mural they had made. First, they made an appearance on the school's morning TV show, and then they attended the actual presentation ceremony in the cafeteria.

The next week (last week) was Winter Break. It was a special treat when Aunt Carol called and invited the girls out to the horse farm to ride Phoenix. They were beside themselves. And the weather was great. What a nice break after all the ice and snow!

Daddy relaxing with the three mutts...

A playdate with Abby and her twin brothers! (We made it out to a park all but one day.)

There's a great hill at the park, so we always take along cardboard to slide on...

Maybe when Mark retires, he can open a doggie pedicure shop?

We also went to the zoo! It only cost $20 more than the regular family admission to buy a Family Pass for the rest of the year, so we went for that option. It was really nice going last week, because the Fulton County schools were NOT on vacation and we had the place to ourselves, plus the weather was still fantastic.

I love the little pink knees and feet on the flamingos.

These are meerkats. They are adorable. One guy (greyish) was totally zonked, catching some rays, when the other meerkat (brownish) came and laid down right on top of him. The one on the bottom didn't care at all. They are even lazier than the Bostons.

I have a pictuire of Olivia when she was about 18 months old, sitting on this very giraffe. One day I'll have to find it and post them together.

Olivia and Brooke with the Willie B. statue. Brooke was very nervous until she realized he was not real.

While we were in the gorilla observatory, the gorillas went crazy, literally running to the side of the observatory. Turns out the handlers were making a visit and had treats. There is just plexiglass between the handlers and the public, so we were able to get pictures of the gorillas interacting with the handlers. Neat-o!

I was happy to get this picture! Momma and baby...

My little monkeys!!

I just know this orangutan was saying, "Man, stupid tourists all day long..." Either that or he had a headache...

The tiger came all the way up to the window we were standing at, turned around and "marked" his territory. I would have gotten a good close-up picture of him, but Olivia had flung herself back from the window, right into me.

Can't forget the pandas! Daddy panda was in one area, just hanging around.

Momma panda was in the other area which leads into the panda house. She was banging to get inside, because she knew they were putting out all the fresh bamboo and treats. Baby was safe and sound inside that day.

Lazy kangaroos at the end of the day...

And then we got to what the girls had been whining for the entire time - the kid's playpark. Next time we'll do it first and have a happier tour of the zoo.

Riding the train. Olivia wanted to sit by herself and then got scared by the whistle.

But not Brooke...

Brooke, Olivia and Mark standing by the cannon Mark wants in the front yard. Yeah... maybe for Father's Day...

We forced the girls to ride their bikes a couple times during vacation, but I haven't had the chance to download the few pictures I got. There are only a few because I spent the entire time holding onto Olivia - who was conviced that the bicycle is simply a tool of death. If driving a bicycle is this hard for her, we'll never have to worry about her driving a car. We'll save a TON of insurance $$! Brooke on the other hand... daddy had to run after her more than once, frantically grabbing for the back of her shirt as she fearlessly wizzed down a hill... on the other hand, maybe we'll need Olivia's insurance money for Brooke...

Brooke got ahold of the hair-boo-boo bag and went to town. And then had a peanut butter sandwich.

Some of Olivia's recent artwork...

Breakfast and Sickly Brooke

2011-02-16T11:24:00.007-05:00

Mark and the girls attended the "Father Child Breakfast" at Olivia's school on Saturday. They all came home stuffed. The girls wanted coffee, but settled for apple juice.

Our Boston, Lucy. She always tries to hide her face when she sleeps. This time, she climbed onto Mark's shoulder and tucked herself into his neck.

Yesterday was gorgeous - like Spring!! The girls played outside and had a ball. Brooke loved it.

And here she is this morning - coughing and feverish with a snotty nose, staying home from school. She is in her "office", under the computer desk. So much for Spring...

Brooke's Valentine's Dance

2011-02-16T11:01:00.013-05:00

First, here is a new silk outfit I found for the girls at the Thrift Store! You just never know what you'll find there. It is a little big for Olivia, which is perfect because they'll both get years of use out of it. It has beautiful golden flowers all over it.

Brooke was FURIOUS when I put it on Olivia first. She demanded to wear it, no matter how big.

Next, meet our friendly "pet" squirrel. The girls got into the dried corn on the cob I had in a bag on the deck and shucked it all over the deck and surrounding lawn. I explained to them that this was bad because 1.) we don't want squirrels running around (or in) the house and 2.) we don't want the Bostons to pop out the pet door and grab a squirrel (crunch!). They were disappointed, but understand now. So, until the remaining corn is gone, this little guy comes regularly to help clean up.

Olivia reading, with the coffee (ick) daddy made for her. (3 parts cream and sugar, 1 part coffee) She is in Kindergarten and can read an entire Junie B. chapter book in one hour. Her Aunt Linda will be proud.

Last week, Brooke's pre-school had their annual Valentine's Dance. They always have a 50's theme and the kids get to make their own ice cream sundaes as a treat. Brooke wore the poodle skirt I made for Olivia 2 years ago. We even curled her hair!

The kids went bananas. All that energy!!!

Siblings were welcome, so Olivia dressed up and danced (bounced), too. The little girl in blue jeans next to Brooke is Ella, her classmate in our Chinese class.

You can't have a kids' dance party without doing a "train"!

Ice cream for everyone! I stupidly let brooke put chocolate syrup on her ice cream. Of course it ended up on her beautiful little pink sweater with the satin-and-beaded white poodle before the night was thru. Sigh...

Brooke found one of her classmates there, Ben. They were very excited to find each other. Check out those rosey cheeks! Dancing is a workout.

What good sisters!!

And here's a snap of what I hope is our very last snow for 2011. Thankfully it was only decorative and melted on the roads.

They Found the Other Hat!

2011-02-03T19:53:00.002-05:00

Whew! Here are BOTH my girls in their hats. Quite beautiful, I think!

Happy Chinese (Lunar) New Year!!

2011-02-03T17:32:00.007-05:00

Happy Chinese New Year! (Shin yen qui lur!) We're trying to do more to celebrate this year, so we got decorations, made dumplings, gave the girls red envelopes (filled with treats and some $), and are attending a CNY party at Georgia Tech on Saturday. I was the guest reader in Olivia's kindergarten class today, so I turned it into a mini CNY lesson. The kids really seemed to like it. They loved the pictures of the Lion and Dragon Dancers.

Here's Brooke in her Emperor hat. I know it's for boys, but I think she look so cute in it! I got one for Olivia, too, and she promptly lost it. It's in the house, but we can't find it anywhere. I can just see it - 6 months from now, we'll pull it out from under something...

The most tasty part of CNY is the dumplings!! I rolled and cut the dough and the girls stuffed them. Brooke becomes very protective of the dumplings even before they are boiled. Notice how she's watching Olivia...

We could eat dumplings every day!

And on a side note - here's what's on our deck right now. Compared to what they are getting up North, we have it lucky, but I didn't expect this today!

Have a happy, healthy and prosperous Year of the Rabbit!!!! Wish us luck as we begin mandarin lessons for the girls and me. The teacher's name is Heidi (ha!) and she lives at the rear of our subdivision. You just never know who's living right around the corner!

More Snow Pics

2011-01-12T23:45:00.014-05:00

Well, it's Wednesday and we are still sitting at home. No school tomorrow. I think we can write-off this week. Our street is clear because another neighbor and I actually shoveled the road yesterday. Things had started to soften up and we grabbed our chance, scraping off one clear lane up our hill. The kids are loving it, of course, and we haven't gotten on each other's nerves anymore than we typically do! Here are a few more snow pics for Grandma Helen!

Jingle is quite large by Boston Terrier standards. She was up to her chest and hopping around the yard. She seems to really enjoy the snow!

Brooke LOVES to throw snowballs. She is not shy at all about getting close enough to make sure she hits her target (me). Notice her little red elf nose.

After getting a good chill outside, the girls took every pillow in the house (no exaggeration, since I discovered even our sleeping pillows in there) and made a "nest" in the sunroom for their afternoon nap (which, of course, they never actually took).

We made cupcakes in the afternoon. Olivia was supposed to be decorating, but I caught her eating the goods!

Olivia likes to decorate for a little while, but her attention soon wanders. Brooke, on the other hand, can be quite focused and meticulous. She made most of these, entirely on her own - no interference from momma. There was as much decoration on the counter and floor as on the cupcakes, but it was worth it. She had such fun!

Back out right before sunset for some sledding in the front yard (hill). (Notice the slant of our driveway? That's what Mark slid down sideways in his quest to get to work during the last ice storm.)

Olivia loved yanking up hunks of ice (crust) to throw and shatter. I've posted a video at the end of this entry which shows her sledding.

Playing in the snow, no nap, making cupcakes, and more playing in the snow makes for one tired little girl. After dinner she crashed in Daddy's recliner.

The next day (Tuesday)? Yup - more playing in the snow. They pulled out their sand toys and played safely in the yard while I shoveled the street, making it go easy and fast. After a delicious lunch of the fresh, homemade chicken noodle soup Daddy left for us, more sledding and playing with the neighbor kids! Olivia had her first official snowball fight!

I love this picture!!!! After this, we all went inside and had the traditional snack of hot cocoa and cupcakes.

Today (Wednesday) we stayed in and thawed out. The girls made art projects with some of their Christmas gift kits and mommy washed the hardwood floors (whoo-hoo.) The big excitement was when Daddy came home!!!!!! He's been at the brewey since Sunday night, so the girls were very excited to see him again. Brooke ran around screaming, "Now we can wrassle!!!!!" Poor Daddy did his best, but he was pooped from his time at work. He was relieved to sit and snuggle after a nice hot dinner of Shepherd's Pie.

Here is a video of Olivia sledding down the yard that first day (Monday). I don't know why it is so blurry, but it shows how fast and how far Olivia got using the neighbor's sled. She shoots down the yard, across the street and across the neighbor's driveway. Her little saucer just wouldn't travel as far.

Wow, Did It Snow!!!!

2011-01-10T11:05:00.008-05:00

Welcome to Mugsy, Aunt Debbi's pug! He fits right in with the rest of the pups! (And yes, our tree is still up...)

The weathermen said we'd get snow! And they were right!! When I put the girls to bed, there was nothing going on. But when I looked out the window and hour later, I was astounded to see about 2 inches had fallen and it was coming down fast and heavy!!

The first round of playing in the snow!

And here's what it's done to our deck canopy... oops...

This is for Aunt Debbi and Uncle Duff as they while away their time for a few days in Florida at their new house. Their little guy has been the perfect house guest and even comes out in the snow with the girls!

More later! The clothes are in the dryer getting ready for sledding down the front yard...

Catching Up II

2011-01-08T17:35:00.026-05:00

Some more old photos...

The girls love the whirlpool bath in the master bedroom. We don't use it often because it takes SO much water. But it makes a nice treat. Olivia alwasys gets scared when I turn on the jets, so she has to jump out and then jump back in after they've gotten started. Brooke couldn't care less!

Sisterly love at the Chinese restaurant!

Brooke posing for Olivia. What a cutie!

Here's the paint in the sunroom. The sunroom had been white for the last 14 years. Then, when I went to China to get Brooke, Mark painted it this soft, pretty green. Then we got the new brown carpet...

So, just a little over 12 months since he painted it - he re-painted it to go with the new carpet. We like it even better this color.

Our school district has a "Bus Driver Appreciation Day", which I think is great. They have a TOUGH job! Here is the card Olivia made for her bus driver, who is a GREAT and sweet lady:

Brooke mugging for the camera at Cracker Barrel. Loved the glasses, but not the price. We were taking Mark home from his very first colonoscopy and he was hungry! He passed with flying colors and doesn't have to go back for 10 years!

Here's the kind of work Olivia is doing in her new art class. It's a motorcycle rider on the highway. Her teacher helps her, but Olivia does the main work.

Our church had a Fall Festival in October and Olivia performed with the Kids' Choir. She cried all the way on the walk to the church (it's across the street from our subdivision). She didn't want to go! She was scared! She even tripped and skinned her knee and we had to scrounge for a bandaid in the church. She BAWLED.

Here's how she did...

She blossoms in front of an audience...

Her teacher, Ms. Burleson, is also a member of our church. She performed with her choir, too, so I had to get a picture of them together. Olivia ADORES, ADORES, ADORES Ms. Burleson. She's a great lady and has a great sense of humor. She gets a kick out of Olivia. Mark claims it's because they have a "Lutheran Connection". Ha!

The girls got their faces painted and their nails done!

And here's Aunt Debbi! Rotten Aunt Debbi! She has betrayed us!

She's gone and bought a house in Florida, which she plans to move to next August when her hubby retires. Phooey!

Pumpkin carving time!! This year I was smart and just put a tarp in the backyard!

Here's the decorated yard in the sunshine. Ghosts, tombstones, big cat!

And here's our lights at night! The neighbors have come to expect us to have the best decorations on the street! Next year we'll host the cul-de-sac get-together. It used to be that on Halloween all the neighbors on our street got together in the cul-de-sac and talked, ate and drank while the kids trick-or-treated. All the bowls of candy sat on the candy-table with the parents. But we've lost that tradition with everyone's busy schedule. So, we'll host next year and try to revive the tradition.

Carved and lighted pumpkins! The girls designed their own faces. Olivia was scary and Brooke was happy.

The completed genie costumes. No more sewing.

More sisterly love!!!!! I hope they stay this way!

The weather was really great and we were able to go without coats this year. Which was really handy considering the girls' costumes. Olivia didn't break down and use her jacket until we'd finished trick or treating. Here they are taking a break and checking out their Halloween booty. We still have candy left and it's Jan. 8th... Maybe they'll finish in time for Valentines Day...

Wow! I'm doing pretty good with updating! There's more to do, so hopefully I'll get it done soon.

Catching Up Again!

2011-01-08T15:22:00.025-05:00

OK, so I'm playing catch-up again. At the last moment, I realized I needed to download the pictures off the little card in my camera or I wasn't going to have room for any Christmas photos. In looking at all the pictures, I realized that Grandma Helen had missed out on alot of the girls over the last few months. So I'm going to do a quick flashback - all the way back to September. Ha!

Olivia had a break from school in mid-September. We headed to Stone Mountain on the other side of Atlanta. We really love the park and it's not so busy after Labor Day. The focal point of the park is the HUGE mountain of granite in the center. You can take a cable car up to the top and walk around, seeing as far as the eye can see all around you - nothing to get in your way. Here are the girls at the tippy top.

I thought the tree was funny. How on earth a tree can grow in the tiny little soil deposits on top of a solid rock mountain is beyond me. But we were grateful for the shade. It was a hot and sunny day!

There are all kinds of things to do at the park, but the girls' favorite is The Barn. It is a barn that's 4 stories tall. They have regular stairs in the back for old timers like me, but they also have tubes and woven ramps for the kids to climb up. One area is like a trampoline. It's a little creepy at first because you can see right thru to the floors below you, but that's part of the fun. The girls love to bounce there. On all the floors you'll find soft little nerf balls. You collect them in sacks that are provided and then fire them from guns that are scattered about on all the floors. The center area of each floor/level is cut away, so you have to keep to the sides. The guns all point to the center, so you can shoot at whoever is below you or across from you. It's pretty much pandemonium from the moment you enter until the moment you leave. The energy level is off the charts.

Next to the train station is putt-putt golf. Olivia was game to try that this year, but (as usual) she is TERRIBLE at taking direction from her parents. Mark did his best, but I'm afraid she's just not going to be a golf-phenom. That's ok, as none of us play. (And no matter what I did, Blogger kept loading the picture sideways.)

The chugga-chugga of the train put both our babies to sleep.

They woke up rested and ready for more fun.

Moving along, it was daddy's 29th birthday (again) at the end of September. The girls decorated his cake with evey sprinkle they found in the cabinet. The cake crunched when we ate it.

And then we did the thing that changed my life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We got new carpet in the family room and the sun room!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes!!!!!!!!!!! The old berber carpet had been great, but it was 15 years old. Plus, it used to be white. Daddy chose it when he built the house and was still a bachelor with no pets. Silly man!! Needless to say it wasn't white anymore and it was to the point where I was embarrassed to have anyone visit the house. It was AWFUL. A photo cannot fully capture it's ickyness.

What do we have now???? Brown berber that will never show the dirt!!!! Yeah!!!!!!!!!! Plus, we got it at a great deal, so what more can you ask for??? Plus, it makes the area feel more warm and friendly.

Brooke is going to be a little cook. She loves to help in the kitchen. Here she is hard at work mixing peanut butter cookies. They turned out tasty as usual. (Mom gets all the ingredients together.)

Then it was time to start decorating for Halloween. This is the cat we got on sale the year before. We love him!! Olivia is doing a good job of looking terrified, but you'll notice the orange cat next to him doesn't seem concerned in the least. More about Halloween later.

Brooke attended her pre-school's Fall Festival. Here she's showing off her popcorn hand and her mini-pumpkin. She had a ball at the festival. They had refreshments, bouncies and games for all the kids to play. And you got prizes for the games even if you didn't do good, so there were smiles all around.

She chose the traditional ladybug for her face painting, and had her hand stamped with a black cat.

Broke's little foster brother from China, Meng Meng, sent a belated birthday gift to the girls. Brooke got a beautiful ballerina shirt (she now refers to the shirt as her "Meng shirt"), and Olivia got a cool book about things that originated in China!

And now it's the dogs' turn...

Here are Jingle and Lucy taking a nap on Jingle's stuffed dog. Aunt Carol originally gave it to Olivia. It's big and flat, and kids can lay on the floor on it. But as soon as we got Jingle, she adopted it as her own. She nurses on it! When she gets up in the morning, it's the first thing she looks for. Or, if we've been gone and they've been locked in their crate, it's the first thing she goes for when she gets out. She never tears or bites it. She uses her front paws to gather it into a blob and then gets a mouthfiul and just sucks. She'll lay still for several minutes with it in her mouth. Sometimes she even falls asleep that way. She does no harm, so we let her have it. The other dogs are usually not allowed on it (they don't nurse on anything), but this day she was willing to share with Lucy.

Sometimes Smoochy will sneak in and sleep with the girls after we put them to bed. This time he chose to slip in with Brooke. When we come to get him at bedtime, he tries to lay still so we don't notice him. He hasn't figured out yet that that just doesn't work. Brooke is holding her pillow-lovey.

The dogs knew that daddy had sneaked the bag of deli-turkey out to his recliner. Did he really think they wouldn't smell it???

Well - that's all for now. I'll get some more photos posted soon. They are calling for 4" of snow (turning to ice) in a couple days, so we may be snowed in! The last time we had ice was right before Christmas. It came right at rushhour. I woke Mark and told him to call the brewery and tell them he was staying home from work (he was working midnight shift). But what did Mark say?? He said he could make it in anyway! He grew up in Indiana and has lived in Michigan and Colorado, so he could handle the ice! And he hopped out of bed, slid down the driveway sideways (litrerally!), and was off! The only problem was that when he got to the interstate, there had just been a wreck further north, but one knew about it yet. He got stuck in traffic, like a parking lot, and sat on the interstate for EIGHT hours, from 8pm until 4am. (Two full tankers had collided on the ice and the big tow rigs couldn't tow them out because they were slipping on the ice, too.)Next time? I won't wake him up until we're completely covered with ice and he has no choice but to stay home!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T14:23:00.001-05:00

There Really is Free Lunch!

2010-12-03T16:28:00.008-05:00

We got a surprise invitation from Brooke's pre-school. It turns out the parents of one of the older kids there is a managing partner at Carrabbas, an excellent Itialian restaurant. All the 4 and 5 year olds and their parents were invited for lunch! Complete with a visit from Santa! The food was fantastic and we all had a wonderful time. And I found out that Brooke is a social butterfly. Her friends all came to see her at our table and she had great fun playing with them.

Here is The Gang visiting their teacher (and her 2 yr old daughter) at her table.

Last year, Brooke had only been home 4 months when she started seeing this fat guy in a red suit everywhere she looked. Who in the world was he? Now she knows who he is and what he does and she is a BIG fan. Ha! She wasn't shy at all about hopping up on his lap. (What a great Santa he was!) But, she completely forget to tell him what she wanted for Christmas in all the excitement. She remembered that little detail on the car ride home and started to get all upset. I explained that she can send him a letter. Thank heavens she calmed down! Ha!

One last buddy picture before we headed for home. Can you believe they are in the same class?

After finding out she could write Santa a letter about Christmas, she zonked. What a nice afternoon!

Tomorrow we head to the brewery for their family holiday party!! The kids will get to see the Clydesdales up close and then tour the brewery. The girls are very excited, especially Olivia, who has vowed to "work with her father". (Brooke says she's gonna be a dentist, so I figure she'll just take over Uncle Dave's practice when he retires. How convenient!)

New Haircut!!

2010-11-27T11:42:00.010-05:00

Olivia has been saying for weeks that she wants short hair. She had decided she wanted her hair cut like Brooke's. (And Brooke had decided she wanted to grow her hair out like Olivia's...) I figured I would wait and see if she was serious or not. Well, she was! So, today we went to the beauty shop. Olivia was SO excited!! Here is the traditional "Before" picture...

Snip! Snip! Snip! (by Cathy, Super Beautician!) At one point, Cathy thought she was done but Olivia said no - shorter!!

Olivia got all kinds of compliments from the grownup ladies at the beauty shop. She was GLOWING! Here she is immediately after "surprising" daddy with her new look! Do you think she's happy??

Here's the left side view. I was amazed at how well her baby-fine, thin hair stacked with the extra length cut off!

Here's the back - very short!

And the right side view.

Olivia's new big-girl look!! Brooke will get her's shaped up after we decide what she's really going to do... long or short?

Oh! Here's what Brooke finally decided on!! How do you like her new look?? Ha! This is a Halloween wig she dug out. What a hoot!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T19:00:00.009-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving from our house to your's!!!

Olivia was SO excited about Thanksgiving!! She even volunteered to clean the potties! And she was happy about it! (I will keep this picture to remind me of the one day she did this!)

Brooke helped daddy put together the extra table we needed! She's great with power tools!

We were all ready to cook!

The girls' annual Turkey Portrait!

The family (minus Mark, who is snapping the picture).

And Mark with his "new do". Ha! I just don't see him as a spiky blonde...

I would write more, but I have an extremely cranky pre-schooler on my hands. No nap and lots of turkey and excitement have made Brooke and unhappy girl!

It's Thanksgiving Time!!

2010-11-18T11:51:00.012-05:00

And that means it's time for Olivia's very first official school play!!

Olivia was a "Pilgrim Woman". She declared she wanted to be turkey because she could do the turkey "strutt", but she had to settle for being human. The day before the play, one of the turkeys was absent and Olivia was appointed to be the official "turkey understudy", but alas - all the turkeys turned out for the perfromance.

It really was a cute play! The kids sang and told the story about the first Thanksgiving. They put a lot of effort into it and it showed. A fun time was had by all.

Here are the Pilgrim Men and Pilgrim Women...

The Pilgrim Women and the Corn (who said "Pop! Pop! Pop!")

And the Indian Women and Indian Men. The Indian Women would shout, "Go Braves!" I didn't get a shot of the turkeys because they kept to the sides of the stage (and a large woman with big hair was sitting in front of me). But the turkeys were great looking. They had dark, 33 gallon garbage bags for bodies, which were stuffed with newspaper, and they had huge, long, multi-colored tails which dragged on the floor.

A smiley and proud Olivia and daddy after the performance.

A good family picture. Brooke stood still long enough for one good shot. She was bored and wanted to leave NOW.

One of the two giant cornicopias that Mommy painted on the kitchen table!!

Are we ready for Thanksgiving? No, not yet, but we have a family rule for keeping it simple so it won't be a hassle. We have new carpet (I still gotta post those pictures), a new sofa that doesn't smell like dogs and a freshly painted sunroom, so most of my work is done. Yeah!

Pre-Halloween Pics!

2010-10-31T16:25:00.007-04:00

For Grandma Helen, who has checked this blog every day for the last 2 months, hoping for new pics... here are the girls!! (Now I have to quickly grab a needle and adjust both their pants, since they're falling off! Eeek!) I especially love the kissy-giggly pics at the end.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who Cares about Halloween? McRIB IS BACK!!!!!!!!

2010-10-31T14:00:00.006-04:00

Yes! McRib is back and that makes me soooooooooo happy!!!! I didn't expect to get one until Tuesday, the official release date - but our local McDonalds had their signs up today!!!!!! We were going to be good and go home for soup after church, but when we saw that sign - plans changed on the spot!!

My tummy is VERY HAPPY!! In honor of my late mother, who LOVED McRibs also, we said a "toast" to her memory before we took our first bite. (argh! it keeps loading my picture sideways!!!!)

I'm hoping to get back to blogging now that I'm done with the new carpet (it's so fun to move everything off the floor!), frig, painting the sunroom and making the girls' Halloween costumes (remind me NOT to volunteer to sew again next Halloween). Here's a sneak peek of Brooke in her costume. She got to wear her's to preschool for her Halloween party on Wednesday. Olivia's is identical, but in purple.

Birthdays!

2010-09-10T10:34:00.033-04:00

Olivia's birthday was on the 31st. It was a school day and she was none too happy about having to go to school on her birthday. But she survived. A week before her birthday, six gorgeous roses were delivered. She LOVED them! They were from Lori and Chuck, her godparents (who were winging their way to Europe). When Lori found out the flowers had come a week early...

(Yes, I know the picture is sideways, but Blogger keeps loading it that way.)

She made sure another bouquet was delivered at the correct time. (You don't mess with Lori.)

Because Olivia's birthday was on a school day AND Daddy was working afternoon shift (so he'd be gone when she got home from school), we did the cake and candles thing before she hopped on the bus. Here's her home grown cake (red velvet with cream cheese frosting)...

And some of her decorations, which stretched from the kitchen all the way into the family room.

Here is the birthday card she made for HERSELF.

Happy Birthday, baby girl! Well, not a baby anymore - SIX years old! (Didn't we just bring her home from the hospital the other day?)

She managed to blow out all her sparkler candles in one breath!

And best of all - she had cake for breakfast (which she told her whole class about)!!!

She opened a few presents and then she had to go to school. Conveniently, it was her class' day to go to the Book Fair, held in the school library. Parents are invited to meet the kids and attend the sale with them (sort of like deliberately taking your kids down the candy aisle at the grocery store). So, I got to join her for the book fair and have her pick out some birthday books. At one point kids were coming up to her suggesting books for her to buy, like they were commissioned salesmen. I finally had to send them away, explaining that books are expensive. One little boy got all puffed up and explained to me, in no uncertain terms, that "it is her birthday and she can have whatever she wants!" WHAT?! I went home and took over with Brooke and then... Daddy got to eat LUNCH with her in the cafeteria and pass out her birthday treats! (For some reason she was put in the "allergy" class even tho she doesn't have any allergies. Anyway, it makes treat time really easy because all we're allowed to bring for the "allergy" class is... popsicles! Yeah!) Then Daddy had to go to work. We went to the Mexican restaurant that evening for dinner. She wore her birthday crown from school. The waiter took note and brought her this - a "topless" cup! (That's what she calls a cup without a lid. Lidded-cups are the kind of cups "little" kids use.) She thanked him profusely for bringing her a "big girl" cup. She said it MADE her day! I just prayed she wouldn't knock it over...

Then the wait staff brought her a soapapilla (fried, and covered in honey and cinnamon - yum!) as a birthday treat and sang to her. She was speechless and then sucked up all the whipped creme.

After we got home she tore open the rest of her presents and seemed very happy with her birthday booty. Now she's an old lady.

We waited six days and then it was - Brooke's birthday!!! On Labor Day, no less! Because it was a holiday, we were able to have some family over to celebrate with us. Since cousin Ivey had had a birthday at the beginning of August, we had a triple celebration.

Here's the very happy birthday girl with her crown!

And here's Uncle Dave with his stylish hair! (Yeah, it keeps loading the pic sideways.)

We had ham and corn on the cobb and potato salad and lots of good things to eat.

Counsin Ivey kept trying to get out of the pictures, so I took another of her just to get even.

Thank you to Publix for a delicious cake (chocolate with cherry filing)!

Brooke was so excited about her birthday!! Since she'd just watched Olivia get all the attention and presents, she was happy that it was HER turn. She didn't even mind sharing her birthday cake with the other girls.

.........................Huff and puff!!!!!!!!!!!!

And there goes the frosting! (She left the cake, as usual.)

..........................Uncle Dave...

...........................................Big Sissy!

....................................Present time!!!

Ivey, Brooke and Olivia (the birthday girls) on the playgym.

Olivia got a mosaic art kit for her birthday. It's like a paint-by-numbers kit, but it has tiny foam tiles which are sticky on the back. The picture forms are numbered so you know exactly where to put the different colored tiles. Brooke has wanted that set for herself from the moment she saw it, so I was VERY happy when I went back to the toy store and found a mosaic kit for her age group. Plus, she can wear her creations!

Of course, Olivia isn't going to pass up a chance to wear a crown!

Daddy is happy wearing his improvised bunny ears.

Olivia really wants a party with her friends, so we have promised both girls we'll do that soon. (It's the birthday that never ends!) We're all birthdayed-out until the end of the month - when it's Daddy's turn!

Meeting Olivia!

2010-09-03T15:55:00.014-04:00

Olivia the PIG!!!!

Olivia is a great children's book character. She was making an appearance at the local Barnes and Noble, so I took the girls to meet her. They were THRILLED! We got there 1/2 hour early and expected the place to be jammed and we were... the only ones there. Well, the girls got the best seats for story time!

Brooke decided to take the stage and read to us while we waited.

Fifteen minutes later, everyone else got there at once. A lady read two Olivia stories and then...

Out came Olivia!!!! She was HUGE!!! You could see her ear tips above the shelves as she made her way thru the store. The kids were amazed (as well as the parents)! As she moved thru the group, the kids were all stepping back with their mouths hanging open.

Olivia didn't say anything, but she was really nice and posed for pictures with everyone. Brooke was determined to touch Olivia. She was very giggly about the whole thing. Afterward, Brooke kept saying, "Olivia BBBIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGG!!" with her arms flung out as far as they could go. It was a good time for everyone! And free!

Shining Star!

2010-08-27T13:49:00.012-04:00

It was Shining Star Award day and Olivia was up bright and early! We got her dressed and ready and headed for the bus. She was all smiles and excitement! (She had grown out of all her summery shoes. I was lucky to find one pair of white sandals still at WalMart. Whew!) Thank you, Aunt Lori, for Olivia's beautiful dress. You always have such great taste!

Her excitement faded at the bus stop, however. She was wondering what kind of award she would get. I told her to ask her neighbor, Jennifer, who received a Shining Star award last year. Jennifer told her she would get a paper with a star and her name on it. Olivia just looked at Jennifer with her mouth hanging open and said, "All I get is a stupid piece of PAPER???"

I almost fell over!!!!!!!! Jennifer's dad was laughing so hard I thought his coffee would shoot out his nose! Olivia went into a funk. It turned out she was actually expecting a trophy or medal of some sort. I explained to her that medals and trophies get lost and damaged. We could keep the certificate safe and she'd have it for always. She was still disappointed, but not as much as she was at first.

Here she is in the cafeteria with the other award recipients, waiting for the ceremony to begin. She was all smiles and excitement again. Whew!

(She's walking a little stiffly because she was afraid her shoes would fall off.) We found out there were two groups of awards - "Shining Star" for academics and "Bright Star" for being very helpful. They started with the 4th graders and worked their way down to the Kindergarteners. I was amazed that the principal seemed to know every kid's name. But then I found out that they all had stickers on their left arms that she could read as they came up. Ha! Afterwards, we got to have cake, fruit and tea/water before the kids had to go back to their classrooms. Olivia changed into play clothes and, since her class had gone to the library, we got to drop her off there.

Student Council elections are coming up and we got to see all the posters clogging the walls. One kid had gone so far as to put a picture of JFK on his poster... Some things never change...

We Have a Shining Star!

2010-08-23T22:11:00.004-04:00

Olivia got home this afternoon and I went thru her folder, as usual. Her folder holds the activities she did during the class day, plus any extra messages her teacher or the school needs us to know.

Today, there was a blue sheet I hadn't seen before. It said "Shining Star" on it. I have to admit that the first thing I thought was, "How much is this going to cost?"

But, here's what it said...

Dear Parents:

Your child has been selected as the Shining Star of the month for our class. A Shining Star is chosen in every homeroom each month as a way to recognize students for academic performance. A Shining Star works very hard to complete class assignments and learn new concepts. Your child exhibits all the qualities of a Shining Star.

Whoo! Hoo!

She has to dress up and attend an awards ceremony Friday morning! There's even a reception for parents. Wow!! What a way to start Kindergarten!!

To celebrate, she chose dinner at the Irish Pub down the street, and we invited Aunt Debbi, since Daddy was stuck at work. He'll be able to make the awards ceremony, however, and that's even better. I was careful to tell her that we are proud of her whether the school thinks she's a Shining Star or not, but that it was great she had earned this special honor. She's proud as punch!

Penelope Pig!

2010-08-20T17:00:00.002-04:00

as sung by... Olivia!

Landscaping - Before and After

2010-08-17T21:57:00.014-04:00

We had some big changes made to the side yard and the backyard. They were long overdue. Here are the before and after shots to show the difference. We don't have all the nice finishing touches done because that can wait for cooler weather and less mosquitos!

Our backyard is bordered by a hill. A hill full of scrapy little trees and bramble bushes and stickery junipers. There was no easy way to get up to the bramble bushes, so the area didn't get used for anything except for me to dump grass after mowing the lawn.

Here is is before:

And here it is after: Whoo-hoo!

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Here is the area off the front porch/walk. Nothing remarkable. It's all downhill to the neighbor's driveway and filled with yet more stickery junipers.

Here is the view from the neighbor's driveway, looking up towards the front porch.

This is now the view, downhill, from the front porch!

And the new view, uphill, from the neighbor's driveway. We know the neighbor is happier! Mark cut down the whole huge 2 1/2 story bush that was growing on the corner. It opened up the whole area. Yeah!

******************************************************************************************

And last, but certainly not least - our old retaining wall, off the neighbor's driveway. (The neighbor planted those awful privet bushes, so Mark left them for him to prune.) The wall was deteriorating, drainage was a problem, and we could never simply walk all the way around our house. Very frustrating. Part of the reason it looks so bad is that we never went down there. We only own about a 10' strip, then comes the neighbor's bushes and driveway. We'd totally forget about it.

And here's the new retaining wall and fence!!!!!! A masterpiece!!!!! The privets are gone, and the neighbor even cut down some that were on his side of the property line. Drainage has drastically improved and we can walk around the house now!!!!!!! We are very happy and I think the neighbor is even happier. (There is a space under the sunroom that isn't blocked by the fence, so we have a dog gate up there for now. It will be replaced by white lattice asap.)

******************************************************************************************

But don't forget the fence! (I thought I had a better picture, but it's late and I don't, so this is what you get to see today.) No more unknown kids cutting thru our yard!! Now the girls and dogs can play safely and I don't have to stand over them every second. Yeah! We cleared out a TON of brush from the top of the hill for the fence to be installed. We have a little more work to do there (in cooler weather) and then we'll fix it up and maybe put an adult swing and platform there. We'll actually be able to use our property! And, ultimately, if anything happens at Mark's work, the house is more saleable than before. (Hopefully we won't have to deal with that...) I have to say that the steps and retaining wall are as solid as you could want. If a tornado came thru, the house would be gone, but the steps and wall would still be standing! The guys who did the work for us also did some incredible work for our neighbor on the other side, and now they are working for another neighbor as they totally re-landscape their backyard and install a pool and hot tub. The fence guys were fantastic, too. It's nice to have such good work done by professional people at a reasonable price.

Well, Grandma Helen, I think this brings us up to date! All the news that's fit to print! I'll try to do better from now on!

Brooke's First Day of Preschool!

2010-08-17T15:14:00.010-04:00

Brooke has been doing so well that we knew she was ready for preschool. Besides, she wants to do everything her sister does. I told her she was going to go to school just like Olivia and she thought that was great. But, as the time drew nearer, she wasn't so sure. Just before school, she declared that she wanted to stay home and play with mommy. We were gentle but firm and told her she would have fun and needed to give school a chance.

And so the day came. She brushed her teeth (she LOVES to brush her teeth).

And got all her supplies together. (And her pillow.)

But, as we headed out the door, the smile started to fade and she clutched her pillow tighter.

When I got her out of the car, she started telling me she just wanted to play at home again. I reminded her that she needed to give school a chance and that she would make new friends. She must have decided that was the way to go, because she marched across the parking lot like a trooper - AND without her pillow. As soon as we got into her classroom and she found her seat, everything was fine. She never even said goodbye, because she was already listening to her new teacher read a story!

The teacher, Ms. Jennifer, looks like she's about 24. I was amazed to find she has a 13 year old son. Good genes!!

And here she is after her first day (morning) at school! Happy and proud as punch!! (The apples on the tree are the thumb prints of each of the students.) The next school day, she couldn't get into the building fast enough. When Olivia comes home in the afternoon, Brooke can't wait to tell her what she did in school that day. They are already working on their letters and numbers. It's a sweet sight!!

And now I have some time, 3x/week, to get stuff done all by myself!!!! Yeah!!

Next post: The New Landscaping!!!

Ballerina Brooke

2010-08-17T15:00:00.008-04:00

Brooke has started talking about ballet. I re-discovered a ballet video tape and barre we had in the basement, and she had a ball with it. She likes dressing up the most. She is SUCH a ham!! It's fun to look at her and wonder what she'll be when she grows up.

Olivia recently did these pictues. She fights with Brooke, but she loves on her just as much. Typical siblings (yeah!).

The first picture says (phonetically): I love my little sister cause she is fun to play with.

The program keeps posting this sideways and I can't get it to stop. But, this is a picture of Olivia and Brooke. Brooke is saying, "I love you" and Olivia is saying "I love you, too."

Tomatos

2010-08-17T14:33:00.006-04:00

We have tomato plants for the first time. We're learning lots, so next year's crop should be lots better. We're trying to find a good spot to plant a small garden in the ground instead of in pots. The guys who built our fence said to use a post hole digger and plant the seedlings almost entirely in the ground. They all have so many tomatos they can't even eat them all. We'll see next year...

Olivia is very proud of her plants!

The other day as I was watering Olivia's plants (hmmm...), I realized the tops of several stalks were bare - they'd been eaten! Eeek! Pests!! What was eating my (Olivia's) plants??? And then I found them - the largest caterpillars I'd ever seen!!!!!! I had hopes that maybe they were actually Luna Moth caterpillars, but after a search on the internet, I was disappointed. These guys were Tobbacco Hornworms and they turn into Carolina Sphinx moths. They were so big I didn't even know how to kill them. They would make a huge mess if I stepped on them. They were large enough we ended up naming two of them - Bruce and Stanley. They even ate the tomatoes!! Olivia talked about them like pets. And then, as suddenly as they appeared, they were gone. We guess the birds got them, but they had to be BIG birds. I kinda miss them... (The guy pictured below is Stanley.)

Missing Pictures

2010-08-17T00:27:00.004-04:00

In trying to delete the extra space between my pictures and text in the following entry, I accidentally deleted a couple pictures. And you can't just "put them back". So, here they are.

This is part of the "Grossology" exhibit at the Children's Museum in Chattanooga. It explains about all the gross things our bodies do. This guy is a giant talking faucet that explains about allergies, colds and snotty noses. He was huge and really impressive. He moved and talked.

And this is the bee hive. The wall is glass, so you can see inside. (Sorry about the glare/reflection.) Mark LOVES the bees. He used to have a couple hives in Colorado.

There, I've got all my pictures now! Enjoy!

Here you go, Grandma Helen!

2010-08-16T22:49:00.056-04:00

Grandma Helen called the other day and put me "on notice" to update the blog! She checks it every day! This doesn't catch things up ALL the way, but it gets us closer to present day. One day I'm going to learn that it takes lots less time if I do frequent, short updates, instead of letting too much time pass. One day...

Of course, we have been bowling. The girls love it. Brooke usually poops out before the second game is done, but then she lets Olivia and me bowl her frames. That's good because we can use all the practice we can get. We were there just the other day and they were having a Junior tournament. Wow! Those people were serious. One boy wore covers over his shoes (like a surgeon) when he wasn't bowling. I guess he didn't want to mess up his sliiiiiiiide, for when he lets go of the ball. On the topic of shoes, when we got home I had to carry Brooke into the house for nap time. I left my bowling shoes in the car and forgot about them. When I finally got them out, hours later, the glue holding the soles on had actually dissolved in the heat! I got some sticky stuff from WalMart to fix them. I hope it works...

We owed Debbi an Anniversary Lunch for being home one year with Brooke (a.k.a. We Survived China). We took her to Featherstones cause we all like it so much. Brooke still loves her Aunt Debbi! Once again, all I can say is Thank Heavens she was along!!!!!

Olivia posing - yes, that's a scratch across her face. Brooke's fingernails grow out every night like a werewolf. They were just playing and Olivia ended up like this.

Here's some attitude!!!!! She is so spunky!

Debbi had her hardwood floors refinished, and her pug needed a place to hang out to avoid the super-stinky fumes. So, instead of 3 lazy dogs sleeping on the sofa, I had four. Mugsy is such a sweetie!! He did so good! He slept in his bed - on the foot of our bed. Things got crowded, since Lucy wasn't giving up her place. Ha!

WHAT A FACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This picture won't mean anything to anyone else, but it means a lot to me. It is our new mower. The old mower is kaput!! YESSSSSS!!!! I have had to use the old mower for the last seven years. I have HATED that mower for seven years!! It was heavy as lead and totally uncooperative. (If I was a big guy like Mark, it would be fine, but I'm not...) So, now we have a nice simple Honda that I can zip around with and not feel like I'm going to have a heart attack. (Our yard isn't exactly level...)

Future architects.............. Uncle Robert will get them into Clemson...

As the Last Hurrah (Ha! Ha! Get it, Grandma Helen?) of summer, we took the girls to Chattanooga right before school started. Brooke hadn't been there before, but Olivia LOVES Chattanooga. We didn't rush and arrived around noon. We let the girls play in one of the little ponds in front of the aquarium, then we headed over to one of the little brewery/restaurants for lunch. Everything is within walking distance, so it's a great town to visit.

Brooke ordered spaghetti. We figured we'd be taking leftovers home, since she's not a big eater. But, she surprised us and ate her entire plate!!!! We thought she'd explode!

Then it was back to the aquarium to go thru the freshwater (river) portion of the exhibit. (Brooke had soaked herself worse than we thought in the wading pool, so we had to change her clothes.)

They still have the special seahorse exhibit! I LOVE the seahorses!! They have every shape and size of seahorse. Unfortnately, my camera is not so good at capturing moving pictures in the dark.

My favorite seahorse is the Weedy Sea Dragon! They look like a fantasy drawing come-to-life.

Olivia and Brooke using the center viewing port. I wish I fit in there!

There was a woman doing glitter tattoos, so we just had to stop! (Mark hates this kind of stuff, but I think it's fun. He put up with it today.) We got our money's worth! They ended up lasting a week! First, the woman used a stencil and applied glue. Then she loaded on the glitter. Brooke went with the butterfly. Olivia chose a whale.

Watching the river otters. They move like eels, but they're a lot cuter.

Feeding time in one of the big tanks.

This same frog was sitting in the same spot, looking just like this, the last time we were there. He looks like he's made of bright, green vinyl and sits as still as stone.

I took this picture because the volunteer said that they almost never have their mouths open. It was a "big deal". Ok - if you say so... Brooke didn't like him at all.

And here is your typical nuclear turtle family - dad, mom, and the 2 kids... out to bask in the sun...

Oops! Brooke was caught making faces at herself in the mirror...

The girls enjoyed being able to get up close to the exhibits.

Olivia being a clown...

Brooke being a sweetie...

We made a quick dash to the Children's Museum after finding out they were closing early. It's so much fun for the girls! They can learn as they play. It's a great place.

The Brooke found the make up table...

They have a large art section, music section, doctor's office, archeology dig, etc. Everything is hands-on.

This thing makes horn sounds...

They even have costumes, music, and lighting you can run for the stage.

Digging for dinosauer bones!

And then Mark fed Olivia to the T-Rex!!!!!

The second floor of the Children's Museum holds the traveling exhibits. It changes from time to time. Right now they have a thing called "Grossology" - all about the human body and the gross things it does. What fun!!! But, that's what kids love! Here's a huge Operation game! (and I accidentally deleted a picture of a really neat robot that explained all about runny noses and snot. I can't get it back into place. I'll just add it in the next post...)

I didn't really believe this could smell that bad. But I was wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!! AARRGGHH!!!! They had sweat smells and foot smells, etc. Ack!!

The climbing wall is actually skin and all the pimples, scabs, moles, blisters and the like, that can mess it up. You have to give them points for imagination!

We saw the bee hive (yet another picture I accidentally deleted), and played on the rooftop playground. But the museum was closing and a storm was coming, so we headed back to the aquarium. This time we went thru the sea exhibit.

Olivia loves to touch the mantas. Brooke is not so keen...

We always look forward to the butterfly house.

They don't sit still for long, so it's hard to get pictures.

Then we moved on to the penquin exhibit. This couple were making their nest. Mom stayed on the nest, while dad brought more stones.

This is a mom and baby. The baby is the gray lump at her feet.

Shark cage!! Olivia is looking particularly fierce!

And the jellyfish! I forgot there were so many different kinds. These were pretty.

Brooke was ready to head home. She was VERY grouchy the last few minutes. She was alseep before we backed out of our parking place. It had been a long day with no nap, so she actually did really great. She's certainly a trooper!! It was a fun, tiring day.

School Days!

2010-08-02T22:01:00.014-04:00

It's only August 2nd and my baby started off to school today!!!! She was SOOOOOOO excited about starting school and RIDING THE BUS! She was up and dressed at 6:50am - before me. She has been looking forward to this day since before she finished Pre-K. She knows her numbers, is doing math on her own and reading up a storm all by herself. She's more than ready. She picked out her clothes, I made her backpack, she got brand new tennis shoes, and she was ready!! She wasn't nervous at all. She just wanted to GO!

Here she is scarfing down breakfast. No butterflies in her tummy. (The thing on her arm is a glitter whale tattoo from the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga.)

Her class has PE all this week, so she had to have non-marking, non-black soled tennis shoes. She's wearing a size 1 because her feet are wide, so these looked huge on her feet (thanks Grandpa Howard).

I had to wake Brooke up so that she could go to the bus stop with us. She was MAD. (She's gonna be one of those people who can't function without her morning cup of coffee..) Here we are heading up to the stop with the neighbors and their two kids.

The bus gang. Tick, tock, where's the bus???????

This is Olivia's reaction when the bus drove into view. She was ready to "leave mom behind", as she's been saying all summer. And she REALLY was!

Then she was onto the bus. No hesitation at all. No tears, all confidence.

You can barely make out her face in the very first window, behind a little boy who looked fairly terrified. (She sat with him on the way home too, but he still would not tell her his name. He was very upset and cried all the way home at the end of the day.) I thought I'd probably get a little tearful watching her drive away without me, but it was fine. She was so excited and confident that there was no reason to worry or sniffle. I think she forgot all about me as soon as the bus took off. That's good. I want her to be confident and independent (especially when puberty hits and when it's time to pick a university).

Last Friday we attended the Meet and Greet at Olivia's new school. Here's most of her classroom. Her teacher seemed to be really great. We have heard wonderful things about her, so it should be a really good year.

There's a bank of 6 computers for the kids to use. Computers for kindergarteners! Wow - things sure have changed since I was that age... They'll use them for independent math and reading lessons.

And then, in the hall, who did we see???? Yes! Her old beau, Ryan!!! They aren't in the same class, but they'll see each other on the playground and in the halls, I'm sure. He was in a suit with a flower - left over from a wedding he was in the past weekend. You gotta give him credit for being a snazzy dresser! Jack is in a different class, too. Whew!

After the Meet and Greet, we went to lunch with Aunt Lori and Uncle Chuck. They brought balloons and flowers for both girls and a Good Luck card for Olivia that plays music. What a great time!

Brooke starts pre-school next Wednesday. She'll attend Monday/Wednesday/Friday mornings. She's not all that excited, but she doesn't really know what pre-school is yet. I think she'll love it once she figures it out. She wants to be just like her big sister, so I don't forsee any problems. And then I can go back to bed and eat bon bons!! HA!! HA!! HA!! And then I can start on some over-due projects that desperately need to be done. No rest for the weary!! The fence guys come tomorrow - I can't wait! Then I'll post before and after pictures of all the work we've had done.

Operator Error....

2010-07-24T22:29:00.000-04:00

Yeah, seems like I switched my blog from the "old" editor program to the "new" editor program. And thus began my troubles. Actually, I won't take all the blame because I was lead astray by another blogger. She put a link in her blog about how to check your stats (how many people look at your blog, etc.). By simply using that link, I changed the settings for my blog - without even being logged-in. I still don't know how that could happen, but it did. (Doesn't make me feel very secure...) But, I'm very proud of the fact that I figured it out and fixed it!! Yeah!! Then I saw that I had a Photobucket "graphic" that kept swimming around in the background of my blog. WHERE did that come from??? Don't know about that either, but I fixed it, too! Whoo-hoo! I exercised my brain!!!! Yeah!

So, back to our regularly scheduled blog.

Here's Brooke in her car. (I'm finding while driving in the real car with her - she LIKES to drive fast and has NO patience for things like red lights or stopped traffic. Uh-oh...) She was so cute the other day. She kept pulling on the door of her car, without opening it, saying she was locked OUT of her car! (She really has a great imagination!) So Mark made her a car key. It has a blue "fob" and an old key from the brewery. She uses it to get into her car and then puts it in the ignition. She's always "looking for her keys", just like an adult. (I don't know where she got that from because I usually know where my keys are.)

In keeping with Olivia's developing love of sports, we put up a badmitton net in the backyard. We had a REALLY good time until we realized we were being eaten alive by the mosquitos. It looks like we'll have to cover ourselves in chemicals or just wait until it gets cooler. (I vote for cooler...)

Here's Oprah, the Queen Mother cat. She has taken up residence in the girls' Barbie house for the summer. They just leave her room, the family room, alone when they play. Suddenly, Oprah is getting old. She's definitely a "senior" now. I hate to say that she is starting to seem fragile. She's still in good health, but she's become a lightweight. A new thing she does is to howl, LOUDLY. Mostly in the wee hours of the night. She's had me up more than once at 3am, thinking one of the girls was yelling from a nightmare. We just ignore her now, since every time we've checked her, she's perfectly fine. She just likes to yell, I guess. She'll HOWL, we'll run to her, and she'll stop, looking at us like, "Yeah? What?" Cats...

We didn't sign the girls up for anything this summer. We've just kept busy around the house, just taking it easy and getting some projects done. The interesting thing about this is that they have turned to each other for companionship and entertainment. They were bonded before, but not like this. They look for each other first thing in the morning and last thing at night. And they can't be apart for long, they have to know where the other one is. What a pleasant, surprise benefit!

Oh, and they turn to the dogs for companionship and entertainment, too. Much to the dogs' chagrin. Poor Smoochy puts up with the humiliation. He's just waiting for his chance to take revenge...

Mark loves to watch MTV and VH1 for their OLD rock videos. He loves the old big-hair bands. But he likes new music, too, and has now exposed the girls to Lady Gaga (aarrgghh!). Brooke LOVES Lady Gaga. Here's her impersonation...

Usually I never question Mark's judgement, but there have been some days recently...

We've had fun bowling this summer! We've fallen into a routine: bowling, then lunch at McDonald's (Brooke's request). We can use all the practice we can get! Here's a recent outting:

I have to admit I wince when Olivia heaves the ball thru the air and down the alley. How do the floors withstand such abuse?

Brooke & Olivia on the playground at McDonalds...

Energy! Energy! Energy!

And here's Daddy at McDonalds. When you work midnight shift and then go bowling, you eventually hit the wall.

We get to start our landscaping projects soon!!!! Yeah!!!!!! We got to cut down the privet bushes on the side of the house because the retaining wall is going to be replaced. We're having steps added so we can actully walk all the way around the house! Yeah! We'd left the ratty privet bushes up because (1) we never went down on that side of the house since we only own about a 10 foot strip of land there and (2) the neighbor planted them and loved them, since it screened his driveway and garage from (our) prying eyes.

But now they are gone!! Ha! Ha! Ha! (evil laugh) Thank you Mark!!

It's going to look SOOOOOOO much better. After the steps and wall are done, the fence people will come out and fence the backyard. We're excited!!!!!! The girls and dogs can play without me having to watch them every minute, and the neighbor boys won't be using our yard as a shortcut. Yeah!

Meet Supergirl Brooke in her self-designed costume.

Future Georgia Tech engineering grads!!!!!!

Olivia made a flower bouquet for me using pipe cleaners and foam flowers. They will never need to be watered and will never die! My kinda flower!!! (Yes, Olivia is topless in many pictures. I'm lucky if I can keep her in underwear.) (This had better pass by puberty or we're in for some real trouble..._

We've started paying Olivia to do chores around the house (washing dishes below). We were wondering what to do about an allowance, then I saw Suze Ormond on Oprah. She suggested paying kids for chores instead of just giving them an allowance. That way, they learn from the start that they have to work for their money, not just wait for it to be handed to them. I think it's working! She's also figuring out that the more chores she does, the more money she'll make. Plus, using the different coins, she's learning math concepts. Brooke is getting in on the action, too. Yeah - she's naked. At least Olivia has on her underpants.

That's it for now!! Thank heavens my "blogging emergency" is a thing of the past.

AARRGGHH!

2010-07-22T23:26:00.003-04:00

I was going to add a new post tonight, but I find that they have ~~improved~~ ruined Blogger since I did my last post! (Notice my font color and new font type. Whoop-de-doo!!! The red accurately expresses my anger level.) Trying to add pictures now is HORRIBLE!!!! It is extremely slow and cumbersome. It's like wading thru molasses. And it keeps turning my pictures the wrong way! I give up tonight!!! I am so angry, I'm thinking about finding some place else to blog, or quitting!!! Sheez!!! What were they thinking??? AARRRGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!

It's Already July!

2010-07-10T22:23:00.018-04:00

The girls finally let me do their nails again. Olivia wanted a 4th of July theme, so she got red, white and blue.

Brooke decided on fish. She likes fish. She'll even watch fishing programs with Grandpa Howard. We have pictures of her and Meng Meng (foster brother) with their foster parents out near a lake. She says China Momma took them fishing. Looks like Grandpa Howard may have a fishing buddy in the future!

One morning the girls re-discovered their bubble blowing equipment. They even have little battery operated bubble blowers with tiny fans. Fun was had by all until... Brooke stuck her bubble blower into Olivia hair and turned it on. The fan was instantly wrapped in Olivia's hair. Olivia howled like she was bleeding from a major accident. There was no way to unwrap it, so I went to get the scissors. Luckily, we just had to trim the ends. I gave Brooke the typical speech - don't stick whirling fans in your sister's hair. She listened and politely nodded her understanding. But the more I get to know her, I get the feeling she was simply nodding because now she understood she had a new weapon in her arsenal against her big sister. The surly, silent child from China is turing into a grade A prankster.

Maybe I was the only person on the planet who didn't know the 4th of July was going to be celebrated on the 3rd. What? Just because the 4th was a Sunday? So, we missed the 4th of July parade and festival on SATURDAY, the 3rd. Olivia was furious!!!! But at least we found out about the fireworks in time! We threw our chairs, blankets and snack food into the car and headed for our local Target/Kohls parking lot. They set off fireworks from behind the Kohls store, so it's impossible to have a bad seat. There were people there with huge campers and grills. It was obvious they'd been there all day! There weren't any good spots left on the grass, so we just parked and took over the shady space next to us

The girls kept themselves amused as we waited for dark, and Brooke kept her fan OUT of her sister's hair.

The really handy thing about "tailgating" in the Kohls parking lot was that when you had to go to the bathroom, you just walked into that nice, air conditioned store and used their facilities. Here's Olivia and her favorite, Cheeze-Its.

Then came the moment we had been waiting for!!!!!!!!!! Fireworks!!!!!!!!!!!!! Olivia loved them and "ooooh-ed" and "aahhh-ed" at all the beautiful colors.

Brooke? Not so much...

Even with earplugs, she HATED the fireworks. "So loud! Hurt my ears!" she grumbled. She looked miserable. But they really weren't that loud. Olivia is still very sensitive about loud noises and she didn't complain at all (she had her earplugs in, also).

Daddy helped out by covering one of her ears and she covered the other. And still looked miserable.

Daddy finally took over all ear-covering duties and in moments Brooke was... alseep.

In the middle of the fireworks show!!

At least Olivia enjoyed the whole thing from start to finish.

So, this year we feel we missed the 4th of July. We got to see the fireworks, but that was it. Nothing was going on on the actual 4th. Phooey! Better luck (planning) next year.

********************************************

The new thing with Olivia is that the girl really enjoys sports! (Mark is secretly thrilled!) Daddy took her and Brooke to buy real baseball gloves a short time ago. She is coming right along with catching and has branched out into batting. And she's not bad!! The very latest thing is badmitton! She'd play all day if she could. Unfortnately, the heat and the bug population is holding us back. The mosquitos love all of us, except for Mark. We can only go out if we're covered in bug spray - ick. Olivia has 28 bites on her legs!!! She looks like she has chicken pox! We've gone thru a gallon of hydrocortisone! We'll just have to wait for cooler weather. Or get up earlier... naww...

And then I found this elf in my hallway!

On Tuesday the 6th, Brooke had another celebration!

When we were in China, there was a brand new requirement (just in time for our adoptions - thrill!) of the US government that all newly adopted kids had to take a TB skin test before entering the US. If you failed the skin test, you had to get a chest x-ray. If you had (have) active TB, you couldn't enter the US. Slightly problematic for a family with a child who isn't considered a Chinese citizen anymore, but can't enter the US, either!! What is a family to do? Stay? Leave the child behind while he/she gets treatment, which takes about 9 months? Since we traveled, there have been several families with this problem. When Brooke's TB test turned into what looked like a big, fat mosquito bite, I began panicing about what I would do. Send Debbi and Olivia home, for sure. But then who would look after Olivia while Mark was at work? And where would Brooke and I live for 9 months in China? And how in the world would we pay for it?? Etc., etc. (The really irritating thing is that if she were just a tourist, she could travel into the US without any medical attention and hack her way across country, infecting everyone she met. But if she's being adopted - no, she can't enter the country and the family is thrown into legal limbo.) Because she had a positive skin test, Brooke (and one other little boy in our group) had to have chest x-rays. We literally held our breath while they read those films. Luckily, neither had active TB and was allowed to come home without further complications. Since she had such a positive reaction (the bigger the welt, the more positive the reaction), Brooke's pediatrician felt it would be best for her to undergo treatment for latent TB. It is given free of charge by the county and they even come to your house to administer the medicine. Brooke was not contagious, but she had the TB virus hiding somewhere in her little body. It might never activate, OR it could pop up any time and make her very ill, especially if she was still young when it activated (the younger the patient, the faster it will take them down). We didn't want her to ever have to worry about TB, and the cure was being handed to us on a silver platter, so we went for it.

That's how we met wonderful Nurse Tammy! She came out to our house, twice a week, for NINE months!!! She's great! At first, we were worried about whether Brooke would take her medicine. It is very bitter tasting, so kids don't like it. If they refuse to take the oral meds, they have to get suppositories. Nine months of suppositories. Blehhhhh... We tried peanut butter, but it was a no-go. Then Mark had a "light bulb" moment - frosting!!!! Brooke LOVES frosting. And frosting isn't wet enough to dissolve the crushed pill and spread the bitter taste. It's just thick lard that covers it up. We tried it and - vwah-la! - she loved it! So, as far as Brooke was concerned, Tammy was this really nice lady who came over twice a week and gave her chocolate frosting for breakfast! What ever works!!!! (Brooke owes Mark, big time!!)

Tuesday was Brooke's last dose of TB antibiotic!!!! Tammy brought cupcakes to celebrate. We gave Tammy a tile Brooke made at the pottery place with her handprint. Olivia painted her a little flower dish. Those nine months went by so fast!! Brooke now has a less than 1% chance of ever developing TB. But, she'll always test positive for it, so we'll have paperwork to show she's already been thru treatment. We feel better knowing she won't have to give it a second thought as she gets older. Interestingly, Meng Meng's TB test was negative (yeah!). We were worried he'd be positive since he and Brooke were exposed to most of the same things while in China.

Thank you, Nurse Tammy!!!

Tomorrow marks Brooke's One Year Anniversary of coming to her new home in the United States!!!!! (I was never so glad to hit US soil!!!!) To commemorate the day, we will have lunch at... MacDonalds!! Yeah - I know it sounds goofy, but MacDonalds was her first meal upon entering the US, in the Newark airport. She LOVES MacDonalds. (Daddy will cook a steak for us old folks for dinner.)

I can't believe she's been with us a whole year. On one hand it seems too soon, but on the other hand, it seems like she's always been with us. What more could we want????? (Ha! Mark says he's too old for any more!)

Family Day!!!!

2010-06-30T22:09:00.031-04:00

Tuesday the 29th was the first anniversary of "Family Day" - the day we met Brooke in China!!!! Lots of people in the adoption world call it "Gotcha Day", but I've decided that sounds too much like Brooke is an object instead of a person. I'd say "gotcha" if I'd earned a fancy degree or got a zippy little sports car, not a child. So, we have decided to call it Family Day because it is the day we first met Brooke and she became a member of her new family, our family.

Unfortunately there was no celebrating (or blogging) yesterday because... Brooke was SICK. She caught her sister's bug and crashed big time. I knew we were in trouble when she woke up with a fever. When I gave her 1 teaspoon of liquid ibuprophen and she puked it right back up (on an empty stomach) I knew it was gonna be a bad day. But she did ok, surviving on popsicles, her most favorite food in the world. It was quite exciting when her fever hit 105 in the evening and she, again, could not keep the fever reducing meds down. She went into a tub of lukewarm water and I got on the phone to the doctor. She pulled thru and seems to be almost her old self today, thank heavens.

The little green bowl is for when her tummy got "upset". This is the first time she's been sick since we brought her home and we found out that she HATES being dirty with any kind of sweat or icky stuff. So, she kept her bowl with her at all times.

Even when she's sick she's so beautiful!

I'll catch up the blog with my memories of Family Day. This will probably be the last "recap" posting since it was all Chinese and US paperwork after this. We stayed in Zhengzhou for a week doing the Chinese stuff. It was HOT. I think almost everybody just stayed in the hotel the whole time because it was so hot outside. Boring. It was all heavy traffic and office buildings around us. I don't have bad memories of Zhengzhou, I was just way too hot and bored stiff. I was happy to leave. Sorry, Zhengzhou. We flew to Guangzhou the next week to complete the US visa paperwork and then we finally headed home. We really liked Guangzhou. It wasn't as hot, was very pedestrian friendly and there were lots of neat shops to look at. Plus, there was a place, Lucy's, that served plain old American food like hamburgers. Thank the Lord for Lucy's!!!!

So, Family Day had arrived!!! After 15 months of applications, paperwork, waiting, traveling, it had come down to THE DAY. Olivia woke up happy and fit, so we made the decision that all 3 of us would go to meet Brooke (Ke Xin). We hopped on the bus with 7 other nervous families and headed for the big event.

We pulled in at a very newish office building and filied in. I was just setting down my purse, paperwork, gifts for the orphanage workers and gifts for Brooke when I heard her name called. At first it took me a second to realize she was alreday standing right there, because we had barely stepped into the building and didn't expect the kids yet. I just dropped all my stuff and whirled around. And there she was. This little tiny thing, standing there with her head down and her eyes peeking up. Her face was expressionless and she was silent. Very stoic. I know it sounds dumb, but I almost couldn't believe it. This little person I'd gotten used to just seeing in photos was real and standing right there in front of me. I knelt down in front of her and smiled. I knew better than to try and grab her. Our guide, Yisha, and the other office women kept pointing at me and saying "mama! mama!" and some other things in Chinese (I don't know whether they spoke Mandarin or Cantonese), like that was going to make a difference to Brooke. She looked about as happy as a prisoner of war. I turned to walk her over to our table and realized partly why she was so silent and stiff - she was the first child to be brought out and all the other waiting families had jumped in back of me and were taking pictures like paparzzi. The other children began to come out and we were left to ourselves. Debbi had really been on her toes and was able to grab the camera without any warning and snap our first pictures together. Yisha is the lady with the pink bag, closest to Brooke. The headless guy in the brown t-shirt standing in the picture was the orphanage worker who drove her to the office. It was a 3 hour car ride from her orphanage. She never looked at him a single time. He never offered her any comfort. So, it was obvious she'd just been pulled from the orphanage (we think she was pulled from her foster home and sent back to the orphanage for a time before the adoption), stuck in a car with a guy she didn't know, for a 3 hour drive, to be handed off to more strangers in a place she'd never been before. I can't blame her for being unhappy and stiff. I think she was actually doing great.

I gave her a super-soft stuffed horse to hang onto and a Kai Lan purse full of small toys, candy, jewelry and pictures of her and her foster brother with their foster parents.

She really liked seeing the pictures of her foster parents. Bringing those pictures really helped to break the ice with her. She got very animated pointing at them and smiling. We still have framed pictures of them around the house and in her bedroom. She always smiles when she look at them.

These are a few of the other families meeting their new kids that morning. Jenny and her daughter were from New Jersey.

Heather and Eric are from a town just north of us.

This family was from Michigan.

And this family was from Florida.

We hung out at the registry office for about an hour with the kids, just getting to know them and letting them adjust a little before we hit the road to start the Chinese paperwork. There were some tears from the other kids, but not a single one from Brooke.

Brooke was already comfortable with the play cell phone. As time went by, we found she was comfortable with lots of things we didn't expect - western silverware, eating at a sit down restaurant, using a western toilet, the TV, the phone, etc. I think her foster family was fairly well-to-do by Chinese standards. The man standing in the picture below was a lawyer from California. He wasn't going to be able to meet his new daughter until later that afternoon, so he'd come along to help get pictures of everyone else. He took my two favorite pictures of Brooke that morning (sorry Debbi!). He was obvioulsy an experienced photographer. They are posted farther below.

We had to hop on a bus and go get our pictures taken. Brooke sat next to me like a sack of potatoes. The bus actually stopped near the hotel because the California family couldn't have their pictures taken yet. They hopped off and went to get ready to meet their little one at the hotel. Debbi (the smart one) asked me if she should take Olivia and get off also. I (the dumb one) said, no - you can come along. It's not supposed to take long. WHY didn't I listen to Debbi????????? The bus took off again and we drove, and drove. (uh-oh.) All of a sudden, Yisha starts yelling at the bus driver. No one could understand what was going on, but it was obvious that neither one of them was happy! It turned out the bus driver had shot right past the photo studio by about 2 city blocks. Did he go back??? Nope!! We had to get off and hoof it back. By the time we got there, we were soaked in sweat - and Olivia was starting to wilt again. The "photo studio" was just an open shop with a cash register and a space in back with a camera - no air conditioning. We tried to stay in the shade of the store front, packed in like sardines. We finally got the pictures done and then had to walk all the way back to the hotel. It was not pleasant. It was horrible hot. There were crowds on the sidewalks, and there were mopeds on the sidewalks running at full speed going the opposite direction. It was like playing chicken!!!! It got to where we just kept our heads down and walked as quickly as we possibly could, trying to get back to the hotel as fast as possible. Debbi was lugging Brooke, who never made a sound and never sweat a drop. I was lugging Olivia who, by the time we got to the hotel, had basically passed out. We were both so sweaty I had a hard time keeping ahold of her. I was so furious with myself for not letting Debbi take her off the bus earlier, but I had no idea we'd be in for an experience like that. Yisha had said the photo place was "just around the corner" from the hotel. HA! What an understatement!! It was at least a 1/2 mile! Olivia had finally gotten better from her horrible flight and heat-exhaustion, and here I'd gone and ruined every bit of progress we'd made with her. From that moment on, all I wanted to do was get out of Zhengzhou.

After getting back into our air conditioned room, we all laid down and cooled off. We offered Brooke fresh clothes, but let her decide to put them on in case she was attached to the ones she had on (some kids go banans if you take their clothes away). She had absolutely no emotional connection to her clothes and stripped them off without any hesitation. She pulled on a fresh diaper and her new comfy shirt and shorts without any help. She put her sandals back on without any help, either.

After skyping with Mark so that he could see his new daughter, we all took a much needed nap.

We mostly lived off room service in Zhengzhou. It had familiar food for Olivia, Debbi and me (like club sandwiches) and it had food familiar to Brooke. It wasn't any more expensive than going out into the restaurants, so we took it easy and had the food brought to us. Brooke loved the congee (chicken and rice soup). This was her first meal with us. Belive it or not, she ate almost the entire bowl!!!! We thought she'd burst!

Olivia bounced back after her nap and we spent the rest of the day just getting to know Brooke. She immediately took to Olivia and Debbi. She made it clear she had absolutely NO use for me. Oh well - I was prepared. It happens sometimes. I didn't push her and figured she'd come around eventually. It took about a week, but she finally accepted me. Actually it worked out in a strange sort of way - Olivia got wayyyyy cranky and wayyyyyyy clingy/jealous, so I had to spend alot more time with her than I had expected. Brooke was very happy just to hang with Debbi and not bother with me. Again - thank heavens for Debbi.

And she finally cracked a smile, and then LAUGHED!!

Here are my favorite two pictures taken at the registry office:

And here she is at the Renaissance Festival a few weeks ago. What a difference!!

I hope Brooke will consider Family Day a good day in her life. She'd already been through so much - she lost her birth family (and we will likely never know the details of that). Then she lost her foster family and foster brother, then she was pulled from the orphanage, losing her nannies, and handed off again to complete strangers, us, the likes of which she'd never seen before. We lugged her from hotel to hotel and finally brought her "home", another totally strange place. But, she seems to be very resilient. She has embraced us and become part of the family as if she's always been with us. She knows she's "adopted", but I doubt she really understands what that means yet. We read children's story books about adoption and I have mentioned her birth parents in passing a few times, but she doesn't seem to have any interest in that matter yet. Time will tell. All I know is, she had a tough time before we ever came into the picture. Hopefully, she will look at June 29, 2009, as the day she began a new chapter in her life - a chapter which brought stability and permanence and love.

I expect her to wonder about her birth parents and I hate that we won't be able to give her answers. She was estimated to be about a month old when she was abandoned. Someone took excellent care of her for that month. They didn't let the fluid-filled sac on her neck burst. That could not have been easy. And they risked their freedom to leave her in a place she would quickly be found. I choose to believe they are good people who cared for her very much. There's always the possibility that maybe they would have liked to keep her, but they couldn't afford the medical care she needed. So, they abandoned her into the orphanage system to get her surgery. When she does get curious, I will never have anything negative to say about her birth parents. I never want her to feel that the people who gave her life didn't care, or threw her away. Those sorts of feelings can eat at your soul. Right now she seems as happy as she can be, so we'll roll with that. She's one tough little munchkin!

Here are some new pictures from the present: Olivia's self portrait.

Olivia watering her tomato crop while Brooke was zonked on the sofa with her fever. She has two tomatos under construction.

The sprinkler is a good way to keep cool. Brooke is NOT a big sprinker fan, so I knew she wouldn't mind if Olivia did this without her.

Olivia made this by tracing her's and Brooke's hands. What she wrote phonetically says, "Little hands can make a big difference." What a great outlook!!!!!

Brooke was better today, by the way. Maybe we'll be able to celebrate Family Day this weekend, with the 4th. (Last year on the 4th of July, we were at the medical clinic in Guangzhou getting a physical exam, 6 stupid vaccinations and a TB skin test. ARGH!!!!!!)

China recap - Flight to Zhengzhou...

2010-06-28T23:50:00.009-04:00

Hmmm... what can I say about the day we flew to Zhengzhou? It was horrible!! Yeah! After a fine beginning, it all went to h&%# on the airplane.

But let me start at the beginning. By now, it was Sunday (we'd flown out of Atlanta on Wednesday). We were psyched because we were finally getting to the purpose of all the work for the last year - Brooke (Qian Ke Xin).
We woke up and were ready right on time, despite the over-long day we'd had before. Everyone seemed fine. Below is a picture of Olivia and Lilly waiting for all of us to pay our hotel charges. All the kids played and had a good time that morning. Breakfast was wonderful. We got checked-out and headed for the Beijing airport. I don't think I mentioned before that there were eight families in our travel group. One family was going to meet us in Zhengzhou, so at this point there were probably about 23 of us all together, adults and kids. The guide probably thought she was herding cats.

Here's a picture of some of our baggage lined up to be weighed. Luggage weight is VERY important these days. All of us watched and held our breath as our bags went on the scale. If we were overweight, heavy fine$ would ensue.

Everyone's bags went thru without much trouble and we headed for security. That's where the trouble began. The guards took one look at my "sit 'n stand" stroller (holds 2 kids) and were NOT happy. They were scanning people like they were in a race, and they knew this was going to slow them down. Plus, I don't think they were very nice people to start with. After lots of hand waving and yelling, they told us (people) to walk thru the scanner - they'd deal with the stroller in a minute. We were all bunched up, and in a hurry, and they were rushing us, so I tried to gently push Olivia thru the scanner. But, she became afraid and balked - stopping and crying. The security guys had NO sympathy for that and started yelling, really yelling, at us. Sheez! Debbi pushed me ahead, so I went thru the scanner and then called to Olivia to follow me. She came, bawling and really scared. After they wanded the stoller about 50 times, they decided we weren't going to blow anything up and finally let us go. As usual, we were the last of our group to get to the gate. (I love that stoller, but it was a HASSLE at every airport.)

I just thought this was a cute airport restaurant sign. How appropriate, since Brooke LOVES noodles.

It's fun to see familiar things in an unfamiliar setting.

By the time we got to the gate, Olivia was like this (below), hot and sleepy. Very uncharacteristic. Not good. Hmmm....

And it all went downhill from there. The flight to Zhengzhou, the capitol of Brooke's province, Henan, was about 1 1/2 hours. The plane was warm. The flight was bumpy. What more could you ask for????? Olivia fell asleep before we took off, so I was hoping she wouldn't notice the less than favorable conditions. I kept feeling her forehead every 2 minutes. She would get hotter and hotter, than cool down. Then get hotter and hotter, then cool down... You get the picture. I was so stressed I was about to come out of my skin. Why??? Remember the Swine Flu????? How they scan you before they let you off the plane? How they take you away if you have a fever? Oh Yeah! That!!! By the time we were approaching Zhengzhou, I was resigned to the fact that we were going to be taken away, we were going miss Gotcha Day, and since they'd all been exposed - maybe the entire travel group would be taken away and we'd ALL get to miss Gotcha Day!!! That's all! That's why I was stressed!

As they announced that we were beginning the descent to Zhengzhou, Olivia woke up. I will never forget how she turned to me and stated quite calmly and quite clearly, "Mommy, I'm going to throw up." And then did so, in a split second. All over herself, and all over the seat and floor. There went that wonderful breakfast! I froze for about a second and then flew into damage-control mode. Luckily I had another outfit with me, plus a plastic bag. I have never moved so fast in my life. The other adoptive parents were throwing wet wipes at me and I had that child wiped off and in clean clothes in about 60 seconds flat. It was like dressing a doll. Then I did my best to clean up the area. Olivia was in a trance. I'd done all I could, and waited for the Temperature Police to take us away. But they didn't come!!!!! No scanners, nothing. Everybody got up and left, just like normal. I grabbed Olivia, and Debbi and I almost ran off the plane. We waited for the stoller for just a few seconds and then just ran (literally, with a semi-conscious kid in my arms and Debbi LUGGING all our carry-on stuff) to catch up to the others. We were willing to leave the stroller behind, just to get out of the airport. By the time we found Baggage, Eric and Tiffany (wonderful fellow Georgians in our travel group) had already grabbed our bags and the stoller (surprise! That's where it was, not like in the States where you get it back at the gate so you don't have to lug your kids through the halls). We zoomed out of baggage and found our new guide and ran to the bus. I was SO relieved when that bus pulled out and headed for the hotel!!! But we knew we weren't totally safe. There were cases where the Swine Flu Police showed up at people's hotels and took them away. Sheez. (At this point, Debbi was probably fantasizing about hopping back onto the airplane and heading HOME.) We're in a strange country. My kid is sick. If we have to get a doctor, we could be thrown into quarrantine. Does she have swine flu? Does she have a stomach bug? What's gonna happen??? And we're going to add a new, frightened child into the mix tomorrow morning??? What???
We got to the hotel and all I wanted was for Olivia to feel better. She was listless and very unhappy. She said she had chills, so I pulled the blanket up on her. She got thirsty and gulped down some water before we could stop her, of course puking it all back up. We had to call for the bed to be changed and the staff did NOT (NOT!!) appreciate that. I was so disappointed. We were supposed to be having the adventure of a life-time, supposed to be excited and concentrating on this new, little child we would meet tomorrow. Instead, we were totally consumed with Olivia and worrying about getting a knock on the door from people who might take us away. Tiffany came to check on Olivia and brought Heather into the picture. Heather was Lilly's mother and is a nurse. Yeah!!!! First, she made me take the covers off Olivia, since she had a fever. (Duh. She must have thought I was an idiot.) Then she got some liquid ibuprophen into her to bring the fever down. After asking questions, she decided that Olivia had plain old heat exhaustion (thanks to two endless days of touring in the heat of Beijing, plus a warm, bumpy flight). She needed sleep and cool air. She couldn't gulp anything or she'd keep puking. So, she sucked on ice. Heather provided me with some peace of mind for which I will always be grateful!! And as the hours passed, Olivia did improve. We ordered room service and finally relaxed. Maybe tomorrow wouldn't be a disaster after all. We looked around the room and realized how pretty it was. We got the computer up and running for the first time since we left home. They brought the crib and set it up. We finally got to start thinking about Brooke/Ke Xin. I got the gifts ready for the orphanage workers and went across the street for the money exchange (banks are open in China on Sunday!). I got all the paperwork in order. Maybe this was really gonna happen! Maybe it was really going to work!

So, that was the day we flew to Zhengzhou. What fun!!

The picture below shows Olivia in bed, sleeping, and Debbi checking her emails. The weird thing at ALL the hotels we stayed in: no top sheets. When you got into bed, the only thing to pull over yourself was the duvet/comforter. What's up with that? Of course, you have to run the AC like crazy, since it's summer and you're sleeping under a comforter. Huh?

Tomorrow: we meet Brooke!!!!! (Happy Anniversary, baby!)

China, Day 3 Recap

2010-06-27T23:43:00.016-04:00

The second full day in Beijing, we toured again. If I remember, we left at 8am and arrived back at the hotel after 7pm that evening. Ridiculous! If I'd known it beforehand, I think we would have opted out. Well, hindsight is always 20/20.
We had a great breakfast to start off, and that was the best thing that happened that day. Then we boarded the bus and stopped at a jade factory. I thought the bull looked like the Merill Lynch bull, so I had Olivia pose for Grandpa Howard. We bought nothing. It was like being in any tourist store in America.

Then we headed for the Great Wall of China. Did I ention yet that it was hot????? And we could not stay on or go back to the bus, since they park them, turn them off and lock them? The scenery was beautiful - China is a beautiful country - but neither Debbi nor I had any desire to actually walk the Wall. It was a steep climb to the next watchtower, the steps are horribly uneven and - it was really HOT!!! Plus, we had Olivia with us.

And this was where I had my first inkling that maybe my "perfect little traveler" maybe wasn't so perfect. All of a sudden, she started crying and begging for popsicles. Ok - easy enough - we just need to walk back down the slope to the little store and get some. But Olivia got all turned around and INSISTED, screaming & crying, that we had to go the opposite direction - up to the next watchtower - to get the popsicles. She basically went bananas and started to attract A LOT of attention. I had to pick her up and lug her, screaming and flailing, back down the slope to the little store. Blessedly, the tiny little store was air conditioned. Olivia was able to cool down somewhat and regain her composure. My fair skinned, light haired little girl simply could not take the heat.

Here she is eating her life-saving popsicle with two other little girls from our travel group (they'd already been adopted on previous trips). After this, Debbi was able to find a spot of shade, on the grass, that actually had a nice breeze. We didn't budge from that spot until they started the bus. So much for the Great Wall. As I said before, I want to go back to China - when the girls are older, and it's cooler, and we aren't being driven around like cattle.

We were bussed to lunch, and afterwards got to visit the Cloissone Factory on the ground floor. Lots of pretty stuff. Olivia's favorite was the peacock display. I bought nothing.

Then we hit the Olympic Stadium - The Bird's Nest. But we couldn't go in. By this time, several of us wanted to simply sit and rest. But no - they have to park the bus, shut it off and lock it. So we were forcibly marched to the Bird's Nest even tho we didn't want to go and several of the kids were about at the end of their ropes and in need of naps. We were quite a grumbly group.

This is Maggie, our guide in Beijing. Very sweet lady.

Then we had to go to a tea-tasting "display" - actually just a tourist spot where they sell you bunches of tea. But it was actually interesting and educational and the tea was really good. And it turned out to be a good nap spot for the kids. Both Debbi and I bought tea.

Lilly, also from Georgia, takes a quick nap.

On the bus, hopefully to head back to the hotel. What? No such luck! Now it's time for the acrobat show! Noooooooooo......!

Debbi clutching her precious water and saying "what the H@&%$ have I gotten myself into????"

The acrobat show was good, but it was just too late and we were too tired to really appreciate it. They wouldn't let us take pictures because they hawked their DVD at the end of the show. We finally limped back to the hotel, hot, tired and hungry. I remember being very cranky that they simply dropped us at the door and basically said,"find your own food, see you early tomorrow!" We must have eaten room service? Because then we had to pack, get to bed and be perky enough to fly to our province the next day. Sheez! Little did we know, we were in for QUITE a week.

In present time, we stayed at home all day, since Olivia was still sickly from yesterday. Only now her tummy has stabilized, but her throat is all bubbly. Looks like we might call the Dr. tomorrow morning... Also, Daddy found a dog at the front of the suddivision on his way home from Home Depot. He was a really neat dog! He looked to be about 5-7 years old, and resembled a cross between a corgi and maybe a shepherd or chow. He had a long, low, muscle-y body, with big pointy ears and thick back fur. He was so gentle and calm, we just loved him. He got along great with the kids, cats and Bostons. I took his picture and quick posted it on the message board at the front of the subdivision and at the big local grocery store. And his family called shortly thereafter. He just lives down the street, his name is Buddy and he's 15! No wonder he was so calm. They still didn't know how he'd slipped out, but were very thankful we'd found him. Hot weather like this is not kind to old dogs with thick fur. So, Mark did his good deed for the day and didn't live to regret it.

Current Update

2010-06-26T21:25:00.009-04:00

Father's Day was an excellent excuse to go out to eat! And that's about all we did. We enjoyed the Chinese buffet, as always. Dumplings!! But then Daddy had to go to bed because he was due into work for the midnight shift. We did stop and buy something, and you'll see that below.

And here is what we bought!!! At the thrift store, no less! A real brass, canopy, twin bed for Brooke!! We got a new box spring and used the mattress from Brooke's old bed, the daybed. (Mark swears it's the best mattress in the house.) She is SO proud of her bed!! Olivia was a little jealous, but she got over it very quickly (thank heavens). Just a couple days before, we had moved Brooke's old bed into Olivia's room at both their requests. They like sleeping in their own beds, but they want to be close to each other. So now they share one room. They love it! Because the brass bed is so tall, it needed to be on the far wall from the doorway, where Olivia's bed originally was. Olivia still has to move her artwork from the wall in back of Brooke. Brooke has new artwork of her own to go up in it's place. Olivia's bed is across from Brooke's. The bed is tall enough that we have little doggie stairs for Brooke to use to get on the bed. brooke's old room has become... the "Library". All of Olivia's bookcases and books got moved in there, along with her writing desk. If we refer to it as the "playroom" we get reprimanded!

We spent all last week at Vacation Bible School. The girls had a blast. I was a "crew leader" and had 5 little ones to herd from one activity to the next. They were great kids and were well behaved for the most part. But I was worn out by Friday. The kids are all invited to sing at church tomorrow, but I don't think we'll be there, since Olivia had a fever and was puking all day today. She is very disappointed and I know she'll be fighting about it tomorrow.

Here's Brooke playing dress up.

Brooke is officially registered for pre-school starting in August. She will be in the "young 4's" class, held Monday-Wednesday-Friday, from 9-1. The really nice thing is that the school is within walking distance, so maybe I will get some exercise? Right! (Get real, huh?) This is the same preschool Olivia attended and they are great folks.

And, finally, here is a butterfly that came to visit today. I was struck by how pretty he was. He stayed for a long time. One of our home-grown special needs butterflies has passed away, but the other fellow is fat and happy, living in his private butterfly house and dining on oranges.

Oops!

2010-06-26T20:12:00.005-04:00

I got a little ahead in my China trip days. Technically, we landed in China on the 25th because of the time change (12 hours ahead). All we did was exchange money, eat and go to bed. The 26th was the day we saw the Forbidden City and rode the rickshaws. So, I'll update tomorrow with our Great Wall visit.

A couple funny things, tho - when Debbi and Olivia and I got checked into our hotel room, the first thing I tried to do was (of course) get the netbook up and running. All I did was plug the converter into the wall (with nothing else plugged into it) and blew out the power for the whole room. Sheez! What a great beginning! We had to call the front desk for help. I'm sure the desk-guy was saying, "Stupid Tourists!" He came to the room, grabbed the little garbage can and took it back to the door. He turned it upside down, hopped on and popped the ceiling tile out of the way. The breaker was just above. He had everything back on within a moment. Obviously, he'd done this A LOT. He just laughed. So - when I did it again just alittle while later (I can't remember what I plugged in then, maybe the camera battery charger) I knew he'd fix it in a jiff, even tho I was very embarassed to call again. But - Debbi grabs the garbage can and does it herself! She actually touched live Chinese electrical equipment! She is very brave! They just don't have a very stable electrical system over there and you can lose power any time for no reason. One of the pictures I regret not getting was during our walk to dinner that night, just around the block from the hotel. There was a MASS of electrical wires all balled up and dangling down on the sidewalk from an electric pole - live electrical wires where anyone could grab them, or walk right into them. But, of course, the locals were to them and so they knew to simply avoid them.

The other funny thing was the mini bar display on the room counter - alcohol and condoms, very tastefully arranged. I guess that language is the same no matter where you go.

China Adventure, Day 2

2010-06-25T18:36:00.007-04:00

The first couple days in China, we toured the big tourist spots. It was like training for a marathon. It was HOT. Hot, Hot, Hot!!! And we were out in it. ALL DAY. The very best purchase we made the entire trip was the frozen bottles of water outside the Forbidden City. We sipped it like it was priceless and made it last as long as we could. Cause it was hot. Hot, hot, hot. (I think you get the picture.) Hot.

Olivia was something of a minor celebrity because of her golden hair. Chinese love kids with fair hair because they know it is natural, and it's scarce in their country. Her picture was taken several times.

The first day of touring, we went to the Forbidden City. It was INCREDIBLE. I want to go back some time (in Spring or Fall) when we can spend all day there. It is SOO huge, you just have to see it to believe it. You enter a courtyard, walk through the large building at the end of it and... find youself in another courtyard just as big as the first, and then again, and again. The courtyards are many football fields large. The buildings are trimmed and painted in such detail, it's hard to imagine. What an impressive place!!!! Unfortunately, they only had squatty potties. Do you know how hard it is to use a squatty potty when you are bathed in sweat and your clothes are totally sticking to you? And you are praying you don't lose your balance and pee all down your legs? Not fun.

When we left the City, we were assaulted by scads of vendors. They almost got physical, jumping in front of us and yelling at us. Aggressive, to say the least. They advised us not to buy anything from them because you couldn't tell if the change they gave you was real or counterfeit. Counterfeit currency is a BIG problem in China. After making it thru the gauntlet, we ate lunch. The funny thing was that the plates they gave us were the size of a saucer for a tea cup. We kept looking for the "real" plates and found no others. So, we just had several helpings of the stuff we could recognize. It was air conditioned, so it was like heaven - even tho they only had squatty potties, too.

After lunch we went to the silk "factory". It's really just a silk store with a tiny group of workers and silk worms for demonstrations. It was fun to see everything. And I fell in LOVE with the silk rugs. The ONE souvenier I ended up really wanting from China just had to be the most expensive thing I could find, of course. I didn't even want a full size one. I just wanted one I could hang on the wall and stare at. But even the small ones cost about $1000. Oh well... maybe when we go back for Brooke's "heritage visit".

After the silk factory, we took a rickshaw ride through a "traditional Beijing neighborhood". It was a large neighborhood - more like a walled settlement. The streets were like mazes. By American standards, the people lived in very poor conditions. You could see into many of the single-level homes, which were built touching each other in most cases. They seemed to be constructed from whatever materials were available at the time. They had very few, if any furnishings, and many had dirt floors. They were very small, with only a room or two. The smells suggested that plumbing was not working/present in many of the homes. It made me appreciate what we have here, what we take for granted. The people we saw seemed content. I imagine it is the only life they have known, so they are used to it and make the best of it. It's too bad we can't send boatloads of teenagers over there to see how other people live. Maybe it would help a few of them see beyond themselves...

Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel. We were tired, hot, hungry and strung-out from the jet lag. And we were one day closer to meeting the little person who'd be joining our family.

One Year Ago Today...

2010-06-24T17:23:00.011-04:00

Debbi, Olivia and I were on a plane bound for Beijing... and Brooke! We were nervous and excited. We were tired and strung-out, too, since we had to be at the airport around 4am. Sheez!! We were all smiles on the parking deck. Then we got inside and found out Continental wasn't even "open" yet. So, we waited.

First, we flew to Newark and met some of the other families traveling in our adoption group. Then we boarded the non-stop flight for Beijing - 14 1/2 hours long. You can watch Gone with the Wind twice, back-to-back, and still not be there!! The neat thing is that you don't fly east or west across the oceans, you fly right over the North Pole and back south again. Olivia thought it was very cool to fly "over Santa". There was a screen you could watch that monitered how many miles you'd flown, how many were left to go, and approximately where you were on the map. It was nice to be able to see progress, since you are stuck in your seat with VERY little wiggle room, the lights are low and the window shades are all drawn. Also, we were in the height of the Swine Flu scare. Many of the Chinese on the plane (and in the airport) were wearing masks, so that they would not be infected by us dangerous Westerners. It was hard to believe that there were 500 passengers on that plane!!!! 500!! And not a single seat was vacant. You get a little crazy after being cooped up like that, with that many people, for that long!

Our travel agent wisely advised us to travel Continental because... they had TV's. What a Life Saver!!!!!!!!!! Olivia quickly figured out how to run the program (touch screen), so between the TV and her coloring books, she was perfectly content. What luck!! It took a little while to get used to the screen only being a few inches from your eyes (especially if the guy in front of you reclined), but it was totally worth it. They even had Scooby Doo!

Olivia got some sleep, but neither Debbi nor I did. It's just hard to sleep in that situation and the hours start to drag by. Debbi's stoic expression says it all. She was chilly, so she had her jacket on. That was pretty funny, since usually she's having heat stroke.

We made it off the plane after having our temperatures checked by white coated officials. We couldn't even stand up until this process was complete. They were very serious and harsh. Then we made it through the airport after being scanned again as we walked down the hallways. We saw some people get "taken away" after failing the temp scans. We were loaded onto a bus and taken to our hotel in downtown Beijing. There is quite a mix of old and new culture you can see from the roads. We couldn't believe we were on the other side of the world!!!!

Summer Vacation

2010-06-18T15:43:00.047-04:00

It's summer vacation and the girls have been keeping me busy. We always seem to find something to do around the house, or nearby, so (so far) we've had a fairly low-cost summer. Thank heavens, since there are some larger projects we have to do to keep the house in proper shape. The house is 15 years old, so it's just that time. Olivia starts Kindergarten August 2nd, so the time will fly! I remember the old-fashioned summer vacations we had when I was a kid - you got out of school at the end of May and didn't have to go back until after Labor Day. I guess those days are gone...

Here's Olivia on the last day of Pre-K. She wasn't sad at all - she was already wondering who her future Kindergarten teacher would be.

That night we celebrated with pizza and chocolate fudge cake. Yum!

The subdivision pool opened, so we headed down to test the waters. I HATE cold water. Olivia and Brooke couldn't care less. Mark is manly, so he'll jump in no matter what the temp is. We had a good time and have been swimming several times. But, not in the last couple weeks... We finally told Olivia she was really going to have to learn how to swim and she declared she didn't want to. (?!) She's happy paddling around in an inner tube or just hanging onto the sides. She's had lessons, but I wasn't impressed at the progress of the class as a whole - the kids get about 10 minutes of actual individual attention and spend the rest of the class splashing around. They keep telling you to sign up for another round of lessons and happily take your $$. Mark and I decided we can do better on our own. But it seems we do not have a willing pupil - in fact, since she got the news that she'll have to "work" on swimming, she hasn't asked to go to the pool once. We'll just have to take it slowly, I guess.

The Renaissance Festival came back to town, and we had to go. We got really lucky and went on a day that wasn't crowded. Last year we had to sit in line on the road for an hour before we could even park. This year we drove straight in! It was really nice, though I know the vendors must have been wishing for bigger crowds. Here's Olivia and Brooke meeting Mother Goose!

The goose was so sweet!! She would rest her head on your shoulder on command. Olivia loved it, but Brooke just wasn't so sure.

It was a hot day, so I felt sorry for the performers in those heavy costumes. This guy was giving out perfume samples. It smelled really good, but it was a little $$... as is everything at the Ren Fest...

We only watched a couple of the shows, because Olivia and Brooke just didn't have much patience for that stuff. But this girl was very funny and strong. She did a balancing and spinning act, and started out on stilts.

We headed over to see the Lippizaner Stallions. Very beautiful! But the girls didn't want to stay long...

This cute dragon was wandering around greeting the kids. Brooke and Olivia loved it!

One of the things Olivia was really looking forward to was the boat swing. You hop in and have to pull on the ropes, which are rigged above you, to make the boat swing back and forth. You go fast and HIGH! Brooke got all giggly at the butterflies in her tummy! (She was sitting next to me and I was pulling the rope for our side of the seat, so I didn't get a good pic of her.) All the rides are people-powered, since they didn't have electricity during the Renaissance.

No one else was in line after us, so we got to take an extra-long ride. It made Olivia's day.

Mona Lisa of the East!

The display in front of the Museum of Torture. What fun!!!!

While I took Brooke to the petting zoo, Olivia rode the swings. You can see the guy pushing it around in the center of the ride. She loved this, too.

We couldn't miss the Royal Joust! Henry VIII was there, too!

I wonder if these guys ever get hurt????? You can't fake falling off a horse...

The blonde guy with the longer hair was supposed to be sort-of a bad guy, but the guy with the short dark hair was so over-the-top vain, that you didn't really care who won - you just cheered for everything. They'd yell to the audience and get everyone involved. They'd both fallen off their horses by this time and were ready to begin hand-to-hand combat. They save that fight for the end of the day, so we didn't see how it ended.

Olivia was obsessed with doing the Maypole dance. We had to schedule the whole day around making it to the pole on time. The kids gathered, received explicit instructions from the Fairy Queen...

and made a mess of the whole thing. It was a wonder they didn't tie themselves to the pole. But fun was had by all and that was all that counted. If you've ever seen a maypole dance, you know the dancers have to weave in and out, over and under the other dancers. There is NO WAY you are going to be able to get kids this small to do it. Why the Fairy Queen tried so hard, I don't know. She just needed to take it easy.

This year's Fairy Queen was ok, but last year's was better. So there.

Before we left, we stopped to let the kids get their faces painted. Mark HATES face painting. I don't know why, he just does. I think it's cute. Brooke was excited about the butterfly. Very feminine! Olivia originally chose the snake. What??????????? I vetoed that, so she moved on to the cute cat and moon.

I was lucky to get the picture of the butterfly, since my camera was on it's last bit of battery life. And also because... Brooke had to go to the bathroom immediately afterward and, as she was washing her hands - she wiped the whole butterfly off her face. Sheez!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The poor thing only lasted 5 minutes. That's $1/minute.

As I mentioned before, we're having to update the house. The flooring is 15 years old, so the kitchen floor is bad, and the white-ish carpet in the family room is DONE. (Remember Mark was a free and easy bachelor when he bought and furnished the house.) We headed up to a HUGE store in Dalton that has furniture/flooring/etc., to get some ideas and find out what's available. Olivia tried to convince us she needed hot pink carpet for her bedroom. Sorry, babe.

A funny side story - they had a TV and chairs for people while they waited for parents/wives to look at all the flooring. There was a little girl watching cartoons, so Olivia and Brooke sat down to watch with her. Olivia struck up a conversation (as usual), introducing herself and her sister. The little girl looked at them and then asked if they were sisters, why did they have different hair colors? Olivia explained to her that Brooke "was from China" - but she spoke very slowly and very clearly, as if the girl was stupid for not understanding this to begin with. That was the end of that. They all went back to watching cartoons.

And somehow, we got stuck in the recliner department...

And somehow, that recliner found it's way into our family room! (But no flooring, though we did make progress in that department.)

Mark has started training his apprentice in the ways of tree pruning.

Olivia did get the limb sawed off, under the watchful eyes of Daddy. She was VERY proud of herself.

Our neighbor, on the lower side of the house, is retired. He loves his yard and spends a lot of time making it look perfect, which just highlights the fact that our yard is NOT perfect.

The strip of yard we own next to his property does not get enough sun to keep bermuda (the grass required by the subdivision) alive. So it looks pretty sad. The neighbor keeps laying new bermuda, but even he has just about lost hope. He "suggested" that we give up now and just throw down pine straw. I agreed at first, but then decided I wanted to do a little better than that. We never go down on that side of the house because you have to walk almost all the way down (our yard has a bad slant) to the street to get around a huge area of bushes. And we only own about a 10' strip of yard, so there's nothing to walk down there FOR. So, first I put down 18 pavers (picture below). Then I leveled them all, so you don't have to walk at a slant.

Then I planted 37 shade-loving ground cover plants, and THEN I threw down 5 bales of pine straw. It turned out pretty good, if I may say so. Hopefully the plants will stop any further erosion. And the leveled pavers actually make it inviting to walk down there. We've even made plans for steps to be built down from the front porch (behind the bushes, alongside the house) so that you can get down there without falling down the yard first. I know the neighbor is alot happier already.

The girls have a butterfly house. You order the caterpillars (5) from the company and they arrive alive in the mail. You let them grow in their sealed container until they attach themselves to the top of the container and make their cocoons. Then you gently move them into the butterfly house and wait for them to hatch. Here is one of the new arrivals.

After they all hatch, you are supposed to set them free.

We set three of the five butterflies free. Two of them ended up with deformed wings and we knew they'd never make it "on the outside", so they will stay with us and live a life of ease in the butterfly house, complete with sunshine and fresh oranges daily. We decided they are our "special needs" butterfies. They don't seem to mind!

If you know me, you know I LOVE thrift stores. While in one last week, Olivia found this Chinese silk dress. It had something sticky (jam?) all over the front of it. Ugh! But it only cost $2.50. Brooke is about to grow out of the dress we got while in China, so I needed one the next size up. For $2.50, I decided I'd take a chance on cleaning it. I put it in the bathroom sink in warm water for about 10 minutes with Dreft and Ta-Da!!!!!!! Like new!!!!! For $2.50!!!!

The dogs on Summer Vacation - they look alot like they do on Fall Vacation, and Winter vacation, and Spring vacation... They don't look like this when the daily thunder storms come through, tho. Lucy does fine, but Smoochy and Jingle HATE thunder. They pant heavily and run around looking for something to crawl into or under. We need the rain, since we've had drought conditions the last 7 summers, but it's tough on these little guys (not to mention the carpet).

Hope you're having fun this summer, too!!!

Picnic Song

2010-05-29T16:00:00.002-04:00

I am ready to go off to Kindergarten!
That is truely where I want to be!
When I go off to Kindergarten,
everyone will be so proud of me!!

(and then Olivia does her usual free-form dance...)

Pre-K Picnic

2010-05-29T15:36:00.009-04:00

This Wednesday evening was Olivia's Pre-K Picnic - the final event of the school year. Of course, it POURED. So, we all had to squeeze inside. It was extremely cramped, but we got through it. The kids went up front and sang 3 songs, Grand Old Flag, Don't You Worry, and I'm Ready for Kindergarten Now.

After singing, the kids got to join their families (if they could find them in the crowd). Each child had made an "All About Me" booklet with art work they'd done during the year.

Then we tried to eat. Lots of families gave up and left, so that made some more room for us. I had decided to keep it simple and just brought pizza and cookies with juice bags to drink.

This is Emily, one of Olivia's calssmates. Her family sat behind us. Her mom brought fresh vegetables and fruits to eat. Phooey on that! Health nut!!

Here's Olivia with Miss Kathleen, her teacher. Miss Kathleen is great and Olivia loved school because of her. Too bad we can't take her along to Kindergarten. But, all the Kindergarten teachers at her new school have good reputations, so I'm not worried about who shell get.

This is Miss Shantelle, the Teaching Assistant. She was great, too! What more can you ask for? (The previous assistant, Miss Tia, is out on maternity leave.)

We got one piece of pizza down and the daycare workers started putting the cafeteria tables back in place in top of us, so we packed up and left. Of course, we walked out into a SUNNY blue sky filled with fluffy white clouds. If only it could have cleared up one hour earlier... Oh well!!

Frenotomy!

2010-05-29T14:58:00.009-04:00

What's that, you ask? Well, thanks to Brooke, now we know. Uncle Dave and Aunt Carol had both declared her "tongue-tied" when she had her first dental exam. Tongue-tied is when that little membrane under your tongue grows too thick or too long (or both) and "ties" your tongue down to the bottom of our mouth. It can interfere with eating and speech. In Brooke's case, she could eat just fine, but it wasn't helping her speech development. Her tonue needed to be released. Uncle Dave said he would fix it, but we decided that since she loves him SO much, she didn't need to associate him with what could be a scary and painful procedure. Our pediatrician gave us a referral to an ENT, and off we went. The doctor took a look, agreed with her aunt and uncle and made a surgery date. He told us the surgery would take about 15 seconds. Yup - seconds. They call it surgery because they have to put the patient to sleep in order to do the procedure. I know I wouldn't let anyone come near my tongue with a pair of sissors! We had to arrive at the surgery center almost 2 hours before her operation, so here we are at 6:15am for an 8am surgery. Yeech!! At least there wasn't any traffic! Brooke wasn't really sure what was going to happen, just that she was going to get her tongue "fixed" by the doctor (whom she liked alot). She was in good spirits. Daddy stayed at home so he could take Olivia to school.

We had to check-in and do a mound of paperwork. Brooke got an ID band and so did her baby!! She loved that. The clerk at the front desk was great!

We settled in to wait. I figured we'd be in the waiting room for quite a while, but they called us really soon. No time to color!

We were put into a cubicle and several nurses, her doctor and the anesthesiologist came by to visit. They were all great with her. She loved her hospital gown and especially her red (huge) socks.

By the time all the visitors were gone, she had no less than THREE wrist bands. One was her ID, one was an allergy bracelet and the third was a bracelet I had to write. They make you write what procedure you are getting in your own (unmedical) words. That way, everyone is on the same page and less mistakes are made. (He! He! If it had been me on the table, I could have written "face-lift" and maybe gotten one for free!) The strip on her chest is a thermometer.

And then it was time to go! The nurse brought a wagon for Brooke to ride in. She thought that was fun! She didn't seem worried or nervous and I told her I'd see her in just a few minutes. We'd already gone over how there was going to be a special mask she would get to wear and that it had magic sleeping dust in it. The doctor had explained that she'd only be out for about 1 minute, just long enough for him to make the cut and a suture, if neccessary. She rolled into the operating room at 7:55am.

This picture was taken at 8:30am and we're on our way home! Everything was done in just a few minutes and she was already up and watching TV when I got back to her cubicle. She got a smushed popsicle to eat for the ride home and she was ready to go (though she was walking like a tiny drunk)! The doctor was really pleased with how it went and he only put in one stitch. He said we didn't even need to come back for the after-surgery check-up appointment. She was back up to "full speed" by the time we got home. She still says that her tongue is sore from time to time, now, but that's because she learned fast that she would get a popsicle or grape flavored ibuprophen. Ha! It was a good experience and I was very impressed with the folks at the surgery center.

Rehearsal Video

2010-05-27T22:44:00.005-04:00

Here's a rehearsal video of one of the songs the kids sang. I can't get the other 2 videos to load and I've lost patience. But this gives you an idea... Olivia is second from the left in the purple dress, Brooke is to the far right in the polka dotted dress.

Asian-American Heritage Foundation

2010-05-27T22:04:00.013-04:00

On Saturday night, we headed to the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta. The girls were singing with some other students form the China Tree school. They were performing at the Asian-American Heritage Foundation dinner. The real point of this was for the school's founder, Susan Chapman, to schmooz with the corporate bigwigs there and find funding for the school. We had to get there early to rehearse. First up to practice was a troop of young ladies doing a traditional lantern dance. As usual, I had the same (and only) problem with my camera - not enough flash to catch the action at the fast shutter speed, but everything was blurry at the slow shutter speed. So here are some blurry pics of the lantern dance. There were also 2 ladies in GORGEOUS Thai costumes doing a beautiful dance, but none of those pics turned out at all. I got a shot of them later, in the "Green Room" (waiting room for the performers).

Olivia practicing her curtsey. Brooke was just enjoying the moment. She really didn't "do" a whole lot on stage, but she's cute "eye candy". Susan Chapman is the tall lady standing behind Olivia. The girls were not in their silks yet, because there was going to be food in the Green Room, and there was NO WAY I was ging to let either of them ruin their China dresses.

On stage rehearsal. Olivia and her partner, Grace.

Here's how they looked lined up on the stage. We even had violin players!

Brooke and her partner, Chloe. Chloe basically "drove" Brooke like a car (hands on shoulders) for the dance steps. Thank you, Chloe!

Olivia and Grace in the Green Room. They ended up with chicken fingers - NO sauce allowed for anyone. Ha!

Here are the Thai dancers. Their costumes were breath-taking. The photo doesn't do them justice. I snuck the picture because I didn't want to look like a total tourist. The little girl is one of our violinists.

A final run-thru in the Green Room. They were being reminded of how to hold their hands between the songs. Almost a week later, Brooke is still running up to me with a big smile and her hands held like this.

Our violinists were 2 sisters. They were cool as cucumbers, since they play with the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra. The sister in the red silks is 8 years old. She has been playing the violin for 5 years already!! They were great!

They hired a videographer for the event, so we were not allowed to take any pictures/videos during the actual performance. The "cute factor" was off the scale, even if their singing still needed a little work. Here are the girls in their silks after they sang. Before we left, we let the girls ride in one of the fancy glass elevators. We rode all the way up to the 23rd floor and back down, non-stop. Whee! We made our escape and headed for dinner at... Ikea. We love Ikea! It's a furniture store, but their cafeteria is GREAT!

Can Hollywood be far behind?????

Goings On

2010-05-24T14:08:00.024-04:00

This is the fabulous orchid that Aunt Lori and Uncle Chuck gave me for Mother's Day!! It is beautiful, it is HUGE and it's color-coordinated with our new kitchen colors! What more could you ask for?? (Brooke is holding a placemat.)

The dogs (Jingle, Smoochy, Lucy) doing what the dogs are usually doing.

The brewery changed Mark's schedule again, so he couldn't make it to Olivia's pre-k's "Donuts with Dad" early Father's Day celebration. Uncle Dave was game to fill-in for Mark, so Olivia was pretty ecstatic.

Here he is trying to show where he banged his eye with the hatchback on his jeep. Dave can be a little accident prone...

(I remember mother praying that he'd make it thru dental school before he cut all his fingers off...) The kids were able to go home early after this, so Olivia was doubly happy.

As soon as the donuts were done, we headed to Brooke's gymnastics "show". She and her classmates got to show their parents all the things they have learned, and we got to go into the gym to watch and take pictures. As before, my camera doesn't do well, since the flash isn't powerful enough for the big space. And if I turn off the flash, the shutter speed slows way down and everything gets blurred. But here she is at the end with her purple ribbon. Yeah!

Uncle Dave had another engagement after the gymnastics show, so we went out to lunch at Burger King without him. He has a rain-check to try out the delicious Shepherd's Pie at the new Irish place near us.

Next, we made a quick stop at Debbi's house to see what she had out at her garage sale. Lots of good stuff, but not many customers. Olivia has a horn-of-plenty on her head, Brooke has a ring of Fall leaves. Debbi had them in her "free" box, so the girls felt they'd found great treasure.

Finally, we called it a day and headed home.

The next day we went to Aunt Carol & Uncle Dave's house for a combination graduation cook-out for cousin Garrett and birthday party for Carol's dad, Buddy.

Garrett (he got his hiar cut!) will be attending Kennesaw State University next Fall. It's literally just down the street from his house, so it's super convenient.

I can't remember how old Buddy is, but it's early 80-something. He is in great shape and is still working in finance. Lately, he's been helping folks who are being railroaded into foreclosure by their mortgage companies.

Cousin Ivey hates to have her pictures taken. She hates it even MORE to find her picture, for everyone to see, on this blog. So, I'm posting every shot I have of her here, just to irritate her. Your Aunt Heidi loves you, babe.

Neither Olivia nor Brooke will ever own a pair of shoes like these until they move out of my house.

The most exciting thing at the party for Olivia was her 2nd tooth falling out as she ate her hamburger!! The Tooth Fairy brought her a Fancy Nancy book!!!!!

Sunday, we went to a little park. There's no playground equipment there, just a really nice picnic area, a fishing deck and a wonderful, wide, paved walking trail. Next time, we'll bring the girls bikes.

They girls got to watch fish and kayakers floating by from the comfy swing.

Swingin' with Dad!

Swingin' with Mom.

Both girls had to try to cross the dangerous rapids. Thankfully they both made it in one piece. Ha! Just a fun afternoon out. My next post will show the girls at the Asian-American Heritage Conference in Atlanta, where they performed with the China Tree School.

And one P.S. - Mark's nephew Sam is still on the Appaliachain Trail. To date he has walked 300 miles. Yeah!! (Glad it's him and not me...)

Belly Laugh!

2010-05-22T13:56:00.003-04:00

Meng Meng has the best laugh!! This video doesn't do it justice, but it gives you an idea. What a happy little boy!!!!! (Sorry about the pounding noise in the backgroud. Brooke was being silly.)

Florida Reunion

2010-05-21T13:19:00.070-04:00

I'm finally posting our Florida pictures! I am a slacker!

Here are the girls waiting to leave Saturday morning (while their parents run around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to remember everything that needed to be packed). We ended up only being about an hour behind schedule. For us, that's pretty good! Brooke was beside herself at the thought of seeing Meng Meng again.

Several hours of being stuck in the car can be boring, so it didn't take long for this (below) to happen. Actually they were really good travelers. (They got thru a 15 1/2 hour flight from Hong Kong to Newark without driving anyone - even me - crazy, so this was a piece of cake.) And we were really lucky in that we avoided all the storms that plagued the whole area. Driving could have been horrible and we only hit rain once, for only a short time.

The girls were much happier when we finally got to the beach. Hurray!

After getting the keys and discovering the beach had turned into a giant wind-tunnel (off-shore storm), we finally made it up to Debbi's condo. Here's the view from the 19th floor balconey.

Then Meng Meng arrived with his parents! Here is Allison, his mom. He was shy for about 5 minutes and then he just wanted to play with Ke Xin! He and Olivia took to each other right away, also. They were like the Three Muskateers!

It was time for bed and Meng Meng refused to let Allison get him dressed. He wanted Brooke to help him instead. Very cute!

..........................Kiss good night!!!

Everyone was up bright and early the next day (Sunday). Does somebody look happy?

We headed down to the beach after breakfast. It was Brooke's first time in the sand. She kept wiggling her toes in the stuff.

Holding hands on the beach! Brooke looks like a body-builder because her suit has floaties sewn into the top of it. The ocean was way too rough, so we jut played in the sand and looked for shells right at the shoreline.

The water was cold, but Olivia loved it anyway. Here she is posing/dancing on the beach.

Mark, Brooke, Meng Meng, Allison, and Ken on the beach, with Olivia in the water.

The haze in the distance is sand swirling in the air. It was really windy, but warm. They were flying "double-red" flags along the beach to tell people NOT to swim. We had the beach almost all to ourselves, which was great!

Is this guy going to be a heart-breaker when he grows up, or what??????????????

On the beach, in the middle of a wind storm, Ken finds a ladybug on his sleeve! The ladybug is the symbol of China adoption. Allison and I decided that it was a sign they would be adopting again!!!!! Ken showed the lady bug to Meng Meng. It was SO sweet - until Meng Meng smashed the ladybug off Ken's sleeve and then squished it in the sand!!!!! Oops! Maybe not so sweet after all? I guess Meng Meng likes being an only child! Ha!

..................................Roark family portrait.

................................Myers family portrait.

The condo had a pool, but it was COLD (colder than the ocean)!!!! Mark and Allison were very brave and got in with the kids. Olivia did fine, but poor Meng Meng was sooooooo cold, his teeth were chattering. The swim didn't last long (much to the relief of Allison and Mark).

Clowning around in the condo.

Mark reads a nap time story.

Meng Meng and Brooke share a favorite snack of yogurt!

That night, Mark and Brooke went to dinner with Meng Meng, Ken and Allison (where Brooke insisted Meng Meng eat his broccoli!). I stayed at the condo with a sickly Olivia. She was TOTALLY emotional, overly tired, and ran a high fever, which broke in the middle of the night. By morning, she was "right as rain" and ready to play on the beach again. Kids!

We were back down to the beach the next day (Monday). The beach was still very windy with double-red flags.

This picture keeps posting sideways, but it's a view down to the beach from Debbi's balconey. That's Mark, Ken and Allison with the kids in the middle of the picture (looking like ants).

More views from the balconey. There are 2 pools (one is partly indoors, partly outdoors), a hot tub, and then the big pool (adults only).

Brooke was tired of the wind and took a break.

.........................Wrestlemania!!!!!!

Meng Meng was turning 3 soon, so we had a mini-pre-birthday party with yummy cupcakes!

All too soon, it was time to head home again. Meng Meng tried to help Brooke with her shoes & socks. (Prince Charming and Cinderella??) You could tell they were close while in China - helping each other dress, eat, etc. They acted like they'd never been apart.

Goodbye, Florida (and Debbi's condo. She's got it for sale, in case anyone is interested...)

The kids hugging goodbye for the 100th time. Unfortnately, Brooke hugged little Meng Meng so hard, she knocked him down onto the cement parking deck. Sheez!!!!!!!!!!!!! He was ok, thank heavens, but it was not a good way to end the trip. Allison, Ken and Meng Meng were GREAT roomates and, hopefully, we'll be spending lots more time with them in the furture! We've been home almost a month and Brooke is still asking to go back to the beach to see Meng Meng, and to go to Meng Meng's house, and to have Meng Meng come to her house, and ... I think she still likes him, just a little. : )

Before we ever made it out of the city limits, Brooke was fast asleep again. What a great trip! Thank you Allison, Ken, Meng Meng and Aunt Debbi!!!