Friday, October 9, 2009

Random September Pictures, Part 3

Uncle Mike being Uncle Mike....it's one big love-fest.

Random September Pictures, Part 2






Random September Pictures, Part 1


Ellie giving Quincy a check-up before breakfast....

Sunday, August 16, 2009

The perfect ending to a great summer.....

Not to be out-done by her sister......

......Ellie's swimming now, too!

And she is sooooo happy about it (as we are proud)!!! Way to go Elli-bean!

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Quincy's New Trick

We think she's almost ready for Cirque du Soleil "O", the water version of Cirque.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Our Camera is Finally Fixed, Part Four---Quincy's Swimming!

Quincy has made the next step in swimming: She is doing it without her floaty! She is not the most graceful person in the pool yet---she looks sort of like an amoeba in a Petri dish. However, I have great confidence in her abilities...she is like a fish! There is a great swim team (Dynamo)that feeds our area of the city and I am pretty sure she can become a part of it when she turns four (which is in another year and a half).



Our Camera is Finally Fixed, Part Three---Here's Ellie!


Our Camera is Finally Fixed, part Two

Ellie has come a loonnngggg way with the pool since we've been home. She is now fully comfortable swimming along by herself all over the pool (as long as her floaty is on!). Three days ago she took an even bigger step for her: She is now jumping in the pool! This is a HUGE deal for Ellie since four days ago she was adamantly opposed to having any pool water on her face!
Quincy has always been "One with the Water".

I love seeing moments like these: Ellie bending down to help Quincy out of the pool.
Check Spelling

Our Camera is Finally Fixed, Part One

The minute we arrived from China and set foot on U.S. soil, the strap to our camera bag broke. When the camera hit the ground, we heard a pretty loud crack. The camera turned out to be okay, but the lens broke and the necessary part to fix it was on back order for over a month. We finally have our camera back and can now properly document Ellie's first summer with us.
Quincy and Ellie have become pretty good buddies. Ninety-five percent of the time they love each other and do a great job sharing (the other 5%, not so much). During these times of sibling happiness and love, it is quite common to find them up to no-good. The picture below is a perfect example of this. One night Tim and I heard talking coming from the pantry. When we opened the door they were in there eating stale taco shells. ???? Is this normal?

We went blueberry picking. The girls picked 4 quarts of blueberries and we only paid $2.50 for then all!
Above is our Domestication of the Adoption appointment with the Honorable Henry Newkirk. This is the last step in the crazy journey of adoption---this is where we obtained the order to gain a U.S. Birth Certificate of Foreign Birth for Ellie. Ellie now has a birth certificate on file with the Office of Vital Statistics; this certificate officially lists Tim and me as her birth parents. Yay!

On any typical day, nap-time and bed-time is an experience....too much laughing and not enough sleeping. Perfect, huh? We couldn't have asked for anything more....

Monday, May 25, 2009

Visa Day!

Our appointment date with the U.S. Consulate had finally arrived! This is the date that we received Ellie's Chinese passport with her U.S. Visa stamped in it. This U.S. visa gives her permission to legally enter the U.S. and, upon arrival, she automatically becomes a U.S. citizen (thanks to Bill Clinton and legislation he passed in 2000...I miss him as a president!).

Immediately after the visa appointment the majority of our group left the country to travel back home. We didn't, however, as our travel plans had us staying in-country for another day. Since we had no one to hang out with, we went to the local street vendor and purchased a copy of Valkerie (the movie with Tom Cruise) to watch after the kids went to bed. It was a mellow ending to a crazy China excursion.

Sista's, finally!

The evening of our consulate appointment, the girls finally clicked the way we knew they eventually would! They played together in the TV cabinet in our room...think Cirque du Soleil....I could never fit in there.

Pearl River Cruise

The evening prior to our swearing-in at the U.S. Consulate in China (to obtain Ellie's U.S. visa so she can legally enter the country), we went on a cruise down the Pearl River, the main river flowing through Guangzhou. It was truely a BEAUTIFUL evening!
Here is Ellie as we were waiting to board the boat.



....and then she had her first slice of PIZZA! Yes, we had ordered Papa John's Pizza to eat for dinner on the boat. It was delicious and tasted exactly like Papa John's back home. Yummm....

The cruise turned out to be wonderful. The weather was perfect and the girls behaved beautifully....just like sisters who are friends with each other, too.