The Rest of the Weekend...

It was a very nice weekend; slow paced and fun with family and friends. On Saturday morning we hung around the house and played with the DD in the pool and then in the afternoon we napped them early so that we could go to an early Halloween Party. Actually, our friend Shari and her hubby Myke own a company that sells costumes online. They were filming a Halloween Party with a bunch of children and a few adults for promotional purposes and they asked us as well as a couple of other families from our FCC group to participate in the filming. We enjoyed helping them out. The children had fun and they got to keep their costumes and received goody bags for participating

Check out their online stores for your children this Halloween or any other costuming needs that you may have. Shari and Myke are such a lovely couple and they are awaiting travel approval for their child waiting in Vietnam. They are hard working and deserve to prosper.

Mickey and Minnie Mouse played by Ethan and Katie Starr

Pretty Minnie

Our hosts beautiful niece, DeeDee

Ariel played by Mimi

OK, now this is getting a bit weird (Marc the cow feeding his bff, Al)

Ethan and his special pal Erin, oops I mean Dorothy

Marc the cow holding his sweet Minnie

Adorable Ryan as Indiana Jones

Love that face

You have to have candy corn at a Halloween party; right mom?

Cutie Pie

Playing games for the camera

Thanks for the goodie bag!!


On Sunday we woke up and drove down to the beach for some more fun in the sun. Katie Starr and Ethan built sand castles while Mommy and Daddy admired their handiwork. Then we swam and just enjoyed the water. Well, I should say that most of us enjoyed the water as Ethan was less than thrilled that it was salt water and stung his eyes. He has VERY sensitive eyes. They are very large and have long eyelashes so I think that the water clung to the lashes and continued to drip into his eyes. We will definitely bring goggles the next time.

Afterwords we drove home, ate our lunch on the patio and jumped into the pool again. I am so backed up on my laundry from the past few days that I ran out of bathing suits and of course the only thing left to do was have them swim in their undies. Katie kept trying to take her underwear off and swim Au Natural...LOL

As the summer season winds down (we have one week till school starts) we are making the most of each moment with the dynamic duo.

Spectacular and Awe Inspiring!!

These are the words that come to mind to describe the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics held in Beijing, China.

Tonight we gathered with a few of our amazing friends that have adopted children from China. One of the couples in attendance is adopting a beautiful little girl from Vietnam.

We all have such a special connection to the host country through our children. We watched in amazement as the evening unfolded. Marc projected the ceremonies on a 10 foot video screen set up on our back patio. In the middle of it all we Skyped with Kim C and family who are now living in Shanghai. We projected their image on to the 10 foot screen while we spoke to them..... Oh, they loved that...LOL!! Now remember that Kim and Richard had seen the ceremonies all unfold live 12 hours earlier since they are in China so they were able to let us know what was coming next.

We almost made it to the end of the ceremonies. The kiddos had the final say though as they were all pretty much exhausted after their evening of fun. These kids sure know how to party. They have to if they live with us or even just know us as parties are the name of the game around here.

I would not be telling the whole story if I did not touch on the fact that watching the ceremonies left me feeling a bit melancholy as well. After traveling to China twice to adopt our children and actually having the privilege to raise these children thus far leaves us in the place of bittersweet feelings. Our children do not live in their birth land and will never know their birth families. This is a loss for them, their families and their country that can never be quantified. We know that they are healthy and happy and that there lives with us will be full but we still grieve their losses as we know that their birth families do as well.

Ok, back to our evening and the pictures.......

Shannon, her kiddos and my kiddos

Myke who will soon be a father has fun practicing with our kids

10 foot Screen poolside with decorations

watching in awe

Enjoying the evening with friends and family

Adorable Yasmin with her mommy and daddy

Love this photo of Erin and Mia

Shannon and family

our mischief man waiting for his next opportunity to wreak more mischief

Candy holding Yasmin and Rachel

Kids are starting to lose a bit of steam

Setting up our connection with Kim and family

Here they are on the 10 foot screen
Ring around the rosy with Rachel and Yasmin as the night winds down

Here is our stage hand doing his job as team USA walks into the stadium
A wonderful finish and this next two picture shows how much fun our children really had last evening

Sweet Dreams sweet children

As promised....more pictures

These first four pics are from the immersion; I especially love the first one. A huge thanks to Shannon's mom, Pattie for being our photographer

Grandma Brenda (Marc's mom) and his cousin Jeff
After the immersion Jeff showed the kiddos how to make a sand castle


We tried to get some pictures before the service but the kids had other ideas


Lucky Mama with her Dynamic Duo
Tammie, David and their beautiful Erin
The godmama Shannon with her Mia and Ryan
Marc and his bff, godfather Alan (wiping the sand off of his feet....WTF?!?)

A couple of shots from last night before bed. After I told the DD to get started brushing their teeth I walked into this picture :)

More Katie-isms

I gotta write these down the second she says them or poof they are gone....

Conversation held today on the toilet as Katie was urinating. She let's her urine go the second she begins to sit down so I remind her to count to 2 once she sits.

Me: "Katie; don't forget to count to 2."

Katie: "I did count to 2!"

Me: "I did not hear it; you must have counted in your head."

Katie; (Indignantly) "I did not count in my head; I counted in my P*nis...oops I mean my butt!!"


This next one was from last week; I am just thrilled I still remember it :-)

Heard over the monitor while the DD are playing in their playroom:

Katie: "Ethan, let's pretend to go camping."

SILENCE

Katie: "Ethan, let's pretend to go camping...you say YES or NO!!!"

Ethan: "Yes"

Ethan will be a good husband ;-)

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Blogger is giving me fits so I will post some more pics later from yesterday.

Ethan Asher - Welcome to the Tribe!

Today, our son Ethan Frederick Zhiqing became Ethan Asher in the eyes of the Jewish Community. He was converted and named. This was done by mikveh (immersion in the Ocean in his case) and then a service at the Temple with the Rabbi and a tribunal presiding.

When you name in the Jewish faith you correspond your Hebrew name to your given name. Ethan is a Hebrew name and the rabbi corresponded the Hebrew name of Asher for Ethan's Chinese name of Qing as Qing was given to Ethan after he survived his surgery. It means happiness and to celebrate and Asher means the same in Hebrew and is the name of one of the twelve Jewish Tribes from Israel. I love the process of choosing the name and how meaningful it is.

Shannon and Alan and family, who are Ethan's godparents along with us and Ethan's grandparents and one cousin all met the Rabbi at the beach at 7:30 am. Under rainy skies the immersion was performed. It was very rough out there and thankfully Marc took Ethan in as I think I would have had a tough time standing up to the waves. A couple of hours later we met at the temple with the rest of invited family and friends to witness the tribunal and then home to celebrate and eat as all good Jews do very well ;-) The sky cleared up and all of the children and a few of us adults ended up in the pool.

There were a few that were not able to be with us due to illness, distance and in one case a death in the family and we missed you all who were not able to be with us.

It was a beautiful and memorable day, just as Katie Starr's was. Another treasured memory.

Here are a few pics and I hope to post a lot more tomorrow when I receive a them.

Marc and Ethan being helped out of the water by the Rabbi

I love this shot (au natural)

BFF's Mia and Katie Starr

Mommy and The Dynamic Duo just before the service

Family shot