Artist Ruth

Today was the showing of Ruth's artwork at school. She chose to take photos of her Grandmother's garden (my mother). My mother and father have green thumbs-my mother for flowers and my father for vegetables. Ruth took all the photos, mounted and framed them for the presentation. This is Ruth's art teacher with her.

Trip to Austin

Sara and her 4th grade class made a trip to Austin to tour the capital and the Bob Bullock museum. It was a long day. We had to be at school at 6:30 am to leave and they returned at 8:30 pm. On the way back they stopped at a host school and had pizza for dinner. Sara loved the chartered buses, complete with bathrooms. Ruth can not wait to get to 4th grade now.

Renaissance Festival

This weekend we went to the local Renaissance Festival. We spent all day and had so much fun. The girls even got to ride an elephant. This is our third year of going.

Easter

We drove to my parents for the Easter holiday to spend it with family. We took our new black puppy Cooper who will be allowed to return. My niece also took her dog Malory who also won an invitation to return, hopefully when there is not so much rain and mud outside to run around in before coming inside to mom's lt blue carpet....yikes!!!


It was a cold and wet weekend. We missed the snow at our house in N. TX. We ended up hiding the Easter eggs in the house and the kids had fun, especially since we hide MONEY inside the eggs...all college kids except ours and they always need money, and an incentive and what better than money.

9 years ago we got Ruth

Here is the first picture of our new family 9 years ago today when we adopted our daughter Ruth. She was all of 10 days old at the time. We flew two days with a lay over in Hawaii (lucky us) and landed the second day in Majuro, Republic of the Marshall Islands. We were greeted by Lena, the woman who ran the birthing house, and both given beautiful hand made lays, then taken to the birth house. We walked in and there was a tiny baby in a carrier on the table. That was our daughter and I cried like a baby. We were handed Ruth and then taken to the hotel. We had a few hours together as a family and then Ruth's birth mother came for a visit--it is an open adoption. We talked as much as we could and cried a little and just watched Ruth be cute. That night, being first time parents, we had heard how babies keep parents up all night, we were up all night waiting for her to cry and to make sure she was still breathing, but she slept all night long. this was the first and last all nighter for MANY months to come. That was on Monday, and on Wednesday, we went to court to finalize the adoption and run around and finish the paperwork. We were with another couple who adopted a little boy and we still keep in touch with them--hello Jonathan! On Friday, after a VERY tearful farewell, we were on the plane again for our 2 day trip home.