This is the "red couch" picture that the traveling group had the day before we left. We are actually in the lobby of the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou. Before we went there, we thought that there was THE red couch, but it is one of many scattered around the lobby. In case you don't know, Sara is the big girl.

Sara's 2 year anniversary

Two years ago we were already in China and Ruth was home alone with my parents. Ruth's third grade class was following our daily itinerary that I left for them. My parents were taking care of the carpooling, soccer, and getting ready for Halloween.

After a few days in Beijing touring, we went to Nanchang to get Fu Jia Rui. When we arrived in Nanchang, we have only time to throw our luggage into the hotel and head to the Civil Affairs office where we would become a family of 4. It was warm there, and they kept the lights off to keep it from getting too hot. This time of year, all the buildings had already turned off their A/C's. We saw only babies, and watched as they were loving and with many tears on all sides delivered to their parents. We were told that Sara was running late and would be in soon, having come on a separate bus from another city then the babies. Then in came a woman with two young girls and a baby. I looked and asked if this was Sara. In their only photo we had of her, she had short hair...but then I noticed she was wearing the backpack that I has sent with the dragonfly sewn on it. I was wearing a matching dragonfly pin. She looked so scared.

After finishing the paperwork, we sat down and I showed her the magna-doodle and she began drawing pictures for me, and she was good at it.

We all traveled back to the hotel to get acquainted with our daughters. By that evening, and after a wonderful bubble bath, Sara was all smiles, writing in Chinese for me. You see her backpack behind her.

favorite picture

I took these photos when Ruth was at Camp this month with school.

MARKET DAY

Today was Market Day for Sara at school. During the semester, the kids earn stamps on paper showing dollar amouts, depending on their behavior. They also have withdrawls from their bank for less then stellar behavior, or not having homework done. Of course, those of you knowing Sara, she has the most of all 6th grade.

So on this market day, the kids get monopoly money representing their earnings and go shopping and selling. WELL, we have been making bracelets for weeks, and the night before the market, Sara said that one of her friends saw one of her origami stars she makes and said she would buy one for $100, so we are now making them. I can fold the paper plenty easily, but it is Sara who must put the 8 pieces together. Yes, she sold 9 of them for $100 each, but she did but a few things too. I manned the sales table and it was fun. We did not sell many bracelets, maybe they were over priced. I expect a price reduction next time, or the 2 times after that.

A new and old engagement . . .

Today my niece Jennifer got engaged. Her now fiancee Marc flew to CA where Jennifer is interning and proposed. It was so romantic. They went to a fancy restaurant for dinner. The staff was all in on it. One of them filmed the proposal on Marc's cell phone. Jennifer said that Marc excused himself to go to the bathroom and came back with flowers (must be a very fancy restaurant ha ha ha) and a small box. He said sweet nothings, non of which she heard the first time, and ask, of course getting a yes. Then he repeated the proposal and she did hear it this time.

Today is also the 14th anniversary from when Jeff asked me to marry him......how quick time flies.

Friends visit

We had company this past weekend, the best kind. I met Erin over the Internet in connection to our international adoption of our girls, Sara and "M". Erin's family live near us, some within a mile, and they were gathered together for the serious illness of Erin's grandmother. They graciously made time for us go get together. Of course, we had to hit the thrift store, and yes, Erin is a shopper just like me...I thought I would need to get her a second cart hahaha :)

The day they left, we met together along with another friend from FAR north of Dallas with their three girls, one here for a year, and enjoyed our favorite restaurant-China King.

As you can tell by the photos, little M is totally smitten by Sara. Ruth was hanging back since she was still so VERY tired from her camp with school....she did eventually catch up with her sleep and took enough Benedryl to calm the allergies. We, I mean she, did lose her pillow at camp and will be needing to buy a new one soon.

Ruth to camp

This morning Ruth left for YMCA camp with her 5th grade team. They will be home Friday afternoon. The weather is perfect and though her BEST friends are not on her team, many of her good friends are on her team and in her cabin, the team name is Loving A-the same as Sara's was last year. The adult chaperoning the cabin is one of her long time friend's mother, so Ruth should feel very comfortable.

Ruth is in the back, second from the left in the red with long black hair. Sara was so sweet and ran in to say "have fun sissy" before going on to class. Sara is looking forward to 2 days of being the only child....we will see.

Tonight Sara misses her sister so very much, she is sleeping in Ruth's room to feel close to her...they do love each other so dearly!

BACK to normal

We are currently done with the Dr.s and are running full speed again. Sara's team tied on Saturday's soccer game. They had team photos taken last weekend and they came out well.

We are busy making Oragami . Ruth leaves for YMCA Camp with her school on Wednesday - Fri.

Back to the DR for Sara

This morning, despite all the meds Sara is on, her rash was not responding to treatment, so we are very lucky our pediatrician is open on Sunday for sick kids, so off we went. Yes, it is severe hives, and since we can not pinpoint anything that has changed, there is a good chance it is viral and we will just need to wait it out. This is good because we were wracking our brains trying to think of ANYTHING that had chanced and could not come up with anything. By the end of the day, the rash was fading and she was itching less....but she did go to bed at 8:30, mostly due to the meds- and this is after a 2 hour nap in the afternoon!

The Dr. said that she must stay quiet, which is near impossible for this one, and stay cool, so she spent the day inside under a fan watching movies, bored to tears, thus it was good she took a nap instead of making me too crazy.

We did skip church since every mother would probably run away with their child thinking Sara had some dreaded disease that was highly contagious.

These photos...when the rash is getting better!!

Hospital for Sara

Sara had a rash Thursday night - 12:30 am-and after benadry I put her back to bed. It cleared up and she went to school on Friday. At 1:30 the nurse called and I picked her up, the rash back, and much more. I gave her two benadryl-nurse mommy. The rash went away, so I took her to gymnastics. In the evening, about 8:00, I got out of the shower and she came in-head to toe in the rash-hot to the touch and making her crazy. I called Jeff, who was 10 minutes away. I made him a lunchbox dinner and as soon as he arrived, we went to the ER. It was a severe reaction, but to what. We waited 1 hour before the Dr finally brought her two shots, one steroid and one to stop the itching which put her to sleep in about 1 minute. These went into her tiny put with the biggest needles I think I have ever seen. We got home about 11:30.

Next morning-off to soccer, still good. We pick Ruth up from her friend's birthday sleepover....she had a great time-we swing by and fill Sara's prescriptions for the steroid and itch pills. Jeff takes the girls to Blockbusters , they come home and begin watching movies-Sara in her room. Sara comes out 2 hours later-the rash is back.

I am thinking that she is allergic to something in her room, so I begin to take out what I can and vacuum the room. I give her an Oatmeal bath and the itchy pill kicks in and she is out. The Dr. did said that this reaction is progressive and will get worse each time....so we must find the cause ASAP.

Sunny again

Guess what happens to the fish!

All is going to be OK. My one sister in Katy did quite well, and had only 16 lg trash bags of debris from her yard. She did keep her electricity and no home damage. My parents in Clear Lake...need I say more! They returned to their home on Sunday afternoon. In the evening and for a short while they had electricity, but then it was gone, but the home 3 doors down still has theirs...very patchy. Sunday evening my other sister, her husband, their son and many of their friends went to my parent's house to help them with the clean up..taking the boards down from the windows and picking up a TON of debris. They will be getting a new roof and a window.

They finally got electricity on Monday afternoon. They will probably have to trashe everything in the freezer and refrigerater. My mom is most concerned right now about a baby squirrel that fell out of their tree..sometimes nature is hard to accept.

My sister and DH in Friendswood faired well. They did lose their fence so they need to watch their dog Beauty closely since she is blind and deaf. Right now the dog is staying w my parents.

They explain the damage they saw just in getting home. They dare not venture around town due to the damage. May mom works in Kemah and had not heard anything yet about the building--Kemah is closed to all. My dad works at a church food shelter-1/4 mile from the bay---probably gone too.

This is the boardwalk in Kemah, where the girls love to go when they visit GM and GP.

SOCCER BEGINS

This year Sara is on a new soccer team-the Cyclones. Today they had their first game and won 7-0. Sara kicked in 2 of the goals and assisted on three others. She usually plays midfield, but this game she played a lot of forward. Our defense needs some work and the our goalie was so boared, that she spent a lot of the game sitting on the ground in front of the goal

Ruth has bowed out for the season and it is looking like she may go to volleyball.

IKE IS HERE TOO

Ike is here. The rain and wind has begun. It was not expected until later today, but one of the outter belt has really spiraled off. I have not heard anything from my family in Houston and they are still under the hammer. I do hear reports from where their houses are, and I am so very glad they had mandatory evacuation. I am not sure what they will find when they get back home. My friend in Pearland also left and is with her brother in east TX.

still waiting . . .

I checked with my parents, the sister they are staying with, and another sister, all evacuated a little further north towards Houston. All are in good spirits so far. It is a beautiful day where they are, only 1 hour's drive from Galveston. We will be praying hard for them and all those who WILL be greatly affected. As the storm heads towards us, we hope to keep our electricity. We are also hunkered down and ready....back when we can.

These two photos are taken at the same spot, one in July while we were visiting, one this morning. By the way, these women are on top of the sea wall--17 feet up and normally 40 feet away from the ocean!

RUNNING FROM IKE

Here we go again. This time it is IKE. Most of my family have received mandatory evacuation, though I am not sure if my parents will go. Everyone got such a bad memory of last year when they sat on the Hwy for over 24 hours to go a short distance. The gov't is promising a better evacuation, but who knows. I am trying to keep in touch with my family before we lose communication so I can make sure where they are. I hope my parents leave, taking their car full of so many family heirlooms.

ANOTHER problem, this IKE is expected to hit at high tide, causing even a larger tidal surge, now they are saying 14-22 feet. My parents live at an elevation of 5 feet and the bay is only 4 miles from their home :( They are also on the "dirty" side, the east side, where the winds are the strongest and the tornadoes happen. Time for no sleep and lots of praying

AFTER IKE hist, it is making a bee line for us, so my family can not evacuate to us, and we will be making sure everything is tied down outside.

RUTH's back

Ruth has been sick with a cold. I took her to the Dr. not for the cold, but to follow up with the migraines that she has begin to get. While there, I asked the Dr. to check her back again because she had a slight curvature a few years ago, but a different Dr. said it was normal and most girls get it as they grow. We went for X-rays and she does have scoliosis, but not bad and we will follow up with yearly X-rays.

HURRICANE WATCH

Guess what we are watching for! Though we do not live right on the coast, the projected path will take sweet Gustav over us once he makes landfall. Luckily my family in the Houston area should be OK-except for a lot of rain, they will not need to evacuate. We will be bringing in things tonight and preparing for a lot of rain, but today, it is a beautiful day and warm. The kids do not have school tomorrow, so we will be doing a little shopping for new school desks for their bedrooms.

We did get the dog bathed so if he is stuck inside for a few days, he will not stink us out....this is Cooper

This is Galveston on a calm day, we will see what it is soon. This was taken this summer when we went to visit my family.

SCHOOL

Today is the first day of school. Ruth is now in Intermediate school with Sara-one 5th and one 6th. They were both nervous for different reasons. Ruth does not know the routine, and having a locker with a lock is a new and nervous event. Sara is concerned over new teachers, not sure if she will be able to read the cursive writing on the board, and them not having an ESL teacher yet. This year due to overcrowding (new school will open next year), the ESL in in a nasty portable across the parking lot and Sara is afraid a stranger will get her going to class. They both got on the bus fine this morning and I told Sara about 10 times to make sure her sister gets home and off the bus at the right stop.....always the nervous mom.



As for me, I am spending the day decluttering the summer clutter, catching up on laundry, and maybe a little reading.

Summer Fun

Today I took the girls and sister friends to a local water park for the day. We all had a great time. There was not much crowd, I think because it looked like rain all day and school is about to start. I got on a few slides with them, but when they went on other, I found some shade or hung out at the wave pool and watched them.

A new baby in town

We have a first addition to a new generation on my side of the family. My nephew and his wife had a beautiful baby boy on 8-8-08. We hope to visit and begin to spoil him. His name....Preston, after his dad and grandpa.

Finally home from vacation

We arrived home this afternoon from our 2 wks in Georgia, which included two reunions. The first one was the yearly Judd family reunion which went well. We had the first of the next generation, Kyle, with us. He is just barely one and tooooo cute. Yes, we did make a pilgrimage to the nearly local Krispy Kream for the royal treat(ssss)-YUM! We all played a lot of badminton and played a lot of card games. The biggest skills test was the capturing and removing of mice (some would call them rats) that we had in our cabin. We did remove two. There was a lot of screaming, mostly from the older girls, and excitement from the younger. Jeff was upset that they ate through the lid of his cashews and ate some :(

The next reunion was for Sara and her life long friend Ling from China. Sara arrived in the US about a month before Ling and this is the first time in 1 1/2 years that they have seen each other. After a bit of shyness on their parts, they were back together again, mostly playing chess and watching their Chinese soaps we brought back with us. Ling was staying with her Aunt Sue, who is a wonderful woman. The girls had one sleepover at out condo, then the next night with Sue. Of course parting is sweet sorrow and Sara had her meltdown within an hour of returning after the farewells, but we will spend a lot of time looking at photos and planning the next great time......photos to follow......it is midnight and I need sleep!!!!!

We did catch the opening of the Olympics this evening. I did have to wake Sara up to see China come in. What a fantastic program.

Summer...heat

The girls and I have taken a small vacation to visit my family and celebrate my father's birthday. While there we visited Galveston and a local wave pool. Those of you living north, please please send us cooler weather and RAIN!

Sara had a soccer tournament and their team came in last, but they had fun. My older sister and one of her daughters came for a weekend visit and another local sister came over and we did what we love to do...work puzzles.

Then my parents came into town for the July 3rd celebration to watch fireworks and see my little sister play in her community orchestra-she does flute and piccolo. We did not get to see the fireworks due to Sara's trip to the EMS trailer for heat exhaustion.

Now we are trying to hang out inside. The girls are doing great this summer with their reading or school work. They are also totally into Webkins.

I will add more photos when I get home. My dear husband fixed the computer so I can no download photos, so I have some catching up to do.....all for now. The girls are behind me trying to get their walkie talkies working and are making me totally insane!!!!!