More Teeth

It has happened again...the tooth fairy had to make yet another visit to our house this week! :-) On Sunday afternoon, Claire was rough-housing with her big sis when all of a sudden I hear this: "Allyson! You knocked my tooth out!!"

Claire was SO excited and came running to show me her second baby tooth. She wasn't mad at big sister at all, but was really thankful instead. lol And did I mention how she also isn't bothered at all by the blood in her mouth? Funny kid!

It didn't take long for the two girls to sit down together and write a letter to the tooth fairy. The following is the note that accompanied the (now in a ziploc bag) little tooth:

Dear TF:
This is my 2nd tooth.
I want $10 - ten dollars - please!
Love, Claire

She didn't get quite that much, but it was still much more than the quarter we used to get. I need to have a talk with that "TF".....

Back To School

Our summer is officially over as school started yesterday. I sometimes feel bad because the girls didn't have a "normal" summer due to Randy's vision problems (meaning I was his chauffer for work...still am), and then fil's declining health. The girls were troopers through it all though....but they were definitely ready to get back to school!
As part of our annual tradition, we spent time together as a family shopping for new school supplies. The girls had fun looking for each item on their list. Then, we had to label and organize everything...for a picture of course!
Let the madness begin!!

Baby Teeth

Claire has been hoping for a loose tooth for the longest time! She can't stand that her sister has braces and she doesn't. It seems that every time we visit the dentist or orthodontist, she says she has a loose tooth (but she really doesn't).

Well, about a week ago, she complained of a tooth hurting when she bit into an ice cream cone. Dad checked, and sure enough there was a loose tooth! When we looked closer, we could see the new permanent tooth had already started coming in behind the baby tooth. Claire was SOOOO very excited and expected the baby tooth to fall out the next day...that didn't happen, but she wiggled it off and on the next few days. Last night to my surprise, Ally came down the hall screaming, "Claire pulled her tooth!"....followed quickly by Claire - carrying that precious tooth in a bathroom cup. :-) She carefully placed her tooth in a ziploc baggie and put it under her pillow. The tooth fairy was so proud of her for pulling the tooth on her own that "he" left her a whopping $7 !!! I guess the tooth fairy must live in an area with high inflation! lol

Wild Things

The girls and I went with the church group on a "Terrific Tuesday" outing....this particular week's event was the Wild Wilderness Safari. It was so much fun listening to the LOUD screams from the girls as the animals approached our car during our drive through the place. Even though you are asked NOT to feed the animals, it is apparent that some people do, as the animals walk right up to the window and stare at you. I think the loudest screams the girls let out were when we drove by the caged baboons...and then the baboons proceeded to present their brightly colored bottoms to us! Lots of "eeeeewwwwwwss!!!!" were heard then! lol
After the drive through, we parked and had a picnic lunch with the group. Then, we were off to the petting zoo. The girls took turns petting sweet baby leopards - the babies were just tuckered out though and slept silently as the girls touched them. The baby goats were a different story though! They were ALL about getting petted, and more importantly, trying to eat pretty much anything they could get their mouths on! lol
We had a tender moment with a mommy kangaroo and her little joey. The baby was in the mommy's pouch and would stick it's head out and stretch while we petted it.
~~~A fun day near the end of our summer vacation.

20 Years Together....

Today is our 20th wedding anniversary...wow! Twenty years ago, we were 20-somethings who really had no idea what we were getting into. Twenty years ago, we were best friends. Twenty years ago, it was just the two of us...renting an apartment and starting our life "together".
My, how things have changed, yet remained the same. I'm *still* not sure we know what we were getting into, but are having fun trying to figure it out, day-by-day. Thankfully, we are still best friends. We are now a family of five (& hopefully someday six), living in a home we designed.
Things haven't always been easy, but life *isn't* always easy. Sure, we've had our disagreements now and then, but we've learned how to compromise and make things work. We've had our struggles with infertility, and we've been blessed three times with the awesome work of our God....our beautiful children - Emily, Allyson and Claire!
I am so very thankful for all that we are as a couple, as well as what makes us individuals. Gosh...feeling very sappy tonight!! lol

Sewin' & Mowin'

Emily has been learning a lot this past week. She has wanted to help mow the lawn for the longest time, but we kept telling her she wasn't big enough. Well, now that dad has some health issues and can't ride the mower for awhile, she finally gets to help a little. Emily REALLY wanted to try mowing....so dad told her she could give it a try while he supervised (don't worry...the mower has a safety seat that automatically shuts the unit off if her bottom leaves the seat). She did a great job and is already looking forward to the next time.


Emily has also been asking me to teach her to sew, SO we pulled out the machine and let her go to work. She practiced just sewing straight lines and then I suggested she try making a simple lap quilt (handy since we have a friend with a quilt store!). We showed her the pattern she would be making and then let her choose the fabric...bright, fun colors of course! She caught on very quickly and had her blocks sewn together in no time. I can't wait to post pictures of her completed masterpiece.

Camp is Fun !!

We attended China Heritage Camp last weekend, and as usual, the girls had a GREAT time! They had sessions in Kung Fu, dancing, cooking, language, shadow puppets, crafts, music, and SO much more.....just a fun weekend immersed in Chinese culture. I worked in the lower camp, so wasn't able to get many photos of the girls, but *did* manage to sneak this one of Claire during a break. I think she was having a good time. LOL

Birthday Wishes

It's hard to believe that Allyson is 9 years old. Seems like just yesterday that she was being placed in my arms. Wow, the years have flown by, and that little baby is growing up so fast!
We told Allyson she could choose dinner on her birthday.....she chose El Lorito. Wonderful choice since we love the food. Only catch is that this restaurant is an hour from us! We worked it out though, so Allyson was able to enjoy her beloved rice (she only ordered rice and beans! LOL). For her cake, she chose a little puppy cupcake that she enjoyed ALL by herself! :-)
Her birthday party was an overnight slumber party at the Embassy Suites (thanks to a free night we won during a church event). The kids all had a great time swimming, and then we returned to the room where they had a makeup contest (w/o using a mirror), and decorated pillow cases, before painting their nails just before bedtime.

How Tall ?

The girls and I did a fun little height chart on the internet yesterday. Just a prediction of how tall they might be when they grow up. Here are the results:
Emily - 5' 4.5"
Allyson - 4' 11.5"
Claire - 5' 3"

So, it looks like Ally may be the more petite of the girls (which is how she appears currently as Claire is quickly catching up to her). I've told her this is a good thing though....just think of all the cute petite clothes she can buy! :-)

Happy 4th of July !!!

I've traveled to China 4 times, and Randy has been there many more times. Randy has also traveled to several other countries as well.
It's always fun to travel, but there is NOTHING like coming HOME to the USA. God has truly blessed America, and we are SO fortunate to live in such a wonderful country.
With all that being said.....just wanted to wish everyone a safe and happy 4th!! Go out and celebrate with a sparkler or two! :-)

This is a pic we took of the fireworks celebration in Colorado during our vacation there last year.....hoping to get good pics this year as well.

A Few More Photos

China vs. U.S.A.- Emily's thoughts

I would definitely choose to live in the U.SA. than China. China is a wonderful place, but I like much more things in the United States than I do in China.The things I really missed were..... My SOFT bed, my 3 dogs, my sisters, the food- especially MEXICAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I missed using water from the faucet and regular toilets!!! As you can see, I missed ALOT of things! I missed a lot more, but I can't think of all of them right now. Something I really like about China is that when you shop in China you can bargain. I wish we could do that here. Than I wouldn't be so concerned about money. I also like that there are a lot of interesting places you can go see. Unlike here, where we just go to the park or something like that. Another thing that I really liked was the hotels that we stayed in. They are VERY nice. Except the breakfast wasn't very good usually. I am never going to complain about where I'm living again!! The houses there are just so different from here. I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO glad to be back home!!!! When we got into the XNA airport, I was shaking because I was so anxious to get home.
I know I'm totally changing the subject, but I forgot to tell you about the meals in China. Or, let me put a little more detail into that subject. It was DISGUSTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I didn't actually try everything but everyone who did said it was bad. For our last meal with the group, we ate DUCK, DUCK, and MORE DUCK!!! I didn't eat any of the "side" dishes of duck, but I did try the main duck. didn't want to eat the duck, but I wanted to be able to say that I've eaten duck. It was okay, but not that good. Some of the other dishes of duck was lemon duck, fried duck, peeking duck, and SO much more. The food that THE CAT names in HONK JR. is actually real!!! Ever since I've gotten home, a lot of people have been telling me that I'm invited to their house to have dinner and their main dish is going to be DUCK!
When my parents take Allyson and Claire back in a few years, I hope I get to come too because I think it would be cool to come back to China when I'm a teenager.
~Emily Rodgers~

Reflections

We've been back home in the USA for a week now. By about the 5th or 6th day home, we were finally feeling rested and back to "normal" (well, as normal as we get anyway! LOL). I truly love being in China and around its people, but I must admit it's great being "home" again. Some of the things I missed and tend to take for granted:

1. my kids! wow, a phone call just doesn't do it...and it always seems they've grown so much when we return
2. tap water - just knowing you can turn the tap to get a drink if you're thirsty is such a good feeling....oh and brushing our teeth with tap water - ahhhh! Having to swish your toothbrush around in a small cup of bottled water just isn't the same.
3. my semi-soft mattress - the beds in China are HARD and left clothing seam lines impressed on my skin. After a few days, my sides felt bruised. I'm a big dummy though because I knew about the beds and should have taken a small inflatable air mattress.
4. air conditioning! Although most buildings in China have a/c, it just isn't the same (they don't keep it as cool), so I was still sweating.
5. blue skies - because there is so much pollution, it's rare to see a blue sky.

I am also thankful....for so many things, but here are just a few:

1. God - for without him, I wouldn't have these 3 little blessings I call my kiddos.
2. my kids! I love, love, LOVE them and am SO lucky to be called mom many times a day.
3. my dh - yeah, he's impatient, but otherwise a pretty great guy and a wonderful dad.
4. the USA - we are SOOOOOO fortunate to live in such a place believe me!
5. Dillon International - such a great adoption agency
6. Rebecca Hackworth - she's a wonderful example of Dillon's commitment to helping children
7. our travel group #1 - the Wood and Gary families are such great people to travel with....they'd have to be for putting up with our crazy clan for 2 weeks!! :-)
8. Bridge of Love Adoption Services (BLAS) - they did a wonderful job of putting our trip together, and did so many wonderful things to welcome our children "home" to China

Gosh, there are SO many other things and people that I'm thankful for, but I'm running out of time and need to get to the dentist's office this morning. Hopefully, Emily will jump on in a bit and write down her thoughts.

Heading Home!

We actually slept in since we didn't have to be at the airport until noon. We left Beijing around 4:30 p.m. on Monday, June 18th and arrived in San Francisco in the afternoon on the 18th (hey, how did we manage that?!). Our bodies sure knew we missed a day there somewhere!

One dad in our group kissed the ground when we landed in SF...too funny! Would you believe that the food choices on the flight were either fish or DUCK?! There was NO way we could eat more duck, so we chose the fish....also a bad choice.

We had really great connections in San Francisco and Dallas so we didn't have to sit in the airports long. Emily spotted a Subway in San Francisco so we grabbed a sandwich before boarding our flight. Wow, I've never seen that kid eat a sandwich so fast!! LOL Randy was glad to have a Diet Coke too. Can't believe I forgot to take a picture though!

We made it home around 10:00 p.m. - we were greeted by our two little munchkins at the airport.

The jet lag has set in, but I've finally managed to get the blog updated a little. Will try to add a few more thoughts about the trip in the next few days.

Last Tour Day in Beijing

Yet another early morning for a 1-1/2 hour bus ride to the Great Wall. We went to the Badaling section of the wall, which is an area Randy and I haven't been to before. There were TONS of people! We climbed to the first tower and bargained with a peddler - got Emily a little brass certificate that says she climbed the wall. They originally asked $150 yuan - we got it for $10 (about $1.31 U.S.). We were the first from our group to the first tower, and since we only had an hour at the wall, we decided to go back down and do a little shopping (bargaining). We met our group on the way down, and Emily decided to go back up with them.


Our lunch stop was at the Friendship Store, which was also the home of a cloisonne factory. This was very convenient for sales. :-) Lunch was better that most of what we had been having...or maybe I was just really hungry. :-) After lunch, we browsed the aisles and aisles of cloisonne. Even though there was no bargaining at this store, we ended up buying a few small gifts anyway. We even grabbed an ice cream cone on the way out (tasted close to our ice cream at home!).



The next stop was the Summer Palace. Again, tons of people....and again, we were rushed. The palace grounds are huge. Oh to be able to own such a place just for vacations - what a life those emperors had! We rode a dragon boat across the lake before making a mad dash for the hotel.





We were to originally have had about 3 hours to prepare for dinner, but ended up having only 30 minutes. That made it really fun (not) to get rid of the sweat stained clothing and dress for dinner! We somehow managed to take a 2 minute shower though! All of the girls wore their new dresses that BLAS arranged for them...they all looked lovely.


Dinner was at a restaurant that specialized in Peking Duck. Practically every dish on the table was some sort of duck....who knew you could fix duck SO many ways! Our hosts for dinner were very prominent in the adoption world -- the director of BLAS, as well as the Vice-Director of the CCAA. We sat at the table with Cecilia (our BLAS guide in 2002) and the BLAS director. Before we started eating, the director looked at us and said something in Chinese. Cecilia translated for us and said that he specifically wanted her to be our guide on our next adoption trip (Randy had told him what a good job she did when we were there in '02). Cecilia does the planning now though, and not the adoption group guiding, but said she would be happy to be our guide when we return.



After several duck dishes, we thought the meal was almost over...but we had a surprise coming! Two chefs walked in with trays of the whole ducks! They proceeded to carve and chop away at the ducks and presented them to our tables. The BLAS director then showed us how to wrap the meat into a little burrito shape and eat it.


After dinner, everyone took photos of the kids in their Chinese clothing, and then photos of our hosts. BLAS presented all of the kids with a final gift...a pillow that represented one of the 2008 Olympic mascots.

Back To Beijing!

We were up early again (no rest on this trip!) for a flight back to Beijing. We had to wait 30 minutes at the airport for our bus, so that put us behind the rest of the day. We changed up the schedule a bit and went straight to lunch which was a "hot pot" style. Each person had a little copper pot that was filled with seasoned water, and set over a burner. After the water came to a boil, we dropped meat and veggies into it to cook. The problem with this was that most of the meat was lamb, which we don't care for. We tried several different things, but just didn't like it....so as usual, we were hungry.

We then headed to the Temple of Heaven - we rushed through because we were still behind schedule. We didn't go through fast enough though, as we were late arriving at the Chinese Acrobat Show and couldn't go in. We waited in the heat while the guide bought tickets for the later show. Since we hadn't eaten at lunch, I began to feel lightheaded and decided to return to the hotel room. Emily wanted to stay with her friends, so Randy and I caught a taxi to the hotel. There was a McD's near the hotel, so that's what we had for dinner (I must say, it was quite tasty...but neither of us were able to eat it all. I guess the heat had taken it's toll). Emily watched the show and had dinner with the group, and returned to the hotel about 10:30 p.m.).

Fishing for things in the hot pots

Cute little pot

Temple of Heaven

Guilin - Day 2

On our 2nd day in Guilin, we rode our bus for about an hour to a wharf on the Li River for a boat cruise. Sadly, my camera batteries bit the dust AFTER we left the dock (weird because they charged overnight). We still had 2 other cameras, but they didn't have good zoom. The scenery along the river was just beautiful. We saw people from small villages at the river's edge washing clothing, filling buckets, etc. There were several other cruise boats on the river as well, and we could see them cooking lunch at the back of the boat. Our cruise was a lunch service as well...traditional Chinese again! We were offered an appetizer of mini crabs and shrimp, but we declined. A few people from our group did try the local "osmanthus wine" though. We docked in Yangshuo and were bombarded by peddlers when we got off the boat. Randy found a couple packs of batteries at one stand for my camera, so I was a happy camper again. We stopped briefly at a small village to see a comparison of the old way of life, as well as the new. What an eye opener that was! We have SO much to be thankful for believe me!!

Our bus took us by "Moon Hill" just so we could take a few snapshots. The guide said that we couldn't stop and get off the bus or the local people would charge us....so bus window photos it was for us.

Our final tour stop for the day was "Elephant Trunk Hill" which is a famous tourist area in Guilin. As we posed for a group shot, we thought it funny that strangers were taking our photo as well. Within a couple of minutes, we were being offered our group photo (laminated and dated) by those strangers. What entrepreneurs they are! Another vendor just walked around looking at us and quickly cutting away at a piece of paper....he was speedily making silhouette papercuts (yes, we succumbed to the pressure and bought it - after all, it was all done and ready to go...not to mention the fact that the artist had included my double chin in the silhouette!). LOL!


Scenery along the Li River





The boat kitchen!Elephant Trunk Hill

A Parking Lot
Moon Hill

A Few Photos

Just posting a few photos from the past few days since I couldn't post them earlier...