One year ago today

We signed the paper work one year ago today for the adoption of our 3rd Daughter.  Incidentally Ella turns 4 years old today.  What a year makes.  We took a little Chinese girl who didn’t speak a lick of English and brought her to America to be part of our family.  She now talks pretty good, she is potty trained, no more bed wetting, knows all the names and sounds of the alphabet and she loves her family that she is apart of.  She loves going to her little co-op class on Mondays and can’t wait to start her school work for the day.  Something tells me that this little girl is not quite done learning  yet, and won’t be for a very long time.

 

Signing the Paperwork for Ella VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Abiding our time while we wait, part II

By this time we have figured that anywhere you go in Beijing there you will find a LOT of people.  Forbidden City is a popular tourist place for foreigners as well the Chinese.  Joy, our guide, was pretty clever by touring the forbidden city and Tiananmen square backwards from everybody else.  Most people start at Tiananmen square and then onto Forbidden city.  Of course we had nothing to compare this too but she said the crowds were much better the way we did it.

		Tiananmen Square VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Abiding our time while we wait.

Much of the next couple days in China were staying busy touring around Beijing and walking markets and restaurants.  We were pretty groggy the next morning but it was fun getting to know the other eight couples in our group adopting in verious parts of china.

 

First was the Great Wall.  What a magnificent piece of architecture which is about 5,500 miles long and built in some pretty rugged country.  This was a dream for us since we both love to hike but the biggest struggle was not walking on the ups and downs of the massive stones but getting away from the people since the part of the wall we went to was a popular tourist site for even the Chinese.

 

Well we set a site on one of the buildings or lookout towers and started hiking weaving in and out of people passing people on the steep grades and watching others try to walk on the very uneven stone walk in high heels (amazing but true).  The more we walked the less people there were and we finally made out goal.  But one problem.  It took us about 40 minutes to get there and we needed to be back with the rest of our group in the parking lot  in a little under 40 minutes.  Well we hoofed it pretty fast a couples time I had to stop and rest because I was getting dizzy at times.  I think we were only a couple minutes late, the last to arrive, I felt like we have been eliminated from the race, oh well.

 

		The Wall VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

How Time Flies!!

Can you believe one year ago today we left for China to pick up Ella.  We have been doing some reminiscing since Ella’s 4 year birthday is coming up and that very same day we signed the adoption  papers in China.  So as we reminisce we will be telling some stories of our china adventure as well as Ella’s first year with us.  

Of course we were very excited but yet we remember back when we left our other kids here with the Grandma’s that we were also very sad to leave them.

Family picture before we left.

As I am typing here we would have been in the airplane 10 hours now and about 3 more hours to go.

At about 3:00 P.M. China time we landed in Beijing and was walking down the row of people in the concourse of the airport looking for the sign that had our names on it.  But we didn’t see it.  We must have missed it, so we looked again, and again, and again, but nothing.  So we sat down to think about what we should do.  Where is Joy our guide?  Do we have a phone number to call?  Is this really how our adventures in China is going to start out?                 View from our hotel in Beijing.

 

So Jeff decided to walk down the concourse again.  Maybe she was late getting here?  Maybe she was stuck in traffic?  Do they even have traffic here?  (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha)  Sorry I just had to laugh at that question.  Compared to China our traffic is a walk in the park.  Then Jeff see’s this little Chinese lady who looks like she is looking for some one.  As her eye’s meet Jeff’s eye’s she quickly holds up the sign with our names on it.  Her name is Joy and it was a joy to see her.

View from our hotel in Beijing.

Our little Glory Girl is 7 years old.

September 17, 2003

 

September 17, 2010

 

 

We love you Gloria,

 

Mommy and Daddy

Has it been 12 Years?

 

On September 12th we celebrated our 12th year of marriage……………. with our girls.  The past couple years we have decided to do something a little bit different to celebrated the beginning of our family.  Instead of making reservations at a restaurant for two it was “reservations for five with a booster seat please”. 

 

 

But of course before we went we all sat down and watched our wedding video.  I do have to confess that we only watched the singing  parts and “THE KISS”.  We fast forward through the minister talking (he was quite long winded).  It was fun watching the girls get dressed up to go to a fancy restaurant by the sea.  They were so excited to go on a date with mommy and daddy for a romantic dinner, where they can order anything they wanted and they can have steamed clams as an appetizer.  I think I only got one clam out of the whole pile, I guess I wasn’t fast enough.

 

 

But I think what was almost as fun as watching our girls is watching all the other people in the restaurant watch us come in.  I knew what they were thinking, actually I should say I knew what the men were thinking.  “Oh great, there goes our quiet dinner.”  But the women will smile and say “now isn’t that adorable?”  And we would have to agree with them.

 

 

 

 

In His Grip,

Jeff and Rebecca

Ella’s First’s

 July has been a very busy month for us, especially since it has not

rained in a month.  Many of the  things we have done have been “firsts” for Ella.  It has been fun to watch her as she experiences these things for the first time.  Some of things she was a little apprehensive but has grown to love , like her car seat.  She cried the whole way home from the airport her first ride in the car seat.  But now she absolutely loves “Ella’s car seat”.
Many times God wants us to do things for the first time for Him and we kick and scream and want to do things that we are more comfortable doing.  But in the end God knows the future and He knows what’s best.  So as we do it God’s way we learn that God’s way is the best way because it’s the right way and we don’t have to be afraid.

“We never have to be afraid to do what is right.”

-Cousin Mordecai to Esther in Veggie Tales

ESTHER, the girl who became queen. 

Here are some first things that Ella has done.

First time in a life jacket.

Ella's first family canoe ride

First time to Northwest Trek.

           

First time seeing a tiger at the zoo.

First time dressed up like a butterfly/fairy

Her first s'more.

 

  

Summer is HERE!!

 

The 4th of July is come and gone and that means Summer starts for us in Washington.  So we got our cool summer dresses and tried them all on to see if they still fit.  Of course some did and some didn’t.  That also means a trip to the store to buy some new ones.

Ella has been to three different doctors in the past two months.  Dr. Kevin Taggart, her home pediatrician, Dr. Kim, a pediatrics heart specialist, and Dr. Davies, a pediatrics adoption specialist at UW Medical Center.  We are so happy to say that Ella is a healthy little girl.  The holes in her heart are healing up and all three doctors had to strain to hear the murmur.  And even if they don’t heal up all the way she should have no problems in the future and she will grow up to be a normal little girl.

We are finding out every day what a blessing and a  joy all three of our girls bring to us.  We can only thank God for that!!

In His Grip,
Jeff and Rebecca

Well it's been a month now since we have brought Ella home.  We decided to just lay low and enjoy being a family for a while before we start blogging again.  I know that many of you have checked out our blog  here and have been disappointed because there was no update.  So here is our update that so many of you have requested.

The journey of adopting is never ending.  What I mean by that is that change is a big part, some on Ella and some on our part.  And I think that what we didn't realize is that most of the change is on our part.  Bringing home a 3 year old toddler means doing things again that we stopped doing 3 years ago with Gloria.  Learning things she knows how to do from living in the orphanage and things that we have to teach her.  There are a lot of things that she is well advance in and when she surprises us with those things we just look at each other and smile in awe.  But there also other things that she should know by now that we have to teach and reteach.  Living with older sisters is one of those things.  But also, the blessing of Laura and Gloria is that they are becoming little teachers as well, as you can see in the pictures below.

Then there are the things that we have forgotton about a 3 year old toddler.  These are the things we are dealing with every day, sharing, no touching, eating, no touching, potty training, and no touching and i'm sure that you can think of alot of other things.  We are just dealing with them as they come up.  We have to keep on reminding ourselves that she is only 3 and that it is pretty difficult getting a toddler right off the bat with no "baby warm up time" if you know what I mean.  But it has been enjoyable watching our three girls getting to know one another.  Thanks for the prayers and thanks for all the comments that people have made here, keep 'em coming.

 Ella's favorite thing to do outside.  (When it's not raining)

                                                                             

Laura and Gloria teaching Ella to color,  and to share the color pencils.

She loves to listen to the girls practice their piano and then it's Ella's turn.