Another year

In January we celebrated another year "Gotcha Day" gone by. Where does the time go? Obviously it goes by quickly, it's months and months or even years between my blog posts. With facebook now I post on there so much that I just forget about blogging. I need to get back to doing it more, it really is therapeutic! It is nice to get thoughts out through my fingers. Well, Zoey is becomming a little grown up. She is so stinking smart it astounds us everyday. She can write all her letters and even some words. She is kindof obsessed with writing actually. That's all she wants to do, anywhere we are she has paper and pen or pencil in hand. She is taking gymnastics or as she calls it "de-nastics" and loves it. Vince takes her on Mondays and she loves to come in afterwards and try to re-inact her moves for me which is pretty difficult since we don't have bars or a balance beam in our living room. Madison is in her second semester of 5th grade and in the National Honor society for the second year in a row. We are so proud of her and her grades. She quit ice skating back in the fall and is now doing tumbling. She also loves it. She has finally mastered going down into a back bend, which makes me cringe with pain to watch (especially with all my back problems!), and almost has her walk over down. She runs two miles three times a week with Vince and is running her first 5K in March. Vince got a promotion and began his new position as district manager for his company in January and is enjoying it. I celebrated my 10 year anniversary at my office last week, wow how time flies! All in all life is good and we are very blessed!

Time for an update?

Well blogger friends did you think I had disappeared? I know how I am not such a devoted blogger anymore, I can't believe it's been a year. I spend more time updating Facebook now than anything else. Well over the last year the girls have grown up so much! Madison finished 4th grade and now is in 5th and celebrated her 10th birthday in May, so she got to get her ears pierced. Zoey turned 3 in June and is smarter than any of us. It's so amazing! She started a new preschool a few weeks ago and it has been really good for her. She is learning sooooo much. We just found out yesterday that Vince is getting a promotion in January and will be a district manager for his company. I am so proud of him! My job is the same, it is good, very busy! In August we got together with all of our travel families so the girls could get together. It is so fun to get to see all our Jiangxi girls together. They are growing up so fast. One of our families is in China right now with their new son. I love getting to check updates on their blog and I think that's why I felt compelled to update ours. We went to Disney in September for Zoey's first trip. We had such an incredible time! My best friend and her family came down for part of the week, which made it even more special. We are busy getting our house ready for the fall season. Next week we are celebrating my sisters' 40th birthday here at our house, so we are trying to spruce up a little bit. I hope that everyone is doing well and I will try to update more often. Zoey is starting gymnastics on Monday so I will try to get some pictures posted of that. I think it is right up her ally.

Cirque De Chine-Pigeon Forge TN Adopted Children from China Reunion

Obviously I have been so behind (as usual) in blogging. This summer has been extremely busy and now here we are into the schoolyear. Where does the time go? In July the group that we traveled with in China met up in Pigeon Forge, TN. The Cirque de Chine Show performers sent out a notice that they were have a reunion of sorts for families with adopted children from China. One of the members of our group who lives in TN sent the notice out to us and we decided to make it a reunion time of our own. We had such a great time. The theatre had activites set up during the day on Saturday that consisted of Chinese games and crafts, then they served an authentic Chinese food buffet followed by the Cirque de Chine show, which was wonderful. The most incredible part of the weekend though was getting our girls together and watching them interact after this last year and a half. It was amazing to see all of there little personalities and see how they had all changed and become these active, independent little girls. All of them now with families and some with their siblings. It was just great. At the theatre on Saturday a woman approached me and started asking some questions. Come to find out she was from the local paper and Zoey ended up on the front page with one of the other girls baby sister. It was so neat! We had about 20 people approach us and ask me if I had rolled Zoey's hair, she definitely was the ONLY one with curly hair. She is absolutely one of a kind.

These were some of the performers that would let the children have their pictures made with them. They actually did a big group picture on stage after the show, but Zoey pitched a fit so she and Madison didn't make it into that one.

Madison picking up marbles with chopsticks.

These drummers were amazing! They performed several times throughout the show and Zoey would drum right along with them, it was too cute!

Madison's 9th birthday, Zoey's 2nd birthday, and other events.....

On June 6 Zoey turned 2. Can you believe it? Where has the time gone? Of course I've said that on every single one of Madison's birthdays too and she just turned 9. We just did a family celebration for both of the girls. Madison wanted to go to Alabama Adventure on her birthday, May 23rd, so we went and she took a friend. It poured down rain the whole day (that's why there are no pictures because our camera is not waterproof), but she had fun anyway. For Zoey we went to the park and had a picnic, then came home played in the baby pool and then had cake. For her it was the perfect day, spending it all outside, her favorite place to be. Too bad the heat index now is 105 because it is too hot to go outside unless you have a pool, which we do not.

The week preceeding Zoey's birthday Vince and I went to Maine for a week, just the two of us. My parents kept the girls. It was a well needed and deserved vacation if I do say so myself. We had an amazing time. If you never been to Maine, you must go. It is so beautiful. The people were so nice, the places we stayed were incredible. It was wonderful. I would love to go again or become a snowbird and stay there in the summer when I retire (haha like that will ever happen). We saw 4 lighthouses, Bush's compound, we went sailing, saw some beautiful landscapes and ocean views, and had a terrible rental car experience (don't ever use Dollar). The weather was perfect, no rain, cool temperatures, and lots of outside time that was quiet, peaceful, and relaxing!

Last Sunday, June 14th, my cousin Jacob who has had a lifelong battle with a congenital heart problem passed away at the age of 21. Several of you have been following his journey on his carepage over the last few years. This is his "About Jacob" that I took from his carepage:

"Jacob was diagnosed with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS) while in utero in the fall of 1987. After considering our limited options, we decided to fly to Philadelphia, PA and have Jacob delivered at a local hospital and then begin a three staged series of open heart surgeries at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) performed by Dr. William Norwood, who pioneered this series of surgeries.
Jacob came through each stage with minimal complications and enjoyed a "normal" childhood (if you consider regular short-term hospitalizations for caths, check-ups, pacemaker implants, and assorted other related surgeries "normal").
In the late summer of 2004, Jacob was diagnosed with Protein Losing Enteropathy (PLE) which was rapidly weakening his heart. Throughout a fall of treatments and hospitalizations, Jacob's health quickly declined to a point of being placed on the heart transplant list. On December 21, a heart was found and transplanted into Jacob.
Jacob's health progressively improved and he eventually returned to regular school activities and a newly energized social life.
In the fall of 2007, Jacob began to feel weak and it was discovered that his body was rejecting his new heart. Treatments failed to stem the tide and consequently Jacob was placed on the transplant list once more. On November 15, Jacob received his second transplanted heart.
Since that time, he has once again resumed his course work at Shorter College, enjoying the college life and preparing himself for adulthood.
Update (6/19/09): After a short stay in the hospital, Jacob's health deteriorated with apparent rejection. On June 14th, following the beginning of an aggressive treatment, he went into cardiac arrest. After a valiant attempt to save his life, he was pronounced dead around 7:30pm.
On June 18th, his earthly body, with all its scars and infirmities were laid to rest and we celebrated his acquisition of a perfect body in the presence of our Lord."

Anyone who knew Jacob was touched by his incredible joy in life, his joy for life, his love of Christ and faith, and how strong he was. The most saddening part of his passing for me is that I didn't know him as well as I should've. He was my first cousin and many many people knew him better than I did. Please keep his family in your prayers during this time of healing.

For those of you who have mentioned it, I promise I'll try to update more regularly! Hope everyone is having a great summer!