Decorating for Hallowen

Halloween Ghosts, or as Wren calle them, ghosteses.

FCC Mid Autumn Festival Celebration

We celebrated the Mid Autumn Festival with our FCC Group (Families with Children from China) on Saturday night. Wren loved being with all the big girls and getting right in the middle of everything.

First Camping Trip

Monte Sano State Park
Huntsville, AL

Setting up camp


Goofball


We did it!


Wren and Daddy


Roasting marshmallows


So this is a smore...


I'm not sure I like it.

Yard Art

We love yard art. Luckily for the neighbors, we only have three pieces.
We added a new piece a couple of weeks ago when we were at the
Monte Sano Art Show.


We got Ollie the Ostrich in the Spring at Panoply. We got the flower from the same artist at Panoply in 2002. The flower even traveled to Italy with us and lived in our garden there!


Wren with the stars and moon



I became interested in these kinds of things way back in 1998/1999 when Jason and I were living in Colorado Springs. One weekend day when we were driving around and exploring the area, we came across a home with a fantastical sculpture garden. It was amazing! Come to find out, it was the work of artist Starr Kempf (died 1995) and had been displayed at his home for many years. Apparently, there was much controversy surround the sculpture garden and I'm not sure if any of the art is still there.



Obviously we would never have (nor could we afford) things of this size on our property, but isn't it neat?!

Monte Sano Art Show

We enjoyed ourselves at the 10th Annual Monte Sano Art Show. Unfortunately, we mostly have pictures of the playground. If you live in the Huntsville area and didn't make it this year, then I encourage you to check it out next year. It's great!

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Playing at Pump It Up with Daddy

Pumpkin Head

The Things Kids Say

I wanted to write this one down before I forget it.

One of the funny things Wren says now is about spelling...or as she says, smelling. For example, we are trying to teach her spell her name and so we say, "W-R-E-N spells Wren." And she'll say, "W-R-E-N smells Wrens!" all exuberant like. She keeps us laughing.

Mid-Autumn Festival

On Monday, we had our own little family celebration of the mid-autumn festival. We made paper lanterns and ate a Chinese dinner underneath them on our front porch. We finished off the evening with a little full moon gazing and sugar cookies shaped like moons.

The following description of the Mid-Autumn Festival was taken from the webpage of the Chinese Cultural Center of San Francisco.

Celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival

Also known as the "Full Moon Festival," the Mid-Autumn festival falls on the fifteen day of the eighth lunar month. At this time, the moon's orbit is at its lowest angle to the horizon, making the moon appear brighter and larger than any other time of the year. In the Western tradition, it is also called the Hunter's Moon or Harvest Moon. According to the lunar calendar, it is also the exact middle of autumn (which begins in the seventh month and ends in the ninth).

To the Chinese, this festival is similar to the American Thanksgiving holiday, celebrating a bountiful harvest. Compared to many Chinese festivals that are inundated with vibrant colors and sounds, the Mid-Autumn festival remains more subdued. Traditionally celebrated outdoors under the moonlight, people eat moon cakes and gaze at the moon. In modern times, barbecues with families and friends are also common.

Legendary Origins
Like most Chinese holidays, the mid-autumn festival is rich in oral history and legend. According to stories, Hou Yi was a tyrannical ruler who won the elixir of immortality by shooting 9 suns out of the sky with his bow. But his wife, knowing that the people's lives would remain miserable for all eternity if Hou Yi lived forever, drank the potion. The fluids made her lighter, and she floated up into the moon. Even today, Chinese like to think of the moon as home of Chang E.

A Historical Anecdote
The Mongol Hordes of Ghengis Khan subjugated the Chinese, and established the Yuan Dynasty in the 13th Century. However, many Chinese resented the fact that they were ruled by a foreign regime. In the 14th Century, Liu Bouwen helped plot the overthrow of the Yuan Dynasty by organizing resistance. Secret messages were passed along in mooncakes.

Mooncakes
The ubiquitous fare at any Chinese celebration of the Full Moon festival, mooncakes are a flaked pastry stuffed with a wide variety of fillings. Egg Yolk, lotus seed paste, red bean paste, and coconut are common, but walnuts, dates, and other fillings can be found as well. Most have characters for longevity or harmony inscribed on the top. Special cakes can reach almost one foot in diameter.

School Picture Day

Pre Picture Day picture. I know, it's redundant!





Where did my baby go? She looks like a little girl now!

Last Pool Day

Sissy and Pappy are closing the pool for the season. Here are some pictures of the last swim.


Goodbye for another year!


Wren and Ryan


Sammy likes to keep an eye on everyone!


Ryan and Wren

Say Cheese!

You might wonder why Wren is taking a picture of this plant. Well, she's acutally taking a picture of this...




...our resident writing spider. He's been living around our front porch area for the last few days. He's pretty, don't you think?

Hah Hah Hah!

Tiny Dancer

How Could I Forget!

So I was doing a little blog hopping this evening and I jumped over to "A Day in the Life of the Little Sister from China". And what did she remind me of?! That it was two years ago this week that we received the referral for our little girls!

It was around 9pm in Varese, Italy on Friday, August 25, 2006 when we got "the call." That was about 2pm central time. I knew the call was coming soon because I had been following the Rumor Queen and knew that as of Thursday referrals were coming into various other agencies across the country. It was stated that referrals were covering LIDs through 7/22/05. Since we were LID 7/15/05, I knew we had made the cutoff. I was so excited!!!

When we received the call from our agency that evening I was so nervous that my hand was shaking while I was taking the notes from our coordinator Vonda. We were given her Chinese name, the meaning of her name, her date of birth, her weight and height at her 6 month appointment and the location where she was currently living. I remember that I was upstairs at the computer in the loft and Jason was downstairs on the couch so we were basically in the same room and he could hear everything that was being said. Vonda then told us that they would send the rest of the information via UPS.

Later that evening we received a grainy, scanned photocopy of her referral picture. It was our first look at our baby girl!


I'll tell you the truth - I thought she was funny looking. And she looked so BIG to me! Her photo was not what I was expecting. I remember hearing how some people fell in love as soon as they saw the picture. I was NOT one of those people!

Most or our referral group received their UPS packages on Monday but because we were in Italy and the delivery time was longer, we didn't get our package until 10:00 AM on Tuesday, August 29, 2006.

Now we were living on the grounds of a large, 400-year-old Italian villa and, like most Italian homes, there was a main gate which needed to be buzzed open to allow vehicles onto the property. When one entered the property there were two roads - the one that went straight went to the villa and the one that went right went to our home. Remember, I had only been in Italy about a month at this time and I did not speak ANY Italian, so when the UPS man buzzed our gate phone, it was only because I was expecting a package that I knew to let him into the property. I went outside and waited for him to drive up. He didn't come and he didn't come and he didn't come. It shouldn't have been taking so long. So I started running down the gravel road. I got all the way to the end and there was the UPS man - he had gone up the wrong road and was LEAVING because he couldn't locate me. I was so relieved to have caught him before he went out the gate. I DO NOT THINK I COULD HAVE GONE ONE MORE DAY WITHOUT THAT INFORMATION!

Jason was at work since it was 10:00 AM on a Tuesday morning. He worked 30 minutes away and carpooled with some other men so it wasn't possible for him to come home. I opened the package without him becase there was no way I could have waited until 6pm to open it with him. Instead, I scanned the photos and sent them to him at work. Hopefully, I was on the phone with him too but I don't remember that part.





We would not get to meet Wren until October 30, 2006 - two months away.

Oh yeah, and looking back at my emails, we still hadn't decided on a name. On that same Tuesday, after we had gotten the UPS package, I had sent an email to Jason asking him to pick his favorite name out of my list. We had discussed names but we still weren't sure. My top three choices were Wren, Fiona and Livia. Jason didn't like Livia but he did like Guinevive - except I said I would call her Vivi and he didn't like that. I also liked the name Mary Stuart (since Stuart is my grandfather's and brother's name). But if you remember your English history, Jason said that Mary Stuart was Mary Queen of Scots and that her cousin Elizabeth I had beheaded her. Wren's cousin is named Elizabeth Ryan and Jason didn't think that had good karma. We both liked the name Fiona but I just had a hard time seeing a Chinese Fiona. So, Wren it was!

And one more thing, it took a couple of weeks, but I was eventually fell in love with those referral pictures before we traveled to China! :-)

Guess who came to Huntsville...

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Yep! The Wiggles.

And now guess who were two of the suckers who took their kid...
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Right again! It was us! But it was fun. :-)



The Big Red Car!
Toot toot, chugga chugga, Big Red car. We’ll travel near and we’ll travel far.
Toot toot, chugga chugga, Big Red car. We’re gonna ride the whole day long.

The Wiggles on stage


Henry the Octopus, Dorothy the Dinosaur, and Wags the Dog


I like Dorothy!


A little ballet.


Wren was taking it all in.


Here they come in their big red car!


Wren liked the ballet dancing.


Gettin' into the groove.


Yep, we call her Crazy Legs!


Good night Wiggles! It was fun!