My little cutie!

Recently every time I get the camera out to get a quick picture of something Andrew or Anslee is doing, Anslee runs and sits by the wall. She tries to get there so quickly that she's run headfirst into the wall several times. This time she made it without injury.

Doesn't she have the most adorable little face?!

Friends

When we adopted from China, there were nine other families with us. Our agency is located in Ohio so most of the families are from that area. The closest family to us lives in Florida. They are also the most similar family to ours. They have a son Andrew's age and they are around Keith and my age. We were so excited to plan a time for them to come stay with us! I'm not sure why some of these pictures are blurry...

Anslee and MaKenna had fun together.

Stephanie and the girls.

Stephanie and her mom brought gifts for everyone. Andrew loved his new shirt. Anslee's shirt has "it's my brothers fault" printed on it.

Both Andrew and Noah adore their baby sisters!

It was a great visit. I wish they lived closer.

T

swim lessons

I love taking Andrew to his swim lessons. At 8am no one besides us and the lifeguard is there. It's quiet, the water is still and the temperature is perfect. Andrew has made so much improvement since the beginning of the summer.

Andrew can now tread water for two minutes

Anslee brings her baby her friend Elizabeth gave her. She has several Asian babies but she only wants this blue eyed one.

Andrew learned how to swim the length of the pool. He can do freestyle, backstroke and breaststroke. He wanted nothing to do with me teaching him to swim. This lifeguard was great! He's ready to go to the Y and pass the swim test there.

Anslee loved watching Andrew swim and would try to pull his head up when he came by. She is a little fish ~ already trying to swim and sticking her head underwater and blowing bubbles.

Remember when I told the story about the grumpy people in front of our seats on the way home from Arizona? Well how much better behaved can you be than this??

Anslee loooooves her dada.

T

An interesting article

Official Calls for More Efforts to Curb Gender Imbalance

Curbing the gender imbalance in China's birth rate must be a top priority of the government, a senior official said in Beijing Tuesday.

The gender imbalance was a complicated issue which needed strong leadership and coordinated efforts from the public, State Councilor Hua Jianmin told a tele-conference marking World Population Day.

Budgets for the government's "Care for Girls" program, initiated in 2003 to promote the social status of women, must be guaranteed by local governments, and departments of family planning, publicity, public security, health and food and drug supervision must step up cooperation, said Hua.

The State Council would dispatch teams to the regions at the end of the year to inspect the work, and would discipline those who failed to do a good job, he said.

More public awareness campaigns on family planning and gender equality were needed and neo-natal services should be improved.

In addition, preferential policies should be ensured for girls and women in healthcare, education and employment. Law enforcement officials must crack down on gender identification and abortion without a medical purpose and the abandonment of newborn girls, Hua said.

China has 80 million one-child families. The gender imbalance has become a serious issue in recent few years because many families, especially those in rural areas, prefer boys to girls.

China has 119 boys born for every 100 girls, while the global ratio is 103-107 boys for every 100 girls.

(Xinhua News Agency July 12, 2006)

We are loving the pool this summer and have even more fun when friends come swim with us. This is Andrew and his friend Matthew.


My friend Julie came over with her children Matthew and Elizabeth. Anslee just adores Elizabeth and tries to copy everthing she does.

Grandma Ruthie and Pop were the reason we all were in Sedona. They celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary. Can you imagine being married for 65 years?! I have never seen two people more in love.


Andrew, Anslee and Keith's Aunt Glenda checking out a snake.
Andrew and his cousin Clayton in the pool. Does Clayton look familiar? He played Ethan on the Disney show Lizzie McGuire.
Keith's sister Kathy, her daughter Alex, Aunt Glenda, Uncle Steve and cousin Doug. Anslee is reaching for the pool. She loved swimming.
Eating lunch at the Hideaway. They have the best salad I've ever had. Andrew's other cousin Devin (in the white shirt) was here too.
Andrew loved hanging out with his "big cousins". They were all so sweet to both he and Anslee and played with them constantly.

T

Helicopter Trip over the Grand Canyon

If you are going to the Grand Canyon take a helicopter ride over it! It was incredible. I was concerned I was going to feel sick on the ride but it was so smooth that it wasn't a problem at all.




Nana kept Anslee in Sedona. The ride to the airport was an hour and a half and she probably wouldn't have appreciated being in a helicopter after that.
Andrew loved the trip and thought the Canyon was amazing.

Blazin M Ranch

The Blazin M Ranch was about 30 miles away from Sedona in Cottonwood. To get there we drove straight through the desert.


Andrew is learning how to rope a steer. He and Keith bought cowboy boots. Andrew also got a cowboy shirt. Even though it was hot he had to wear his new shirt, jeans and his boots.

Keith and Andrew also shot guns at targets. Andrew is very proud of his. He said that was his favorite thing about the trip.
We had a chuckwagon dinner before the show. We ate on tin plates and drank out of tin cups.

We had a blast in Arizona! Keith's mom (Nana), sister and her daughter came with us. Keith's aunt and uncle and cousins came down from California. We all were in Sedona to celebrate Keith's grandparents 65th wedding anniversary.

We were on the go the entire time. We swam a ton, went to a wild west show at the Blazin M Ranch, took a helicopter tour over the Grand Canyon, shopped and visited with family.

Andrew and Anslee loved all the wildlife we saw. We saw quail, rabbits, hummingbirds and a coyote in our front yard.

We saw a tarantula on a raft in the pool. We got him out and put him near his hole but he hung out beside the pool all afternoon.


We also loved seeing all the different cactus. The saguaro is just incredible! Driving out of Phoenix we saw a ton of saguaro and then I guess at a certain altitude they don't grow as well.


Anslee and Andrew were both great on the plane rides out and back. The three people sitting in front of us coming back were so rude. They loudly said "Oh great, we have to sit in front of two kids!"
Andrew accidentally knocked the seat in front of him and the woman turned around and started telling Andrew that he better not be doing that the entire trip. When the plane landed they all turned friendly and said that the children were so well behaved they didn't even remember they were back there. Keith and I didn't even respond...

I've heard people from out west say that the east feels claustophobic because you can't see because of the trees. I love Sedona and the landscape but flying into Atlanta and seeing green everywhere is a wonderful feeling.

Happy trails!
Terri

I had to post a picture of Anslee "highchair surfing". She sat down on the tray as soon as she realized I had walked into the room.

T

Packing

Keith and I are completely different in the way we get ready for a trip. Keith wants to be packed and ready to go days in advance. He wants everything to be totally organized. I can be organized but not when I'm packing. I want to be, but for some reason I am a pack the night before kinda person. It doesn't help that I detest packing...

So to help make the night before a little less stressful, I've been trying to pack yesterday and today but a certain little one has been making it difficult. If I can't see her she is destroying something or putting herself in imminent danger ~in ways I couldn't even imagine!

The best time to pack is when Anslee is doing this:

Here is a list of a few of Anlsee's recent milestones:
*She can now open the front door (when no one is looking) and run for the street.
*She can pull Buster by his tail the entire length of the kitchen.
*She can reach the light above the kitchen table by putting the booster on top of the table and standing on it.
*She can empty all the drawers in my dresser in less than 2 minutes.
*She can balance on top of the tray of her high chair and push herself to make the highchair roll (kinda like surfing) with a sucker in her mouth.

Oh, and did I mention she did all these things before lunch time today?
sigh...maybe I'll just wait to pack tomorrow night.

Terri

Keith found the cutest little turtle in the backyard. Andrew and his friends played with it for a little while and then took it back near the creek and let it go.

Anslee wanted to give it a kiss but luckily she wasn't able to get that close to it's face.
The "mount tski tsoki" in the background of the second picture has been the most fun sprinkler. It has mist coming out of it's ears and then when the eyes open all the way a huge spray of water comes out of the top. Too bad we have a watering ban now because the kids can't play in it!

Happy Father's Day, and Portraits

Happy Father's Day to the two most wonderful men I know! I love you both!

I had no idea that having pictures made could be such a great workout. On Friday I took Andrew and Anslee to get pictures. Anslee did not want to cooperate at all. Every time we put her somewhere she immediately got up and would run away laughing.
Her favorite face to make was blowing raspberries. Cute, but not the picture I had in mind.
The photographer wanted Andrew to hold Anslee for a picture. The combination of their slippery silk outfits, Anslee being a wiggle worm and Andrew trying to lift all 21 pounds of her made this picture not a great idea.
The photographer took about 105 pictures and amazingly enough got some reallly great shots. The pictures below are two of my favorites. They looked even better once they were cropped, zoomed in and changed to black and white.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Terri

Today at our neighborhood pool, I met the nicest family. All three of the children were visiting our pool to take swim lessons from one of our lifeguards. After the lesson, the mom was letting her children swim for a bit. Every time the mom would speak to her children in Chinese, Anslee would look up and watch her.

We started talking and I found out that she is from North West China near Russia. She's lived here for about 12 years and speaks excellent english. She said her Chinese church offers Chinese language classes and gave me the name of her church and location which is really close by. We also exchanged phone numbers so we can get together some.

She talked to Anslee some in Chinese but Anslee didn't like it. She ran away. I know when Keith and I say her name in Chinese (Fu Bao He) that it doesn't sound like it did from the nannies. We say it "Foo Bow Huh". When the mom said it she said it more like "Feeew Baaow huuuah" and the first part of huu is said in a lower tone and then ah goes up . Anslee seemed like she didn't remember her name ever being said that way.

I'm excited about the prospect of getting Andrew in these classes since they are so much closer to home than where we've been looking. The classes start at kindergarten age so Anslee will have to wait a little while to start taking them.

Terri

Long summer days...

Andrew and his friend Jack could play for 24 hours without stopping. On this day we went to the pool, played in the sprinklers, drew with sidewalk chalk, made crafts inside, played gamecube, jumped on the trampoline, explored down by the creek (where they found deer and rabbit poop and were so excited to show me) and played with Anslee. I didn't have to find them anything to do and not once did either one say they were bored. Summer days like this are the greatest!!

Lunch with Nana

We went to eat lunch with Nana at her office. Andrew loves to eat in the cafeteria in her building. We chose our lunches (Andrew wanted the salad bar and had cottage cheese, black olives, mushrooms and a hard boiled egg!) and went to Nana's office to eat. Her friend Sandy sat with us while we ate and couldn't stop laughing at Anslee. Anslee didn't eat much but she had it all over her.

After we ate, we went outside to feed the turtles. You aren't supposed to feed the geese but they were quick to steal the bread and cheerios. Keith came home the other day with this Braves jersey for Andrew (which he has been wearing every day since) and the cutest Georgia Bulldog dress for Anslee.

The baby geese were adorable and we couldn't help but to throw them a little food. I think Anslee ate more of the bread than she fed the turtles or geese.
Andrew loves turtles! The last time he visited Nana here the turtles were hibernating, so it was exciting to see so many today. Anslee is excited to see any animal. She thinks they are so funny.

Terri

Chinese Playgroup

Our Chinese playgroup is so much fun! We do lots of different things and go to some really great places although I think the girls enjoy playing at someone's house the most. Andrew really enjoyed getting to meet everyone. Anslee is the youngest right now, but she is able to keep up with everyone. Several families weren't able to attend for this playgroup. Many families have two daughters from China and a couple have their dossiers in for their second child.

Andrew is trying to round up all the girls for a picture.

Everyone is assembled but some aren't happy about it!

Terri

Three Gorges Dam

I have read that the dam is necessary but it makes me so sad... Millions of peoples homes will be underwater and entire cities will be covered. Anslee's home town of Fuling will be mostly underwater. Her orphanage, Yehi Primary School where she was found, and probably her birth parents home where she was born (but we'll never know where that was) will all be gone. We are going to take her back to China one day and it makes me sad that she won't be able to see these places.

Three Gorges Dam opens with bang
Jun. 7, 2006. 01:00 AM
CHRIS HAWKE
ASSOCIATED PRESS

BEIJING—Chinese engineers yesterday blew up a temporary barrier used during construction of the Three Gorges Dam, unleashing the full force of the Yangtze River on the world's largest hydroelectric project.
The 2.2-kilometre-long Three Gorges Dam now assumes its role in controlling the deadly floods that have regularly ravaged China's farming heartland.
The 12-second series of blasts sent the 30-metre top section of the cofferdam tumbling into the river, the official Xinhua news agency reported. A cofferdam is a watertight chamber pumped dry to allow building work to be carried out under water.
The blast created 190,000 cubic metres of concrete fragments, said Li Yong'an, general manager of the Three Gorges Project, Xinhua reported.
Officials zapped the water with electric pulses to drive away fish ahead of the blast, it reported. Ultrasonic monitoring showed 90 per cent of the fish fled, it said, citing professor Tan Xichang from the Water Biological Engineering Institute.
The Three Gorges Dam was completed last month, but it will not be fully operational until 2009. It is designed to eventually produce 22.4 million kilowatts of electricity — enough to light up Shanghai on a peak day with power to spare. Some 190 tonnes of dynamite were laid inside the temporary dam, which was 580 metres long and 140 metres high, it reported.
The water level of the Three Gorges Reservoir will rise from the current height of 135 metres to 156 metres after the summer flood season is over, it reported. At its full height, waters are likely to rise to 175 metres.

Summer

I think for the first time since Keith and I have had children, this summer feels so perfect. Andrew's first summer was scary for us because we were so worried about him. The second summer Keith was running T.S. Morrison's in Asheville, N.C., we weren't making much money and our 1930 house needed tons of work. The next summer we were in Knoxville, TN. Keith wasn't loving his job and we didn't love Knoxville. The next few summers we were trying to have another baby and kept having miscarriages. Last summer we were waiting for Anslee.

This summer already has the relaxed feeling of my childhood summers. We've been grilling out a lot, doing lots of things with family and friends, playing outside and going to the pool every day.

For the first time in years I feel settled as a family. The happiness I feel is way more than I ever could have hoped for!
Terri