~~Happy Birthday ZoraLin~~

It is just so hard to believe that our Guangdong, Buddha baby has grown up and is now EIGHT years old!! Since we were going out of town Saturday, we had to give her present to her early. Especially since it was a suitcase! How do you go out of town and not have a suitcase to pack?!! So Saturday morning she was excited to find her suitcase and robe in Mom and Dad's bedroom. So shocked that she really didn't know what to say for a while! Speechless she was! Then she says, "But my birthday isn't until Monday!" Okay I felt just a little bad for actually trying to surprise her with something that she had been bugging us that she needed! She just wasn't ready for the surprise, so obviously she did not have her self psyched up for the gift.

At school today we surprised her by showing up with cake, drinks and a balloon for her. Of course, she was not going to admit she was surprised! Never saw a cake disappear so fast!

This evening found us going to ZoraLin's pick to eat supper. Red Lobster was her choice. They came over to the table with a piece of Chocolate Wave cake and sang to Zora. Let the sugar high begin!!

Happy Birthday sweetie!! We love you!!! (Will add photos later on....time for night, night!)

Busy~~busy!!

We hit the ground running this weekend. Friday my van was back in the shop for repairs. Over 140,000 miles and they tell me has a lot more left on it! I sometimes wonder if they are telling me that because I am a good customer and keep bringing it back in to be worked on?!! How do you tell when it is time to park it and move on to the next vehicle? Do the wheels actually have to literally fall off?

Then Saturday morning we were up pretty early getting things packed to go see Bubby, aka Nicholas, graduate from High School. Actually, graduation was this afternoon at 5pm and the girls had to be at their dance studio at 7pm for photos for their recital program next week.





Nick's mom had three life sized cutouts of him over the past 18 years. The girls posed with their brother!



So we arrive in Great Bend for Bubby's party. The girls had a great time! There was a candy bar set up at the party and even though they had strict orders to only have one....the girls consumed enough candy=energy to light Las Vegas for one night! After entertaining....er, was it annoying everyone at the party for a few hours, off we go to the hotel room. Okay, so I headed back to the hotel room, helped the girls get in their swim suits and then Bubby and his girlfriend....aka Delaney or should we call her Pinkie?.....took the girls swimming.

I will almost be ready to go back to work this week!!

Tessa's Journey

We do have a special site for Tessa's Journey. Or you can go to Journey to Me and click on Adoption Journey's and look for Tessa JiXing.

We will be blogging to the Journey to Me site while in China as Blogspot is blocked.

The extra photos are there too!

New photos of Tessa!!!

What a wonderful day to wake up to THREE new photos of Tessa JiXing in my inbox!! Now if we could just get travel approval!!

Here she is!!



What???? You expected all three photos here??

~~Happy Birthday Kendalan~~

Yesterday was the BIG day that Kendalan has been talking about for months now! She was FIVE years old! We sang her Happy Birthday early in the morning and she tried to decide all day where she wanted to eat her Birthday Supper. She changed her mind many, many times throughout the day and finally decided on "Olive Garden" Great choice! We then came home and celebrated with more singing, cake and presents! She blew me kisses at OG and then gave me her million dollar smile that lights up my life!!

She has just blossomed and grown up right under our noses! She is tiny but mighty and has no problem telling us how it is going to be! She was moping around the house this morning and I asked her "Why the long face?" She says, "I thought when I turned 5 that I would be bigger than this!" Trying to keep a straight face I assured her that she has been growing all along and that no one will be instantly bigger on their birthday. She was pretty unhappy that she was pretty much the same size today as she was when she went to bed last night! Our Little Miss Princess Diva, her cake, sisters and of course, her crown!! We love you sweetie!! XOXO!!








Second birthday.............


Third birthday.............

KC Zoo

Yesterday we met up with our friends Gary, Sophie and Zia Joy at the Kansas City Zoo. It was a beautiful day! This was our first trip to the KC zoo and I am sure it will not be our last! We headed out to Africa and saw giraffe, zebra, elephants, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, ostrich, baboons, chimpanzee, gazelle, meerkat, lions and more! We barely scratched the surface of all the animals there.

Kendalan was excited to see Zia!


We had to stop and take photo ops along the way. Beautiful girls + waterfall= pretty photo!



It was hard to get the girls to turn around to look at us for a photo. The elephant is much more entertaining than parents are!



After trekking through Africa, we stopped to enjoy the picnik lunch we had packed. Then with renewed strength we headed back up the hill toward Australia.


By this time Zia Joy was ready for her nap, so she took her Mommy and Daddy home while the VanCamp girls searched on to see what else we could find. Daddy decided it was time to rest in the shade and watch our wagon. We decided to see what the Discovery Barn was all about and the girls would have spent the next several hours playing in there it it hadn't been for their weary Mom saying, "Let's come back a different day."

Bunny sightings!

The Easter bunny hopped through our lives very quickly and silently this past week. Along with leaving goodies for the girls the bunny also brought us a touch of spring!