New Shanghai Circus

After doing a little shopping at the Tanger Outlet Shops in the morning, Monday afternoon we attended the 3pm Acrobats show. Our family went to this two years ago for the Chinese Children's Reunion. They told us that the show is brand new this year. It does have some of the same things that we have seen before. I was disappointed that they have taken the drummers out of the show, but the show was still great!






It was over way too soon and it was time for L. and her family to head back home. We decided that it was time for some home cooking. After a quick stop at the grocery store, we were back at our home away from home and I cooked supper. The girls wanted to go swimming after we ate and were very unhappy that the pool was closed!! What?!?! And it doesn't reopen until we leave Wednesday!! I bet the management could feel the wrath of my angry girls!!

~~Spring break~~

We have been waiting for this since Christmas time. Spring break!! Time for a change of scenery! We packed early Saturday morning, dropped the dog off at the kennel and drove to Branson!



We are not only getting a break, we are getting a chance to see L. and her family! L. was adopted the same day, from the same place Tessa was. We spent a lot of our time in China with L. and her family and we are so excited to get to spend time with them now!





Everyone came over to our digs last night. While the kids became reacquainted, we adults caught up.





Bright and early this morning we headed to Silver Dollar City! (Or as we now fondly think of it "Steal your Dollar City" ouch...it is expensive!!) Our first time there. The kids had a total blast riding the rides. You can tell from the smiles on their faces that the kids were excited!! It was hard to get them to break for lunch! Then we moved on to another area of the park. It was a beautiful day to be there. Sunny, warm almost hot and the perfect weather for enjoying friends and a fun place to be. The kids really enjoyed the rides!






The last couple of rides that we did were water related. It was a good thing too as my face was getting sunburned and I needed some cooling off! Of course, the most popular ride at the park requires the longest waiting time...90 minutes later we were on the boat and away we went! Funny how fast the girls forgot how bored they were in line and all the moaning and groaning about having to wait so long turned into "can we ride that again?"

The day flew by and before we knew it the park was closing. After dinner our family came back to our home away from home and four of the girls decided they needed a bath in the big tub. It was more of a party than a bath!




The major frustration of our trip so far....internet access has been fickle. Who'd of thunk that of all the international travel that we do and here we are in Missouri and I can't upload photos to the blog!! Stay tuned for photos!!!

Always something unexpected!

It began like any other school day. The bus pulls away from the house and a sudden quiet settles over the house. Then the phone rings....school nurse says that Kendalan is in her office with a low grade temperature. So Daddy picks her up and brings her home. Mom rechecks her temp and now it is one degree higher than the nurse reported. I start with the Mommy interrogation...do you hurt anywhere? Is your throat sore? She admits that her tummy "kind of" hurts. After poking around I narrow the area down to the right lower portion. Then I check her temp again....it is now almost 1 degree higher than it was about 30 minutes ago. I holler at Daddy to have him call the peds nurse. It wasn't long before we had the call.."Take her to the emergency room."

It was a very (very, very!) long wait once we arrived at noon, but at 7:30 p.m. she was wheeled off to the operating table to have her appendix removed.



Even though she was feeling pretty bad at this minute after the IV was started..my girl can still manage a weak smile when the camera comes out!!!

She was checked into her room after 9:30 p.m. Needless to say, Mom did not get much sleep last night! Daddy came in this morning to relieve Mom so she could run home and have a shower....and I thought grab a nap.

Then another call from the nurse...Tessa has a temp!! So off to the school to bring home a very sleepy Tessa, who other than a little fever and her "legs aching" has been okay since she arrived home. Mommy and Tessa did get about a 90 minute nap and off to the hospital we went. We switch...Daddy takes Tessa back home while Mommy stays with Kendalan to bring her home. It is now 8:30 p.m. and all the girls are tucked into their beds.

Just another day at the VanCamp house!!


Daddy gets a free "cat scan" at our house...too bad insurance doesn't pay for this!!

What's going on at our house.

From the lack of posts here on the blog you would think that we have been watching the dust bunnies multiply and grow. You'd be wrong!

RaeAnne and her Mom have been attending Starbase every Thursday for the past 5 weeks. This week will be their last. I think I have enjoyed it almost as much as Rae! The kids have had a lot of hands on experience while learning about physics, math and how things tick! One week they had fun seeing what would happen if you mix Alka Seltzer and water inside a film cannister. The results were Exploding Fun! We toured the refueling plane and actually got to lay in the tail of the plane where the person lowers the boom to refuel another plane while in the air! And sitting in the captains seat at the front of the plane was not too shabby either. Unfortunately, we did not have photo clearance for the plane :(




They have also learned the importance of safety devices and used "Eggbert" to see how well they could combine their efforts and supplies to protect him on his flight. Only two became scrambled out of seven!

Jordis made a trip to Express Care last week. Diagnosis of tonsilitis and allergic reaction came from that trip. Poor girl didn't suffer much from the tonsilitis, but the allergic reaction was miserable for a few days!




We are getting excited for spring break to be here soon. We will be taking a few days off to Branson and we are really excited to meet up with a family that we met in China and get Tessa and their daughter back together again as they are both from LongGang.

Eight years ago.......

Thanks to my friend Debby for reminding me that 8 years ago today our lives forever changed!


In the Guangdong Provincial Civil Affairs Bureau office we were handed a nine month old, 21 pound armful of JOY! ZoraLin MeiHe quietly arrived accompanied by her orphanage director and a nanny. She was taking in everything that happened around her and very intently checking out these new people in her life. She didn't utter any noises, didn't fuss, didn't cry, she just took us all in. Her new big sister, RaeAnne YuQi, was very busy playing with the toys and took a brief look at this new addition and ran back to play! Big brother, Nicholas was just smiling and watching. When I handed Zora to her Daddy, that little girl wrapped him around her little finger in one heartbeat!




Now that girl is 8 years old going on 25! If something is missing in the house we turn to ZoraLin as she knows everything that is going on! She has accompanied me twice to China to get new siblings and each time "Mini-mom" Zora has saved the trip with her ability to take over showing her sister how things are done and how things will be in the house of Zora!!





Those that know us are aware that ZoraLin has ADHD and living with her has it's ups and downs. When she is good, she is VERY good and when she is BAD....LOOK OUT! But even when she is BAD we can't help but love her to pieces!




We met ZoraLin 8 years ago and Forever Family Day is tomorrow, but she was ours from the get-go! Even if she is giving me the stink eye we love this girl all the way to the moon and back!!

Busy days

While I have been slowly regaining my strength...I can now walk all the way up the stairs without stopping halfway to catch my breath! Life has not been standing still at home.

We took big Bro out to celebrate his Forever Family Day a few days early. We had some good food and fun at Red Robin.





This past weekend we went to visit our travelmates and help celebrate their little girl's 3rd Birthday. We had a great time visiting and watching the kids play. Amazing how much these kiddos change and grow in 6 months time!! And it is always fun to have adult conversations!!

Did you get the number of that bus......

That ran over me?!! Funny how life is just swinging along, singing a song and then BAM! Some thing jumped on board my body and the rest is history!!

I was going about my usual routine. Worked all day Thursday, had Friday off and then back to work Saturday. Other than having some residual headache from quitting my Coca Cola habit cold turkey, I was feeling fine. Sunday the girls were busy playing Wii, Daddy was busy watching football and I decided to take a couple of naps. One long nap in the morning and then another in the afternoon. Dishes were caught up, laundry too. Until Sunday night when I started having the fever and chills and nausea...I had been doing great up until that point! BAM!! By 10:30pm I had a fever of 103.5 and was feeling pretty abused. Daddy kept wanting me to call the ambulance to take me to the hospital and I kept telling him that I would probably be told that I have a 24 hour bug that just needs to run it's course. Fast forward to Monday AM and now my temperature is 104.7 and I am dry heaving. Okay, my doctor tells my husband to take me directly to the ER....no stopping!!

So....now I have a much greater perspective of what it feels like to be a patient with pneumonia! And oh no! I can't just go in for a quick patch me up and sent me home visit. I had to stay there from Monday afternoon till Saturday afternoon!!

Then as much as I was excited to come home and sleep in my own bed....there were things that I missed about the hospital. It just sucks to lay in bed and need something and the only way you are going to get it is get up and get it yourself! Call lights are a very nice thing to have when you are as weak as a kitten!!

However, after the first week and one half home, I am glad to say that I am slowly regaining my strength. I will have to admit that I am a pansy! Two women that I work with both came down with pneumonia and they were working through their pain. Gotta love them, they are much younger than I am and I just did not feel like pushing myself to go back to work before my body was up to it.

So I am slowly trying to build up my stamina and strength to be able to go back to work. I am happy that I can finally make it all the way up the stairs without stopping to catch my breath half way up. This is a major accomplishment!

In the meantime, Tessa had her sedated MRI of her heart. The verdict was: really not anything seen on the MRI that the 3 D echo had not already shown them. So the pediatric cardiologist will visit with her colleges and let us know what their recommendations are. Tessa continues to do absolutely amazing! Her weak spot is reading, but I can't imagine what it would be like to learn one language and then all of a sudden switch to a completely different one!





She also had a dentist appointment last week. Two cavities! Today she went in and had them filled and she did great! They used the nitrous oxide on her and it put her right to sleep! She wanted to do an impromptu photo shoot for me the other day. She kept running around to different areas in the living room and would demand, "Taka picture Mom!" So I obliged! She is just cute as a button!!





I love the one where Oreo's tail is in her face!! Funny how much she loves the critters in our house now. Not too long ago she was petrified of them....now she can't get enough of them!!