Sunday, July 29, 2007

We've been on VACATION!


Can we eat this?


Paintin' pottery






Surfing the waves was "the bomb"!



Why not sit on these buckets?


I'm a babe!!


I am so happy!


The" donut hole" near Seaside!


Beach house steps ....

In the past, we were big vacationers, but over the last two years, we have spent less and less time just relaxing. This past week was awesome for all of us and everyone got something out of the trip! Dan and I had great talks, read two books together, Rock Solid Marriage and Five Love Languages, two great books that were so insightful and helpful to continue our journey together and build strength in our marriage. Thank you Tammy N. for being such an amazing sister in Christ and introducing us to these two books, the timing was perfect!

Grace and Mimi each found their own" wow" moments on this trip... Grace continues to grow closer to Jesus as her heart is changing, we are beginning to see God show her himself and the cool part is that she knows it! MiMi is just too cute and as only MiMi can do so well, she discovers all the unique things we wouldn't ever see! The unusual crabs, the rainbow after the storm, the jellyfish that washed up on the beach, the biggest crab claw ever ....

On an adoption note .... we got our I-797 back just before we left and when we came home we had almost all the other documents back from "out there" in paperchase world, so now it's finish up the final few Consulate packs and then get everything to Jaime, hopefully before August 10th! This is our goal and our timeline is really getting close, but we feel confident everything should be to China before the end of August! yea!

School starts in a week and a half! We all feel ready, rested and excited to get the school year started! As MiMi says, let's get this party started!!








Wednesday, July 11, 2007

An awesome person!

"Qi Pan" by Zhoa Kailin

Wanted to pass this info along and share this wonderful foundation with you if you haven't ever checked this out. The foundation www.lovewithoutboundaries.com is awesome and serves the children in China through volunteers. They asked this artist Zhoa Kailin if he would do a painting for LWB to use as a fundraiser and he agreed. He is from Bengbu, Anhui Province, China and returned to his home town to photograph children in this orphanage to choose one to depict the Chinese orphan. He hasn't ever painted an orphan before this work. The foundation LWB is selling this "giclee" the highest quality reproduction through their website, you can find it on the home page.
Ours is being shipped!

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Home Sweet Home!


"The Wait" perfected!!

Welcome home sign holders!

My Grandma!


Who are all these people daddy?



I love my mommy!!




The Daniel's family .... that sounds soo good!

Our sweet friends, who have become like family, are back from China! Dan and I are so thankful to have been part of this amazing journey and have learned so much from Jay and Angela during their long two year wait. We have been very fortunate over the past two years to experience true community with this awesome family; the good stuff, the unknown, desperate uncertain times, and then the ultimate seeing them receive a wonderful "gift" only God could give them! Wow....we are blessed, they are blessed and sweet Laney is blessed! It doesn't get much better than this......


Sunday, July 1, 2007

Princess Camp

Dancing to "celebrate" good times....!

Princess MiMi

The Princess Grace!

Dancing and dressing up to the Disney princess characters and songs for three hours a day for an entire week now that is right up the Chapman girls alley!