The beginning of a long awaited dream come true:


 
We are finally getting into a routine around here.  It has been a hectic week.  Today is Super Bowl Sunday We are all ready for church.  Dennis' dad had a triple bypass on Monday and then suffered a stroke.  I have had 2 separate eye surgeries since we have been home.
  

 
Dennis has been sick.  Lillia has giardia.  My parents have retired and took the motor home to Phoenix.  Other than that, life goes on.

We are ready to go to CCAI's play group.

 

  
We are going with Marla and Kaitlynn to a Chinese Buffet with about 10 other mothers.   Doesn't Lillia look cute all dressed up in her Chinese outfit?  I think she really is happier here now.
 

 
Dennis and I took the kids to CCAI to drop off the receipts for Michael, our representative in Nanning.  We are with Denise and Kat, standing in front of the big map of China.  After going to China we realize what a wonderful agency we have, but we knew that before too.  These people are the greatest.

Brother and Sister.

 

 
Here is the picture of the blanket we bought.  It is huge and so thick and big.  We have it on our bed and it is so warm. I don't know if this picture shows everything really well, but here is some of the stuff that we bought in China.  It looks like a lot but we wish we would have bought more.  We are sending money with poor Dan & Mary.  They leave on Wednesday to get their second daughter!!!!!!!!
 

 
Here are some of the pearls that we bought.  I wish I would have bought a couple more strands, they made wonderful gifts and were very inexpensive. We had 3 granite carvings made while we were in Guangzhou.  The first one is a picture on my brother's 6 kids.  
 

 
The second one is a picture of our kids.  They turned out really well.  We brought the pictures with us and it took a couple of days for them to be finished.  I also had my other 2 nephews pictures done, but I already gave that one to my sister-in-law This is a Chinese silk painting that we bought from Michael at the dragon shop.
 

 

Doctor visit day.  Lillia received 4 shots and gave very reluctantly 5 vials of blood.  She tested negative for AIDS, Hepatitis, lead, TB, and everything else.  Positive on giardia.  I guess she has been sharing her food with some unwanted guests.  I guess that is why she had

Lillia's Birthday.  We celebrated Lillia's first birthday with Uncle Will and Aunt Sharon.  

 

 

We ate at our favorite Chinese Restaurant, 4 Seasons Asian Grill.  Lillia is wearing her birthday dress from Grandma Friesen.

I wish we had more pictures of her Big Birthday Bash.  Here is the only digital picture that we took.  Lillia enjoying her cake.  She ate the whole piece of chocolate cake.  We had such a fun party.  We invited everyone we could think of.  Among her guests were us, of course, Roger, Laurie, Alyssa, Morgan, Jim, Stephanie, Briana, Devon, Steve, Lee Anne, Erika, Dan, Mary, Mackenzie, Dave, Sheri, Jessie, Mark, Julie, Alyssia, Jessika, Bobby, Doreen, Karissa, Jayne, Jacob, Joshua, Ryan, our friends who we traveled with to China, Pete, Teresa, Anna, Brian, Lynn, Alexis, and Samantha.  I hope I didn't forget anyone.  We had everyone bring a Chinese take-out dish and we had a big buffet.  Thank you for coming everyone.  It was great!  I will add some more birthday pictures when I get them.

 

 
This is Emma at the beach.  Jen and Emma had a blast at the beach in South Carolina while we were here shoveling snow.  Thanks Jen for thinking of us. Here is a picture of Emma that Jen emailed to me.  I think she looks so beautiful in green.  We really miss them.

This page was last updated on 08/24/06.