Bright spots in some dark times..................

Hi Everyone,

           We thank everyone for their care and concern that we've received over the past few weeks.   We regret having to say that one of our parents had a serious stroke this past weekend.  Needless to say all our attention and thoughts have been focused on seeing our loved one make the best recovery possible.    In this tough time, we've learned that posessions are just things and loved ones are all that matters.    We've also learned that there can be bright spots in times of darkness and Lily and Andrew are our bright spots.   Well, our little cat can be too.   Here are some pictures of us settling into our rental home.

One week later

Hi Everyone,

     Here we are one week later.  Still thankfull that we all got out of the fire completely unharmed.   Our home and all our posessions were declared a total loss by the insurance company.   The fire traveled up through our interior walls according to the fire fighters really fast.   Things were either damaged by the flames, smoke, heat, water or force from the firefighters.   Walking through our home the first time was very shocking and emotional.   It is hard to process the loss and terrifying to realize how much danger we were in.   So what do we do now?   It feels like a million things.    We moved from my parents to a long term stay hotel (not my thing) to a regular hotel (much nicer).   We have secured a long term rental home.   The amazing thing is it's right next door our old home.   Our neighbor's house has sat empty during this housing market.   We will move in Monday or Tuesday.   Our insurance pays for a company to furnish the home.  I spent an hour yesterday talking to the housing people and we'll be supplied with everything from couches, beds, tables and chairs to pots/pans and trash cans.   Apparently all I do is show up and let folks in.  Sentimental items have been retrieved from the home and are off to special companies to restore them.   When you think of the things you want to recover, we got many of them.  We've been able to get our wedding album; paintings my mother in law painted, photo albums, scrapbook albums, the box of items Bill bought for Lily in China, adoption documents, tax documents, sentimental knick-knacks like the crystal candlesticks we received as a wedding gift.    Laptops, cameras and jewelry were given to us by the firefighters and those are being cleaned and restored as well.   Most of the kids posessions, i.e. toys, are not salvagable.    So, I've been trying to order or pick up a few of their favorites.    New car keys were made and we can now both drive.     Next week, we are going to try to get somewhat back into our normal routine though I'm sure Bill and I will continue to have a million things to do.   We are waiting to hear from the insurance's estimate on what it will cost to rebuild our home.    We will then have to figure out what we do next.  After that, it's on to doing an inventory of all our items................     

Update

As many people know, we had a house fire this past weekend.   We were/are so very fortunate that everyone including our pet cat made it out completely unharmed.     Since the fire, we have had some tough moments.   The support, kindness and generosity of so many wonderful people has been overwhelming.  How we wish we could take the time to call and thank everyone individually.    At this time, we are struggling with accepting so many generous items because we have no room to store them in the hotel.  It sounds crazy doesn't it?  The people who have nothing are struggling to accept gifts, but it is true.   All that everyone has done means so much to us.  Thank you for helping us through this tough time.

Lily's Dance Recital

Some scrapbook pages

Our Weekend Away

We decided to take the kids away for a few days and headed down to Cincy.    The weather was beautiful for the drive and the kids got a lot of energy out at a great playground  near the hotel.    Bill got his wish to eat at Uncle Yip's.  Saturday we had a great time at the Natural History Museum as well as the Children's Museum.    Truthfully, the kids probably loved the pool the most.  We visited the giant pool a total of 4 times and the kids would have gone 4 more.   Lily can swim so well now and Andrew's confidence has grown greatly in the water. He walked the edge of the pool the whole time say "Look!  I'm on my tippy-toes!"   Sunday was completed with a fabulous dim sum lunch (why don't we have good dim sum here?) and a trip to IKEA.   It was so much fun!

Dragon Dances

Today we are gearing up to go to our local FCC CNY celebration.   We enjoy the event, seeing all our friends and participating in the culture.  I will guiltily admit that I've been known to say "Once you've seen one dragon dance, you've seen them all."   It's not that I don't like the dragon dance/lion dances.  It's just that they do seem to stay the same year after year.    Well, I may have to eat my words.   On Friday, Bill came home with a surprise Valentine's day gift.   He bought tickets to see the Cirque De Soliel show Dralion.  Dralion is show based on Chinese acrobatics.   Dralion is a creature that is a combination of a dragon and lion and sure enough they do a dragon/lion dance.   However, this dance was unlike any I had scene.   Below I linked a youtube video of the Dralion dance.  That's the first video.   The second one is the ariel act that I thought was breath taking.  Enjoy!

Shame on My Mommy

for not posting more.........................

She says that the laptop is back and software is being installed.

Good-bye Super Beasts....Hello Giggle Worms!

Andrew finished up his gymnastics class where the kids are called Super Beasts.   Starting next week, he'll move on to the Giggle Worms group.    Here are some pictures of Andrew showing off his gymnastic skills

Andrew jumping on the low balance beam

Walking the high beam by himself

Doing a forward roll

Climbing the parallel bars

Going across the uneven bars

Getting his medal with Olympic music playing

Taking his picture with some of his classmates

Hanging out in the cold weather

I'm happy to report that we are doing well.   Life has been a bit on the quiet side with eveyone going to school, working and keeping up with our extra curriculur activities.   While there's nothing to complain about, I do think we are all a bit tired of the cold weather and only indoor activities.    Fortunately, we have many good friends and family we can visit.  

On another note, I'm back into my digital scrapbooking and I'm happily finishing up my 2010 album.    I've had a few questions about the 2011 pages I've posted here.   This year I'm keeping things a bit simple with a frame template I created and a neutral background that I also created.   Then it's a few photos, an element or two and journaling.   I'm enjoying the ease of this format and getting things done.  Here are a few more pages I've completed this week.  Enjoy!

More scrapbook pages....

Happy New Year

Well, I know this post is a little late.  We had a great holiday and a good first week back to school.  I don't like to make New Year's resolutions.  However, I have decided to get back into scrapbooking and I've post my layouts here.  Here is the dedication page for my 2011 album.

This past weekend we took down all our Christmas decorations and while I was ready to put the Christmas things away, I was also a little sad.  I have to say that I so love having Chinese New Year decorations, esp. lots of lanterns, to put up in January.

Andrew turned three on Monday.  Can you believe it?   We're going to have his birthday celebration a little later this month.  However, we wanted to do something special for him right now.  So, we decided to take him to the Monster Truck show.   We didn't know what to expect, but we had a good time.  The show wast totally geared to little ones and Andrew loved it!

Our Christmas.........

What a wonderful Christmas we had! . We started our celebration by spending Christmas Eve with Bill's parents. We had a great dinner, thoughtfull gifts and a good time visiting .

Then we had Christmas morning at home. Lily made it untill 5:55 am and then came in our room saying "I just can't sleep anymore." So, an early morning it was. Lily loved all her gifts and Santa really brought just what she wanted.

Christmas afternoon was with my parents where we enjoyed another round of gifts, more food and more visiting. Christmas dinner was at my parents with the whole family and it was so nice to just sit around, talk, eat some more and watch the kids play. What more could you want for Christmas?

If you asked Andrew what his favorite part of Christmas was, he'd answer his new Toy Story Train. He has been so devoted to it since Saturday.

Lily would be torn. She has loved playing with her Nintendo DSI and her new Walking Go-Go (or something like that) puppy.

I must admit that at this time I find Christmas a fair amount of work. Yet, when I look at these two faces, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

All in all, Christmas 2010 was awesome. We saw all our family, had a great time and really celebrated
and then we slowed down and just hung out :)