Summer is Here!

Cookouts, festivals, family and friends!   Summer is here!

Our Easter Festiviities

Let's Go Fly a Kite

For the first time ever, 99 cent kites worked beautifully at the park.   It was a fun little purchase that yielded a post dinner park visit.    With the weather perfect, we went to the neighborhood park flew kites, fed the geese and blew some bubbles.    Of course, many of neighborhood pals joined us.    It just felt good to be outside. 

Photo session turns into a tickle fest....................

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!