More Pics from the Zoo

Good Times at the OKC Zoo

We went to the zoo in OKC last week. I love the zoo. I think I might love it more than the kids. Maybe my attention span is just a little longer. To their credit, it was a little hot. It was one of those mornings with a 40% chance of rain in the afternoon, high in the upper 80s. I was hoping for a cooler, cloudy morning. It turned out a little hot and muggy. We did have a good time though. Our friend, Diane and Sophie Fosmire joined us. They were in town to drop off Libby for her big trip to Trinidad. Lizzie met us with Mallary and Jayce and they joined our "zoo group". We ended the day with ice cream and other various treats at McDonalds. I thought I was going to "run" by the mall and pick up something, but when I realized I was outnumbered 5:1 I thought better of it and just headed home!

More Pics of Leonardo's Fun

Fun at Leonardo's

Piper enjoyed a play date with Amy at Leonardo's. Sunny and I had a good time too! The girls loved playing in the sand at Adventure Quest and the dress up costumes indoors. Sunny moved to Enid a couple of years ago from Nanjing, which is the capital city of Jiangsu Province (the province Piper is from). She has a daughter just a year older than Piper and they play pretty well when it's just the two of them. Piper is still very clingy and when Sydney's around, so we scheduled this get together while Sydney was at church camp. It worked out pretty well. Sunny has agreed to tutor Piper in Mandarin. Now we just have to get Piper to warm up to that idea. She's a little slow in making new friends, but she's making progress.

High School Graduations

We had lot's of places to go and people to see this year. OBA and Pond Creek had their graduations the same night. We went to OBA's graduation ceremony and dropped by to see Preston and Jamie at their receptions. On the way home, we stopped in at the Steffens to congratulate Kara. Sydney and Piper crashed and burned. It was a very late evening and this picture pretty much describes how we were all feeling! Whew!

Go Carts after Promotion

Sydney's class celebrated their promotion with lunch at Pastimes and some good old fashioned racing at Comet Go Carts. Piper even got in on the fun. Check out Harley showing the kids his moves with the skip bop thingy majigger (sp?).

Catching Up

I'll try to do a little catching up. Life got very hectic as school was ending and I didn't do a great job of keeping the blog updated. Soon after school was out, our computer had some serious problems that took a couple of weeks to get straightened out. So anyway, I'll give some brief descriptions with lots of pictures to get you caught back up! Hope you're having a great summer! We sure are.

This first set of pictures is from the 6th grade promotion at Emmanuel. There are group pictures of the entire 6th grade class as well as Sydney's class (Mrs. Brakhage's class). A group of girls sang Circle of Friends by Point of Grace. By the way, Piper knows EVERY word to this song now after practicing many times with Sydney. Too cute! The last photo is of Sydney with her good friend Hyunji. It's off to junior high for you girls! Hard to believe.

Fun in the Sun

We are sure loving the beautiful weather. Piper is still loving the trail-a-bike. She's been on rides with Dad, Mom, Sydney, & Hayden. She loves her new jersey & shorts from Micah & Jennifer. Thanks guys, they are adorable! Now she really looks like one of the gang. She got a real kick out of the padded shorts. She went on and on about them; even gave them a pat or two once she got them on! Everyone went (okay, back up, I said everyone but I really mean just the kids) went for their first swim of the season at Uncle Steve and Aunt Linda's house this past weekend. Mallary & Jace were there for a visit so that made it even more fun. I think Piper really enjoyed the hot tub more than the pool; still a little cool that old swimming pool. She was all about the gear though! Hope everyone had a great Mother's Day. We sure did, and you know we had to go out for Mexican food at Cafe Garcia's. Delicious!

Fun, More Pics

Having Lots of Fun

Things just keep getting better and better. I can report that we have been three weeks now without a crying spell; no more waking in the night either. She is having a great time at school. We had the journal that was sent home with her from her foster parents translated. She was in the second year of kindergarten in China this year (they have three years of KG) and apparently the children in China go to school until 5pm each day. In other words, she was very used to the "school routine". She has done fantastic. Her class has a field trip to Winter Livestock on Tue. of this week. I'm anxious to see how she likes that. :) It's her turn to bring snacks this week, so of course, we are starting off with the famous peanut butter cookies! We went to aunt Linda's surprise birthday party this weekend and got in a little bike time too. Piper loves the trail-a-bike. She likes to race the boys too! Harley turned 15 Saturday. I can hardly believe it. Time is flying by so quickly. He and Sydney both did really well at Tri-State this week; ones, ones, and more ones! I included a couple of pictures of Piper "pouting" on the way to church this morning. Harley had jumped out and scared her before we left and she was not happy! She decided to sulk and covered her face with a coloring page. When we stopped to get gas in Pond Creek, Kevin took her paper away and told her to straighten up. She decided to use the next available thing (her hands) to cover her face until, I'd say, about Kremlin. :) I almost hated to take her picture, but it was just too funny and I couldn't resist! I wish all my children would protest this silently. Hmm.

First Week of School (Last Week) :)

The first week of school went better than expected. Piper did great! In fact, she is always ready to get up and go in the morning. I think she was excited about getting to go with the big kids. Her teacher really bragged on her color by number artwork (so of course I included a picture!). I was going to post a picture of her "first day" at school, but that Kodak moment went a little crazy. I'm not the one who drops the kids off at school in the morning, so I thought I'd snap a picture at pick up time. Now I don't know if she is just completely sick and tired of posing for pictures or if she was just monkeying around but she decided to do a backbend in the middle of the sidewalk at dismissal. Of course, she bonked her noggin on the sidewalk and ended up with a big goose egg on the back of her head! So much for the Kodak moment. We ended up rushing back over to my office for an icepack and off to the store for some children's ibuprofen. :) Never a dull moment. Anyway, the "dressed for school" pose was taken at home (safer) before school the second (oh well) day of school! Emmanuel had their spring program last Fri.; Piper's first week of school. We weren't sure if she was ready for this but sure enough she came through with flying colors. She stood right up there with the rest of the group and even tried to join in at times. She is so funny. She's learning new words every day. Important things like "don't touch me" and "cool it", "stop it Hayden", etc. She popped into breakfast yesterday morning on her own and took one look at the pancakes Kevin had made and said, "Chocolate chips?! Thank you!" Never a dull moment.

Blog On; More Pics, of Course!