My Little Monkeys

While we were visiting our parents and extended family in Maryland, the three oldest kids had a chance to try out the high ropes course at Ski Liberty and had a great time "hanging out" (get it?  heh heh) with their grandparents.

The boys had a great time and, unsurprisingly, scaled the course repeatedly and with great gusto.  The wildcard was, also unsurprisingly, Sasha (always expect the unexpected with that one!).  Sasha turned out to be the youngest person ever to ascend the Ski Liberty ropes course and did it not once, but four times. 

I'm guessing that she's also the only person to ever do the ropes course while wearing squeaky shoes.

Never dull. Our family is never dull.

Sam enjoys the zip-line ride down

Gramma shows us all how it's done - not bad for a woman who's spent the last five years on chemo!

Grammy demonstrates "falling with style" (and grace!)

Sasha goes up again, squeaky shoes and all

And down again.  The girl was unstoppable!

Surrounded by Good Wishes

Check it out - WanYing's 100 Good Wishes Quilt is almost done! The moms have done an exceptional job; the quilt is simply beautiful and seeing WanYing surrounded by so much love from so many friends and family takes my breath away.  Thanks so much to all of you who are a part of this ebenezer!

It's a crazy thing... looking at this quilt I experience all over again that aching longing to hold our baby girl as we waited the long months to bring her home.  And here she is, enveloped in a tangible representation of all of that love and prayer and patient hard work, and it all seems like a far-away dream because she's always been a part of us. 

Time and love and longing and adoption and parenthood sure are funny things.

Marylanders by Spirit, if Not by Birth

Hello again! Apologies to all of you rabid Morningstar Happenings fans (all three of you) for the week's blogging absence, we were in Maryland introducing WanYing to her whole family, playing 1001 games of Dominion (our new strategy game obsession), and eating a whole lot of corn and crabs.

We have roughly ten jillion photos to comb through, but for now we'll simply answer the most important question of the week:

Did WanYing and Sasha enjoy the ceremonial disemboweling and consumption of blue crabs and thus do their Maryland roots proud?

And the answer is:  We couldn't pick those crabs fast enough to keep up with our girls!

Granted, in the beginning we had to call it "sea chicken" for Sasha to consider eating any crabby deliciousness, but by the end of the evening both girls were merrily picking their own claws and wolfing down as much backfin as we would supply.

Sasha's crab impression #1

Sasha's crab impression #2

Sasha moves on to "picking" (pulverizing) her own claw meat

Rapturous joy - the meat is uncovered!

WanYing preferred pulling off the legs to eat the backfin that came off.  Smart girl!

Steve and I were a little worried that the blue crabs wouldn't be as tasty as we remembered.  Fear not!  The crab feast was a total success

And a good time was had by all... well, except for the crabs...