If you start to fall ... grab something!

Last night, it was Kirsten's turn to take Patrick to his Play Practice. He plays 10-year old Timmy in the Pentacle Theatre Production of Inherit the Wind. Anyway, while she was gone I decided to take the girls into the hot tub. We spent about 30 minutes in there and all of us had a good time. Kids generally love hot tubs.

Anyway, afterwards I jumped into the shower with the girls so that we could wash off all of that high chlorine content water. After getting everyone scrubbed down and rinsed, I was trying to rinse out all of our swimsuits and that is when it happened. Kaitlyn slipped and started to fall, so she grabbed the closed thing available to keep her from falling (use your imagination). Let me tell you, that girl has got quite a grip and she needs to have her fingernails cut more often too!

How to melt a heart

The last couple of days have been absolutely crazy! We had to roll out a new version of our software to the entire state of Oregon on Monday. We have automatic update implemented from our main server in Salem, but there were still several sites that didn't update properly.

Anyway, I have been working some long hours. Because of that and other things, I have not gotten a chance to see my girls very much over the last couple of days. Last night I got home just after they went to bed, so I went in to give them a kiss good night. They were so cute. Both of them were just laying there in their beds, eyes wide open and their hands folded behind their heads, looking so introspective. Each smiled when I kissed their forehead and said good night. A little moment to melt a Daddy's heart.

Taking a family photo

Yesterday we went to visit Kirsten's Father. He has just had surgery to fix an aneurysm. He is doing very well. Anyway, just before leaving, Kirsten remembered that we were supposed to bring a family picture. Of course, we don't have that is even close to recent, so we need to take one real quick and print it out.

After several attempts in which the kids were looking in all sorts of directions or not smiling, etc. I hit upon a brilliant plan. Just before the camera snapped, I surprised everyone and threw a stuffed animal over top of the camera. It worked really well, except for the fact that I thought I was going to hit the camera and so I forgot to smile. Oh well, no looks at the dad anyway, it is all about the kids.

A little history

Patrick (our biological child) was born in 1996. For various reasons (non of which were physical) we decided not to have any more children. In 2002, after Kat had been out of Vet School for a couple of years, we decided that our family was incomplete. With a little research and a convenient plane ride next to a single Mom who had adopted a girl from China, we decided to try adopting our daughter from China.

We started the paper work in June of 2002. Finally in November 2003 we were united with 11 month old Emily (Gao Fu Ji) from the Gaoyou SWI in the Jiangsu Province. She was a lot of fun, easy going and bonded with her proud Papa right away.

On Fathers Day in 2004, we decided that we would like another addition, so we started the paper work for a second adoption. So in October of 2005 we were united with 13 month old Kaitlyn (Yang Fu Ruan) from the Hengyang SWI in the Hunan Province. She is very different from Emily and didn't bond with her Papa for four weeks, but he is still very proud of her.

Why a blog about our Chinese Daughters?

We have three children. One biological son and two daughters that we have adopted from China. This blog is mostly about them. This blog was created in hopes that the nannies that cared for our daughters can see how they are growing and leave comments for us and them. As a side benefit, this blog might be informational for those people that are interested in adopting from China.