Soccer

Emily just finished her first year of soccer. She really enjoyed it. We were surprised at how aggressive she was. It was an Under 6 team. The kids were all 4 and 5 years old. It was a lot of fun to watch. As you can see from the videos below, the field is much smaller than normal. The goals are much smaller and there is no goalie. There are only three people per team.

Most of the time, it looks like a Rugby Scrum. All six players grouped together trying to kick the ball at the same time. Every once in a while, there will be a break away. Emily had several of these. She scored several goals as well.

Here are a few videos of the games:

Camping

Every summer, we go camping with my wife's extended family. It is like a mini reunion. This was our seventh year and it was the best one ever. The weather was perfect. The girls are old enough that they don't need constant care. The food was fantastic, as usual. We all put on a pretty good spread.

It is always a very relaxing week. We tend to do a lot of eating and sleeping. However, we throw in several hikes and spend a considerable amount of time playing in the water down at the creek. All of the physical exertion allows us to eat more. :-)

Here are a few photos of our family during the week long camping trip.

My son and his cousins played a lot of commando type games in the forest. Here is Patrick trying to equip his Nerf Gun with some camouflage.

This is the whole motley crew on the last day of the camping trip.

The girls are starting to ride their bikes more. They still use training wheels, however, so the bikes didn't work out so well on the gravel roads.

The girls are eating dinner with their uncle. Barbecued chicken, cornbread and corn on the cob. Along with other fruits and veggies.

Emily helps clean up by doing the dishes.

Emily and Kaitlyn taking a break down by the creek. We spent every afternoon down at the creek playing in the water.

The girls enjoyed floating around on the alligator with Mom.

Quiet Time

Our girls do not take naps very often anymore. If they don't nap, they will go to bed around 7:30 or 8:00 PM and sleep until 6:00 AM or later. If they do have a nap, then it is generally not a good idea to put them to bed until 9:00 PM, otherwise they will lay there awake for a long time. While they are laying there awake, they will mostly spend their time trying to think up new excuses for getting out of bed.

Anyway, sometimes we as parents need a nap when they don't. So we have taken to doing the time honored tradition of "Quiet Time" periodically. They have to settle down in their rooms with books for a short period of time.

Sometimes we check on them after a little while and we will find something along the lines of the following picture. It is always so cute.

Dance Class

Our girls have been attending a small dance class at their day care. It is only an hour each week, so they don't learn a lot. They both enjoy it however and are always excited on the day that they get to take their dance stuff with them (leotards and ballet slippers).

Recently they had a 'Dance Recital'. One for the older girls and for the 3-year olds. They were very cute. Here a couple of short clips from the dancing.

Kaitlyn:


Emily:

Exchange student trip to South Korea

In April, I chaperoned a trip to South Korea for my son's Middle School. It was a two week long exchange where we lived with families there. It was very different from our Adoption trips to China in two important ways.

1) We did not have the added stress of adopting a child. We could just be ourselves and enjoy everything about Korea.

2) We stayed with the families instead of in hotels. We did what they did, ate what they ate, etc.

We had a great time and learned a lot. It was interesting to see the number of similarities (and differences) between Korea and China. Korea is much more modernized than China, but has several of the same traditions. I got the feeling sometimes that I was looking at China in 20 years.

Here is a short video presentation that I made for the school board an the local rotary club.

My inadvertent hiatus is over

Well, due to mostly laziness, I have not updated this blog in a very long time. I had initially decided that there was not much going on, so I was going to cut back to only one post per month. Now it is four months later and still no post. What a lazy git I am.

Still, only a couple of really important things (read "BLOG WORTHY") have happened over the last couple of months. The main one would be the two week trip to Korea that I took with Patrick back in April. I will post the highlights of that trip later.

Also, we tried out one of the Great Wolf Lodges. That was a lot of fun, but a more in depth review will also becoming later.

Mainly, I am just letting my loyal readers know that this BLOG will be coming back to life over the next week or so. Hopefully I haven't lost both of you permanently. :-)

back from the Cruise

We have been back form the cruise for a couple of days now. We are still trying to get back to West Coast time and some of us (mainly me) have been having trouble getting their "Land-legs" back. While it is nice to be back home, everyone missed the cruise. We are already thinking about when and where our next cruise will be.

Here are a few brief highlights of the trip:

We were able to board the ship early, around noon. We couldn't get into our rooms yet, but they had a large buffet available for everyone. So we started the cruise off by eating (a lot) and never stopped. The food was really good and they had a lot of variety. Like prime rib, mahi-mahi, roast duck, etc. Patrick and Emily really liked the roast duck.

The first full day, we stopped at Key West, Florida. We bummed around town for an hour waiting for our Glass Bottom Boat Tour. The wind was blowing pretty hard and the seas were pretty choppy. We went our a few miles to the reef. None of us had too much or problem with the trip, but there were several people that got sea-sick. It was pretty neat seeing all of the fish in their natural habitat.

The next day we went to Cozumel, Mexico. We took a taxi to the Chankanaab Park. You can swim with the Dolphins there, but it looked pretty hokey, especially when you consider the price of $150 per person. We had a great time there anyway. We snorkeled (saw lots of fish and some lobster), ate lunch at a fantastic authentic Mexican Restaurant and took a short walking tour seeing lots of Iguana.





The third day we were at Georgetown, Grand Cayman. Here we had a nice tour that included stops at Hell, the Turtle Farm, snorkeling on the reef and a visit to Sting Ray City. Sting Ray City was the most amazing part of the whole cruise. We are a few miles from the island, but the water is only 3 - 4 feet deep. There are sting rays everywhere. We were able to hand feed them and Patrick got seven years of good luck for kissing one. It was very exciting.







The fourth day we were at Montego Bay, Jamaica. This is the stop that always makes me the most nervous. I just never feel in control while there. We went to a place called Doctor's Cave Beach. It was very nice. You had to pay admission, but that eliminated all of the pushy vendors that you normally find on the free beaches. Things worked out pretty well, we had a great time there and got the girls hair braided in the Jamaican Style and I only had two people ask me if I wanted to get high.




The fifth day was a relaxing day on the ship. Patrick and I tried our hand at the rock climbing wall and then we lazed around the kiddy pool watching the girls swim.



Most days, Patrick would hand out at the Teen's Only club. Generally, we would go to bed around 10 PM and Patrick would generally arrive sometime around midnight. He had a really good time.

Finally, on the sixth day we traveled home. This didn't go so well, what with delayed flights and all. Basically, we were out of our rooms by 8:00 AM and didn't get home until 1:15 in the morning the next day. At one point, Patrick crawled under our seats and went to sleep.

Where did January go?

I have always found that January and February have always seemed to drag along. After the hustle and bustle of the Holidays, things just tend to slow down. All you have is short cold days and long colder nights that you count off waiting for the longer and warmer days of spring.

Not this year. Things have been much more busy. Both of the girls are taking swim lessons, twice a week. Patrick has his theater class and his Korea Class (for his trip to Korea in April). Also, we have been busy trying to get ready for our cruise in February. We are going on a six day cruise in the Western Caribbean. Yes, we are taking the kids as well. We have less than two weeks now until a week of fun in the sun.

Getting ready for the cruise involves a lot of shopping. We need to get all of the kids their summer wear a little early this year. I hope they don't out grow the stuff before the summer is over. Getting ready also involves a little exercise and a little dieting. Not that I am trying to look better, that will never happen. The dieting is more like a preemptive strike on the five pounds I plan to gain while on the cruise! :-)

Throw into that mix a week with another Korean Exchange Student and the month has passed more quickly than normal. Our exchange student is from Busan, Korea. I think that he enjoyed staying with us. I know that we enjoyed having him. He was a very polite and easy going young man.

He arrived on a Saturday and it took him most of the weekend to get over the jet lag. I only let him take a short nap on Saturday, but he still was up a lot of the night (which is normally his day). We let him sleep until almost noon the next day and after that, he was mostly on our time.

The Korean Exchange Students had field trips Monday - Thursday, but Friday was a free day with no school, so we took him to OMSI. He seemed to have really good time there with Patrick. We saw a movie in the Planetarium and Patrick and He toured the submarine. Here is a picture of the arch we built while we were there.


Below is a picture of our kids playing 'Monster'. This apparently involves crawling around on all fours while you are snarling and growling. After a while of this, you attack some poor village full of Barbies and pretend to eat them. Here, however, they are eating Cheerios like a monster would, on the floor.



Another interesting thing about this year is the weather. We have now had snow on six seperate occasions. As I write this, it is snowing yet again. We have never had more than an inch or two, and it always melts off in a couple of days. Here is a shot of the snow earlier in the year.

Holidays

We survived the Holidays. We are still here. It was a long week for us. Don't get me wrong, we really enjoyed everything (well almost) about the entire week. The bad thing was me being sick for most of it.

Anyway, our week started on Monday Morning, December 24th. Kirsten had to work till noon, but I and the kids met her parents for breakfast. It was a lot of fun and Grandma had a great time with the kids. Christmas Eve was very relaxing. We had home made clam chowder, as usual. Then played some games with the kids. Read them 'The Night Before Christmas' and got them in bed.


After they went to bed, 'Santa' spent a couple of hours putting together the girls bikes. 'Santa' always enjoys that part of Christmas. Here is what the kids saw the next morning.


The girls were very excited to find their bikes from Santa and Patrick is definitely enjoying his Guitar Hero III. A video game where you pretend to play a guitar. Who would have thought that would be a hit. Here is the girls on their bikes.


Around 11:00 My Parents and Kirsten's Parent showed up. We just hung out together eating, talking and watching it snow. That is right, it snowed all day long on Christmas, which is first for me in Oregon. Around 2:00 My Parents went home, while the rest of us went over to Kirsten's Brothers Place for dinner. All in all, a very enjoyable day.

Here is our annual Christmas Family Photo.


The next three days were busy working days, but I missed a bunch of it with my illness. Then on Saturday, My side of the family all met at My Parents to celebrate Christmas. We exchanged presents with my Parents. My sister and I got them digital photo frames. It was funny, but Mom and Dad got us digital photo frames also. I guess great minds think alike. :-)

Everyone had a really good time and My Nephews stayed and spent the night. We couldn't however, because the next day Kirsten's side of the family met at her Parents place to celebrate Christmas. Another day of laughing, eating, talking and fun. It was another perfect day and a great end to a great week.

Emily's Birthday

As most of you know, Emily's Birthday is December 24th. Since this is too close to Christmas, we have kept with tradition and celebrated her birthday on the Saturday of the week before before Christmas. This gives at least a week between celebrations. This year that was on December 15th.

Since we had Kirsten's Company Christmas Party the night before, the girls spent that night with my parents. It worked out rather well. It gave us plenty of time to get the house ready for the party on Saturday Morning. It was a pretty simple affair involving my parents and Kirsten's parents. Emily, of course, had a very good time. Any day is a good day if you get presents. :-)

I insisted on getting her what I thought was the perfect gift. One of those somewhat indestructible working digital cameras. She is always wanting take pictures using mine, after all. Here is a picture of her using her camera.



Below is a picture of her using what turned out to be her actual favorite present. Yep, it is fake makeup.



This gift was from my parents. Actually, they also got her one of those real makeup sets for girls. We were somewhat taken aback by the gift. I guess it must have showed on our faces, because Mom mailed us the gift receipt on Monday so that we could take it back.

Below is a picture of Kaitlyn playing with her favorite thing from Emily's Birthday Party. Yes, that is a balloon. She had hours and hours of fun with the balloons.

One holiday down, one to go

***NOTE*** For some reason 11/7/2007 entry didn't post properly and I didn't notice. I have posted it now, so there are now two new posts.
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The month of November has been very interesting. We had a Pop Can/Bottle Drive as a fund raiser for the Korean Exchange Students Club. This is to help fund their two week trip to Korea in April. My job entailed driving a pick-up truck around while kids went door-to-door asking people to donate pop cans and bottles to their cause. We even roped Kirsten's Father into helping. He also drove a pick-up truck around.

We spent about six-hours on a Saturday and raised over $2000. There is a rumor that one or more of the bigger companies in the area may match the amount raised. That would be cool.

We are scheduled to do another pop can and bottle drive this coming Saturday.

The weekend before Thanksgiving, we traveled down to see my Grandmother. She is 85 and the last living Grandparent that I have. It is a fairly long drive, so we stayed in a hotel on the way down and back. The girls really enjoyed it, because the hotel had a pool. I am not sure that they enjoyed the actual visit with Grandma, however.

Finally, we had all of Kirsten's Family over to our house for Thanksgiving. Everyone brought some portion of the meal, so we didn't have to provide everything. Everyone had a really good time and ate way too much (as usual).

As if our month wasn't busy enough, we spent most of our one free weekend decorating the girls room. This mostly involved painting it a nice shade of purple and hanging some new curtains. Kirsten also put up some cute stickers on the wall and the girls names. Now she just needs to get some appropriate bedding to make the room complete.


This is the family with my Grandma and her husband Bill. Patrick was not able to attend because of his Theater Recital.

Emily helping to paint her room.

Kaitlyn helping to paint her room. Unfortunately, we did not get any afterwards photos.


A couple of photos showing how their room looks now, except that it is not this clean generally.

I had to include this photo. We were decorating the Christmas Tree. Someone played with the beads and got them all tangled up. When we asked who did it, we got this "Blame Game" response. In reality, it was both girls, but mainly Emily.

The Holiday Season is upon us

***NOTE*** I wrote this on 11/7/2007. I don't know why it didn't post. I thought it had.
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Over the past couple of weeks, we have survived Halloween, had a very interesting week with and exchange student from Korea and a nice little visit with a family that adopted a girl from China with us when we got Kaitlyn.

Halloween was a lot of fun. The girls were able to trick-or-treat at Grandma Ma's place of business (a nursing home). Grandma had a very good time showing off her grand daughters and the residents enjoyed seeing all of the kids. After that, we got together with Kirsten's brother and his family and trick-or-treated downtown. Then we all met back at Trevor's house for a very nice meal. Finally, about 7:30 we made it back to our place and passed out candy for about an hour.

It was a very busy afternoon and evening. The girls enjoyed dressing up. Emily was a princess and Kaitlyn was a doggy. Unfortunately, I carried the camera the entire time and never got a single picture. In my defense, it is very difficult for one person to keep an eye on a 3 year old and a 4 year old, in a crowd of kids. I didn't really have time for much else.

Here are some pictures

Patrick and his neighbor Rubi with their Korean Exchange students. All of them loved playing foosball. They did it a lot.


Patrick's Korean Exchange Student (Min Soo). This was taken on the day that Min Soo left.

The girls with their new Chinese Outfits.

Kaitlyn and Natalia playing dress-up. They were adopted at the some time from the same orphanage. They had a great time playing together. We need to get together with her and her family more often.

Not a lot going on

Not a lot going on lately. I thought that I would post up some recent photos of the kids.

Emily fell asleep one night while watching TV. She slept like this for 15 minutes before her head finally fell to the floor.

The girls with some new play jewelery.

Playing dress up with the old Halloween costumes.

Patrick buried in the sand on the Oregon Coast.

Patrick is stylin' in his new hat. Unfortunately, someone at his school must have liked it better, because he no longer has it.

River Rafting Trip

In August, Kirsten, Patrick and I took a little guided trip (4days and 3 nights) down the Rogue River in Southern Oregon. Although we like camping, we decided to take it easy, so we shelled out the extra money for a lodge trip. That is, instead of camping, we stayed at various lodge's along the way. You know, hot and cold running water, private toilets, clean sheets, etc. It was very nice.

Because of some cancellations, it was just the three of us and our guide. Although Kirsten and Patrick spent most of the time in the raft, I generally was following along behind in my own tahiti (blow up kayak). It was a lot of fun. There was a lot of white water and we saw a lot of wildlife, including black bear, elk, dear, bald eagles and osprey. We also saw steelhead, salmon and even a sturgeon jumping.

We are already trying to determine when we can take the girls down the river.

Here are a few photos from the trip. We used a couple of waterproof disposable cameras, instead of our digital, so the photos are not great. Just click on the photos to see a larger version for more detail.

Patrick in a tahiti on the first day. There was some stiff wind in the afternoon of the first day and you had to constantly row. It was not a lot of fun for him then.

Kirsten shooting some rapids in a tahiti on the third day. Although she enjoyed it, it was not what she was looking for on this vacation. She much preferred riding in the main raft with the guide doing the stearing.

This is me in the tahiti. I tended to give the main raft plenty of room after the first set of rapids. I was too close then and almost got washed under the main raft. OK, so it probably wasn't even close, but it did scare me enough so that I always stayed way back.

You have to look close, but you can see me being completely submerged in some white water. Thank goodness the tahiti was a 'self-bailer'. I had it full of water on several occasions. By the way, I made it through this section just fine.

As you can see, I did not make through this section. That is my tahiti upside down. You can just see my head about 15 feet to the right. I had wiped out way up around the corner and then had to ride the white water on my back for a couple of hundred feet before they could fish me out.

This is a photo that Patrick took the first night.

Here is a picture showing how close Patrick got to the deer while getting his picture. Some of the other kids that were at the lodge (on a different guided trip) were actually getting the deer to out of their hands, but I wouldn't let Patrick try that. It is still a wild animal after all.

Here is a photo of us taken on the third day. The guide took us on a morning hike to show us where we would be rafting later that day. As you can see, the trail was basically on the edge of a cliff.

This is a picture taken from where we were standing, looking down at the river. You can just see the churning of what they call the 'Coffee Pot'.