Anybody out there want a house

Our current house has been on the market for 5 weeks now and only three people have looked at it. We are starting to really worry about it. We are having an open house this Saturday, but I don't have very high hopes. From what I have read, Open Houses only work to sell a home about 5% of the time.

On a brighter note, we are about to have a couple of nice vacations. We will be camping with Kirsten's side of the family next week. This will the sixth year in a row that we have done this. We always have a great time and I always gain five pounds during the week.

A couple of weeks later we will be taking a river trip. This is just for Kirsten, Patrick and Myself. The girls will be staying with my parents. It is a four-day trip down the Rogue River (in Oregon). Everything is provided and we will be staying in different lodge every night. It is a little spendy, but we bought it last November before we knew that money would be tight.

Emily and Kaitlyn are both doing very well. Emily (who is four) is finally getting used to the water. When we go in the hot tub, she is able to put her entire head under water without panicking. Kaitlyn (who is two) has no fear of the water at all. She will jump off of into the water an sink to the bottom. After finally clawing her way up to air, she will climb out and jump back in again. Don't worry, Kirsten or I are hovering within inches of her at all times.

Kirsten is enjoying her job. She likes being able to get a lunch every day and she always gets off work at 6:00 PM. Things have been a little slow there however and she has been somewhat bored several times. The current employee's have informed her that this is slow period and it will pick up.

We are buying a home

Well, we now have an accepted offer on new home. It is a nice place with a large back yard. There is an oak tree at the back for some nice shade and some nice leaves for Patrick to rake this fall. :-)

It is 2655 sq ft. This is quite an upgrade for us. I may sound like I am bragging, because I probably am, but we are very, very excited. I am especially excited about certain things. It has that fake would deck, which means that I don't have to stain or waterproof anymore. :-)

Also, it has the vinyl type of siding, which means that I won't ever have to paint the house!!

Now we just need to sell our current house.

Here are a couple of photos.

Living in Limbo

As you can imagine, things have been very busy around the household. We spent two weeks getting the house ready to show. This involved fixing a lot of little things. Spreading a lot of bark chips. Cleaning a lot of areas that don't get cleaned very often, like the outside of second story windows. We also had to pack away a lot of our stuff. The garage is half full of packed boxes and extra furniture. It is important to make your house look bigger by having less stuff in it, so we are already half-way packed for the move.

Anyway, I went to post some new photos, but I can't find the items I use to download them to the computer. It seems that in our initial packing of stuff, we must have gotten it into a box also.

Our house has been on the market for two weeks now and only two people have come and looked at it. They both gave it good reviews, but are not ready to purchase anything just yet. It is a buyers market out here now, so we are not expecting to sell our current home very quickly.

Last Monday we toured the new town with our real-estate agent, which happens to be our sister-in-law. We looked at eight or ten homes. Out of all that, there is only one that is a possible choice. We have come up with another list of ten homes. We will look at those tomorrow.

Everyone here is doing well. The girls are just as cute as ever. They are constantly testing their boundaries. We have to keep right on top of things.

It's Official - We're Moving

My wife has accepted a position at a new Vet Clinic. This one is about 60 miles away from where we currently live. Since that would be too much a commute, we are going to be moving, which is most of the reason for the new job anyway.

Once we move, we will be within minutes of Kirsten's parents and her brother's family. She has been wanting to get a job around there for couple of years now. So, after interviewing at several places over the last year and a half, she finally gets a good offer. Then she gets another offer only an hour and a half later.

We are very excited, but a little stressed. We want to be moved before the end of summer, so that Patrick will be starting school at the new one. We don't want him to have to transfer part-way through a year. So, now we are working constantly to get the old house sold, so that we have enough money to purchase a new house.

I will probably put all kinds of interesting things during the move. Check back for more.

My learning disability

The other day, one of our auto's was in the shop, so I and the girls drove in to pick Kirsten up from work. Unfortunately, a dog came in at the last minute that needed an emergency C-Section. So, while we were waiting Emily, Kaitlyn and I went across the street to McDonald's. The food isn't that great, but they did have a nice play structure to keep the girls entertained.

After forcing them to eat at least one chicken nugget each, I let them onto the structure. Emily was off like a shot, as usual, but I was surprised to see how easily Kaitlyn was climbing inside of those tubes. Generally Kaitlyn needs a lot of coaxing to do anything like that.

Anyway, as I should have know, she gets all the way to the top and is too scared to come down the slides. As a matter of fact, she is too scared to go back down the way she came up. I should have known better. So, there she is at the top yelling, "'ary Daddy, 'ary". I am trying to coas her back down from outside, and talk Emily through coaxing her back down. I hope the other parents were too annoyed with us.

Finally, I gave in and climbed up the large twisted slide to get her. Those things are smaller than they look.

Then, I did something really stupid!!!! I let her go back into the play structure. She convinced me that she was going to go down the slide by herself. What was I thinking? She gets back in there and repeats her performance. After a couple more minutes of "'ary Daddy, 'ary" (I am pretty sure people were getting annoyed now), I am climbing back up the large (but narrow) twisty slide to get her.

We're Back

Actually, we haven't gone anywhere, I just haven't posted for a while. I can't believe that I have not posted for over two months. I have probably lost everyone that used to look at our blog regularly (both of them).

Well, what has been happening? Well personally, it has been work, work and more work. Except for a weeks worth of vacation. My wife and I took a trip to Disneyland for four days last month. Yes, just the two of us. Since we took the family to Disneyland in October, we didn't feel too guilty. It was a lot of fun.

That is about all of the excitement here. There is just not much going on.

Here are a couple of pictures of the girls.

This is just a really cute picture of Kaitlyn.


One night when we were watching TV, Emily decided the my legs were a very comfortable spot to lay. The next thing I know, she is fast asleep.

Another view of my sleeping daughter.


Probably every kid has picture like this one. This is what happens when you leave children unmonitored with markers. At least she only drew on herself and the markers are washable.

Last video scrapbook for a while

Well, this is the last video scrapbook that I have created. It is for the family trip to Disneyland that we took last October (2006).

Video scrapbook for Camping 2006

Well, I have yet another "video scrapbook" (I like this term better than "video slide show"). This one is from our family camping trip in August of 2006. I realize that y'all are probably getting bored with these video scrap books that I am posting, but the good news is that I only have one more. In a week or so I will post one for our Disneyland trip in October of 2006.

Another Slide Show

Here is a little slide show for our family camping trip back in July of 2005. This was just a few months before we got Kaitlyn. I thought that some of you might find it interesting.

Some adoption movies

I am attempting to use YouTube to display the little movie slide shows that I created about our two adoption trips. Let me know if you have any problems with these.

Raising a Girly Girl

Well, I haven't posted anything for a month. I took a little unannounced hiatus from the blog. I apologize to my loyal readers (both of you) HA :-) Here is a small post about Emily.

Anyway, Kirsten and I have come to realize that both of our daughters are girly-girls. They like to dress up, pretend to put on make-up, etc. This morning Emily got up too early (4:30 AM). I sent her back to bed, but she was still up at 5:00 AM. So I let her get in bed with me, but she had to lay there quietly. That lasted about 15 minutes, then she started describing her wedding to me. It was interesting enough that I let her talk.

For only being 4 years old, she has put a lot of thought into this. The important parts to her are the make-up that she will get to wear. Also, the man that she will be marrying will give her a ring, ear-rings and a crown. So basically, at this point she is a material girl.

Annual Snow Trip

We have just returned from our annual snow trip. Which is kind of funny, when you consider that we just had snow for a couple of days at our home. Anyway, we have been doing a three or four day trip up to the mountains, to play in the snow, every year now for four years. The last couple have been with my parents and some good friends of ours that have two children of their own.

Every year is different. Last year it snowed almost constantly. This year it was mostly sunny. The place that we rent has four bedrooms. One with several bunk beds for the kids and three others with queen size beds, one for each couple. Each family is responsible for cooking and cleaning one dinner and one breakfast. We generally share the lunches. It works out fairly well and we have lots of gourmet meals to ooooo and aaaahhh over.

We spent a lot of time playing games. My parents taught us all a game called 'Mexican Train' using dominoes. While the title isn't precisely politically correct, the game was very enjoyable and we all are hooked.

We went up to the pass (where the snow is deep) and went tubing a couple of times. My Dad and the boys went up there three times. Dad went down the hill at least twice as much as anyone else.

All in all it was a very fun time. Below are a few pictures from the trip.

Emily really enjoyed going sledding. Here Grandpa is pulling Emily on the sled. This only lasted until the hill get steeper, then she had to walk herself.


Emily walked up this hill about 15 times. She really enjoyed the sledding.


Patrick (in the red) did almost no sledding at all. He only went down three times. Mostly he and his friend worked on a snow cave.

Kaitlyn was not really enthralled with the snow, but she had a good time in the car with her Mom.

Snow Day

Here in Western Oregon, we had some snow yesterday. We had about 2 inches of total snow. This is unusual for the valley. We generally get snow one out of every three years. The kids had a really good time in the snow. Also, it was nice to get outside now that they are all feeling better.

Here are a few pictures from that day:

Interesting Times

Many of you have probably heard of the infamous ancient Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times". Well, I brought the curse on to our family last week. You see, I was looking at our blog last week and realized that I hadn't written anything in a couple of weeks. I was somewhat startled, because I generally try and update the blog every week, I feel that I owe it to our two regular readers :-)

Anyway, there I set, in front of a blank page on the computer. After a few minutes however, I realized that I had nothing to say. There was nothing going on in our family that was worth writing about. Things were good, we were happy, but there was nothing really happening. So, then I went and did it. I thought, "I need something interesting to happen."

So now, the last few days HAVE been interesting. All three children have been running a constant fever. Two of them vomited (one several times). My wife and I are still well, but I don't expect that to last very long. On the plus side, the sickest was my 12 year old son. He doesn't require as much care like the girls. Also, when Emily threw-up, she did make it to the bathroom sink first, which is much better than almost everyplace else!!!

The good news, is that all the fevers broke last night and everyone is doing much better today.

Present Overload

Well, as usual, my parents have overdone themselves again. They tend to go a little overboard with the Christmas presents. They have six grand kids. This year they got each grand kid nine presents. Take into account that a lot of the presents are clothing and it isn't as bad as it seems. Still, it does seem excessive.

All in all, our Christmas was very nice. We stuck by our tradition of homemade clam chowder and one present on Christmas Eve. The next morning the girls slept until after 7:00. We actually got them up. After breakfast, we all got cleaned up and dressed. Then we opened our presents. About 10:30, we packed up and headed over to Mom and Dad's for the rest of the day.

Here are a few pictures from the day.


Finding what Santa has left them

Emily with her Santa Gift

Kaitlyn with her Santa Gift (Little Mermaid Doll)

The whole family on Christmas Morning

Christmas Party

We had my company Christmas party at our house last Saturday. My company is very small. There are only four of us, but we have eight kids between us. Seven of them are between the ages of 2 and 6 (Patrick is 12). So it was a huge hit when my father showed up dressed as Santa.

It actually turned out better than I thought. I had previously purchased a gift for each child that Santa had with him. Each child went up to Santa to receive their gifts, except the two children that were two years old (including Kaitlyn). Also, Patrick knew that Santa was actually Grandpa, but Emily and Kaitlyn didn't figure it out.

Patrick was very good. He made a big deal out of Santa and put most of the other kids at ease with the situation. Plus, he played well with all of the younger kids, which gave us parents more time to relax and enjoy ourselves (and eat).

So, all in all, the company Christmas party was a huge success.

Christmas shopping is complete

We are done with our Christmas shopping!! This has got to be a first in our household.

Kirsten and I took a couple of days away from the kids, letting my parents were watch them. We took a trip to the coast and stayed at a very nice hotel over looking the beach. The weather was perfect, sunny and no wind, about 60 degrees. While we were there, we took a couple of nice walks on the beach and went out to eat a couple of times. Once at Mo's (a tradition) and once at a very nice restaurant.

Also, we did a lot of shopping at a factory outlet mall. We were able to score some great deals on clothes for the kids among other things.

After a couple of nights at the coast, we left early and got back into town several hours before we were to pick up our kids. We shopped for that time and got everything we needed to get for the kids (both ours and the nephew's) for Christmas and Emily's Birthday and almost everything for the exchange presents for the extended family (some items are perishable and need to bought later).

This is truly amazing for us. In years past, we have still been shopping a few days before Christmas.

All in all, we are

First batch of Holidays

We survived the first batch of the holidays. That is more of an accomplishment than you think. Our Thanksgiving weekend started on Wednesday Night. We met all of Kirsten's side of the family for our traditional Chinese Food Dinner. We meet at a fairly central location, so each family only has to drive about 30 minutes or so. I am not sure exactly how this got started three years ago, but everyone really enjoys it, so it will probably continue for the next several years, at least. Which, I have to admit, please us very much.

We spent Thursday at Kirsten's parents house with her parents and my parents. That was very enjoyable also. Lots of good conversation and everyone was nice and relaxed. The food was excellent. Everyone had a really good time. Kaitlyn was really tired, so I put her down for a nap. She was kind of nervous, so I layed there with her and ended up sleeping for an hour myself.

On Saturday we spent the day at my parents place with all of my family. We showed up a little early, but since it was sunny, we just took a half-hour walk around their neighborhood. The food was pretty good and later we had some cake. We were celebrating my dad's 65th birthday and my nephew's first birthday. All of the kids really enjoyed playing outside on my father's electric ride-on toys. He has a firetruck, tractor and hummer. Kaitlyn and Emily seemed to be doing fine, so we didn't put them down for naps. That turned out to be a fiasco. Emily actually did just fine, but little Kaitlyn was an absolute terror from about 4:00 PM on. She actually took a little nap from 5:00 to 5:30, but that seemed to only make things worse.

Here are a few pictures from the day:

Gaoyou Mini Reunion

In November of 2003 our adoption agency (ASIA) sent a travel group of 14 families to China. 11 of those families (including us) adopted from Gaoyou SWI, but only four of these families are local. Yesterday these four local families had a small get together.

It was very good to catch up with everyone.

Any, here are a couple of pictures. I think that I have all of the names correct. If not, please leave me a comment.



From left to right: Katie, Mei lin, Tian, Bing, Emily and Tori



From left to right: Katie, Bing, Mei lin, Tian, Emily and Tori

Silly Kids

Well, nothing truly unusual has happened in our household recently. It is winter, so the kids have had colds, but nothing too unusual. Of course, kids being kids, every day is an adventure in general.

Recently all of the kids decided to wear their pants on their head. I am not exactly sure why, but they found it to be a hilarious activity. Hey, at least they were entertaining themselves. Kirsten got a couple of cute pictures. Here is one of them.




Here is another cute picture. The girls were watching a movie on TV.




Well, that is all for now. Not much to write about. We are starting to gear up for the holidays. There should be all kinds of fodder for the blog from that!