"www.chinesetalking.com"

Madeline is ready to be a big sister. I know I have said this before but I am reminded of it constantly by things that she says and does. Today, she was spending a lot of time in her room without making much noise. Being curious about a quiet child in another room, I asked her what she was doing and she replied. "I am practicing being a big sister and cleaning my room because I will have to clean Rebekah's room." I cannot ask for more. Tonight she is enjoying her 2nd dinner with daddy, (he came home after we ate and she did not want him to eat alone so she had another dinner), and she was telling him that he needs to go to school to learn how to talk Chinese to Rebekah. Well, I was working on the computer and she exclaimed, "Mama you need to go www.chinesetalking.com for daddy to learn chinese." It is not a real website but it was interesting to me that she knew how to say a web address correctly.

rain, rain, glorious rain

We are finally getting RAIN in Fort Worth. So far we have 1.20 inches of rain today. What is better, our mid August temperature is is 74, WOW! We are expected to get rain throughout tonight and tomorrow. We have had light rain showers since Thursday last week but nothing significant. Our grass is green now and I had nothing to do with it. OH BEAUTIFUL RAIN.

GO ROMANIA!!!

Just finished watching the Olympic women's marathon holding my breath and waiting to jump up and down...Its a GOLD for Romania. What a race...2:26:44! Congratulations Constantina Tomescu Dita. On a side note, she is the oldest female at 38 to win Olympic Gold in the Marathon

against my better judgement

Hot days can do strange things to your judgement.

Madeline: "Mommy, can me and my friend get in the dog pool and play with the hose?"
Mommy: "Sure, why not!"

there and back again

YIPEEEE! We got our American Consulate appointment yesterday afternoon. We are heading to China September 7th - GOTCHA DAY will be September 11th (a good thing to remember on that day). Please begin praying now for our Rebekah Wei and her transition to us. Pray that GOTCHA DAY is not too traumatic for her and that she bonds quickly with us.

We purchased our international air travel tickets yesterday as well. Our initial plan to fly out of Los Angeles was scrapped and we are now taking the northern route through Minneapolis with a stop in Tokyo, Japan. Our trip is longer than initially expected and we have also added 2 days on the front and back of the trip to break up the hours spent in the air and on layovers. We learned, though, that the Minneapolis airport has a ticket price penalty if your layover is longer than 24 hours (oddly enough, it seems they do not want you staying in their city spending $$). SO our overnight stays in Minneapolis, going and coming, will be 3 hours shy of 24.

You may notice the writing on the map is upside down and backwards. Well, the only map I could find showing the route our plane would take, over the North Atlantic Ocean was an upside down map. It actually is an excellent map for dyslexics like me.