First Day of School!

August 20th was the official first day of school for EmmaLi. We visited the school about 6 times prior to starting. We spent more than 2 hours at the school on Meet the Teacher Day and when she had questions she just needed answered I called the school and asked. All of that preparation worked wonders for her.


I was allowed to walk her to class the first three days. On the forth day I walked her and our neighbor girl to the "green hall" and they walked the rest of the way them selves. The fifth day I walked them into the building and they walked the rest of the way themselves. Her teacher had them practicing walking to their class too.



Here is EmmaLi and our neighbor girl walking to school on the first day.



This is EmmaLi with her Teacher Mrs Ricard.



This is EmmaLi with her Teacher Assistant Mrs Jumper.


EmmaLi loves her teachers. She got the best teachers in her entire school. She is big on communication and big on reading. EmmaLi loves reading and loves that she has homework!? Of course, her homework is nothing that we don't do already. She is supposed to read no less than 10 books per month. We write the name of the book and the author in her homework folder. When she has ten books she gets a prize. We also have home work like bringing her her activities at school home and reading it to me. I sign it and she takes it back. She brings it home again and it has a "Great Job" sticker on it. She has also had to find things at home based on shape. One day she had to bring a circle from home. She brought a Dora Plate. Then she needed some thing square and she took a square sticker with a raised dolphin on it. She also took a rectangle and triangle. The class used the things they brought in and glued them to a poster for their shape posters. When the class as a whole gets a "way to go" from one of the related arts teachers or administrators, they get "Brownie points". The teacher has a picture of a baking pan on the door. When they get a brownie point, the teacher puts a picture of a piece of brownie on the pan. When the pan is full, she will bring brownies in for the entire class. These are just two awesome teachers.

It's Folly Beach Time Again

We had our annual visit with friends from MI who come down to Folly Beach every year. I keep saying we will go down and camp while they are there but as it turns out they always go the week school starts here. Here are pictures of the girls playing in the water.

After dinner with our friends we took a walk to see the old abandoned light house off the coast of Folly Beach. Below are some pictures taken at the tip of the Island overlooking the light house.

At one point we saw something way out in the water and could not make out what it was. It sort of looked like an island or a ship or the shore on the other side of the inlet miles across. I zoomed my camera in on it and took a picture. I was lucky it turned out. The "mysterious object" turned out to be a Navy ship. Here is a picture of it. I guess the water was pretty rough that day.

A few of my favorite vacation photos

Hattaras Light House at night. It took about a dozen photos to get this shot. Because it was at night the camera had to be perfectly still and I kept moving. I finally sat the camera on a piling and timed it just right to get this picture.

I just love the look of sheer excitment, joy and fun on the girls faces in this picture. I can hear them scream and squeal as they run from the waves.

We spent the 4th of July in Gatlinburg. We had a great time. We parked and rode the trolley into downtown simply because the traffic had been so bad every time we went into or through Gatlinburg on the way to The Smokey Mountains National Park. I am quite sure we will not be going back to Gatlinburg for the 4th of July (or any other holiday) again. It was way too crowded everywhere we went. We were close to the trolley pick up location and made it out of downtown on the first trolley of the color we needed. However, the number of people taking the trolley was huge. If you have ever been in the Tube in London during rush hour you have experienced it. Wall to wall people bumping into you, touching shoulders all pushing to the open door. There was no rhyme or reason to it and people trying to board the green trolley were blocked from getting on by the people waiting for the red, blue and yellow trolleys. If you ever take the trolley for the fireworks in gatlinburg, I suggest you watch the fireworks at the trolley pick up location so you are first in line. The view is great but now where to sit. Still you should be able to be on the first trolley of your color.

This is EmmaLi at the camp fire at Natural Bridge State Park in Kentucky. It was our last night there. All of our friends had come down to hang with the campers, roast marshmallows and make S'mores. We both had an awesome time and loved seeing everyone again. I think it is important that these girls stay in touch as they are the closest thing to a birth family any of them will ever know. They are not related by blood but by Kunming.

This is EmmaLi and I at the top of the Overlook Ridge. Behind us you can see the Natural Bridge. The hike from the Natural Bridge to the Ridge is mot but 15 or 20 minutes on way but it is very flat and an easy hike. We made this trek just the two of us. no one else wanted to ride the sky lift up the ridge to the over look. We like sky lifts so we went just the two of us.

Below is a picture of Overlook Ridge taken from on top of the Natural Bridge.

I'mmm Baaaaaaack!

Okay we had an extended absence from Blogger due to technical difficulties but all is resolved and I am back on line. I will do my best to catch up.

Much has happened and I will try to catch everyone up.

Photos from The Outer Banks

Due to photo posting difficulties I created this slide show with the photos I wanted to post. Enjoy!

I think some of my favorites are the Hatteras Light House at night and the ones of EmmaLi and Angela Laughing with every fiber of their beings right down to their toes.

Vacation Part Tres Natural Bridge

We left Gatlinburg and drove to Natural Bridge State Park in Kentucky. We had a reunion of the families from our adoption travel group. It was the first time seeing most of the girls since we left Guangzhou more than four years ago. We hiked, rode the skylift, played putt putt, roasted marshmallows, swam in the pool and overall had a great time just hanging out with our friends. EmmaLi wants to know when they can come to our house to play. LOL

Vacation Part Dos

We returned from The Outerbanks on a Sunday and then left again on Thursday for part two of our vacation. This time we packed up the camping gear and headed to the Smokey Mountains.

Last year for the Fourth of July was the first time she sat in a chair with me and watched the fireworks in the neighborhood. We had never gone to a "real fireworks display" because she never liked them much. They were too loud and unpredicatable for her. However, last year that all changed. This year I wanted to go some where for the Fourth of July celebration. We decided to go to Gatlinburg TN. It's close and we had another camping trip already planned for the dates after the 4th.

We camped at a campground called Adventure Bound. It had a lot to offer. It was fairly close to Gatlinburg and had a pool, waterslide, fishing pond, and go carts if you wanted to rent those. The campsite was a great one. It was completely shady which was great with a tent. It backed up to a creek which was natural entertainment for EmmaLi. Whenever I was making dinner or packing everything up, she went to the creek to throw rocks. Here are some pictures of the camp ground.

Emmie on her favorite playground toy. I told her Grandpa will be happy to see her with the earth mover since he has several for his business. LOL She played on this contraption more than any other play structure they had.

We also went into the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. When we were in the Outer Banks EmmaLi got a "Passport to the National Parks" book. You take it with you each time you visit a National Park and they stamp it marking your date of visit. We made sure we went to the visitor center and got her stamp for The Smokey Mountains. We also picked up a Junior Ranger book but she didn't complete that project. We'll save it for another trip. It would have been difficult to complete that project. One of the things she was supposed to do was pick up a grocery store bag full of trash. Honestly, we didn't see any trash except a water bottle top here and there. She also needed to attend a guided activity with a Ranger but we didn't have time to do that. Here are some pictures of us in the Mountains.

Photo posting problems again...wi;l; try again later.