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To start, the laptop crashed...so that's my primary reason for such a prolonged absence in my blogging, however, it has been a fun busy month!
First, we spent a fabulous 4th of July celebrating at our neighborhood pool. There was tons of food, friends and games. One highlight, I picked up a hoolahoop for the first time in decades and actually beat out a bunch of kids!!! It got down to me and an 8 year old! Of course she won, it would have been wrong in many ways for me to beat them all ;) Who knew?? We topped off the night with fireworks at Matt & Kristi's. Luckily Sam thought they were great, no fear and he even held a sparkler or two!
We took our annual Hilton Head vaction to spend time with Nanny and Pappy....*sigh* It was so relaxing,amazing and fun as always. We arrived the first day to celebrate Nanny's Bday!!! and it was Sam's first vacay. All the kids traveled well, he loved the beach, the super sized/super nice/kid friendly pool, the sand castles and sand toys, and all the time and attention 10 days with family gives you. His first walk out to the ocean was met with much anticipation by all. The entire family had their eyes glues to Sam. He clung to Jessa for awhile, but after a few minutes of jumping waves and splashing around, asked to go to the "deep end" of the ocean! :) Of course the girls are HHI experts by now..they love our resort the biking and the crabbbing. As usual, Pappy, Mike Jessa and Kenna adventured out into the mud and muck to bring home coolers full of hissing snapping crabs. They LOVE a crab boil and spend hours on the deck overlooking the ocean cracking and eating crabs (see picture above) I prefer NOT to have such an intimate relationship with my food. I like mine dead from Kroger's.
Our friends from Lexington, Carla, Issac and their sweet girls came for a fun day and, the last 2 days Uncle Tom, Aunt Terry, and Cousins Daniel,Michael and his new girlfriend Eddy came to visit. It was a blast to have all of us together in such a beautiful relaxing place. I wish we could have spent the whole week together!
On the way home we stopped in Charlotte NC to visit some new and dear friends we met during our wait to bring our sweet Sam home. Jackie and I were with the same agency and "chatted" endlessly via yahoo groups and email. We were lucky enough to travel together last summer and the experience was wonderful! The kids loved getting to play and Sweet Caileb was such a doll. He and Sam were just priceless together...it was instant friendship!
My last sweet surprise and to arrive home to find my HOMESTUDY FINISHED AND WAITING!!!! (insert angles singing) Boy is that a great feeling! Our immigration papers are officially mailed and we are waiting to hear about fingerprint appointment so we can get clearance! I got busy putting the final touches on grant applications and hope to have them mailed out next week. I notarized/county clerked/authenticated all remaining dossier documents so they would be ready for immigration clearance for their trip to Washington DC before the last leg to China. Bring on the LID so we can REALLY start waiting :)
and I want to send out a BIG congrats to Amie and Trey....YEAH BABIES!!!!
and to Cynthia and Adam....can't wait to meet Asher and follow your trip to Taiwan!!! It's so fabulous to see families grow!!!
As you know, summer flying by *sigh* we actually went to school for the uniform sale this week too.....school starts in @3 weeks....gotta go have more fun!!
