Let's go swimming!

Emma and I hit the pool for the first time this summer...it really has been too cool to go. But the temps climbed into the 90s this weekend and we went to our neighborhood pool. We ran into several friends at the pool and had a great time.

By the way, those of you in the Midwest may have seen a burst of blinding light around noon today...don't panic - it was just the sun reflected off my pasty white skin. My apologies...

Emma had her friend Helen over last night for a sleepover. Helen and Emma have known each other for years and they are good friends, but they tend to squabble a bit when they get together. Or at least they used to! Last night, they peacefully played Littlest Pet Shop together for more than an hour and not once fought over who got which pet or whose pet got which accessory. I guess they are growing up a little...


I made the girls go to bed at 9:30, but they still weren't asleep by 11, at which point I got a bit cross with them (mainly because I wanted to hit the sack!) But they finally conked out and didn't get up until 7 this morning.

All in all, a pretty successful sleepover!

Walk for Hope

Today we participated in our local FCC's charity walk for children in Chinese orphanges. It was a cool and overcast day, which is fine if you're going to be walking a couple of miles. Some photos from the day...

Here is Emma with her friend Ella and Ella's little sister Mira. The two little girls adore Emma and followed her around all morning...


This is Emma with her good friend, Sophie. They actually scootered around the park, instead of walking...


All the girls in the organization were encouraged to raise money on their own for the event. Here are the four girls that raised the most money...Meredith, Ella, Sophie and Emma. Each of the girls won a gift certificate to Build-A-Bear Workshop, so I guess we'll be going back to that kiddie crack den before too long.


And just one more picture of my sweet girl...


We had a good time, but the whole thing was rather bittersweet. This was the 11th time for this walk and the sixth time Emma and I have participated. But we all have the feeling this might be the last one. Every year, fewer and fewer families attend. As our girls get older, they seem to lose their enthusiasm for these Chinese cultural events like the Walk and Chinese New Year. And because adoptions from China have crawled to a standstill, there are very few families with newly adopted children who are excited about coming. We only had one family with a child who had been adopted in the past year...five years ago, we would have had ten or more. It's just very sad. Our FCC chapter is actually considering shutting down, like a number of others across the country. I hope we don't...I've been on the board the past three years and have really loved it. But it's hard to put all this effort into these events when the turnout declines every year. We'll see what happens...

Au revoir, first grade!

Friday was Emma's last day of first grade...the year just flew by. She has a week off and then six weeks of summer school (which is a blessing - it helps keep her French sharp and helps me with summer child care expenses.) Then in August, we'll take a week off to visit family and the rest of the time, we are sharing a nanny with some friends of ours.

Anyway, here are a few photos of Emma's last day of school...

Here's the class with the gift they made for their teacher.


This is Emma with her wonderful first grade teacher, Mme. Cahoon...


And Emma with her friend Emme and Mme. Cahoon...


I'm sure fall will be here in a flash!