3 Doors Down...
Last night we went to the Three Doors Down / Switchfoot concert at the Gwinnett Arena! It was so much fun! Very loud and Great music. Also, there were two other openers- American Devils (a local Atlanta rock band) & American Bang. We were not familiar with either but enjoyed listening & watching the fun.
A few Switchfoot hits they sang: "I dare you to move", "Learning to Breathe", "Don't close your eyes" And, the headliner 3 Doors Down played these hits: "It's not my time", "Kryptonite", "Citizen Soldier" & "Loser" (just to name a few). Our ears were ringing at the end of the concert, they played pretty loud. We noticed the crowd was mixed with all age groups; there were a lot of families with young teenagers and a parent.
Through out the venue, the National Guard was out with photo opps. They gave us a card which we could use to redeem free photos online after the concert. I've never seen this before, a great promotional opp for the NG. Our friends Connie & Gerald were familiar with the photo deals from their nascar days. But, to us it was new and we enjoyed taking advantage of the pictures~ can't wait to scrapbook these pics!

Thanksgiving Day Marathon...
Yes, I realize I am behind on posting these pictures! But, I am so proud of Matt and I want to share his accomplishment with everyone. He trained very hard for 6+months and Thanksgiving day he succeeded in running 13.1 miles under 3 hours!

Waiting on his arrival to the finish line I managed to keep my camera focused to capture the moment he crossed! I had elbowed my way into the perfect position. Luckily I did not miss the moment- there were so many other runners I was afraid he would run right past me and I wouldn't get the picture.


For finishing the race everyone received a blue ribbon medal. Here Matt is catching his breath & proudly wearing his well deserved medal! The finish line was in front of Turner Field. And, this is also the location to the Atlanta "Hosea Feed the Hungry"... that line went around the entire stadium!


I was amused & amazed by all the runners...more than a few were running in pilgrim costumes, turkey costumes and the ARMY had representation with a bunch of men running in fatigues, carrying the American Flag. Shortly behind them crossed another group of men running in full uniform (backpacks, combat boots, etc.)! The crowd watching cheered them on with gusto!
Matt wore his "3M's" hat (the 3 Marvelous Miller Milers)- representing our family team (Matt, Ed & Julia). And, he is already planning on running again next Thanksgiving! Run Strong!

Tortola

The #1 reason why I (Julia) wanted to take this particular cruise itenerary was because it included a port with a Dolphin Excursion. Needless to say, this was a very special day neither of us will forget. Our Dolphins name was Elektra (with a "K"). She is between the ages of 13-15. We were in a group of

Matt Dancing with Elektra. This movement for Elektra was not easy. As she stood up in the water she was ferociously peddling with her tail fins. She worked hard to stand up like this.


Julia Dancing with Elektra. Okay, this is a horrible picture of Julia, but a very honest moment captured by the photographer. While Elektra is working hard she is also slightly moving backwards and she was pulling me off the platform and out to sea (which scared me).


Julia getting a kiss...

Matt getting kissed...

St. Thomas "The Ultimate Island Tour" Excursion

The view from our boat...

This excursion took us to the very top of the island and everything in between. The views were beautiful and the shopping was fantastic! This pic is on "Mountain Top" where you can see most of the surrounding islands. While there we had our pic taken with the St. Thomas Donkey- He/she was decorated to the hilt and was quite cute!


And, the view with Megan's Bay (National Geographic top 10 beaches. Legend has it if you are married on the beach then your marriage will last the test of time. Also, the top of the beach sands is in the shape of a heart, unfortunately we were not able to get that angle but we did see the heart along the way...

The view of our boat (the one on the far right). Luckily there was only one other boat in port this day. Others before us have said St. Thomas can get VERY crowded when mulitple cruise lines are in port.

Our First stop was Samana. These cream dogs where all over town. There were a few other color dogs but mainly this dog seemed everywhere! Same color & about the same size.


For the most part, this is a typical home. Most doors where wide open & you could see straight through the house. Aside from kitchen tables, not much else appeared to be inside. The typical family in Samana are 18 children!! All, sleep & live in these homes.

To bring good luck to their home, locals decorate trees with egg shells.

During our "Safari Adventure" excursion, local children walked with us to a popular watering hole.


At the end of our unstable, rocky hike was a beautiful waterfall. One of the older children climbed the limbs of a nearby tree and jumped into the water! It was very scary to watch because the waterfall was not very big and the water certainly did not look deep enough to jump into. However, the guide assured us the depth the child was jumping into was over 8 feet deep & the children "do it all the time".

We made it home safely! What a wonderful vacation we had on MS Norwegian Dawn! We are still in the process of unpacking and uploading pictures. I thought I would share two beautiful views we enjoyed on our plane ride home yesterday.

approximately 12:30 PM, Miami


approximately 2:00 PM, Atlanta, What a beautiful site she is!

I will attempt to upload a few more pics from our trip soon.

Just a quick post from Matt. For those of you who don't know, we are going to be on vacation but, as much as possible, will be continuing to post comments on our Twitter feed (see the right margin of this blog to follow us on Twitter).

Adoption Update...

"CCAA’s cutoff date for this month was February 17, 2006.
I wanted to explain the CCAA’s cut off date. The cut off date issued by the CCAA is the date through which they were able to match referrals. For example, last month the CCAA’s cut off date was February 15, 2006, so all families with LID’s before and on February 15, 2006 were sent a referral. As for this month, the CCAA’s cut off date was February 17, 2006 so families with LID’s before and on February 17, 2006 were mailed their referral."

Wow! Good news that they are moving forward. Bad news it took 1 month to refer 2 days of LID's. Slow, slower, slowest... this is getting painful!!

Below are two videos of things we have been up to recently. The first video is Julia and Connie working on Connie's Halloween costume. The second is Julia's "pre-tea" tea party. We are still learning how to use the camcorder and the video editing software, so the videos WILL get better. Promise!

carving jack-o-lanterns

Matt and I had a good time last evening carving our pumpkins. We were behind the curve on the newest craze~ my Bestie, Connie,shared with us (2 yrs ago) about the pumpkin patterns. Now we are hooked and carving pumpkins is just a little more fun!

Here's our two jack-o-lanterns before night fall...


and, all lit up ~ VERY spooky!


Also, one of my fave things to do is roast the pumpkin seeds! Unfortunately I put a little too much salt on them but they are still tasty!

BOO Y'all!



We enjoyed another Fall Festival this weekend~ Gold Rush in Dahlonega, GA! We have decided it is our fave of the fall festivals. The weather was perfect! And, the leaves are just starting to change.

Again, we managed to beat the crowds by getting there right when they opened. Gold Rush is the largest fall festival (that we know of) and it took us twice as long to make our way through all the vendors {as it did last weekend at The Apple Festival}.

This time we remembered to bring our tin cup to get $1 refills at the root beer stand. In this picture Matt proudly holds the cup toward the camera.

Adoption Update

"...This month, the CCAA completed the matching process for families with dossiers registered through February 15, 2006..."

Just wanted to share the above information. We appreciate every one's prayers for our patience! Looks like we will be lucky to have a completed adoption in 2010! We are certainly on the slow boat to China.

Fight Club

A few Friday's ago I stopped into watch Matt's Fight Club training. Luckily I brought my camera. I hope Matt won't mind me posting a few of my favorite pictures of the evening. And, I'm sure he will post more respectful ones once he notices this post! LOL

So, I walked into a balmy sweaty session. Once I figured out the settings on my camera I was armed and ready... hehehe, I can't help but giggle over the earnest expression on Matt's face here:


Here Matt has a good submission hold on his trainer...


Side control BAYBEE! Rock it MY Man! That's MY man on top in side control, uh-hmm!


Anyone think they can Hang? Anyone wanna rumble?! :)
I can't wait to make a scrapbook page LO, or two!

Happy Fall Y'all!


Today Matt and I drove over to Elijay, GA for the Annual Fall Apple Festival. It was a beautiful day and as luck had it we managed to arrive before the main crowd! Did a little shopping...enjoyed a caramel apple& southern BBQ. On our way out of town we peaked in to one of the main Apple Orchids and purchased some apples. And, this evening we made an "Apple Walnut Carmel Bundt Cake" using the apples we picked up today! It oozed of fall Yumminess!

Matt posing for the camera...


One of the oddist sights was the camel ride, yes, camel ride! This was my first time seeing a real honest to goodnest camel!


Me, on our way out of the festival, headed back to our car...

Hello! Matt was able to upload some recent scrapbooking (sbing) layouts (LO) from our summer vacation to NY... I thought I would share them with you :)

The Brooklyn Bridge... what a beautiful bridge!!


Page Six Headlines... we saved 2 copies of the NY post so we could scan the images for our sb


Have metro card, will travel...

Matt and I picked out Baby E's 2008 Christmas Ornament. We chose "Dr. Seuss Horton Hears a Who!" Matt's favorite children books were Dr. Seuss. 6 months ago Matt joined a Dr. Seuss Children's book club for Baby E and her/his book collection has grown quickly. Thus, the Dr. Seuss ornament was the perfect selection for Christmas 2008!

This is Matt posting. I was roaming the web a bit while at work today and I ran across this website MagMyPic.com which will put the picture of your choice on a fake magazine cover. I had to do one of one of my favorite pictures of the kids...enjoy:

My Boyz...

What a sight to behold... how precious!

Another addition to our Christmas Village

Michael's Arts and Crafts store had a 50% off coupon in Sunday's paper ... so, back to Michael's we went on Monday to pick up the center piece to our Christmas Village!! The people file in and out on a rotating platform much like one of those German Clocks. It is so cute! Also, you can hear singing and talking or turn of the sound and just watch the motion! So cute!!

Lemax Caddington Village: Guiding Light Church

"Parishioners file into church for holiday services.' The Guiding Light Church is a large, beautiful, animated piece. The animated parishioners file past the priest into the church. This is a great centerpiece for your Village. And it plays music. The Guiding Light Church, from the Caddington Village series, will look great in your Lemax Christmas village. This Lemax village building will also coordinate with other Christmas villages in the same scale, such as Department 56 and Carole Towne. Add this Lemax village collectible to your collection today!"

Baby's R US Shopping Adventure

Yesterday Matt and I organized the dresser in the nursery. It had become a dumping ground! Also, we unpacked various baby gifts. Sorting through all the items put us in baby mode~ we were both surprised how long it had been since we had purchased anything for the Baby E.

We have a new Baby's R Us store nearby and today we ventured inside. We wandered around and confused ourselves over all the baby paraphernalia. Our search first lead us over to the Pj's. But, not knowing the sex of the baby led us to not so cute unisex outfits. Ultimately we moved past clothes because we have no clue what size to buy- 9 months-12 months?! Our otherwise "fun" trip to Baby's R Us became full of dilemma's and not so much "FUN" after all. However, still determined to find something for Baby E we found ourselves in the toy isle. And, we both feel very confident in our purchases. It would be hard to go wrong with toys! We wanted small items we can bring to China with us & that won't take up too much space in our bags. Our choices: "Koala Baby" rattle monkey & "Baby Einstein" Photo book! Needless to say the photo book totally excites me because we can put family pictures inside for Baby E to get used to faces...and if she so desires she can also chew on the handle and pages. Totally cute!

Chan’s Chinese Antiques Lighted Building
We can't believe that stores are already displaying Christmas decorations! We mocked at first then we started browsing the isles. And, look what we found:

Today At Michael's Craft store we found this cute addition to our Christmas Village. No, it's not a Dickinson piece, it is a Lemax but we couldn't resist!! Our collection of Lemax is fast overtaking Dickinson pieces! Also, somewhere out there is a similar Lemax of a Chinese Restaurant and now we are on the look out!! Collectibles are fun!

This last Christmas we were unable to find our Lemax Christmas Villagers. A few weekends ago we were cleaning out the basement and found their missing box!! We are both excited about creating our 2008 Christmas Village~ we will hold a reunion with our "old" villagers and our "new" foreigners! I wonder if they will all get along.

The Baby Gardner, Gifts All things Baby
Now, y'all know I Love all things creative and unique! A very good friend of mine creates this adorable vintage style charm bracelets in several different designs. One of her most recent is of a vintage PANDA!! We are ALL about the Panda!! She even creates Mother Daughter matching charm bracelets! I wish some of her creative juices would rub off on me!



Also, check out the website below. If you like all things vintage baby you will be in heaven! Different artists create their designs especially for the web site! It's a must see:

http://www.thebabygardner.com/productpages/jewelry/jwpandamombrclt.html

Who Wears it Best?
Devil Dawg - Halloween Costume 2008

Matt and I found a cool website for Halloween costumes. This year we decided that not only will the dawgs get to play dress up, but we both will too (more on our costumes a little closer to the big BOO-day)! And, with Halloween soon approaching, we forced the Chi's to try on this years Halloween costume~ to see who wears it best...

Nacho seems to be enjoying himself and even appears to get into character...

Penny is humiliated & doesn't want to play with such evil forces...

Sierra doesn't seem to mind, which is good because it certainly fits her better (sorry Nacho). And, she manages to look Noble in her other wise humiliating get-up.

Another Layout for you... again, our trip to NYC. Here we are in Central Park

Patience & Fortitude

This past weekend I was able to spend some time with friends at a local scrapbook store. Here is one of the Layouts I completed of our NYC trip. These Lions sit outside the NYC Library guarding the stairs. And, though their names have changed through the years currently the names "Patience & Fortitude" have stuck (named by the Mayor)

Three, Two, One, Contacts!

This self portrait was taken to show off my EYES!! Look Ma, no glasses!! And, check out my long lustrous hair! :) Which is much longer than it look in the picture. My hair goes all the way down to my ankles (just kidding). Now, if I can just find a long term solution to covering my gray! HA!

Most men would be jealous of Matt's cucumber! (He MADE me say that!, LOL) Every day Matt goes out to our garden patch to water and check the veggies. Somehow he overlooked this big daddy of a cucumber!

If you like this, you should see his tomatoes!
And, don't get me started about his peppers!!

Fight Club Bruises

As most of you know, the past two months Matt has been taking classes in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. Three days a week he leaves the comfort of our air conditioned home to participate in an organized "fight club" (as I like to call it). When he comes home we go through our "bruise check" ritual. We joke that if there isn't a new bruise he isn't training hard enough. Behold, one of the latest additions to his collection:

It's a Beaut!!

Again, today we are sharing our third ornament in Baby E's collection. This one puts us up-to-date on our ornament messages. We are very excited to check out the 2008 Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments! I'm sure there will be more than a few that will speak to us for the perfect addition to her/ his collection (only one for her/ him, and the rest for us, LOL)

Christmas 2007

“China, Joy to the World”

We have shared with our Friends and Family this ornament tradition we are starting for you. And, this is the VERY first ornament gift to you from Mommy’s Best Friend~ Connie. Just like everyone else, she can’t wait to meet you! Because she is so dear to us we want you to call her Auntie Connie. Auntie Connie has been Mommy’s confidant through the adoption process. And, she knows how important you are to us! She told me that when she saw this set she just HAD to get it for you. Thank you Auntie Connie! PS: We liked the ornament so much we bought one for our Christmas tree too!

Continuing with yesterday's subject, this ornament is the 2007 (ornament #2) ornament in "Baby E"'s collection.

Christmas 2007

“Great Getaways”

A little over a year has passed from our LID and we are still waiting on your referral from China. Every day we pray for you & your birth families health. We know that God is knitting you in your birth Mother’s womb especially with us in mind to be your Forever Family/ Mommy & Daddy. The next step for us will be to pack our bags to pick you up and bring you home. We still are not sure when that day will be. However, that doesn’t keep us from thinking of you and dreaming of you in our arms. This ornament seemed very appropriate. Our suitcases look EXACTLY like this years ornament!!

Some of you may remember that in 2006 we decided to start our own Christmas Ornament collection for Baby Emma/Emmit (not really Emmit, we just can't decide what name if it's a boy and Emmit rhymes with Emma). Inside each ornament we will write a little message to her/him. And, we finally got around writing the messages for the last 3 ornaments. Here is a pic of her first ornament and the message is below:

Christmas 2006

“Holiday Mail”

This year Daddy and I have been very busy preparing all the paperwork necessary to start our family with you! We decided in November 2005 that we would proceed with your adoption in Jan/Feb 06. In January we researched agencies and February we signed the application and began the arduous, yet exciting, adoption paper trail. We are so very excited to receive our “Log in date” (LID) from China (September 18, 2006). That is the date that China received our paperwork and logged it into their system. We are OFFICIAL “Parents in waiting”. When we saw the mail box ornament we both KNEW it would be the very first ornament in your collection! We are anxiously awaiting your referral from China!! USPS and FEDX have been very active on our behalf (delivering and mailing all our paper work pieces). We LOVE you so much!