Life progressing well!!

Around here life is progressing well!! We are busy but kind of lazy. There will be whole days that will pass laying around never driving the car and other days are filled with appointments. It's been a relaxing summer and we ate looking forward to our only family vacation this summer- a road trip up the California coast then to Sacramento for a family wedding and then to bass lake to finish the trip up. All together it should be 8 days. Then we return home and im back to work and kids go back soon after. But we are really looking forward to the trip. We are going to the family wedding which is awesome but also we get to visit our friends who just relocated from down here to Sacramento. It will be fun to see the Murphy's and it's crazy nice of charity to babysit 4 of my 5 kids during the wedding (emery stays with us).

We are currently hosting our wonderful judy wu's son like and niece Bella all the way from Guangzhou. They ate great kids and we are loving hanging out with them. They are so smart and polite and just cool kids. Next they head to Arizona to my good pal Sindy!

The following are pics from the last week or so.

Sorry for them being mixed up. I'm doing this on a blogger app on my iPhone. Clearly you can see emery has lost her fear of water and loves playing in the fountain as well as going in the pool!!!

Playing tether ball with daddy!!!

A perfect heart!!!!

We just finished emery's echo on her heart. They couldn't do it on monday as she was freaking out so much but today I had to bring her with no food not sleep and they put her to sleep so they could perform the echo. Emery's special need was a mild ASD but the echo shows nothing at all. Her heart looks perfect in every way!!! The cardiologist said if there was an ASD there at one time is is now closed. No follow up needed- nothing!!! We are so happy about this!!! Praise the Lord!!!

Sent from my iPhone

Hungry girl and Lots of Life!!!

We were at a party this weekend and Emery- lets just say-- enjoyed the food. She was covered in BBQ sauce!

Sorry I have not taken and posted more pictures. I have been very busy with life. It is crazy how I am off work and I honestly think I am busier now then I am when I am working. We have had so many appointments. We have had a ton of Dr. appointments. The boys had their sports physicals, and Finley had a physical and of course Emery's. Then there was blood work and then the referrals and the chest x-ray for Emery and Finley needed an updated renal ultrasound to prep for her spina bifida appointment in August. I have also had a few work things I had to have lunch meetings for and work to do in that area so life has been moving like crazy. Then add to that the average of about 5 hours sleep a night and you are dealing with one tired and busy mom. So, sorry for not posting more but I will soon.

I wanted to touch on the cardiologist appointment from today. It went HORRIBLY!!! Good news but HORRIBLE in everyother way! The Dr. was great and the staff was great but Emery WAS NOT!!! She started screaming the second they started prepping her for the EKG. We could not calm her down at all-- suckers- balloons- nothing could calm her down but they were able to get a usable EKG which was good. Then into the room with the Dr. and Emery was having none of that either. He could hardly listen to her heart because she was screaming so much. This was odd screaming. It was different than anything I have ever seen from her. Bowed back and writhing and almost a desperation to get away in anyway possible. Almost primal.  She was FREAKING out and I could not calm her. The only thing that would calm her was for the Dr. or nurse to leave the room. I have NO IDEA where that all came from and she was fine when we left but it was very odd and strange how she reacted to the Dr. appointment. The Dr. was unable to do the Echo he wanted to do on her so we get, yet again, one more appointment. This time we have to make her sleep deprived with an empty stomach and then they will give her some med to make her sleep and then do the echo. That will happen Thursday so I pray the method works and we are able to get the echo done as it is necessary.

Even though the we were unable to do the echo the Dr. was able to ascertain a lot from what we knew and what we were able to get. He said that her initial ASD (murmur- if there really was one-- but I wont get into that) was very minor and it would have been hard to hear anyway. He said that small of a murmur would naturally close on its own or at least decrease in size. He said that if the murmur was still .4cm (what it initially was) then it would have actually increased in size (as it would naturally decrease in size by her growth) and we should easily be able to hear it simply with a stethoscope of it was still there. Furthermore, if it had increased (or stayed at .4cm) then we would see other signs like the EKG would have shown something as well as we would have seen something in the chest x-ray but everything was totally normal!!! He absolutely wants to do the echo but his initial feeling is that the ASD has probably closed or gotten so small that it is undetectable. We are VERY HAPPY about this and after the echo on Thursday we will know for sure but how awesome if it is closed!!! What a PRAISE!!!! He said even if there is still a super small hole-- which he does not think there is-- they would do nothing for it. He said lots of kids have minor murmurs and they would do nothing for it if it is there and  it really is a non issue. YAAAA!!!! Anyway, I will let you know how the echo turns out. Please pray Emery responds well to the sleep meds and that we are able to get the echo right away.

So we are dropping the boys at church for surf camp on Thursday-- right before Emery's Echo- and we are also meeting our wonderful Judy Wu and Sabrina at church and they are dropping Mike and Emily (Judy's son and niece from China- Judy was our guide and we love her sooooo much) at church and they too are heading to surf camp as well! We pick the boys and Emily and Mike up on Sunday from camp and then we have Mike and Emily until the next Sunday. We are thrilled to get to know the them and to show them a bit of family life here in the US!!!

Look who's walking now!!!!!

A week and a half home and look who's walking!!!

Swimming

We swim a lot! Our kids, Kevin and all of the cousins and others are in the pool on a regular basis. At our 4th of July we probably had 20+ kids in our pool. Lets just say it is well used and it is necessary for our kids to like to be in the water because it is a large part of our summer fun. The boys and Mia are fish and very strong swimmers. Last summer was Finley's first summer with us and she was slow to love the water but as you can see from these pictures, she has come around. She is still very attached to her floaties, which we are so thankful for, but she should be swimming by the end of summer. Emery was initiated into the water within a few days of being home. We don't think she has had any experience in the water as baths are rare in foster homes. Well, we made a go at it and Emery was less than enthused to be in the water. She clung to Kevin like crazy. We have tried the water a few more times and we often are met with tears but we will continue to try.

Look at the furrowed brow-- she so did not know what to do.

She warmed up but still was not too happy

Mia is a major fish. She swims all the time and is very good at it!

Finley is loving the water this year

Mia diving in

Finley being tossed by Kevin

Owen catching a football

Kevin tossing Mia-- the girls fly!!!

Finally~ Emery Last Day and Homecomming

* Excuse the spelling errors. Spell check on blogger will not work right now and Emery is waking up from her nap so I dont have time to edit in word so please excuse my horrific spelling-- ill fix it later.

After great delay-- sorry-- really I am but jet lag and a baby who does not sleep well has really kicked my bum-- here is the last day in China and Emery's homecoming.

First, on Tuesday night, we had dinner with a couple of the other WASATCH families. The Gratz's could not be there but we enjoyed our time with the Patty Fouts and family and Jamie, Chris and Olivia Wilson. We went to Pizza Hut which sounds horrible but it was not bad at all. Im totally not into eating American in China but this was pretty good and the Pizza Hut there was more like a sit down restaurant with beet and wine. It tasted great!!!

The Fouts Crew, The Bock Crew and the Wilson Crew

We had to take a picture of this-- the is a super size (double size) Tsingtao (Kev loves these) and it was 2.5 RMB  at the Trust Store in GZ. That is about .35 cents for a double size Tsingtao. That is soooo crazy. Kevin just had a small one at our favorite Chinese restaurant in PAsadena last night and it was $4 for the small one. Yes, we had Chinese again-- we took Kevin's parents and my parents and my sister to dinner to thank them for watching the kids and we have taken them to FuShing's in Pasadena after each China trip so we had to keep with tradition!

At the Trust Mart-- kind of like Walmart in GZ by the Garden Hotel.

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On our way back from lunch Kev went back to the hotel to continue to pack and  Emery and I went to the bakery across from the side exit of the Garden. While in the bakery a massive downpour started! It was like a monsoon-- literally crazy rain. We kept cover in the bakery with a few others for about 10 min until it passed and then made a run for it. Luckily we were just across the street from the hotel but man was it coming down-- like nothing I have ever seen.

Emery and I waiting out the monsoon!

I took this pic by leaning over Emery

Before we were being picked up for the airport, we  had about 1.5 hours to kill so we went to the place I said we would never go to while in China-- Mc Donalds-- yes we poisoned our daughters body before we could even leave China-- but she really liked the poison :)

Last picture in the lobby of the Garden-- which by the way was a wonderful hotel. I would suggest it to anyone traveling to China. Nice area, lots of great cheap restaurants and amazing rooms!! We really enjoyed our time at the Garden in GZ.

Many of you were aware how terrified we were of the plane ride home. Emery screamed almost the whole flight from Kunming to GZ which was only 2 hours. So the thought of a 12+ hour flight freaked us out. Luckily, our wonderful in china staff made sure we got BulkHead on the flight home and that made all the difference in the world. The fact that Emery could sit on the floor and crawl around and move and play was like night and day from the previous trip. She was so happy most of the flight. Our flight was straight out of GZ to LAX (we live about 40 min drive from LAX) which was awesome. Furthermore, we were in Premium Economy on China Southern and the seats were huge! Emery had plenty of room to crawl, move and sit. We were all very happy. She slept a bit-- not a ton but enough that she was rested enough to feel fine. We were about 45 min late getting into LAX and finally made it through customs and all the immigration checks by about 8:30pm (BTW- all paperwork was processed and Emery is now a US citizen-- yaaaa!!!).

Here was our first view coming up the ramp to see the family! Not my favorite man in the world (very liberal mayer of LA) but it was a welcome sight of home!

And this is what we saw waiting for us!!! My dad was waiting in the car so he did not have to park but it was such a cool sight to see everyone!!

Owen and Grandma getting their first time with Emery!

Mia checking her out

Owen already was making her smile

First Family picture!!! So happy to be home!!!

Emery was for sure the center of attention but she really liked it. She is a major ham or a "tornado" as Chris and Jamie would say.

My mom, Ethan, Em and I

Too cute

And finally exiting the airport. The trip was great and the kids did great without us and in the amazingly capable hands of our family. We are so blessed to have them and their support.

I will post some thoughts~ you know~ more deep thoughts~ later but for now I wanted to get the last pictures posted.

BTW, we have already been to the Dr. and our pediatrician could not hear the murmur either-- so who knows if it is even there. We have a referral pending for the cardiologist and I guess we will see soon but how cool would it be if the murmur was gone-- soooooo cool!!! Also, pray that Emery will sleep better through the night. She wakes up around 2 to 3am and thinks its time to play for HOURS!!! Literally hours and we cant get her back down. We need her to sleep becuase we are useless if we dont get our sleep so please pray she adjusts and starts sleeping well.