Some Pro Shots

When we were in Hawaii part of our hotel package was that we got a professional photo shoot included. I thought they would take us out to the beach and do really cool shots but it was not that cool. Basically the lady spent 10 minutes with us and only took pictures around the hotel lobby and what we got was a free 4x6 and had to pay for anything else. None of the pictures impressed me much so we just took our free 4x6. Once we got home I started thinking about a few of the pictures and was sad that I did not have them. One option was that we could get all the pictures on a disk for $100. At the time we were not interested but once we got home I started wanting all those pictures. So, I called them up and they shipped me the CD. Upon reviewing the pictures I am still not totally impressed but there are a few I am happy we have and on the whole I think to have these pictures it was worth the $100.

Wish Mia were looking at the camera but still cute.

Love the dead pan face.

Kind of cute. The look on Mia's face is totally funny.

This is the picture that got me to order the CD. I remember loving it but thinking Mia has her tongue out and that is not cool but after thinking about it I totally wanted this picture. I just think it is so cute.

The family pic.

Not a fan of the full body shot but it is OK.

So those are the best of the professional shots. What do you think?

A Crash Dashes Sarah's Olympic Dreams

** Update-- I just heard from my mom that Sarah broke her shoulder in the crash**

Sarah had a bad crash in the points race and has pretty much taken her out of all other races. She was competing in the points race and had a half lap on all the other woman (she was winning) and all of a sudden two riders right in front of her clipped wheels and fell within a few feet of her causing her to crash as well as 3 other cyclists. It was really sad and Sarah was hurt. When something like this happens there is nothing you can do about it-- the race goes on without those who crashed. I am pissed about this happening because Sarah could have won but these things happen and as a professional athlete I am sure she will bounce back. While it appears these Olympics are over for Sarah, she will return again-- I'm sure of that!! She is only 24 and woman cyclists do not peak until their mid 30's so she has many more Olympic games ahead of her-- plus she is still the world champion!!

Sarah looking really good a half lap ahead of the rest of the cyclists.

This picture is small but you can see her crashing (this is also in most news papers so you can google it and see better pictures)

Running to help her-- she really screwed up her shoulder.

Being walked off the track with the doctor and the American woman's team coach- on Sarah's right-- in white shirt is her coach Andy who is also her fiancee.

Andy comforting Sarah. Poor thing.

Whatever the case, Sarah is our champion and we are so proud of her accomplishments!!!! WAY TO GO SARAH AND HEAL QUICK!!!!!

Random Hawaii Bedroom Fun!!

*** Please Help!! One of the things I lost on my blog is my blog roll of all my favorite blogs. I do not have many of you listed and I want your blogs back but cant find many of them. If you have been on my blog roll or would like to be, can you please comment and leave me your blog address and name so I can add it to my list-- Lisa, Jodee, Sarah, Sindy-- where are you?? I need your plus all my other blogs back!!!

So after a day of fun in Maui we would return to our room and usually go right to bed from the exhaustion of the day-- but not this night!! We were all just amped-- not sure why-- and we decided to play around (please excuse the pajama pics of me-- not too flattering but what can you do?). I gave the boys "airplane rides" like I did when they were little. Mia just thought it was the funniest thing in the world and had to be a part of it. Her way of being a part of it was to climb on the bed and sit right on my chest as I was flying the boys and pat my face. IT was so funny and we had a blast. Kevin spun the boys around until the almost puked but all in all it was totally fun.

Flying Ethan with Mia in her assumed position.

Flying Owen-- much easier than Ethan as he is much lighter.

Mia attempting to climb back up on the bed to pound on my chest.

Ethan and mommy!!

Mia and mommy!!!

Kevin spinning Owen.

Kevin spinning Ethan- Owen trying to get in on the action off to the side.

Ethan and mommy!!

Great memories!!!!

An Amazing Young Lady!!!!

Look how beautiful my blog looks!!!! I am totally and thoroughly in love with the new look. So here is the story.

When I posted that I had messed up my blog I got some offers to help and one from a very nice person named Ashton. Well, Ashton turned out to be a 7th grade girl whose family had adopted her little sister from China about the same time we adopted Mia and she and her family had been long time readers of my blog. She offered to help make my blog cute again so I shot her a quick email--- THIS MORNING-- telling her I would love her help and she immediately responded and pointed me to her blog design site. This is a 7th grader who designs blogs-- just for the fun of it and because she loves doing it!! She offered to design my blog-- FOR FREE-- and would not accept money because she does it because she loves it. Well let me say, this girl is as good as any professional out there. We emailed back and forth probably 15 times and she was awesome to work with!! I had to keep reminding myself that she was a 7th grader-- you never would have known she was not an adult. Anyway, after a bunch of emails, my blog is here-- as beautiful as ever!!!!!

I want to sincerely thank Ashton for her loving and giving heart. She is an amazing and beautiful (if you look at her blog you will see how beautiful she is) girl and her parents clearly did a phenomenal job at raising this girl. She is tremendously talented and will go very far in life. She told me that she can design any ones blog and she would be happy to do any of your blogs out there. Take a look at her site here and you can email her at princessblogs@yahoo.com. She does this for free and loves to do it so let her make your blog as amazing as she did mine.

Thank You SOOOOOO Much Ashton!! You Are AMAZING!!!!

And, just to add a bit, I wanted to include this picture of Mia and I-- there are very few because I am always taking the pics.

I also thought I would let you know about a project we are in the middle of (that is a project besides the torn up front yard--which is in process). When we poured the cement pad on the side of the house for the basketball court and teatherball court and just flat play area, we realized there was not a natural way to get to that side of the house so we thought we would take out one of our windows next to our fireplace and turn it into a door. We special ordered the door at Lowes and it is now in. It is no done as it still has to be painted and the mouldings and all sorts of little things, but these pictures will give you an idea of what it looks like before and after.

The pictures are washed out because I took them with my little camera and the flash and sun in the background messed with the color. This is the before.

More before.

And yet more

A before from the outside of the house.

This is the basket ball court and the window you see is the window that is now a door. There is another identical window on the other side of the fireplace (part that jets out) and also a window right by the little table. KEvin is building a little fence to define the basketball court area and if you look at the far left by the basketball hoop, you will see park- like poles with big lights on the top. Kevin's dad made these while we were in Hawaii and put them in (there is also one on the far left bottom of the picture just outside of where it was taken). They are amazing and have electrical plugs in them and a switch turns them on. They are soooo cool!!! We have not "furnished" this side of the house and I plan to do some cute things but am not 100% sure what I'm going to do. There are still a lot of little things that need to be done before I can decorate.

And here is the after-- remember moulding isn't up and the door has not been painted.

Now I need top figure out how I am going to arrange the furniture. I'm going to get rid of the green couch because it is old and kind of left over from old furniture sets. I just don't know how I'm going to do this room because it is kind of lopsided now with the door. Any suggestions?? I was thinking of maybe a very small sectional (to make it more cozy and maybe we will actually use this room other than Christmas morning to open gifts) that would run along the french doors and then opposite the fireplace-- get it?? Then I would use probably only one of the chairs and a little side table and put them opposite the french doors by the new door. I probably would not be able to use the leather ottoman because it is pretty big but I worry a sectional will make the room feel lopsided and heavy on one side. I know we will have to get a new rug as the one that is there is beautiful but it is a square and I don't think the shape will work anymore. I may have to go with just a smaller rug in the middle of the seating area where the furniture sits off the rug. I don't know-- confused-- what do you think??

The view the other way. What do you think about the furniture arrangement. I am just confused.

Anyway, lots of work going on this weekend on our house so I should have more pics soon.

Also, my cousin races tomorrow (really late tonight our time) in the Olympics-- cycling track. I cant wait to hear the results and I will for sure let you all know. Remember-- SARAH HAMMER--GO SARAH!!!!

Help!!!! What have I done to my blog????

OK, so I decided to try to play with my blog a bit and somehow screwed with my html too much and lost my blog!!!! My sidebar that had our whole journey to China plus my favorite blogs plus all the other things I had added is totally gone. I cant even get to the page to add page elements to see if they are there but I just cant access them. Where did everything go??? I am literally in tears. It is gone and I cant get it back. Can anyone help???? I don't know how to change it back or how to make it cute again. I'm so sad :((((

HELP!!!!!!

My Cousin-- The Olympian!!!

Before I begin this post I wanted to follow up on the post from my friend who received her referral on Monday. If you want to follow her journey you can go to her blog at http://lilyswait.blogspot.com/. I cant wait to follow their journey-- Lily is just precious!!!

Next--OLYMPICS!!!! I feel very special (in my own pitiful way) because my first cousin Sarah Hammer is in Beijing right now to compete in the woman's velodrome cycling. Sarah is slatted to win gold and is just amazing. She is the world champ and has been for many years. She is kind of a phenomenon in the field as she is one of the youngest racers (she is 24 and woman racers peak at about mid 30's so she is really young) and she has an unusually high level of natural oxygen in her blood which allows her to compete at higher levels. She also has a longer femur bone which is a huge asset in bike racing. Whatever the case, she is amazing and has been all over the news and on TV (like Access Hollywood and other TV shows) because she is expected to win gold.

I am just so proud of my little cousin. Sara lives with her fiance who is the US woman's team coach (Andy) in Arrowhead (where my parents cabin is) so that she can train at higher altitudes. She grew up in Temecula, CA which is only about 45 minutes away from us so we see each other often. We are just so proud of Sarah and we wish her the best of luck!!!

I will keep you posted on her races and the results.

!!!!!!!!!!GO SARAH!!!!!!!!!

You can follow her moms blog (my aunt Randi) while they are in China if you are interested. She is posting everything to do with Sarah on her blog http://randibeijing.wordpress.com/.

Also you can go to Sarah's site to check out more info about her if you are interested http://www.sarahhammer.us/photos.html.

Here is the schedule of races for cycling. I have put in red the races Sarah is in (I cut and pasted it to avoid retyping and it did not transfer well but I did highlight her races).

TELEVISION SCHEDULE USA Cycling members and cycling fans can follow all the cycling actionvia live streaming video online at www.nbcolympics.com or either live or via tape delay on severalNBC networks.

Beijing time is 15 hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time

Wednesday, Aug. 1311:30 a.m. – Women’s Time Trial (Kristin Armstrong, Christine Thorburn)1:30 p.m. – Men’s Time Trial Levi Leipheimer, David Zabriskie)

Friday, Aug. 154:30 p.m. – Men’s Team Sprint Qualifying (Michael Blatchford, AdamDuvendeck, Giddeon Massie)4:55 p.m. – Men’s Individual Pursuit Qualifying (Taylor Phinney)5:45 p.m. – Men’s Team Sprint Round 16:0020p.m. – Women’s Individual Pursuit Qualifying (Sarah Hammer)6:40 p.m. – Men’s Team Sprint Finals

Saturday, Aug. 164:30 p.m. – Men’s Individual Pursuit Round 14:50 p.m. – Men’s Keirin Round 1 (Athlete TBD)5:05 p.m. – Women’s Individual Pursuit Round 1 (Sarah Hammer’s event)5:25 p.m. – Men’s Keirin Repechage5:40 pm. – Men’s Points Race (Bobby Lea)6:30 p.m. – Men’s Keirin Round 26:50 p.m. – Men’s Individual Pursuit Finals7:15 p.m. – Men’s Keirin Finals

Sunday, Aug. 1711:05 a.m. – Women’s Sprint Qualifying (Jennie Reed)11:20 a.m. – Men’s Sprint Qualifying (Michael Blatchford)4:30 p.m. – Men’s Sprint 1/16 Finals 5:05 p.m. – Women’s Individual Pursuit Finals (Sarah Hammer’s event)5:15 p.m. – Women’s Sprint 1/8 Finals5:35 p.m. – Women’s Sprint 1/8 Finals6:15 p.m. – Men’s Team Pursuit Round 1

Monday, Aug. 18 4:30 p.m. – Women’s Points Race (Sarah Hammer)5:05 p.m. – Women’s Sprint Quarterfinals5:20 p.m. – Men’s Sprint Quarterfinals6:15 p.m. – Men’s Team Pursuit Finals

Tuesday, Aug. 194:30 p.m. 80 Women’s Sprint Semifinals4:40 p.m. – Men’s Sprint Semifinals5:30 p.m. – Men’s Madison (Bobby Lea, Michael Friedman)6:25 p.m. – Women’s Sprint Finals6:35 p.m. –20Men’s Sprint Finals

Wednesday, Aug. 209:00 a.m. – Men’s BMX Time Trial Seeding 1 (Kyle Bennett, Mike Day,Donny Robinson)9:45 a.m. – Women’s BMX Time Trial Seeding 1 (Jill Kintner)10:15 a.m. – Men’s BMX Time Trial Seeding 2 (Kyle Bennett, Mike Day,Donny Robinson)11:00 a.m. – Women’s BMX Time Trial Seeding 2 (Jill Kintner)11:40 a.m. – Men’s BMX Quarterfinal 1 (Kyle Bennett, Mike Day, DonnyRobinson)12:05 p.m. – Men’s BMX Quarterfinal 2 (Kyle Bennett, Mike Day, DonnyRobinson)12:32 p.m. – Men’s BMX Quarterfinal 3 (Kyle Bennett, Mike Day, DonnyRobinson)

Thursday, Aug. 219:00 a.m. – Women’s BMX Semifinal 1 (Jill Kintner)9:08 a.m. – Men’s BMX Semifinal 19:30 a.m. – Women’s BMX Semifinal 2 (Jill Kintner)9:38 a.m. – Men’s BMX Semifinal 210:00 a.m. – Women’s BMX Semifinal 3 (Jill Kintner)10:08 a.m. – Men’s BMX Semifinal 310:30 a.m. – Women’s BMX Finals10:40 a.m. – Men’s BMX finals

Friday, Aug. 22A03:00 p.m. – Women’s Cross Country Mountain Bike (Georgia Gould, MaryMcConneloug)

Saturday, Aug. 233:00 p.m. – Men’s Cross Country Mountain Bike (Adam Craig, Todd Wells)

Referrals!!!

I am just so excited that my friend Debbie from Church, who lives just a few miles from me, just received her referral for her beautiful daughter LILY HOPE!!!

The funny story is that for years I hosted swim lessons during summer for people at our church who wanted to come. A good friend from church taught them and she basically just used our pool. Well back in the summer of 2005 we were having our first Home Study visit with our social worker and it was going a bit long and the swim lesson kids and parents started to show up. Debbie and her daughter Hannah arrived for swim lessons and walked in while we were still visiting with our social worker. Debbie and her husband were not in our Sunday school class but I knew who they were and that they were thinking of adopting from China. Since our social worker was there I introduced them and shortly after our social worker left and Debbie and I proceeded to have a lengthy conversation about adopting from China. Since Debbie was already starting to collect documents for the paper chase I encouraged her to check out our agency and so they did. Within a week or so they were signed up with our agency and the process officially began. Officially Debbie and her hubbie started the process about 6 months before us and their log in date ended up being just 3 months after us but their referral came 1 year and 4 months after ours. We use to talk about how we would get our girls close together but that did not end up happening. BUT, little Lily was born mid September 2007 so she is only 11 months younger than Mia and I am sure they will grow up as dear friends. Another cool thing is that Lily is from Hunan so they will have GOTCHA in the same room we did and will probably have the same guides we had-- way too cool!!! I cant believe Mia will have a "sister" from the same province very close in age living only a few miles away attending the same church!!! I am just on cloud 9 as this is just an amazingly wonderful family who has waited what seems a lifetime to see their babies face.

Soooooo without further ado, Here is Little Lily Hope:

CONGRATS ERICKSON FAMILY!!!!

We Will Miss You Hawaii!!!

We will miss Hawaii but we have to get back to reality. We are about to leave the hotel and I took this last opportunity to post a few of the pictures I got off HEathers camera. There are some of Dragons Tooth (I will post more later-- short on time right now) and just some cute pics. Anyway, thanks for comming along and sharing our vacation with us. We had a blast and when I get home I will post a ton more pics.

 

 

Thanks again,

Christy :)

Luau and Lots more family shots!!

****Just added**
I have sifted through some pics and here are some of my favorites.

We went back to that beautiful beach that we got the family walking shots in an attempt to recreate a cool family pic. I think we have some really good ones but there were so many that I just made slide shows of them. Sorry for those of you who cannot view slide shows (Don and Mary) but it would have taken me forever to put the pics in collages (plus it would have cut a lot of the sides of the pictures off) or to post them individually.

Anyway, here are the slide shows. The final show shows the Luau we went to last night. It was a lot of fun with awesome entertainment.

More family pics at the beach

This slide show gets into the Luau pictures. The boys got onstage to learn the hula-- very cute!!!

We took some pics this morning at a studio they have here at the hotel (was free and we didn't really like any of them) and before the sitting I took some pictures of the kids. Mia looked so cute in her white dress-- that I saved by the way for this trip to take pictures in-- and the boys were very handsome in their Hawaiian shirts.

Im sad to say we only have two more days after today. We leave Sunday afternoon and I am sad to leave but anxious to get back into the swing of things. I do miss so many people and want to get back to checking out my blogger friends. Anyway, I will post again before we leave.

Christy :)