Simpsonville Fall Festival

I'm so far behind on blogging ... goodness!

Okay, last weekend we attended the annual big even for the town of Simpsonville - the Simpsonville Fall Festival. Ryan ran in his first 5k run and did very well (for his first time - and for his age). He ran it in 31 minutes! He was most tickled with himself and even more tickled that he could get a free sausage breakfast by running in the race.

Emma was in the princess pagent for 3 & 4 year olds, but she didn't win. Of course we still thought she was the cutest one up there! The little girl that did win was adorable though and she answered her questions very well. Regardless, Emma was still asked by a friend of ours to ride in the parade! She thought she was the cat's meow riding in a Cobra and throwing out candy.

Here's the pictures from "The race", I'll post the princess pageant ones in a separate post:

FCC Dinner last week

I finally got around to downloading some pictures I took last week at the FCC (Families with Children from China) dinner. I think I mentioned the restaurant in a previous post, but it's called Mike Linnig's and it's way over on the other side of town from us and is close to the river. It's been around for ages and the atmosphere is so relaxed and nice. They have a huge outdoor seating area that is just concrete picnic tables, which doesn't sound that nice - but they are set out under these HUGE trees. They also have a playground so the kids can have fun while the adults have some time to visit. Hopefully there will be another dinner there, it was really nice!

Here's a few pictures ... baby girl LOVES "CONE" (that's what she calls corn).


Just a swinging


View of the outdoor dining area - not at all fancy, but very inviting. Especially on an evening with beautiful weather.


View when looking from the dining area down towards the river.


"CONE - YUM"!



hanging out on the playground

The World According to Ryan

For the past few years, Ryan has been a staunch UK fan. Prior to establishing them as his favorite team, whoever winning was his favorite so we've been fairly happen that he's finally sticking with one team.

We were watching the UK - U of L football game the other night and out of the blue (no pun intended), Ryan says "wow papa, have you ever noticed that everyone in red is sitting on one side and everyone in blue is on the other!".

It really makes us laugh when it seems like he wakes up in a new world for the day.

"China Cracks down on One-Child Violators"

http://http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8RL8LK00&show_article=1

I ran across this article earlier today. Interestingly enough, Emma & I recently had lunch with a lady from China and I had inquired about some things I had read about various reasons behind the slower referral process for adoption now. She said that part of it was due to more wealth in China and that now people are merely paying the fine. This article seems to go along with that.

Work needed on our prayer life!

We attended a local FCC (Families with Children from China) monthly dinner last night at a really neat fish restaurant on the Ohio River. They have an outside dining area with a playground so it was a great opportunity to let the kiddos romp while the parents socialized.

An aquaintance of ours has a son a couple of years older than Ryan. Shortly after dinner he became sick and threw up. Emma brought this up several times on the way home and then brought it up again as I was rocking her at bedtime. I reminded her that we needed to say a short prayer for him that he would be feeling better soon. Emma said something about the little boy's mother and to clarify, I asked if she meant that we needed to say a prayer for his mother too. She testily replied "No. You're not HIS mommy. HIS mommy needs to pray for him"!

Obviously we have some work to do ...

Moving right along ...

Woohooo - exciting news this morning on the CCAA Website (Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs), we are FINALLY out of the review room. We're still not sure how much longer it will be until our actual referral, but at least our paperwork has passed the review stage.

http://www.china-ccaa.org/frames/index_unlogin_en.jsp

Worldfest

We attended "Worldfest" over the weekend down on the Ohio River. We've wanted to go for several years now, but just now getting a chance to get down there. It was a beautiful day to be out and about. Several groups were represented from local churches, organizations and such. There were lots of food vendors and their prices were fairly cheap for something like this! We watched some Irish dancers and we also watched some young Indian ladies dancing as well. As much as my heart is in China - adoption wise, it would be wonderful if we could adopt from India as well. But our agency does not work with India so I guess that's just a thought I shouldn't be having right now.