Happy Birthday Mama!

On April 2, my mother Sylvia turned 72 years old! Two days prior, we celebrated at the botanical gardens and had a great time. And Mei-Ling is not just walking - she's practically running!

Happy birthday, Mama! We love you.

Mei-Ling Enjoys The Botanical Gardens

Spring has definitely arrived in Athens, and to celebrate the beauty of the season, we visited the State of Georgia Botanical Gardens today. We definitely wanted to go there before the onset of sweltering hot weather, and we are glad we went NOW. It was 86 degrees today, March 24th!

Mei-Ling enjoyed seeing lots of beautiful trees, flowers, ponds, a stream and much more. She also experienced putting her feet into a cool, refreshing stream for the first time. That was definitely Mommy's favorite part.

We also really appreciated the netting on her stroller during the times we were coming close to interfering with bumblebees eating their lunch. :)

We have lots of pictures from today, but these are the very best ones. Oh, and thank you cousin Debbie in Columbia for the beautiful dress featured in today's pictures! It was perfect for our visit to the gardens!

Meeting The Rest Of The Family Soon!

Well, we are excited to report that we will be spending Easter weekend with Mei-Ling's Mimi and Poppy, Aunt Kim and Uncle Buck and cousins Will and Jack!!! Mei-Ling has never met her aunt, uncle and cousins. And Xavier will be traveling with us as well.

What a wonderful way to spend Easter! We can't wait. :)

Oh, and here are a couple of additional shots of us with Mei-Ling that we wanted to share. These were from her first visit to Starbucks. Baba was craving a chai tea latte, and Mama had her favorite pomegranite soda. Mei-Ling was very well-behaved! I'm sure the students who were studying and saw us coming in with a baby were very relieved. Of course, who REALLY goes to a Starbucks to study? ;)

Wow, Look How I've Grown!

Ok, so we don't post on this blog as often as we should, because we are still keeping up our site at: www.myadoptionwebsite.com/meiling

However, we do intend to start posting here more. As we have said on our other blog, Mei-Ling is doing fabulous! She is growing taller (though not much bigger around - still a 6-month size waist), speaking many more words, eating everything in sight, and really enjoying her school. She is taking a few hesitant steps here and there.

She is still one of the most joyful babies we've ever seen. What a blessing she is in our lives! Mama and Baba couldn't be happier, nor could the grandparents, Aunt Doe, etc. We can't wait to take advantage of the up-and-coming warm weather and get some great shots of her outside.

We'll post more soon! Also - Gung Hay Fat Choy - or Happy Chinese New Year (belated). Welcome to the Year of the Pig!

It's Been Two Months!!!

Happy anniversary Mei-Ling. You have been an American citizen now for 2 whole months. You won't remember this, but when the customs officials stamped your visa in Detroit when we landed en route from Tokyo, you became an American. That was on October 21, the day before Mommy's 38th birthday!

You are the joy of our lives. We are so happy to have you.

Note: this was the very first picture we saw of Mei-Ling, when we received her referral in August of this year. Wow, how much she's changed already! Wo a ni sweet baby!

Wow, 50 YEARS!!!

I'm just full of posts today. I wanted to make some sort of mention of something that my parents DID NOT want a big deal made of. In September of this year, they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. Wow, 50 years with the SAME PERSON!!!! :)

Anyhow, they absolutely refused to let me throw a party or do anything for them publicly. So I did convince them to allow us to take them to a very nice dinner. I wanted them to have something different that what they'd had before, so we forced them to go to the Melting Pot, the fondue restaurant. They had a wonderful dinner of several things - shrimp, pork, beef, chicken and veggies cooked coq au vin style, a delicious cheese fondue, a California strawberry salad and much more. Of course it was interesting to watch them cook their own food in a fondue pot, but they got the hang of it pretty quickly.

Happy Anniversary Mac and Sylvia!

Love, your one and only child, Tina

Happy Holidays

We just wanted to update everyone that we are still over at www.myadoptionwebsite.com/meiling for a few more months. But, we'll still be posting on this blog some to get everyone acclimated to it. So, here's a nice picture of our family for the holidays. Thanks Mimi for Mei-Ling's beautiful Christmas dress!