Day Care

Well, It's time to go back to school. It has been pretty rough for Beth the past couple of days. As far as attachment goes I'd say Mommy is hooked. Seeing pictures like these makes it a little easier. Hope sure is lucky to have Grandparents that take such good care of her. Play hard, Nap hard.

Group 91 Picinic

We sure had fun at the picnic yesterday.  Most of the families we traveled with were able to make it.  Fun stories and many common adventures with our new additions.  Hope had a fun time playing with the other children.  There were also two weddings in the park while we were at the park.

Baptism Blessings

As promised...PHOTOS! Hope was baptised on Aug. 5. We couldn't be more proud. We'd had a bit of a rough night of sleep, so Hope was very tired and slept during most of the church service. In fact, she didn't wake up until I tipped her back for the water. She wasn't very happy, but she quickly calmed down and took it all in with grace. Hope's dress was also a bit frustrating since the buttons wouldn't stay closed. Oh well. I'm thinking I might work on that a bit and take some more pictures of her with the dress before she outgrows it. She looked so pretty, open collar and all. :) Her silver bracelet is one we'll cherish forever. It was a gift from her orphanage and has the name of the SWI engraved on the front and her Chinese name engraved on the inside. What a special gift they gave her. So, without further ado, here is Hope's baptism weekend in pictures...

Hope's Uncle Mark and Aunt Andria (and their puppy, too) stayed with us for the weekend. We started out our Saturday with a little geocaching. Here are some fun shots:

Sunday - Photos from church:

Sunday Afternoon - Reception/Picnic in Hope's honor:

Meeting More Friends & Family

We always seem to be busy! I wanted to share a couple of photos here of special friends and family who have come to meet Hope since my last post. Hope's big event from last weekend (baptism) will ge the subject of my next post. I'm just waiting for some pictures from others. Enjoy these shots for now.

In his previous entry, Ron included a picture of geocaching with Tony. Here is the whole clan. Debbie and Tony came to spend the day with us last weekend. It has been a long time since we've been together, but we always have such a good time when we are. Thanks for making the trip over guys!

And, here we are with my cousin Craig. He was on his way through to visit some friends in MN, but came a day early to do some riding with my dad and to meet Hope. We miss our family to the south! It meant so much that you came Craig. We love you!

Hope was invited to her first party...a 2nd birthday party for the other little Hope in our lives. We had a wonderful afternoon, but had to find creative ways to compromise when our little swiper decided to try out the newest birthday toy. It all worked out eventually. Sharing is so hard!



On this day, we headed up to Grandma & Grandpa's house to meet Hope's Great-Great Aunts, Vi & Liz. I don't know why we don't have any photos of them. I feel terrible about it. But we will remember this day and know that it was very special for Hope to spend the afternoon showing off for them.
Here she is with her Grandpa.

A couple of close-ups



Uncle Rick and Hope are having a few words here. What is Hope saying/thinking? Please leave comments to caption these photos!


We'll end this post with these two pics. Hope and Daddy got caught in the sudden storm - BUT, then thought it would be fun to run back and forth outside to play a bit. Our little girl loves the water!

She is a natural

We kind of knew just a few days after we met her that Hope would like Geocaching. You can tell from this earily picture.









Seems like Hope is really coming into her prime with the official start of her Geocaching.






Yesterday Hope and I went out to show our friend Tony a little bit about the sport and using a GPS(that is an ABC to you Mitchell. Love you!)

This is officially Hopes first find, Tony’s too. This makes 255 for daddy.








This girl sure knows how to travel in style.










Today we went out caching with our friends the Mariks. Hope was really on the ball and quickly located the cache.


Hope and Hannah our Goddaughter are becoming fast friends.










It was a little warm, but a great day to be out trekking around.

She is quite the dancer.

Here is a little video of Hope enjoying some of her favorite music.

Other News from the Week

Saturday we went with Grandma and Grandpa Perry to the Dragon Festival in St. Paul. We had a great time. The weather was perfect! We saw some cool boats, visited a few vendors, had a good meal in the pavilion, and a took a nice walk by beautiful Lake Phalen. Hope loved the opening ceremony performance where they "awakened the dragon." She was very tuned in as she watched and kept signing "PUPPY" as she looked at the dancers. CUTE! :)

We got home pretty early in the afternoon. After Hope finished napping, we decided to head up to New Richmond. We were going to find a couple of geocaches, but ended up watching the end of a parade and trying out the merry-go-round for the first time. Hope was fascinated by the marching bands and clapped appropriately when they finished playing. She also had some fun waving at the royalty as they "floated" by. I have a question about that now...it seemed to me that all the different courts were doing dances on the floats. Gone are the days when the ladies would just sit atop their thrones and wave to the crowd, I guess. Has anyone else been to parades this summer and noticed the same or is it just a small town midwestern thing?

Sunday after church, we went back to the "castle park" in Hudson for a picnic with our friends Brad, Tricia, and Lauren. It was fun to see them again so soon! We had a great time! Check out these pix...(not sure why the captions are so huge. Usually I can choose the size, but when I made this slide show, I wasn't given the option.)

Other misc. updates:

Hope has had more success on the potty! She doesn't do well when I try to hold her squatting, but Ron seems to have good luck with her (both #1 and #2) . YEA! I'm sure if we really worked at it, we could figure out some kind of schedule for when she needs to go, but I'm just not going to push it at this point. At least we know she can do it and she's not afraid of the toilet or the flush. And, if she happens to go once in a while, training down the road should present fewer challenges.

Hope got some very special mail on Monday last week. Her official US citizenship paperwork along with a letter from the President welcoming her as an American. We had our follow-up from the agency yesterday so now we can proceed with the WI requirements for re-adoption after which we'll be able to file for her SS# and birth certificate. Another exciting piece of the puzzle is coming together.

So that brings us up to date I think. Hope everyone is well. Lots of love - B, R, & H