15 Years Of Waiting For/Life With Briana

I realized something kind of amazing yesterday (at least for me). 

My blog turned 15 years old on July 30th, 2021. This is my 2,575 post according to Blogger.

I guess I didn't make the connection earlier because the end of July and the beginning of August is always a super busy time in my life with our family day anniversary, Bri's birthday and the start of a new school year. This year was especially crazy with Briana starting her sophomore year in person during a pandemic, having never been physically being in high school before. Oh - and throw in her getting her learner's permit on top of it. Things were kind of busy.

This was my very first post written on July 30, 2006...

Little did I know that exactly one year later, July 30th 2007, Doug and I would meet our daughter for the very first time. I also didn't know that my daughter would be born just six days after I started sharing my life online. 

Life is really something, isn't it?

I wasn't sure I wanted to start a blog in the first place. I mean, who was going to see or care about what I had to say? A couple of friends urged me to do it anyway (including my friend Kathy who I am still super close with). Here I am 15 years later. I'm quite sure that I am now one of the last bloggers still blogging from the China adoption community. You can't say I never stick with anything. Heh.

This blog has changed so much over the years. It started out simply as a waiting China adoption blog and a way for me to connect to people who were dealing with a similar situation. It then morphed into a blog chronicling my crash course of becoming a new parent to an internationally adopted child. It then became a journal of our family's life events and milestones. You've read along as my daughter grew from a toddler to a tween to a full blown teenager. I've shared a lot of our good times and our bad/sad times. This blog became a major outlet and therapeutic device for me when a major pandemic hit the world full force and allowed me to become more vocal about things that I had held within myself for a very long time.

Thank you to all of you who have read and followed me for so many years. Thank you to those who have started reading more recently. And thank you to those who know me personally who have allowed me to share a piece of their lives/their families on this blog too. 

Briana is older now and I only share with you what she approves. I find myself writing more about myself now than about Briana - which is the way it should be. And though I have shared quite a lot of myself on this blog, I of course haven't shared everything - because I do deserve a bit of a private, personal life. In time, I will most likely shift away from this blog (which will be so incredibly tough) and start a new blog focusing more on my thoughts and feelings because I don't think I can go through life without some sort of social outlet. Facebook and Instagram just doesn't cut it for me - it's not enough.

So, happy 15th anniversary (a couple months late) to "Waiting For Briana/Life With Briana." This blog truly changed my life - for the better.

(If you haven't commented on my blog in a while, I'd love to hear from you again.)

Western Art Museum

I mentioned in my 2021 fall break post that Briana was presented with a wonderful opportunity to volunteer with a local art museum right before the break. If all goes well and she enjoys volunteering there, she can continue with this opportunity throughout her time in high school and beta club. 

As Briana was attending orientation, Doug and I were allowed to walk around and see all the exhibits. When Briana was finished, she walked around with us for a little while. The museum is Western art themed and it is really beautiful.

 

The entrance and outside grounds...

Beautiful Native American art and sculpture...

Civil War art gallery...

The old west...

Two true stagecoaches... 

The Alamo - of course...

This piece is made entirely of paper. Amazing...

 

Colliding cultures... 

 

Modern Western art...

Presidential galleries...

The museum has a signed letter from every single president - amazing.

I saw this guy standing in the distance and I totally thought he was real for a second - LOL!

My parents had taken Bri to this museum a couple of times when she was younger. There is a "hands on" kids section in the basement area - which we unfortunately didn't get to check out while we were there on that Saturday. I will go back and check it out another time.

Doug, Bri and I have visited a number of museums in the metro Atlanta area (pretty much "living" at the science museum when Bri was small) and I cannot believe we had never visited this one. I'm so glad we finally got the chance.

We decided to have lunch afterward, and we ended up at the last restaurant we had visited before the pandemic hit. We shared delicious appetizers (fried green tomatoes and fried calamari), Doug had a burger, Bri had chicken fingers and I had chicken francese - which was amazing...

 

And to top off a very eventful day, Briana drove us home...

I'm still not used to typing that!

I am so excited for Briana and this new experience for her. I really hope she enjoys it.

Apple Picking (Fall Break 2021)

 Once again, Doug, Bri and I made the trek up to the North Georgia Mountains during fall break to go apple picking.

I just realized that this was our tenth year in a row picking apples in autumn...

Apple Picking 2021 (BJ Reece/Ellijay)

Apple Picking 2020 (BJ Reece/Ellijay)

Apple Picking 2019 (BJ Reece/Ellijay)

Apple Picking 2018 (BJ Reece/Ellijay)

Apple Picking 2017 (BJ Reece/Ellijay)

Apple Picking 2016 (Ricker Hill/Maine)

Apple Picking 2015 (BJ Reece/Ellijay)

Apple Picking 2014 (Mercier/Blue Ridge)

Apple Picking 2013 (BJ Reece/Ellijay)

Apple Picking 2012 (BJ Reece/Ellijay)

 

 Once again, here are the pictures of Briana sitting on Doug's shoulders to pick apples...

This year was no exception (even though Briana is now 15 years old)...

 

The reason we choose this particular apple orchard to visit each year is it is the only one in the area (that I've found) that allows "u-pick" on a weekday. The other orchards offer visitors u-pick on the weekends.

 

We don't like to visit the orchard on the weekends. Weekends are a MADHOUSE.

 

We went to this particular orchard one time on a Saturday, and though there were a lot of extras and fun things for kids and Bri had a good time, it was just ridiculously crazy crowded and we swore we'd never go on a weekend again. The popularity of these orchards has increased over the years tremendously - and for us, it's just not worth dealing with the insane crowds. Especially now that Briana is older.

I follow the orchard on FB, and they mentioned that the apple trees have not been as plentiful this year. A late spring frost zapped the trees and killed a lot of the crop. All the orchards seem to be struggling to supply apples this year. I warned Doug and Bri that it might be a bust finding apples, but we would still walk through the orchard and visit the store and do all our other "fall-ish" type stuff.

 

We like to arrive when the orchard first opens in the morning. We get up pretty early in order to do so. With it usually being fall break in a number of counties, we always know the orchard has the potential to get quite crowded as the day goes on, even though it's not "weekend" crowded.

We arrived after 9AM, went straight to purchase our bags for our apples and walked into the orchard...

 

 The picture with the sign says visitors can pick across the street since there are so few apples in the orchard. Unfortunately, that only seems to be the case for the weekends. Only one side was open the day we went. 

 

It was a cool, clear, beautiful morning. The only apples available to pick were Rome Beauty. We went to that section of the orchard and tried to find some apples.

 

There is a petting zoo that families can visit on property (during the week and on weekends), but we only walk by it. We've never petted the animals there...

 

We are there mainly for the apples.

 

There are a lot of cats and kittens living at the orchard now. I've noticed a big increase in the last couple of years. They are adorable...

One particular cat followed us from the orchard back toward the parking lot. Bri was talking super sweet to him/her, so he/she decided to hang with us for a few minutes.

The trees were really lacking in apples unfortunately. We noticed a few trees that had apples higher up - and that is when Bri hopping on Doug's shoulders is extremely beneficial...

We picked enough apples to fill two small bags, so our visit was quite successful.

 

And my lovely family obliges me when I ask them if I can take a few group photos along the way.

As we were leaving the orchard to head to the store on property, car after car pulled into the rocky parking lot. So many filled with small kids. I had no idea how they were going to find any apples. It was difficult for us. And the orchard continued selling empty bags without really informing customers about what they were about to find (or not find) when they got into the orchard. I only knew because I saw the info online.

We dropped our apples off in the car and walked over to the store...

 

Jams, jellies, nuts, dressings, cider, fried pies, fudge, slushies, vegetables and of course apples were all available for purchase.

We grabbed a few things and headed out. It was starting to get more crowded and it was a perfect time to skedaddle.

We stopped at my favorite antique store in the town square...

Then we had lunch at one of my favorite BBQ places (yes, the one with pig hill)...

This was the first time I wasn't able to find the pig with Briana's name on it (see lower left pic in collage). I've been lucky enough to spot it each time we've visited since we bought it but not this time (they move the pigs around every so often).

We stopped at our favorite farm market...

And we stopped at another market we had never noticed before. It is going through renovations (and additions are being made - it will be quite large when it is done). They had some yummy things to buy, so we will be back...

 

The roosters in the front were so loud! And that jumbo rooster in the picture was really chill, but he looked like he wasn't going to let anyone mess with him.

After driving, picking, shopping and eating, it was time to head back home. It was another fun and quite successful excursion. I'm so happy that Briana still enjoys this tradition. We'll keep visiting as long as she wants to/is able. And who knows, Doug and I may continue to visit even if Briana isn't able to come with us anymore.  

So that was our apple picking day. My next post - the art museum!

Fall Break 2021

Hello all! Wow - it's been almost 3 weeks since I last posted. I guess life is slowly getting back to a sense of "normal" in our household, though it is more of a new normal now. We are still being as cautious as we can - still masking when necessary, limiting eating out and choosing restaurants that aren't crowded when we do, etc.  I know that I said in my last post that I would focus my next post on my trying to "fix" myself and working on self care. Well, I'm not quite ready to write about that yet. I'm still a work in progress and I'm still trying to figure some things out. I am definitely taking steps on that journey though, and I will write about it soon enough. 

Our family had a really nice fall break (which was last week), so I'd like to write about all that first. I usually make some plans to see friends/family during our breaks/staycations (I even managed that last year during the thick of the pandemic), but for some reason, it ended up being just me, Bri and Doug this year. Maybe it's because Doug's been pretty busy with work and Bri's been back at school. I just wanted to keep things low key - and I think Bri did too. We were really ok with it just being the three of us.

 

 Even though it was just the three of us, that doesn't mean we just sat around all week doing nothing. We were actually quite busy/entertained. We had a nice mix of busyness and down time.

Mid-Autumn Moon Festival landed on Tuesday during our fall break, so Bri and I made our annual/traditional moon cookies for the occasion. D, Bri and I were also able to moon gaze that evening. It had been raining for several days up to that point, so we thought we wouldn't see the moon at all that evening, but the clouds cleared just in time...

 

Bri and I also did a bit of shopping during our break (mainly Bri - heh). I loved spending some one on one time with her. One of our shopping days involved the two of us visiting our local mall. It is kind of sad how empty malls are nowadays...

 

 https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/29/50percent-of-all-these-malls-forecast-to-close-by-2021-green-street-advisors-says.html

 

So many stores are closed. But, uncrowded malls are pretty helpful when trying to social distance - so we were ok with it!

Right before fall break, Briana was presented with a volunteer opportunity at a local art museum that will allow her to earn points for Beta Club. Not only will she be able to be surrounded by art (which she loves), she will also get the chance to work with kids, so it's a wonderful opportunity.

So to start off our fall break, Briana had an interview and an orientation at the museum on that Saturday morning. While Briana was occupied, Doug and I got to walk through the exhibits (we had never been there before - my parents had taken Briana a couple of times). What a beautiful place. I will definitely visit again - especially now that Bri will be volunteering there. 

 

I will write a separate post on the museum visit...

Doug, Bri and I also took a day trip to the apple orchard (per our tradition) the Friday of fall break...

It was a gorgeous, cool fall day. We lucked out. I will write a separate post on our apple picking adventure as well.

People have a lot of opinions as to when the autumn/fall season "starts" for them. Of course, officially it's Sept 21st or 22nd. For some, it's when all the pumpkin-spiced stuff starts being sold. Some feel it starts right around Labor Day or when the weather cools. For others, it's when football starts back up or when their kids go back to school. 

 Since Bri starts school smack in the middle of summer, I dislike all things "pumpkin-spiced", I'm not a big football fan and the weather stays pretty hot in GA until October (sometimes you get some cooler days in mid-Sept), I don't really get that fall "vibe" until I visit the apple orchard. So for me, that is when it starts feeling like autumn has arrived.

 We had a very nice (and much needed) break even though we opted to stay home. We have an exciting trip to NY planned in November (fingers crossed all stays good), so we are really looking forward to that.

My next post...apple picking!