15th Referral Day Anniversary

Fifteen years ago (June 6, 2007), Doug and I received the phone call that would change our lives forever. We had a baby girl waiting for us on the other side of the world. A few hours later, we saw Jiang Ai Juan's beautiful face that day in pictures for the first time. (She was around seven months old in her referral pictures, she was ten months at the time of referral, and we met her a few days before her 1st birthday.)

I honestly cannot believe it has been 15 years.

 Here are her referral pictures...

 Seeing her for the first time (our referral video is in the sidebar of the blog under "Travel and Referral")...

Below are pictures of Briana holding her referral picture each year on our referral day anniversary...

1st referral day anniversary...

2nd referral day anniversary...

3rd referral day anniversary...

4th referral day anniversary...

5th referral day anniversary...

6th referral day anniversary...

7th referral day anniversary...

8th referral day anniversary...

9th referral day anniversary...

10th referral day anniversary...

11th referral day anniversary...

12th referral day anniversary...

13th referral day anniversary...

14th referral day anniversary...

And now, 15th referral day anniversary...

This is a collage that I posted on FB...

Happy referral day anniversary to our amazing girl. She has brought us joy and happiness beyond our wildest dreams.

Last Day Of 10th Grade/Sophomore Year

Well, she did it. She made through 10th grade. She made it through her first in-person high school year. She made it through Covid dips and spikes - wearing a mask for quite a bit of the year without complaint. She made it with one-way hallways and 727 kids in her 10th class alone. She tried new things like culinary class and theater class. She did a lot of volunteering for Beta Club. She got in the top 40 for her class for her first semester of sophomore year.

She finished with straight A's for the whole year. I am curious as to where she will rank for her second semester of her sophomore year, but we won't find out until she gets her report card. Even if she doesn't make top 40 again, I am so unbelievably proud of her.

I cannot believe she will be entering her junior year next year. Only two more years left before college. I am not feeling ready for it at all. It feels like a long time since she started kindergarten but it also feels like it went by so fast at the same time.

Here she is on all of her first and last days of school.

Kindergarten and 1st grade...

2nd grade and 3rd grade...

4th grade and 5th grade...

6th grade and 7th grade...

 

8th grade and 9th grade...

 And finally...

10th grade...

My friend Kelly and I set up a carpool for our girls (Bri and Meredith) this past school year so we didn't have to go to the school every single day. I really enjoyed taking these sweet girls to and from school (I'm going to miss it next year)...

Unfortunately, Briana won't be turning 16 until the school year starts. That means - she misses out on getting a school parking space for her junior year because she won't have her driver's license yet (parking spaces are assigned during the summer and parking spaces are really hard to get at a school with so many kids). I might be able to get her daily parking passes once in a while, but those are super hard to get as well. Meredith just got her license and will be able take herself to school, but Georgia kids can't have friends in the car with them until they have been driving on their own for 6 months. Hopefully after the probationary period, Bri can bum a ride off Meredith to and from school next year so I can take a break from going to the school to get her!

  Here is a picture of Bri looking cute about a month before the end of school...

Here was one of her art projects for drawing class (pastels)...

This is her yearbook...

I picked Bri and Mere up early from school on the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend (after their finals) and they were both so happy to be officially done with sophomore year.

That night, Doug and I took Bri to our favorite Louisiana-style restaurant for dinner to celebrate. We hadn't been there in over two years (I am so happy to be able to taste and smell again)...

Seafood fondeaux, hush puppies, shrimp and scallop pasta, popcorn shrimp ~ it was all delish!

We are very happy that summer break is finally here. We have a few cool things planned and a lot of doctor and dentist appointments to get through while we are on our break!

 Starting today - Tuesday - Briana will be taking a classroom driving course (virtually) for the rest of the week (to go toward her Joshua's Law requirement). Wish her luck!

Happy summer break!

Mother's Day Weekend Recap

As I mentioned in previous posts, my Mother's Day celebration was interrupted by some unexpected and unwanted Covid news, but luckily my Mother's Day festivities started a few days early.

On Friday, I met up with my mom and sister along with Briana for a Mother's Day lunch and exchange of gifts. I am so grateful now that we did this early. Doug actually got home from his trip while we were still all visiting each other and they were not exposed to the virus from me.

We had a great lunch and did a lot of catching up...

The next day, Doug, Bri and I went to a movie theater to see the new Dr. Strange movie. It was the first time I had been in a movie theater (besides my home theater) since the beginning of the pandemic (Doug and Bri had gone to see Spiderman 3). Luckily, we were in a theater with stretch out seats and we had no one sitting directly next to us. Food has to be ordered in advance now and they just drop it off at your seat when you arrive, so we had very little contact with anyone. I think about Doug and I both being exposed to Covid at the time and had no idea. 

I was a bit nervous that because it was a "multiverse" movie that I may not be able to keep up with the story line, but it was really easy to follow...

It was a really enjoyable movie.

Mother's Day rolled around and Doug and Briana surprised me with breakfast in bed - eggs benedict. One of my favorite egg dishes...

They really did an amazing job with it.

And then they gave me some very sweet gifts. Briana designed a cup for me with the both of us on it as her "Briana-style characters" that she likes to draw (we don't have a name for them yet, so that is what I am calling them!)...

She is in red and I am in blue.

My request for the afternoon was watching "The Great Outdoors" in our home theater. I love this silly 80's movie and I wanted to show it to Bri.

We had leftover popcorn from the movie the day before, so I ate some while watching the movie...

I love this movie...

After the movie, I did go out and enjoy sitting on my porch for a while with Mei...

I was getting excited for my Italian dinner that I had requested, but then Doug reveal his surprising "news".

After being banished to the basement, I asked Bri if she would still take some pictures with me even though we had canceled our dinner reservation.

I think they turned out really nice (and I am so grateful she didn't get sick from me after this)...

She is my best girl and I am so grateful to be her mom each and every day.

We ordered in some Japanese hibachi and made the most out of of the rest of the day...

After Doug tested negative, he and Bri were able to start baking together again (they love baking). They made these delicious cream puffs...

I luckily started getting my taste back so I could enjoy them, but since they had to make them late, I am calling them my "belated Mother's Day" cream puffs. Heh.

So overall, my Mother's Day weekend was really nice - with an unfortunate kink in the end. I'm going to try to focus on the good parts of it and hope that next year we will all remain Covid free!

25th Wedding Anniversary Recap

We had such a nice anniversary. Doug was supposed to be on that trip to Utah for work that day, but he told his company he really wanted to be home with me for our 25th anniversary, and they were totally cool with it. He headed out the next day. Little did we know that day was the calm before the storm of Covid in our household, but it was obviously better that we didn't know.

 Here we were 25 years ago and this year...

We are holding up pretty well I think - heh.

That morning, we exchanged gifts.

I gave Doug a silver pocket watch and a blanket I created on Shutterfly with pictures of our travels together over the last 25 years (I couldn't fit all our trips on there!)...

 

Doug got me beautiful diamond earrings and a diamond necklace (with a silver chain) from Tiffany and Co...

 My parents bought us a sentimental picture our wedding song typed into the shape of a record...

We weren't sure what we wanted to do that day, but Doug had mentioned a while back something about a nearby waterfall. I had been really wanting to check it out and we thought going on a quiet Tuesday morning would be a perfect time to go.

There is a small parking lot visitors can park in and there is a short walk past a very old cemetery to get back to the waterfall (it is a shame that some of the headstones are on their sides - not sure if they fell or were pushed)...

Once we got back to the waterfall, it was beautiful. Unfortunately, some people had been there the day/night before and left their garbage there. Burnt tealight candles, disposable cups, etc. There were garbage cans literally 15 feet away from the picnic table. I just don't know what is wrong with people. Trying to ignore the trash, the waterfall itself was so pretty...

There was hardly anyone there - but there was a very nice man visiting from Michigan who offered to take our picture...

We took his picture as well and we got to talking for a little while. This man was down in Georgia helping out a friend and he told us he likes to drive around looking at waterfalls. Doug was born in Michigan (St. Joseph) and his grandparents lived in Benton Harbor. His uncle still lives in Michigan near Kalamazoo. This man knew a lot of the same areas as Doug, so it was really nice talking to him.

Here we are - 25 years...

It was the perfect place to spend part of our anniversary.

That evening, Doug and I went to one of our favorite restaurants for a quiet, romantic dinner.

 First, we took some photos...

 Bri and Mei watching us take pictures...

Dinner was delicious!

Cheers to 25 years with my best guy!