Sunday, December 11, 2011

June 2011

Lela's First Intentional Communion


Lian's Kindergarten graduation picnic



Brought to you by the letter "I"







The graduate


Last minutes as a Daisy


Brownie circle





It got warm enough to hit the beach.



Slugger Lela played softball.





Lian's class studied Monet. Her rainbow haystack.


Chris's 90th birthday party


June was school’s end and some big events. Lela had her first intentional Communion, and her flower girl dress from Jason’s wedding actually got another outing. (Hey I am Scottish on both sides of the family.) In the Episcopal church, you can take communion as long as you are baptized and I wasn’t going to fight with them at the altar rail, so they have been receiving for years, but this is after classes so that she really understood the meaning of the event. Lian graduated from Kindergarten. She had started the year in the contained classroom for speech, but did so well that by January she was mainstreamed. We are so proud of her accomplishments, especially when you consider she has only been speaking English for three years, and needed significant surgery to be able to speak at all. Lela whizzed through with a perfect report card, though you wouldn’t know it from the angst we got during homework. Lela bridged up from Daisy to Brownie Girl Scout and played soft ball. She's a pretty good hitter. Chris turned 90. Her party ended up being at the end of school picnic, held in the gym because of rain. Christy brought the cake.

No comments:

Mother's Day

Last spring while riding the train home from the city where I had just handed in the last of Lian's paperwork, I had nothing to do since I had gone through all my reading material while waiting at the Chinese Embassy. I got out a notepad and this poem started to flow and practically wrote itself. Adoption can be bittersweet as there is no gain without a loss.
http://www.emkpress.com/mothersday.html

Lian on left in yellow

Lian on left in yellow
about 14 months, with her friend Hailey

Lian at 6 months

Lian at 6 months
Who could resist that smile?

Lian at 4 months

Lian at 4 months
Right after surgery for her lip

Sha'anxi Province Map

Sha'anxi Province Map
HanZhong in lower left

China Map

China Map
Sha'anxi Province in center