A little over a year ago, a friendship that was very dear to me came to an end. I had loved this person dearly and enjoyed the time I spent with this friend. We experienced some tremendous highs and struggled through some painful lows. We invested a lot of time, energy into our friendship. So, when our friendship was hit by a fatal blow of circumstances, the loss almost felt like a death. I turned from the path of friendship to the path of grief. To this day I still …

We have been absent for the week because we have been in California celebrating the Autumn Moon Festival with family.  We crammed a lot of activities in the 7 short days that we were here but we enjoyed every minute of it.  I am leaving you with a photo from our family photo shots after our party in the park.  I think it turned out fairly well!
And here is a shot from the kiddo’s:
I apologize that the photos are a bit blurry.  I don’t have my photo editing program available …

Before I begin my rant,  I need to to share these facts with you:

I am a white female
I grew up in a privileged home (I am assuming that a middle class family is privileged)
I married a white male
We adopted a Chinese daughter from China

Why must I share these facts with you?  Because these are the facts (or descriptions) that tend to be used as snide, insulting, sometimes hurtful remarks that are made in reference to adoptive parents.  This is the list that is frequently used in various adoption blog writings.  …

This is the motto for most fire and police honor guards and pipe and drum bands.  They form a group, then practice and practice and wait to be dispatched to the funerals of their retiree’s and their fallen.  They will also march beautifully in parades and that is where most people will conjure up a memory or two about a firefighter dressed up in dress blues or a police officer donning a kilt and a drum.  But the folding of the flag and the sound of a bagpipe in the …

I am here in the beautiful Bay Area!  I just love breathing in the ocean air and feel the cool air flowing off the bay.  Even thought John has my heart, I left part of it here in San Francisco when I moved to Houston 12 years ago.  Whenever I come back ‘home’ or to my old stomping grounds, I just enjoy every minute of it.
I am here for a conference that starts tomorrow, so we figured we could cram some site seeing in this afternoon.  We ended up visiting …

It snowed all day on Sunday but it didn’t really stick to the ground.  There was a bit on the slide at the park, so I insisted that Catherine go touch it.  And yes, those are makeshift gloves made out of socks on  my daughter’s hands.  I didn’t pack for snow….

We are having a great time here in Omaha.  It’s a bit chilly for this Texan but like I said in a previous post, I need to get one more bout of cold weather in before I settle into the routine of hot summer days.  It’s supposed to snow quite a bit tomorrow.  Today it has already hailed a bit and the weather has been gloomy but it’s perfect for lounging.
We have mostly been playing at a nearby park, visiting the zoo (which is rated one of the top 10 …

Seriously?!?!  I am just an anxious flyer, even though I fly all of the time.  About a week before I am supposed to fly somewhere, I start getting nervous and about two days before, I really feel like throwing up and cancelling my flight.  So tomorrow I am supposed to fly to San Diego and I have been my normal ‘nervous Nellie’ self.  Well, I wake up this morning to see that a plane had crashed in the late night hours.  WTH?!  There was a plane crash a few weeks …