We recently met a wonderful young couple named PJ and Una.  They met in China when he was teaching English there and they were recently married.  The first day they met us the new Chinese girls fell in love with them, being especially enamored with PJ as he is an American and he can speak Mandarin!  Una is a great cook and they expressed a desire to cook our family an authentic Chinese meal.  So, last week we met with them and one of our pastors at our church for the meal.  Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so the few pictures I have are iPhone pictures.

We arrived to several appetizers that were very wonderful and flavorful.

This next one looks like noodles, but it is actually mushrooms!  And they were spicy!  Makes my mouth water just a little just thinking about them.

Here is Una hard at work.

And here is PJ equally hard at work!

I got so wrapped up in the food, I forgot to take any pictures of the main course!  After the meal, the cook and the assistant wanted a picture with the kids.

One of the fun parts of bringing children home from China (or Vietnam) is to watch them go from never being in a pool to becoming fish!  Everyone advances at their own pace, but it usually doesn’t take long to become reasonably proficient in the water.  And it is wonderful to watch how their brothers and sisters work so hard with them to make them comfortable in the water.  While Riley seemed to have the most interest early on, Jessie was the first to become comfortable in the deep in of Aunt Koreen’s pool.

http://youtu.be/wyRr9E6AqrE

Not to be out down, Riley worked with Brittany until she was willing to brave the deeper waters.  This time, however, it was at Uncle’s Todd pool.

http://youtu.be/7Wf20DY7Tmo

I mentioned earlier about how the kids really help out with the process and this video show Max working so very diligently with Leah as she learns to navigate the water.

http://youtu.be/AsBsGNFCXFg

Olympics here we come!

This past weekend we decided it was time to start hiking again!  We have continually emphasized to Leah that her physical status should not dictate what she does in life.  To that end,  we loaded everyone into two cars and made the trek to Glen Helen Nature Preserve.  It is a beautiful area about 45 minutes from our house in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  Here we are unloading from the caravan!

Some of the boys felt they were a little too cool for a hike.

We were able to navigate much of the trails without TOO much difficulty, but it certainly was not wheelchair friendly.

Some areas required a little more effort.

There were times that we had three people on the wheelchair to navigate through certain areas.  However, after the picture above, Leah started using her crutches instead and was able to manage some pretty impressive climbs.  We took a little break at the top of a set of stairs to enjoy a small waterfall.

The boys worked on their parcore training for awhile.

While Mia worked on being pretty.

We are starting to see some improvement on the picture front as the picture below is one take!  Shocking that everyone is looking at the camera at the same time.  I can even forgive Caleb for the face he is making.

We started to get a little concerned as we began to hear thunder and we were not really sure the quickest way back to the parking lot.

We rolled up onto a park ranger who explained that there really wasn’t a quick way back to the parking lot that didn’t take us down the path that had 125 stairs to get out.  No one in the group felt like carry the wheelchair up that many stairs, so Kelly and part of the group went back to an area you could access from the road and those remaining joined me for a quick jog through the forest back to the vehicles.  We were a sweaty mess when we arrived at the parking lot, but we loaded up and went and picked the rest of our group up before it started to rain.

This week we head to King’s Island for an end-of-summer-before-the-boys-leave-for-college-family-day.  It is hard to believe that the summer is starting to come a close!

Cameron