Our Family, Our Story

So this past weekend we went to the mountains to a reunion picnic for our adoption agency CWA, I was so thrilled to see Jane, our China case worker who was in China when we met Mina and actually handed her to me... So check this out Mina 3 months later... Amazing, right? I really wish she wasn't clutching her sippy cup. But I still am so excited to have this photo.  I don't know why but it was so heartwarming to hear her being called by her Chinese name by women who knew of her before I did...  The picnic was great I could have spent much more time there gabbing with everyone, but alas it was time to go.  We head for another part of the mountains to go camping... Well, when life hands you lemons..... pack it up and go home???  We love camping,, we are not high maintenance people by any means, and camping makes all of the kids really happy, well usually.  This time, not so much.  It was rainy and muddy.  We had actually found this cool place where you can camp and tube down the river...Well we did that the first night and then it started pouring rain!!! So we made dinner in the rain and tried to roast marshmallows, it was a mess.  We woke the next morning to more rain, and decided to trek the kids to the top of the river and tube anyway, for goodness sake we had come this far we were going to go tubing.  It was soooo fun.  The kids LOVED it!!! Well Mina liked it as long as I didn't get stuck on any rocks, If I did she started screaming and hitting me. Almost in a funny way, Like quit it Mama, just go down the river faster.  Otherwise she really liked it. Sure the water was freezing, and mommy & papa were soaked, but tubing down a river past waterfalls and all... priceless.  Needless to say we did one 30 minute stint down the river that day and headed back to camp where we packed it up ( soaking wet and all) and headed on our long trip home. We had promised the kids smore's so we came on home and had a little floor picnic and ate way to much sugar, yummy! I wish I had some photos of our tubing experience but i was not about to brave the river with my camera in the pouring rain. If you can't tell Mina now thinks that if a camera is anywhere in sight she needs to make this "cheese" face.  It is really hard to get a photo where her face is not all squinched up these days.