Friday, July 20, 2012

SeaWorld

While we were in San Antonio, we decided to go to SeaWorld. It was the first time for all of our adopted girls, and everyone had a great time.
waiting to go into SeaWorld
feeding the dolphins





Kacee's first roller coaster ride









Karli won the air guitar contest at the Shamu pre-show

sitting close to the action

Everyone got wet during the Shamu show.
the big kids going on the Steel Eel

They are at the very top right of the picture.



Thursday, July 19, 2012

Re-adoption Day

We finally got around to officially re-adopting the girls in the state of Texas. While it was not necessary for the adoption, it does provide the girls with a Texas Birth Certificate in case anything should happen to their Chinese paper work. It will also make it easier to register for sports and school. The lawyer we used is based out of San Antonio, so we drove down there for the court procedure and visited The Alamo.
The crew at The Alamo.





all of us with the judge







Monday, July 9, 2012

Another Update

It's been a while since I have posted, but life is so crazy right now.  You would think that summer would be a time to wind down and relax, but it actually just as busy as the school year.
Happy Fourth of July - Kari's first

This summer, Kari and Karli are going to summer school.  Karli is going for ESL and Karli is going for phonological awareness - which really means that she is getting help with her sounds and sight words before going into first grade.

Kenzie is going to Mother's Day Out twice a week in addition to having had swim team practice daily throughout the months of May and June.  I have to brag a little here as she is an amazing swimmer.  She qualified for All Stars with a freestyle time of 25.72 seconds (25 meters) and a backstroke time of 30.15 seconds (25 meters).  Kenzie is reading very well and will be starting kindergarten in the fall.  She will be home schooling with mom.
AWANA awards

swim meet

swim team awards banquet

waiting to swim freestyle

Summer Champs - 3rd and 4th place medals

Kylie had a great school year and has already earned 1 high school credit for completing Algebra in 7th grade.  In 8th grade she will have Geometry, Spanish 1, and another elective which counts as a high school credit.  We are so proud of her for working hard in band all year and making the Honor Band (first chair) at auditions.  Kylie went to the JHigh Beach Retreat camp with our church and had a great time.  She also earned a spot of our church's preschool worship team, GIGL.  She also had another surgery the week before finals.
Honor Band performing

before surgery


Keaton has started TaeKwonDo and is doing a fabulous job.  He had a great time at Boy Scout camp with his troop.  They went swimming, hiking, and did lots of other "fun" things.  He will be going to Middle School this year and will be in 6th grade.  It will be a huge adjustment for him from home schooling, but we know he will be fine.


Kayla finished out the school year with excellent grades and made a pretty big jump in her class ranking.  She is almost in the top 10%.  Not too bad for someone who started public school in the middle of 10th grade.  She won the US History award and was inducted into the Spanish National Honor Society.  Her SAT and ACT scores were awesome, and she is already looking at colleges.  She is interested in Ole Miss, University of Tennessee, and Texas A&M.  She toured Ole Miss in June and really liked the campus.  Her future plans include forensics, chemistry, and anthropology.  Kayla also aced her English AP exam, so she does not have to take her first semester of Freshman English in college.  We are so proud of her accomplishments.  As part of her birthday gift, Kayla went to Warped Tour with her BFF, Christa, and got to meet her favorite member of Mayday Parade.
Spanish National Honor Society

U.S. History award

all decked out for Warped Tour


Kacee will be attending a regular Pre-K class this school year (instead of one with a deaf ed teacher).  She is doing remarkably well in school.  She can spell about 10 words, count to 100, do simple addition, identify all of the upper/lowercase letters and their sounds, and can write most of the letters.  This week has marked her 2year adoption anniversary.  Time sure has flown by so quickly.
AWANA awards


Upwards Soccer awards


Kari has surprised all of us with how well she is speaking, reading, and writing English.  She did an excellent job during the school year with her academics.  This year will be more challenging, but she is a hard worker, and I know she will do well.  She has changed so much in the 8 months that she has been a part of our family.
Kari's first time on a slip-n-slide


Karli struggled throughout Kindergarten with a first year teacher that was given a HARD class.  At the end of the year, she was barely meeting the benchmarks to pass to first grade..  However, after a few weeks of summer school with an experienced teacher, she is progressing nicely and reading sight words and short books.  She is working hard to learn everything she can from her awesome teacher.