Celebrating Friends' Adoptions

Holly had a lovely time at Rachel's baby shower this past Saturday. It was so wonderful to meet her family and friends and other adoptive parents who are headed to China with Rachel and Joe! Michael and I are looking forward to meeting Jennifer when she arrives back in the U.S. Rachel and Joe also stopped by for a cookout on Sunday with Debbie and Joe (who are adopting from Russia). On July 30th Rachel and Joe will be flying to China and we cannot wait to hear more about Jennifer and see all the pictures from their trip.

I also just heard from Susan and Barry who have received their referral for China and have the cutest pictures of their daughter-to-be named Maia. Michael and I are thrilled for them as well after a 20 month wait! Good things really do happen.

Plus I must mention that Alexandria turns one this month (Alex is daughter of Jane and Greg and she is also a Gladney baby). We wish her a very happy birthday and look forward to seeing her when she gets back from her family vacation! We did manage to get a great picture of Alex on her birthday from their blog - - -

The Kids We Love

Nicole (our god-daughter) discovered that the Raven's cookies turn your lips purple! She is so precious.

Kana on the swings!

Nicholas playing golf (another Gladney baby - son of Christy and Greg)

Jake has the best smile and quite a personality. Michael and I loved playing with Jake and Kana all weekend especially when they called us Aunt Holly and Uncle Michael.

Kana is so cute, fun and talkative. I loved to snuggle with her all weekend and share lots of kisses. Kana kept calling Michael "my friend". Could she be any cuter?

As you can see we will have lots of playmates for our future child! We have also discovered that Michael is great as answering WHY questions from Kana with detailed explanations of space travel and how satellites work!

Michael's Surprise 40th Birthday Party

Kana and Valerie (Michael's sister) laughing with each other because Holly was able to fool Michael and pull off the surprise of the century!

Michael had no idea about his surprise birthday party! Daphne (thank you!) and cousin Carlos managed to stall him all day by taking him into D.C. to show the monuments and museums to Kana and Jake (by the way, Kana has determined that the Washington Monument looks like a glue stick). Believe me when I say that it is very hard to fool Michael about anything - and he was shocked when everyone shouted surprise!

See Sofie (Michael's Mom), Jake and Carlos enjoying the celebration. Sofie finally gets to meet sweet baby Jake!

Michael was really surprised to see cousin Juan who flew in for the party from Florida.




I win major points for finding Amphora Bakery where they made this incredible 3D Chocolate Raven's cake as well as cookies for the kids with the Raven's logo. We all sang happy birthday and enjoyed the goodies.

We had wonderful tamales and fajitas provided by Rio Grande and a beautiful day so that the kids (young and old) could run around outside and play in the yard. Michael could not believe there were almost 70 people at the party to celebrate with him. Every time he turned around he got to greet more friends and family. The whole party was an absolute blast. We are so blessed to have such amazing family and friends.