Reunion time!!!!!

What a wonderful weekend we had in St. Louis!!! Our adoption agency, Children's Hope International, had their 15 year reunion!!!! It was awesome!!!

We were also able to have a mini reunion of most of our travel group! We had 5 of our 9 families get together this year and have a time of getting together and letting our children have a wonderful time of playing together! It was neat to see how much the Fuling Spicy Girls have grown over the last 2 years!!! They are all just beautiful!!! After the first inital shock of getting together, it was awesome to hear the giggles and laughter, screams of delight, watching the hugs shared between Fuling sisters that share that common bond of Fuling as their home!

After the CHI reunion, we all headed to the hotel for some rest and time in the pool!! Needless to say, Hope didn't make it to the pool!!! She was wiped out! She slept from the time we got in the car from the reunion to the hotel, in her stroller for a while, crawled in the bed and slept for a little while longer. Then everyone came back up starting to get ready for dinner!!!! So she didn't get to swim, but had a wonderful time at dinner, eating mac and cheese and chicken fingers and let's not forget the vanilla ice cream that was quickly turned into a chocolate soup by all of the girls!!!! It was YUMMY!!!!

On Sunday 4 of the families headed down for breakfast and then headed out to the St. Louis zoo!!! It was fun!!! We saw all kinds of animals and a group of silly monkeys that seemed to follow us everywhere full of giggles and laughter!!!! Then we had to make to walk to the front gate and tell one family "Until next time" because they had a plane to catch. Then it was back off for more exploring and trying to find the missing elephants!!!! We had some lunch and stood in front of the cool air mister for a few minutes and then off again on the hunt for elephants!!! Once we spotted them, it was MISSION ACCOMPLISHED for the Fuling Spicy Girls family!!! Then it was off to the gift shop and on to the car and on to the highway headed home. Hope was asleep before we got to the highway!!! I'm sure others followed quickly!!!

We stopped at a Cracker Barrel for dinner! It was fun watching Fred try to teach Hope how to play checkers!!! She came up with her own rules for this game with daddy and lets just say they changed often!!! So she proudly came back to the table declaring victory over her daddy!!!

It was a wonderful time visiting with everyone!!!!
I'll get pictures up soon!!!!!

My funny girl!!!!!

Hope was sooooo funny yesterday!!! Every now and then, I will light a candle on the kitchen table. This one smells like peach cobbler!!! (reminds me of my mom!!) Now that Hope is catching on to the concept of birthdays, she came running up and asked...."IS IT PRESENT TIME???" I told her no, it wasn't present time....that I was just lighting a candle...it was no ones birthday. Then my sweet girl ran and got her playdough and made a playdough cake!!! She quickly informed her brothers that this was mama's cake!!!! I guess she knows that mama's birthday is next on the birthday calendar!!!! I don't know how she knows that...probably because she is soooo super smart!!!!

We have also gotten out the swimming pool!!! She is a tough girl...because the water was pretty cold! Yesterday she was walking in the water and she tripped and fell. She was worried as she was still in her clothes...no swim suit yet...so she went on playing. Then today she and Stephen went out this morning and got back into the pool!!!! It was very overcast and not very warm at all around 10:30!!! They both looked at me when I asked them how in the world were they able to stand it in that water???? Stephen says...Mom..it's not that bad once you get used to it!!! I guess once you go numb...it really doesn't matter how cold the water is huh???

Happy Birthday America...a little late!!

The beautiful Stars and Stripes coming in!
My handsome boy!
My Military Boy! He's planning on going in the Navy as a chaplin!!!!

Playing a fun game!

Riding in the wagon with her best friend!
Didn't make it to the fireworks!!!

Happy Birthday America!!!!


On Wednesday July 4th, America had a birthday!!! Our church has a wonderful celebration for America's birthday! They have games, watermelon, music and lots of fireworks!!! Just about the entire city shows up!!! This year there was over 80,000 people there! This was the 11th year that our church has hosted "I Love America!"

A fun time was had by all!!! We hung out with some of our good friends all day! Hope refused to take a nap because she was just afraid that she would miss something!!! Well I had to leave to go and sing...and wouldn't you believe it...she went to sleep and missed the fireworks!!! We brought in a picnic lunch and our shade tent and chairs, sunscreen and I think half the house!!!

The boys had a wonderful time hanging out with their friends!!! It was fun watching everyone have such a wonderful time! But we were alllll very tired yesterday!

We hope everyone had a wonderful 4th!