Piano recital 2007

Stef had her 3rd piano recital today and did an amazing job. If this works right you should be able to enjoy the video for yourself.... I've also included a few pictures. Stefanie is growing out her bangs and I was so impressed with my new found hairdresser skills that i had to take a picture. Jena's hair continues to 'do itself'. She wakes up with her hair looking terrific. Stefanie and I require a little more effort!

Happy Hanukkah!

in the west ot texas...

... in a town called El Paso we met up with friends and family! Everyone survived our first plane flight since 'the Big One' which included a 5 hour layover in Houston. the girls were troopers and kept busy with their new leapster games and the DVD player. It was our first chance to meet some new cousins, Judah, Jordan and Jackson and get reaquainted with some old cousins, Jacob, Joey and Mia. With all those cousins Stef and jena both had plenty on friends to play with.
The whole gang drove up to the mountains of New Mexico where we were able to meet up with one of our China travel families. it wasn't the same as if we had everyonew together but it was still wonderful to see how much Claire (and Hannah!) had grown. It didn't seem that jena remembered Claire but she was happy to play with her.
we had a really nice experience while we were there- My cousin Rachel has 4 kids, Jacob and Joey are biological and Jordan and Judah are domestically adopted and are african american so, you can imagine that when my girls and her kids were all together we attracted alot of attention. Add Hannah and Claire to the mix and we were a real attraction! One morning the 14 of us went out for breakfast. My Uncle went to pay the bill, only to be told it had already been taken care of. On older couple sitting at the table next to ours had paid our bill and told the waitress to tell us that the "sight of our family put a smile on their face" We were all touched by the random act of kindness.