Day 6 at the beach

June 30, 2011
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Fun photo, huh?

It was days like this that I wondered what we did before we had so much technology? Since I had my Blackberry attached to my hip we headed down to the beach so the girls could play and I could still coordinate all the people and teams going in and out of our house to deal with the flood.  What a blessing our friends and family were on this day so the girls could continue having beach fun!

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Amelie would have chased the birds until she turned 3 if we let her. In that toddler mind she was just sure she could grab one!

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Amelie and I collected shells while Nadia did a lot of digging. Amelie was proud of herself for finding shells, but she would scream sometimes if she accidentally picked up anything that looked like a bug.

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Mike played with the settings on the camera while we wandered around.

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Cute girls!

For dinner we decided to try a place we drove past constantly called “Kings Famous Pizza”

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The place was PACKED OUT and the servers were running every direction taking care of their tables. It smelled awesome when we walked in and we loved the food. We split garlic bread, mozzarella sticks and a pizza – then we took our desserts to go. Here are the girls after dinner in their new Batman Shirts.

June 30, 2011

4 years ago today we met Nadia

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Four years ago we entered a sweltering hot room with 8 other families to have our lives changed forever. Babies were screaming and all of us parents, grandparents and siblings were desperately trying to pick out the new addition to our lives based on photos that were months old. We were looking at all the children and then the nanny holding Nadia pointed to me with Nadia’s hand and I could hear her saying, “Mama! Mama!” I thought I was going to faint right there.  It was agony waiting to hear our name called so we could go forward to meet her. Here is our Gotcha Day video for those who haven’t seen it (or would like to see it again).

Sweet Nadia we love you so much! You are such a delight and so much fun to have around. You say the funniest stuff and so often I wish I had a permanent recording going because I can’t remember it all. You love to dance and make up songs. You love to take photos and now to also stage videos. You are eager to learn and have a memory that shocks me most days. You can be incredibly strong-willed, but I think it will serve you well later in life mixed with your sweetness. You have become such a good big sister to Amelie. You try to teach her things and I hope they are all good since she tries to imitate every single thing you do. It’s a delight when you say things like, “She just said this or that for the first time. Isn’t that great?” I love that when we told you that we would buy you a Batman and Superman t-shirt you immediately asked if Amelie could have one of each too – “so that we can match.” Right now you love all superheroes and Batman most of all. You want to fight for justice like they do; I hope that fire continues to burn in you and God uses you in an amazing way.

As I watch you grow and learn more about the world, I am so grateful that God saw fit to make you a part of our family.

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Day 5 at the beach – so busy!

June 29, 2011
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This was by far our busiest day on our trip. We got up early and ate breakfast at the Spring House Family restaurant. Then we stopped at Walmart to buy an umbrella stroller and more sunscreen. We also found Batman and Superman shirts for the girls which thrilled Nadia to death! We headed over to Broadway at the beach to go to Ripley’s Aquarium. Nadia was really excited about this and wanted to get in and start looking around. They had a special shark exhibit which was really cool.

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This cracked me up!

After the aquarium we walked around the boardwalk to have lunch at Amici’s Italian restaurant. We stopped to feed the fish and Nadia laughed at them jumping on each other to try and get the food.

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We made our way to We R Sweets to buy 57 pounds of salt water taffy and then let the girls play outside on the dinosaurs.

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We also went in a store called “It’s Sugar” which had the best sign ever!

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The girls were asleep before we got out of the parking lot.

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We gave them a real nap at the condo and then headed to PF Changs with everyone else for dinner. That is when the call came about water pouring out of our house. Dinner was wonderful as always, but I was busy texting and making calls trying to get things figured out.

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Here we are after dinner with no idea what condition our house was in 🙂