In the midst of summer...

Astos Game (Emma's first)

In front of Minute Maid Park (Astros)

4th of July Parade

Cutie Lukie!!!

Our beautiful Emma!

Well, summer life continues and the kids are having a great time. Their new daycare takes them on several field trips per week and so far they've been to the zoo, the children's museum, the weather station, the library, the local PBS tv station, a WNBA (Comets) game, an Astros game, and various other places that I can't remember. I wanna go to daycare!!!!!

We continue to spend most of the weekends in the pool and they are now quite adept at swimming. A few weeks ago they were using arm floaties, but now they are swimming (sans floaties) all around the pool and are even able to pick up the diving sticks that we throw into the pool. Emma has some difficulty because she's light...and she can't seem to sink very well but she is able to fight her way down to the diving sticks in the shallow end. Lucas is able to pick them up from the bottom of the deep end. Simply amazing!!! I think we will put them on the local swim teams next year.

The attached photos are of an Astros game a few weeks ago and at the 4th of July parade. It was very special watching Emma wave her little American flag.

Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of our SDA appointment which is where we first saw a picture of our beautiful little girl. I can't believe it's been a year!!! I'm so happy that so many of you have continued to stick around for updates and are able to see the progress that Emma has made in a year. She continues to be a joy and we feel so blessed to have her in our lives. I am following some other families in Ukraine right now and I have a strange sense of envy. I can't believe how I sometimes wish I was back in Ukraine. Maybe because its been a year and I've forgotten all the hard stuff but I really miss it at times. I hope we travel back some day for a visit...I doubt we will adopt again though. We were told by so many people prior to our last trip that lightning doesn't strike twice (meaning we would never find a kid as great as Lucas). Well, lightning did strike twice...but for it to strike three times...well that's just pushing it...haha.

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. Keep posting comments if you get a chance...we love to read them.

Lisa