Willow Under The Willow

We communicate daily (via a Yahoo e-mail group) with a specific cohort of adoptive parents who, too, have adopted their children from Willow's specific orphange: Wuchuan Social Welfare Institute. Each year the parents participate in a fundraiser for the orphanage: a DVD of all the children adopted from that orphange (not just this calendar year, but all girls each and every year). The parents submit 5 images of their children, then contribute $20 to receive the DVD after it is compiled. This year they requested that one of the pictures include our children wearing something traditionally Chinese (thus the picture below, of her silk dragon jacket). It wasn't one of Willow's happiest of days, and the dog fencing is in the background, so I am not sure if we will submit this one. The rest of the pictures are just random cuteness.

The car broke down outside of Home Depot. All told, we were there for at least 2 hours ... occupying Willow's time in any way we could. The tractors, and flowers, were exciting moments.

What do you think it is like, for Willow, smelling flowers for the very first time?

We visited a nature sanctuary up north about an hour from our home (Crex Meadow). We stopped to encourage this snake to move across the road (but it got very agitated ... curling up, hissing, and striking). We think it was a hognose snake (not venemous), but a great impersonator. We were lucky enough to see two Sandhill Cranes and various waterfowl (but no shorebirds).

Woof: big dog. Believe it or not, Chris' park has several packs of wolves that frequent the park (one of these packs uses Crex Meadow).

Willow, on the front lawn, in front of our Willow tree.

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words ...

Hello Friends,

Sorry it has been so long since I have gotten time to post. I will post quite a few pictures, but not sure how much I will embellish them with text. But, for the following three pictures, no words are necessary. We had just gotten onto the trail early one morning, with Willow in my trusty off-road stroller. Our two dogs ran ahead on the trail. Within minutes one came running back ... didn't seem to notice the gashes under his eye, nor the one that splayed open his leg (barbed wire left over from what once was a field and has succeeded to forest?)

Our friend, Carolyn, accompanied Chris and Willow to the Bell Museum. Chris and Carolyn first met 28 years ago (while both were working at Goblin Valley in Utah). Coincidentally, now they both live and work in the same County in Minnesota.