Yeah! I Found

I had faith that my horescope was right and it was. I looked in the spot where I keep Tia's paperwork and it wasn't there. I carried a book with all of Tara's important info with me for the first six months of her adoption birth (it became my birth weight it got very heavy) I was getting ready to look through it for the umteenth time. Why I'm not sure, but I grabbed my bag I carry to work and was looking through it. You will guess by now what I found.

Tia's important citizenship paper is in a #10 envelope, she has a really cool card similar to a drivers license. Well I was looking for something like that for Tara...surprise her's is in a 9x12 gold envelope and her paper is 8 1/2 x 11 certificate style. When I received it, I thought I would need it to enroll her in school. I don't recall that I did, but I had that bag when I signed her up. Now we can get her SS applied for. Also in the envelope was another envelope, on it says "a message from the President of the United States", I would like to share it.

Dear Fellow American

I am pleased to congratulate you on becoming a United States citizen. You are now a part of a great and blessed Nation. I know your family and friends are proud of you on this special day.

Americans are united across the generations by grand and enduring ideals. The grandest of these ideals is an unfolding promise that everyone belongs, that everyone deserves a chance, and that no insignificant person was ever born. Our country has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by principles that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests, and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every citizen must uphold thses principles. And every new citizen, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American.

As you begin to participate fully in our democracy, remember that what you do is as important as anything government does. I ask you to serve your new Nation, beginning with your neighbor. I ask you to be citizens building communities of service and a Nation of character. Americans are generous and strong and decent not because we believe in ourselves, but because we hold beliefs beyond ourselves. When this spirit of citizenship is missing, no government program can replace it. When this spirit is present, no wrong can stand against it.

Welcome to the joy, responsibility, and freedom of American citizenship. God bless you and God bless America.

Sincerely
George W. Bush

I know President Bush's poll ratings were terrible at the end of his term, but I believe in my heart this guy knew what was going on. He tried to protect our country and build it up for our children and our future. Was he perfect, no...are you?? This letter meant alot to me, I hope it can mean as much to Tara.

I'm Looking

Have you been losing things lately? You'll find what you need by the end of today.

This was my horescope for today. I need to find Tara's passport and US citizen card to apply for her Social Security card. I will leave you now to go look :)

ISU Gymnastics/West Central Valley/Think Floyd

Last week when we attended the girls basketball game I won a t-shirt. In the t-shirt was 2 free tickets to attend the Beauty and the Beast event Friday 2/20 in Ames. It was Iowa State gymnasts and wrestlers preforming at the same time vs Minnesota. I left work early and met the girls off the bus. Tara wasn't sure she wanted to go. Tia was excited. We stopped in Ankeny and grabbed BK. We got to Ames about an hour before (game time, tip-off...not sure the word for gymnastics or wrestling) We had general admission tickets. There weren't many seats that were reserved, we sat down and realized we were in reserved and so found different seats. After setting down we noticed we couldn't see the bars very good, but decided to stay where we were. I heard someone say my name and it was the Chew family, they had left work early also and had gotten there in time to see Shawn Johnson. Tia was disappointed we didn't make it in time. It was a fun night. When we were leaving Ames it had just started snowing. By the time we got home the ground was white.

Saturday started with a couple loads of laundry as we got ready to go to Stuart for Tara's noon basketball game. It is tuff getting the chores done between all the running. Tara's team won 12-10. Tia's team played at 2, she stayed at the school while Tara and I ran to BK again for lunch. Tia's team gave the good fight but again lost. We stopped and got her BK on the way out of town. We ran home, fed the cats and headed to Altoona to meet Mike and Murt. Bailey kept the girls company, he had his guitar and they had karaoke. They were laughing pretty good when we returned home and had to play Mississippi Queen. Gene had taken our extra car to Cedar Falls and traded Jeff for his car, which is having problems again. He met us at Mike's. We went to Valley Junction and had a sandwich at The Longest Yard (Eric had suggested it) it was a good choice. Then onto the Valair Ballroom for Gene's show of "Think Floyd". (Pink Floyd has always been one of Gene's favorite groups) it was okay. I wouldn't mind seeing Bob Seger there:)

The girls missed their game last week due to weather, so they made the games up Sunday afternoon. They played at the same time in two different gyms. I tried my best to run back and forth between. Tia's team won, they played hard. Tia didn't make her free throws, but made a layup and had some good steals. Tara made it thru this weekend keeping the ball on the right end of the court. Yeah girls!

Iowa State vs Texas Girls Basketball

Tia's form looked a little rough at the beginning of the season. These pics definitely show improvement :)

What a nail biter!! We lost by 3 pts. The teams record was the same and they were very well matched. I thought we should have easily won, but what can I say :(



Tia is a Lil Clone and I got an email that invited her to watch the team shoot-around, a meet-and-greet with squad members, an autograph session, a short clinic, pizza for lunch and a brief talk by Coach Bill Fennelly - are scheduled to run from 9:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. Tipoff between the Cyclones and Longhorns is at 2:30 p.m. in Hilton Coliseum. Club members may attend the event free of charge as long as they RSVP in advance and bring their membership card. I had heard about this last year and it didn't work that we could go, so we rsvp'd for this year. Since Tia had her sleepover lastnight, I'm guessing she was going on little sleep. We had invited a friend, but that didn't work out. The 4 of us left home at 8am. We had to have an attitude adjustment right off the bat and after that the girls had a good time. Tara never joined in the clinics, but I bet she does next year. When I picked Tia up from the sleepover the girls told me the Linharts were also going to the game. I tried to wake Hallie up to see if she wanted to go with us...she was out. We could see the Linharts across the gym, it was funny the way Tara was hunting for them.


This day was Breast Cancer awareness day. Everywhere you looked you saw PINK. The girls uniforms looked good :) I did have to laugh at coach Fennelly's white and pink Nike's with his suit.

It looked like it had been a nice day, sun was bright and shiny. It was 29 on the way home, the roads were all good.

Happy Valentines Day!

It is a quiet day of house cleaning, well needed house cleaning. My China girls don't believe a house needs to be cleaned. My boys weren't great house cleaners, but were still better than the girls.

Tia has a sleepover with a friend tonight. Tara rode along to drop her off, when we were on the way home she told me English food no good. I love these conversations. I'm sure I only get part of them. I told her she sure eats enough. She said it hurts her teeth. I told her she needs to drink milk to make her teeth strong, she told me milk not good. I personally do not like milk, but try to drink some once in awhile. It may take a while before she will drink it once in awhile. I ask what she wanted for supper and she told me ice cream. We may talk dad into Chinese and then buy some ice cream.

Tia is excited she got to be on TV tonight. She is at the Variety Club telethon and they sat quietly while they talked on air behind them. Our girls needed to smile more, they looked tired.

A Typical Snowy Day in Iowa

We had just got rid of most of the old snow before the new arrived. And arrived it did. Early in the week we were expected to get 8 - 10", today they had cut it back to 2 - 4". Well I think we got the 8-10. The first hour melted and froze before it started to accummulate.

Oh did I mention it is Friday the 13th :)

The girls had their Valentine parties at school. Tara finally started her cards late Wednesday evening. She knew what she wanted to do and did a nice job. She wanted to know Thursday and I told her she could take candy next year. We would use this year as a learning experience.

Tara also had Laura Ingles Wilder day today. They have been reading about her in school. I shortened Tia's dress and sent it to school with Tara. She was very hesitant about wearing it. Tia had Two so Tara took them both and McKenzie Thomas-Clark wore the other one, which helped coax Tara into hers. Thanks Kenzie! I sent the camera to school in Tara's bookbag and emailed Mrs Benedict and ask her to take pictures. If I can't be there, they are the next best thing. Thanks Mrs B :)

First Sleepover

Tia had possibly her last exhibition Friday night at Osceola. It wasn't their best performance, but if you don't get to see those awesome jobs you probably wouldn't have noticed. Last year when we did it Osceola was playing my almamater-->sp. This year they were playing a team I didn't know, so we took off after our performance. Sue thanked the girls for their dedication with a pair of socks each. The socks were cute and the girls liked them...thanks Sue! We headed for something to eat, Tia had ate before we left home, so she didn't want much. We ended up at McDonald's (I was thinking fast). Then we have sleepovers, so needed gifts for b-days and went to Walmart. I'm the worlds worst gift giver and the girls couldn't really think of anything to give their friends (this is all new for Tara).


Tara had basketball on Saturday at Panora. I had a brain fart and we left a half hour earlier than we needed to, (this was hurrying Tia around getting ready) but that gave us time to stop at the car wash(so we could see out the back window). The weather has been gorgeous and snow piles everywhere are melting, creating wet streets. We watched the first 4th grade team play and they won. Then Tara's team turned around and played the same team the first team played. The girls were starving, but I talked them into stopping at Ben Franklins first. I was looking for material or a pattern for a baby quilt, didn't really have luck with either. We stopped and had Subway on the way home (Tara got a personal pizza at Subway). She's a hard one to feed eating fast food...french fries are her favorite, she also likes ice cream (but can't usually eat much of a small shake). Gene is always invited to a truckers supper at Hy-Vee, he went to the first one and it has been 15 yrs, he decided to go again. Tara was invited to Gracey's b-day party....now trying to figure out how to be in two places at the same time. Tara asked me to stay home and take her to Gracey's (it was hard not too). I checked with Brook's mom, Kenzie's mom, grandma, Gracey's mom and finally got a hold of Carlyn's mom whew we were out of time and needed to be on the road to the truckers supper. Carlyn was going and Tara could ride with them to the party. I was a little nervous with this being her first outing. Gracey is a champ and showed the girls a good time. Tara was all smiles when I picked her up. She also wanted to know if she could go back to Carlyn's house to play?? I told her she would have to wait until she was invited. The food was excellent at Gene's supper and we even brought Tia home a piece of cake (triple chocolate) she did alot of moaning(it really was good).

Sunday Tia played basketball in Melcher. The first game was with Knoxville and they kept the score very close the first half and Knoxville ran away with the game in the second half. The girls killed time for an hour and played Melcher. I felt bad for Melcher, we won 2-39. We've been in that place way too many times. Tara took a 10 min nap on the way home. I look for her to be in bed around 7. She stayed up late last night.

Six Month Review

They were conserving energy in this gym, they had the lights dimmed. I don't know what happened to my header picture it just disappeared and I have no clue when I will get it redone. Sorry :(

Okay it has been 7 months now and we finally made time for our 6 month adoption review. I started back in November trying to get it into our schedule. It is a really tough time of year to get this done. I finally ask Bill our Social Worker if he would like to attend one of Tia's basketball games. He was happy because he knew where the school was. We answered the necessary questions and then watched Tia play basketball.

Saturday Tara got up early and took a bath, washed her hair and I had breakfast waiting for her. She ate while I french braided her hair. I had done a dry run on it Friday night and all went well, but Sat morning she complained alot that I was hurting her...oh no, not another tender head. Ugh! Tara played bb in Van Meter at 11 so we needed to be on the road at 9:30. When we walked out the door we wouldn't be home until bedtime. I went a different direction to Van Meter and where the road splits, I wasn't sure whether to take the high road or the low road. I started high and turned around and made the right choice, it's the low road. We watched the end of the first 4th grade team, they lost and I think we turned around and played the same VM team. We also lost. Our girls got a new appreciation for elbows and rough play. Before Gracey left she gave me an invitation for Tara to a sleep over next weekend. Tara had one for Raven's this weekend, but Tara wasn't ready yet. We stopped at Casey's and grabbed chicken strips to eat on the way to Adel where Tia played an 11am game vs MAC (??) and lost and would play a second game at 3pm. When we got there the girls were at Godfathers eating pizza. The Ankeny Stars were the girls second game, wow this was a fast paced game. We lost again, but the girls I think are learning alot about the game. We then headed to Murts, making a pit stop at Menards for a new hall light. The girls don't like going to bed without a hall light. I fed the girls at BK before meeting Murt & Kristi to head to A Dong's for supper. Denise drove (thankyou Neyce) We parked at Hoyt Sherman's and walked to the restaruant. We had a beautiful day of 50's, yeah!! We had melting and then black ice.(not tough for driving, but walking) Denise had gotten us tickets to see Menopause the Musical. There was a group of 12 of us and we all have experienced a few of the symtoms, we were a little surprised to see men there. Jeff called and said he was having car problems again. We will have to keep in touch with him. Curt called and wanted the recipe for stew, I said a little of this and a little of that. It was a late night and we really should have been home earlier.

Sunday we needed to be back on the road at 7:30 for Adel. The girls rolled out surprisingly easy. They ate oranges for breakfast. Again we just grabbed jackets, it made it to high 30's today. Tia's team played Roosevelt first, it was a good game. I was hoping it would end at 18-17, but they made 2 more baskets. After the game Gene pointed out a girl standing in the next section(isn't that a Block girl). I replied not any more she is married. She was there cheering on her husbands daughter that played against Tia. Now we have until 12:30. Tia went with Callie J and Sam P to Subway. Tara, Kaylyn, Bailey and Sarah played UNO and ate Doritos while waiting on Godfather's pizza to be delivered. Gene left his car in Altoona Sat night, so Mike brought it to Tia's game. They got to watch Tia in action. Bag practice was scheduled the same time as Tia's second game. We can't do everything :(