At play and on tour

A week ago, we visited with Stefanie and Karen and their families. Stefanie and Karen worked with Dan at the American Cancer Society (and are still with ACS).

The kids all got along quite well.



After brunch at Stefanie's, we went to a nearby park and zoo in Teaneck, NJ. CJ had a good time scouting out the new playground.



And all four kids got in some good Halloween practice.



Last Tuesday, Meg and Aunt Annie took CJ to places they associate with their grandmother Naomi. Here they are at the Landmark Inn in Warwick, New York. CJ was puzzled by the old doors that had been used to create a patchwork ceiling in the main dining room. As Meg and Aunt Annie reminisced, CJ spent most of the meal looking up!



We then proceeded to the hamlet of Cragsmoor, an artists' colony begun in the 19th century, to go to the 1830s mountaintop farmhouse where Naomi lived in the summer. The outhouse was gone, as was the well and flagpole, and everything looked a wee bit smaller than we remembered, but seeing the house brought back many happy memories.



Here is Aunt Annie on the porch giving some pointers to CJ on how to rock.



Unfortunately, the dozen "No Tresspassing" signs prohibited us from visiting Chetolah, the summer estate just down the road from Naomi's that was built by artist George Inness Jr. and was the focal point of the artists' colony at the turn of the 20th century. As children, we loved to play at the mansion and surrounding grounds. Especially in its dilapidated state, it was fun to explore and imagine what living there must have been like. However, we were able to visit the local library and look at photographs and other documents of the mansion in its heyday. It was indeed a magical place.

CJ celebrating Autumn

CJ can cut a mean rug:



This past weekend, we went to the Hammond Museum in northern Westchester to celebrate the Autumn Moon festival. We helped CJ paint a paper lantern.



The families paraded the decorated lanterns to a lily pond.



Candles were placed in oversize grapefruits that had been scooped out and scored. These votives represented lotus flowers and were launched into the pond to summon the spirits of our ancestors.



On Sunday, we met up with three of the families in our adoption travel group for dim sum. Here are all four girls in attendance (from left: Olivia, Gabriella, CJ, and Erin):



Group shots of the girls can be a bit of a challenge. The paparazzi parents proved too much for Erin. After she bailed, the photo op quickly devolved.



But when we had the girls hold hands they looked ready to take on the world!



Or at least, have fun at the nearby playground. Woo hoo Gabriella!



In the never-ending quest to get a decent group shot, we tried putting the girls on the playset. James, Erin's brother, sits in for Olivia.



But before Olivia could enter the fray, Erin took a tumble. Through it all, James waited patiently with Gabriella and CJ.



The second group shot proved as elusive as the first. At least the peanut gallery of local kids had fun watching the spectacle.

More from the Portland vacation

Sorry this has taken so long to post, but I finally downloaded and sorted through the Portland photos from Meg's camera. And there's some really good stuff.

First, a video of our walk in Portland's Forest Park with Stefee and Fergus. CJ was a little skittish around Fergus, although by the trip's end she really did like the dog...



When we were camping, CJ, Meg and I went for a nice walk through the woods. This little clip is especially popular for its soundtrack:



Back in Portland, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry is a great place to visit with your family. They have the cutest little chipmunk costumes (next to the sandbox, of course).



And finally, on one of our last nights in Portland, we went out to eat "huo guo" or hot pot. CJ was especially fond of the noodles!

Lower Manhattan, Maryland, Richmond, she's everywhere!

Ok, so we're having some problems keeping up with the blog postings. My apologies for getting behind (again).

Here we have CJ and Grace, who get along quite well:



Last week, CJ and Meg visited cousin Chrissy down by the South Street Seaport. Here's CJ at her charming best:



And here's CJ, Meg, and a fairly stiff breeze:



This past weekend, we visited Uncle Jack, who lives near the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.



There was a wonderful boardwalk that CJ enjoyed:



We then stayed with Art, who's known Meg and her brother Frank since childhood. Art is pretty tall:



CJ was impressed, of course.



On Sunday, we went to Richmond for the wedding of Meg's high school friend Rebecca. CJ and I chose to go incognito:



We had a great time at the wedding. After all the funerals and memorial services of the past year, it was great to attend a real happy occasion. Much fun was had by all.

-- Dan

Portland vacation

We spent ten relatively fun days in Portland, Oregon, to close out the summer. I say relatively because during this time about half of CJ's teeth came in. That part was the only not-so-much-fun part. But we had a great time hanging out with our friends Stefee and Mike, and their parents.

In fact, Bob, Stefee's Dad, took us camping -- CJ's first camping trip. And this was no casual jaunt. Bob knows how to camp in style.



Mom and CJ quickly adapted to this new way of roughing it. Here they are lining up for breakfast:



The site, a secret location in the Mt. Hood National Forest, was beautiful. Here's CJ trying to adjust one of her new teeth:



And here I am with CJ, hiking along an old logging road:



CJ had a lot of fun with Stefee and Mike's pets. They have a big German Shepherd that CJ liked but had a hard time getting up the nerve to pet. She mastered the cats in no time, though. Here she is showing Tigger the door:



We also checked out the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Here's Meg and CJ test driving a replica of the Gemini spacecraft that launched the day Meg was born:



And here's CJ holding court in the museum's sandbox:



No, we don't know why the museum had a sandbox.

On our last day, we went for a great hike to a cliff overlooking the Columbia River Gorge:



There's a few more photos and some videos from our trip that need to be pulled off of Meg's camera, and I'll try to post them at some point this weekend.

It's too bad the summer ended. With CJ, the season just sped past us!

Frisbees, cookies, and the beach

CJ watched her first ultimate frisbee games this past weekend. She didn't quite get the whole spectator sport scene, to be honest, but she did seem amenable to frisbees in general:



She also liked jumping into the huddle:



But when it came time to actually watching, well, let's just say she spent most of the time searching unsuccessfully for me. And it's not like I was moving that fast either.

- - -

Monday night, she had her first chocolate chip cookie--straight out of the oven!

At first the cookie was too hot:



But unbelievably, she just didn't like it!



- - -

Last week, Meg and CJ went to the beach house in Massachusetts that Uncle Frank and Aunt Susan share with her family. Here's Uncle Frank and CJ with pinwheels:



Overall, the beach scene worked for her.



And she enjoyed playing the piano with cousin Grace.



- - -

After the beach house we all met up at our friends Chuck and Liz's summer pad in Newport, RI. We didn't really stray too far from the pool. The poolside scene was pretty chipper, all things considered:

Tupperware party, and one more mountain stream

Making dinner this evening was a bit labor intensive and distracting; while I knew CJ was buzzing around and staying out of trouble I wasn't quite sure what she was up to. Meg, however, was able to catch CJ in action:




We also made it back up to the Catskills, and had fun splashing around and staying cool:





Enjoy!

Another Catskills trip, more photos..

We went up to visit Aunt Lisa, Uncle Mark, Sara and Alyssa last weekend, and had a fun little hike up in the Catskills.

Here's Aunt Lisa helping CJ on the trail:



Here's CJ and Alyssa hanging out on a neat rock:



And here's the group shot. I managed to get everyone looking at the camera except Bogart (my parents' yellow lab).



One last pic, from earlier in the month -- CJ still has that shoe fetish:

Cooling off

This past Sunday we went up to the Catskills to visit my sister and her daughter, and also swim in a cool mountain stream. It was a completely successful outing.



I'll post the group shot tonight, hopefully.

Reunion get-together

A week and a half ago, we got together with four of the five families with whom we travelled. The other family had cold/flu issues; the odds of six girls being healthy enough to get together at one point are pretty slim. Factor in the complexities of family schedules and it's a miracle that we had such a great turnout!







We put the five girls on the couch for a group photo. This was the best one from my biased opinion (i.e., CJ was looking at my camera):



Keeping the five of them on that couch, of course, wasn't exactly an easy task...



Hopefully, I'll have some more photos to post at some point soon. I'm only one and a half weeks behind now...