Douthat State Park, Family Reunion in VA, Lewisburg W VA visit with Aunt Nancy, HallZooween not, Cincinnati Walks and Luizhou Friendship Froce Sister City dinner

This post covers several trips and events from September thru mid October. 

Douthat State Park and the Allegheny Mountains.

Our cabin at Douthat

Then another trip to Virginia in October for family reunion at John's Uncle Frank and Aunt Sandra's farm.  Here Miss A is watching family fishing.  This is also a good example of how the quality of pictures has declined since she started walking.

 With Uncle Frank and Aunt Sandra.

A picture of the 2nd generation cousins.... Sammy, Ashley, Will, Audrey on Baba's knee and Andrew.

Crashing in the car ... sometimes funny and then

sometimes like an angel.

Shopping in Lewisburg with Aunt Nancy.  Unfortunately I did not take many pictures at the wonderful lunch we had outside at a new restaurant.  The weather was wonderful and we had  lot of fun.

Playing at our neighborhood playground.

The wonderful pictures I take so often these days.

This past Friday John, Audrey and I went to the Zoo because I mistakenly thought Hallzooween included Fridays too.  I was hoping Miss A would want to try her costume if she saw other kids wearing them.  No one was wearing any costumes and all we saw was set up.

 So I just carried her costume.

Yep that is how Miss A was dressed for this visit.

Checking out the plush in the gift shop.

 This past Saturday we participated, along with 8,000 other people, in Cincinnati Walks at Coney Island.  This is a 3 mile walk fundraiser for Children's Hospital.

This International Adoption Center Team.

 That afternoon the 3 of us took another walk around our neighborhood.

Sunday we were ready for church early so we decided to walk up to Bow Tie for a cup of coffee for us and so A could draw and play on their piano. 

 Sunday evening we attended a Friendship Force dinner welcoming guest from Luizhou China.  This dinner was held a Methodist church on the west side of town. We were early and thankfully this church had an entertaining pumpkin patch.

Not a great picture of us but it seems I never have many of the 2 of us.

This pictures shows why Miss A may get a camera of her own for Christmas.

Another not great picture from the Luizhou FF dinner but I did not take many.

Who takes a 20 month old to a Japanese steakhouse?

The answer to the title question of this blog entry is John and myself.  It turned out to be very fun but  there were a couple of times we thought we might have made a serious mistake.

Some background ... after we got home from a 6 hour drive from Lewisburg to Cincinnati we went to Cincinnati Bell.  The rice trick to dry out my apple juice laden previous phone did not work.  Well this little trip took an hour of which Miss A spent the entire time running through the store pretend talking on their phones to "ga-ma, cousins, aunt, uncle and Paula".  Because we had little food at home and little time before A's bedtime we decided to try the Japanese restaurant in the strip mall where Cincincinnati Bell is located.  Yep we were seated at a hibachi communal table.  Audrey is almost always a good restaurant guest so we weren't overly concerned about her behavior.  But all the same it seemed a little adult, but at least it wasn't a weekend evening.  Audrey was sitting front and center of the grill, when the chef catching oil on the fire began the meal.  Well I was just getting my new phone out to capture her first time at a hibachi dinner when we saw sheer terror and panic to get out of the highchair.  So I immediately got her out ad held her at a distance until the food was cooked.Safety girl did not like the idea of an open flame during dinner.

However, if the "fight or flight"mechanism was triggered, the only fighting Audrey did was with the straps on her high chair.  Apparently, adrenaline makes a girl hungry.

After tasting the noodles Miss  started sucking them up as fast as she could feed them into her little mouth.  She looked like she was auditioning for the lead role in Lady and the Tramp.  Although we ordered the children's sirloin for her meal she only wanted to eat the shrimp (mine) and salmon(John's), which she verbally asked for as well as signed.

All these pictures were downloaded from my new phone.

Casual Sunday, Wee Wednesday, Re-model planning and foster family contact

 Almost all of the pictures for this post were downloaded from my new phone.  I'm ok with the look (esp. since my camera is damaged) however it is cumbersome to download.

  We bought this tiger hat in Guangzhou and until recently Audrey showed no interest in wearing it.

   The shapes puzzle in the picture below is a referral gift from Paula.  Tomorrow is our 1 year anniversary of Referral Day!

  Watching "Signing Time" on her little red stool with her purse on her shoulder.

  Sunday after church all 3 of us took a leisurely walk through Eden Park.  We saw this food truck while we were in Twin Lakes. 

  We have started planning for the 1st floor bathroom re-model!  We are going to take over the 1st floor as soon as our tenant moves out... not that we know when that might happen.  Below is a picture of sinks from Lowe's.  I was rather impressed with their selection and obviously price too.

 We also checked out Keidel this week where you can easily spend $1,000 on a faucet.   But it was fun to look, even Miss A was entertained at Keidel.

 Cool shower head.

Tuesday at Joseph Beth.  we were early for play group at Owl's Nest Park so I decided to stop by the bookstore.  We never made it to play group.

Wednesday we went to the first Wee Wednesday 9last Wed ea month) event at the Art Museum.  This month's theme was :fins, Fur & Wings"  They had 4 interactive storytime stops in different galleries.  You receive this booklet and get a sticker for each month you attend.  We only made it to 2 storytime today.  The first was in front of a picture by Edie Harper (Charley's widow) titled Woodland Fauna.  The 2nd storytime we made it to was in front of a vase titled "Aladdin Vase" by Maria Longworth Nichols Storer.  This one featured fish. 

 I received this picture from Ann of Red Thread this week.  This is the photo album, translated letter and postage paid return letter she is delivering to Audrey's Chinese foster family in the next week.  Ann also sent a video of the cake that we sent to YiFeng and was used to celebrate the 3rd birthday of a girl named Zhuang Lu Hu who just returned from the hospital.  It took a couple of hours to download this 15 minute video and so special to see.  The children at Zhuang Lu Hu's b-day were all special needs I believe and incredibly well behaved.  It also showed parts of YiFeng we had never seen.  

  A picture of Audrey and foster baba.

 The updated photo we received after referral and for the longest time we thought was in Yifeng SWI but know now was in the foster family's home.