Stephanie and Me

Stephanie and me sitting down for a moment. I have been working on the LaLaFuLooza slideshow, and she's been playing on Facebook.

Rachel's LaLaFuLooza art

Today was somewhat intense, getting ready for LaLaFuLooza, the annual reunion of families who have adopted from Fuzhou SWI, Jiangxi. I created a slideshow with Smilebox with 178 photos, but could not get it to burn to DVD. So, now I'm starting over with Windows Movie Maker. I have to finish before we leave on Saturday. The girls wanted to help with the 140 nametag badges -- scootching them into the badgeholders without wrinkling, measuring out a yard of red ribbon, tying on the ribbon. Rachel laid out the name tags on the kitchen floor, so it was a challenge to hunt for the family members. The ribbons tangled at once point, so we had to tuck them into the badge pocket. Among all the stress and chaos, Rachel drew this nice banner for LLFL and I assured her we'll take it with us for a decoration.

Happy 4th of July!

This was the first 4th of July fireworks we've attended in years and years. When Stephanie was young, she was afraid of the noise, and in Austin, you have to stake out your place hours in advance in the heat, enjoy a 30 minute display, then be stuck in traffic for an hour an a half. Here in Waco, we left the house by 9 p.m., drove 20 minutes downtown, parked six blocks away and walked to the Franklin Avenue Bridge. We could see the Waco Suspension bridge and the fireworks behind it.
It was hot! It's still in the 90s at 11 p.m. But it was a nice 20-minute show, we could see perfectly. The show is sponsored by HEB, our local Texas grocery chain. They sponsor fireworks in almost every medium and large town in Central and South Texas.
It was nice to walk back to our car and arrive home in under 30 minutes.

Nametags for LaLaFuLooza 2009

LaLaFuLooza, the annual reunion of Fuzhou families, is two weeks away and the planning committee is tending to the small details. I'm making name badges for the attendees. Here's my prototype.

Rachel's Boo-Boo

Rachel scraped her elbow at a daycare field trip to the jumping place.

A heart in the sky

After rain and gray skies for a couple of days, I saw this heart-shaped opening in the sky just as I was going in the door to work.

Rain, Rain DON'T go away!

Thunder and lightning, very, very frightening! No, not really, we were happy to have some good, soaking rain yesterday and today after weeks of no rain and temperatures in the 100s.