Saturday night we had a party at our house, it was suppose to be a bonfire but with the rain all day, it ended up hanging out in the house. Some of the families canceled out because of the rain. A good friend of my decided to surprise me with a cake and this crown for my birthday that was this past wednesday.

My birthday cake. Jade and Dave made it. It was a cranberry chocolate cheesecake. It was very good

Jade showing off her finished chicken. she has become a petty good griller to go along being a great cook
Jade putting on Italian herb chicken on the grill. Very good chicken
My niece(also my goddaughter) graduated from High School on the 5th. It was a great accomplishment for her, there were times where it was questionable. She really has done well.
Friday I had my niece all day. When Jenny was done with speech school we met up with some of our Friday playdates friends at a park. The weather was awesome and they had a lot of fun.

Some updates that has happen since I last posted.

• My birthday was on Wednesday, I took the day off from work, scrapbook most of the day, then we all went out to eat at Olive Garden, wonderful food, We came home and I was presented with a cheesecake made by Jade and Dave. It was a cranberry and was very good. The girls made me cards and Dave informed me that we can start discussing adopting again. I have been wanting to add to our 4 daughters for a very long time, Dave was not wanted to. We are going to have the money saved up this time around before starting, since when we found Katie and Jenny unexpectedly and weren't money ready for them. I am hoping 2 or 3 years we will be at that point and then we will discuss it more seriously if we still want to add to our family by adopting. I told myself that I won't look at any waiting children until we are seriously ready. I made that mistake last night, I was looking something else up on line and was showing someone at the party a picture of a friend of ours child that they are hoping to adopt and my friend said "click on her I want to see her (she is 12 years old). " That was a huge mistake, she was so beautiful and her "special need" is deafness. With the new regulations in China, I only "qualify for children that have a similar disability as I do, which would be hearing loss. I of course showed Dave and he said get the money....now if that isn't for motivation....
  
• Jade: It is hard to believe in 9 days she will be going home. Her mom and her have been working very hard on getting her visa to return. She will have a meeting shortly after she get back to China with the US Embassy to request for the visa. They are going for a one year visa vs a 5 year. They feel they will will have a better chance proving their case (showing that she can financial support herself here and pay for tuition for school) for a one year. She is orginally scheduled to return to US on August 5th but have now discover that with her going back to china, she can't come back before 30 days before school, so she probably won't return now until around the 8th or 9th of August. She is enjoying the last week of school and said that Friday was different since the seniors are gone. She has 3 classes that were mostly seniors, so it is a little empty now.
• Our friends that I wrote about in the previous blog about hitting a snag in their adoption. On Friday they got wonderful news that they are back on track and the sisters are still available, so their prayers were answered.