Happy 4th of July!

Getting Ready!

Taylor, Michelle, & Jaida

Walking the Route

Fun at the Pool



We began our day with the traditional 4th of July parade. This is our third year with Michelle's family. Taylor & Michelle have a blast riding the golf cart, and it is the hit of the parade! Patty had to miss it due to her recent knee operation, so Ron and I walked the route with the girls. A fun day was had by all with face painting, jumping castle, dunk tank, and swimming at the pool. We held our own fireworks at our house before heading out to see the big ones locally. Taylor decided is was pretty cool twirling with a sparkler! That is one of my favorite memories....running in the Rippee's backyard with a sparkler in each hand! I hope Taylor remembers these fun times too.

Did I mention it was cold?!

When will Kendy come Home?

Taylor is sitting on the floor next to me and singing..."why is this wait so hard, when my sister is in my heart, I need to know these answers, I need to find my way, seize my tomorrow, learn my yesterday....I need to know". She is always listening. The tune is taken from one of her Barbie movies but the bolded words are her own. So precious.

CCAI Q&A Update

A few weeks ago a large group of waiting families met with Josh & Lily, the directors of CCAI, to get some answers. It is easier to share the info this way directly from their written Q&A to help explain why we continue to wait so long for our second adoption. It is not something Kip and I feel we can~nor do we want to~quit.We are committed in this journey and want to share all of it with you, our family.
We understand you have written about the reasons behind the continued expansion of the child match wait time. Could you go through them again? Could you share with us any additional reasons you may have discovered?

There are multiple reasons behind the current slow-down. First, the popularity of China adoption, combined with the closure and problems with adoption programs in many other countries, had led to a dramatic increase of dossiers coming to the CCAA before May 2007. Second, China’s impressive economic success in recent years has led to transformation in many areas of society, including the gradual acceptance of a smaller family, having girls only in the family, and domestic adoption. These changes have naturally resulted in less abandonment, fewer children being reported to the CCAA, and an increase of domestic adoptions, or de facto adoptions, which are considered unlawful by the government. Third, some orphanages chose to keep many children in their newly-built fancy facilities funded by the government’s Blue Sky Project and put their own, as well as their caretaker staff’s, employment security above the interest of the children under their care. Last, but not the least, the Hunan baby trafficking incident occurred in late 2005 and the subsequent extreme legal punishment leveled upon the orphanage director involved sent a chilling message to all orphanages’ leadership and fundamentally dampened their enthusiasm for international adoption, fearing possible political and legal prosecution.


How viable is China's adoption program? Will they close their doors someday?

China adoption is experiencing tremendous difficulties and generating enormous complaints and anxieties, but all in all it is still one of the largest international adoption programs in the world. The China adoption program’s problems have nothing to do with the speculation that the Chinese government does not like international adoption any more, or there are no more children in the orphanages. It has everything to do with the economy, changes in people's attitudes, and the mind-set of orphanage leadership. In a country of 1.3 billion people where the One-child-policy is still vigorously promoted in many provinces, child abandonment will unfortunately remain part China’s problems for many years to come. The slow decline of female abandonment by rural communities has been quickly and unfortunately filled by the dramatic rise of abandonment due to rampant out-of-wedlock births. That partially explains the rise in the percentage of boys coming to orphanages now.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game!

Ahhh, Cotton Candy!



Dinger and Taylor




Taylor & daddy on father's Day; The Rockies won!

Taylor loves going to the Rockies baseball games! We took Taylor and her friend Michelle on Father's Day and they had a blast. We called it our junk food day: hot dogs, fries, pop, gummy fruits, peanuts, & cotton candy! We all had a great time and hope to do it again soon. Thanks to Kip's new job we get great seats :)
Taylor and mommy made it on to the jumbo tron one game. She was pretty excited to see herself on the BIG screen....Taylor, not me! Of course, we all sing Take me out to the ballgame...no, we yell it. Our singing isn't so refined yet. Big fun.