Test of Posting to Blog from email

Ok - here's a test of whether we can post to the blog from e-mail rather than going from the Blogger web UI.  If this works, all of the credit goes to Jim Heverin.  If it doesn't work, I'm probably not following his instructions correctly.  Here goes.  J.

NY Times Article on China Adoption and Bat Mitzvah

Oskie sent us this really nice article from the NY Times -- let's see if I can save the link to the blog.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/nyregion/08batmitzvah.html?ex=1174021200&en=1802454579bb3767&ei=5070&emc=eta1

Articles like this make us happy and we look forward to having future moments like this.

J.

Amsterdam Trip -- February of 2007

Here are photos from our Amsterdam trip in February of 2007. What can I say about Amsterdam? It's a beautiful city -- both modern and also old. When R suggested we go there for the President's Day long weekend, I thought it was crazy. Too much going on at work. Not enough time. Too much to do with the adoption. But as usual, R was right about going. Even though we only had a long weekend, it was enough time. The hotel was beautiful -- right overlooking the canal. We walked all over the place and did our share of museums and concerts. Not too many tourismos in any of the places we went (particularly the concerts). More on that later perhaps. J.

Cabo San Lucas, MX in December of 2006

R got the idea that she was tired of cold weather and Northern CA during rainy season wasn't going to be warm enough. So, what's warm, a direct flight, and not to far for Oskie and Thedie to go? Baja - dude! So we arranged to meet O & T in Cabo San Lucas for the Christmas holiday. Of course, I thought that was a silly idea -- too far, bad time at work, etc. Wrong again. It was amazing and well worth the trip. Here are some photos of the beautiful resort we all stayed in -- called Pueblo Bonito Pacifica. J.

Trip to Aspen, CO in August of 2006

Our friends Jim and Brigitte invited us out to Aspen, CO for part of August of 2006. It was great -- except the part about J forgetting to pack any clothes. Yep - we came straight from a few days at the beach and I forgot to pack other clothes (don't know how I did that). So R forced me to go to go clothes shopping before we showed up at J & B's house in Aspen. And the closest to a bargain store in Aspen is Ralph Lauren. So it was an expensive mistake on my part. It was an amazing time -- the best part was sitting in the hot tub overlooking Snowmass Village listening to the jazz from the festival in the valley below. We did a very tough forced march one of the days that I'm still trying to recover from. Here are some photos from the hike. J.

More Family

Now for the Firschein side -- here are some good photos of various Oskie and Thedie visits: R, Oskie, and Thedie in the dining room at 29 Stowe Lane in CA; Thedie with a baby kangaroo (when O & T were in Australia); and Thedie and R shopping in NY/Soho.

J.

Our Family

Ok - where to begin with the family. First on the Herman side. They are so friendly and like hanging out with each other. We have a great group in D.C. on the Herman side-- Etu and Eugenio (E&E); David and Elana (and Adamski and Wessica aka Sister Girlfriend), David (aka Sweetness) and Kelly (and baby Zachary and the new little ones), Uncle Alan and Aunt Naomi (Ney); and Tony and Alisa (and Talia and Arielle) in Swarthmore, PA. Here are some photos of the group, including: R with Talia, Arielle, and The Little Man as a baby; R and Arielle on a visit to Swarthmore; Elana, R and The Little Man as a baby; and R with The Little Man. J.

Visit With Michelle, Andrew, and Hannah

One of the best things about the China adoption process is the amazing good friends we have met as we go through the process together. It is amazing how close we have gotten to our fellow "waiting parents". Here are some photos of our late 2006 visit with Andrew and Michelle who adopted Hannah (check out their blog in the links section). Their blog has a really good description of the China adoption process and a definition of terms. We enjoyed reading about their journey to China through their blog -- in fact, it inspired us to create this blog. More later. J.

Photos from Aruba in September of 2005

Here are a few photos from our Aruba journey -- when was that? Some time last year. What do I remember about that trip? Oh yeah - it was the same time as Hurricane Katrina in August/Sept of 2005. It was surreal sitting there watching the news on CNN and thinking "when are the officials going to come and rescue all of those people?" J.

Visiting Chris and Des in OBX -- May of 2006

Just going through the old photos and came across this good one of R and the D-man and this funny one of me and Chris H and Baby D. when we visited them in the Outer Banks over Memorial Day last year. The caption of the photo of me and Chris can be: "do these guys look competent to be holding a baby?" We had a great time on this trip. The daily plan: wake up, make coffee, go to the bagel store and buy Washington Post. Return to house, Chris and J hang out with D-man while R and Des go running. Finally get up and go out to the beach. Get some food. Then maybe get some soft serve ice cream. Then go home and watch and move and drink a few beers. It was entirely mellow and what we needed. The drive back was long and we realized it was a longer drive than going to the Eastern Shore of Delaware.

- Joseph

J & R Portugal trip in July of 2006

Ok - now we're on a roll. Here's the second official blog posting. Here's a test to see if we can upload photos. These photos are from our Portugal trip July of 2006. Did I mention that we have been going on a lot of trips rather than sitting around D.C. and waiting to get the China referral? I think Portugal was supposed to be the last trip before we traveled to China. Then we went to Cabo San Lucas, MX with Oskie and Thedie as our last trip before China (over the Christmas/New Years vacation). Then we went to Amsterdam for the President's Day long weekend in February. Ok - that's that last pre-China trip, we hope. I'll upload photos from those trips later. J.

Getting started

Ok - this is the first official posting on our adoption journey blog. This morning R got her freak on and said I had to get the blog launched tonight. I know that tone of voice well and opted not to argue (see - after almost 9 years of marriage, I'm finally learning). So I entered the world of the blog. Bear with us as we figure this out and try not to make the blog too lame. I may have to enlist my former AOL friends to get techie on me and make this really cool -- what does a really cool blog do? Play music? Have three dimensional pictures? Make the adoption process go faster? Anyway, that's it for now. More later. Lots more.