A Date With Julia

We have been really busy since our last post.  My camera batteries were dead, and I hadn't gotten new batteries to replace them.  One of the things I like about these blogs is to see photos, so I figured without photos why post?  

We have gone on several outings with my sister Kimberly and 5-year-old niece, Nora Beth.  Leila loves playing with Nora, and looks up to her a lot.  She has really enjoyed spending time with Nora at the park.

Friday of this week was Mike's and my 5th wedding anniversary!  We celebrated by going to our favorite breakfast place in the morning.  As a typical southerner, Leila loves scrambled eggs and bacon.  She also ate both her and my bowls of grits.  In the evening we went to the restaurant where Mike and I had our first date.  It happens to be a Chinese restaurant, so Leila had fun sharing some Mandarin with the Chinese waitress.

A couple of weeks ago we met up with Gwen and Jason who were in our adoption group in China.  They brought their daughter's Anna, age 5, and new daughter Julia, who is 14 months and adopted from the same orphanage as Leila.  Leila was so excited to see Julia again.  They really made a connection on our adoption trip, and are glad to have each other now back in the States.  We made plans to go to the aquarium with them, and yesterday was the day.  Here are some photos from our trip to the aquarium.

A family photo that Gwen and Jason took.  Thanks guys!  You can't see her in this photo, but Julia is actually standing to the right of Mike below the photo.  She is such a cutie pie!

Here is Gwen and Jason with a sleeping Anna.  Jason's parents also joined us on the trip.  Julia and Leila were thick as thieves and insisted on hanging out together.  When Julia would get too far away, Leila would immediately call out her name wanting to get back with her friend.  Aren't they cute looking in the glass of the huge aquarium tanks!

The photo below was actually taken before Gwen and Jason arrived, and Leila was hanging out in the Ergo carrier on my back.  She immediately took to the fish.  Finding Nemo is her favorite movie, so this was no surprise.  This was much better for me than watching Nemo for the umpteen-millionth time.  

Leila also enjoyed meeting Deepo, the aquarium mascot fish.  You can't see it here, but Leila is actually giving Deepo a kiss in this photo.  Too cute! 

Hanging with momma, waiting for Julia to arrive we went to the coral fish display.

Leila was far more taken with the diver than the fish in the coral tank.  I wonder if she was worried that the diver was going to take one of the fish, as happens with Nemo in the movie.

I was pretty proud of this shot of all three of us.  Its a self-taken family portrait.  Not a great photo of us, but we are all squeezed in there.


I just loved taking photos of these two with their cute little sun dresses on in front of the colorful tanks.

Here they are together again watching the petting rays and sharks in the open tank.  Gwen and I went to the opposite side of the pool to take some father-daughter photos.  Leila loved playing with the water and was not interested in looking up for a photo.  Julia, on the other hand, was a perfect model.

Love this photo of the tiger ray with Leila's reflection in the glass.  See her little finger pointing at it in the bottom left?

After saying goodbye to Gwen, Jay, Anna, Julia, and Jay's parents we took a short stroll over to the Olympic Park and a quick run through the fountain.  Leila didn't quite know what to think of that.  We will have to take her back when it is less crowded and spend more time there.

We went home for a quick bite to eat, then it was off again to here a lecture about the earliest form of art, archaeological petroglyphs.  There were three speakers, and Mike and I took turns playing in the hallway with Leila and listening to the lectures.  Since the lectures were held in an art school, during my shifts I felt inspired to take some artsy photos of Leila.  I found this great pink room inside the women's restroom.  Matched her little pink shoes.

My favorite....

Just outside the lecture hall was this large space where we had to remove Leila's squeeky shoes so we wouldn't disturb the lecture.  After removing Leila's squeeky shoes, we ran and played here for quite a while.  There was a neat grouping of 30 works of art all clustered together on one wall which made a fabulous background for a photo.

There was actually one other kid there, ironically she was another 2-year-old, named Leena.  Too cute!  The slow speed of this shot catches Leila as typical, always on the move.

Love the reflection of the art in the floor.

We met our friend Jerry at the lecture, an artist and caver who is very interested in archaeology.  He has even done some paintings of petroglyphs.  Leila finally warmed up to him toward the end of the evening and thought his beard resembled Guppa's.  Leila was such a happy girl all day and was very well behaved being confined to hallways and bathrooms for a couple of hours.  She is amazing!

Today was a nice relaxing day at home.  We were out late, so woke up a little later.  We all took naps during the day.  This evening Mike made us some spaghetti with macaroni pasta for dinner.  I think Leila liked it what do you think...
Like the photographer professor I met last night said, taking great photos of Leila is just too easy!

Kelly