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Saturday, August 24, 2013

The new school year 2013

Holly and Myleigh started school this week.  Holly was thrilled, she just loves school, and grimaced all summer long waiting to go back.  Myleigh is not thrilled, school goes to slowly for her, and she gets bored easily, so, hopefully sixth grade will be a bit more up pace.


They still get confused for being twins, and that makes Myleigh frustrated because she already deals with being small compared to other kids her age.  Holly is almost Myleigh's height.  

Next week the girls have a week of school, and then we leave for a vacation in Mexico.  We have never taken the girls on a vacation, just so many other things always seemed to get in the way, but, this is going to be the trip to beat all trips, so, hopefully it will compensate for not having gone before.  

Getting the girls passports was no small effort.  Seems our government is not able to communicate within their own departmental red tape.  We struggled to get Myleigh's citizenship and had to jump through so many hoops, not the least of which was to go through the time and expense of re-adopting her in Utah.  By the time we were done we felt fairly confident we had everything we needed to apply for their passports, but, no.  The Department of Homeland security was not a sufficient reference for the State Department.  They did not accept the citizenship documents, and apparently the Utah Health Department was not much of a reliable reference either, as the birth certificates they issued were also not acceptable.  In the end we had to send every paper we had from both China and the US before the State Dept would issue passports.  

Finally, just shy of two weeks before our trip, we received the passports in the mail.  So, onto Mexico!  Pictures to follow.


Sunday, August 11, 2013

End of summer 2013





Holly has grown so tall, and just never seems to stop growing.  At eight years old she is now as tall as her eleven year old sister, Myleigh, with both of them being Chinese it makes a fair comparison.  although, Myleigh does not like to be compared to anyone, especially not her younger sister.

Language is still progressing, and Holly is completely fluent in English, with not a speck of Chinese left.  That makes me so sad, but, she flat refuses to practice any other language.  It's to be expected, as most kids adopted internationally will end up losing their native language in order to be able to immerse themselves in their new culture.  She does want to learn Chinese in the future, just not now, and I'm okay with that.  After all, she has to be able to get through public school in the U.S., and without strong English speaking, reading, and writing skills, that will be a challenge.