Eliana turned 8 years old today.

Our “baby”. {sigh}

We love you somethin’ awful.

The best part of turning 8, in her opinion, is that she finally gets out of the booster seat.

What you’re looking at in the photo below is my electric razor. If you look closely, you can see the cutters through a gaping hole in the foil screen.

Even a teensy-tiny hole can rip my face to shreds so imagine what THAT hole could do.

Wal-Mart used to have replacement screens for this razor. Now they don’t.

Target used to have replacement screens for this razor. Now they don’t.

I guess this razor is an antique. So I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to purchase a new electric razor.  Which really chapped my you-know-what.

In a last-gasp effort, I looked online for replacement screens.

Guess what? Amazon sells them. Guess what else? They are $2.00 cheaper than I could have bought them at Wal-Mart or Target. And since we’re Amazon Prime members, shipping is free. So I came out smelling like a rose.

Oh, and did you know that Amazon sells books too?

Someone recently emailed Carmi and I with several questions about older child adoption.

Carmi answered the email but I thought it would be a good idea to post a question a day here and share our answers with you.

If you have any questions of your own, please let us know.

1. Was it hard to communicate with Zane?
2.  How did he adjust to you? Siblings?
3.  How did he adjust to school in America?  How did you know what grade to put him in? How is he doing now in school?
4.  How was he able to make friends and feel comfortable at school when he could not speak the language?  How is he doing now that he can speak the language?
5.  How did you try to teach him English? How is he doing now?
6.  Did he go to school in China?  If so, did the school teach him about Buddha and did your child have a strong connection to Buddhism?
7.  Was he in an orphanage or a foster family?  If in a foster family, did he have a difficult time adjusting to your family?  How is he doing today?
8.  Can you share something that you wish that you would have known before you adopted an older child that you can’t get from a book but only through experience?

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The simple answer is, of course, yes. It was certainly a challenge to communicate with Zane at first. He knew 3 words in English and we knew 7 in Chinese. However, you can only get so far with hello, goodbye, thank you, mother, father, sister and grandmother. But we found a way despite our bad Chinese with a southern accent.

Outside of the hotel rooms, we had an English-speaking guide with us at all times.

On those occasions when a guide was not present, we used the AM101 Electronic English Chinese Talking Translator from BBK that we purchased prior to our trip. The device translated English to Chinese and Chinese to English. It took Zane all of about 5 minutes to learn how to use it. His first words were, “I’m thirsty.” The translation either way was far from perfect. We had to really think about what we wanted to tell him and break the phrase down as simply as possible.

I would say that we also sharpened our skill at playing charades.

After we came home, Zane took the translator to school and it was very helpful to him there for the first couple of months.

Way back in November of 1986, Carmi and I got hitched.

Someone in my family - and I think it was a brother-in-law - recorded portions of the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. I’m not even sure what KIND of video was available back then but it was video. Our wedding was also recorded the next day.

Today, my mom surprised Carmi and I at lunch with a DVD that she had someone create from the aforementioned videos.

I was looking at the back of the DVD case which contained a still shot from each of the chapters. Several of the stills showed me in my white tux which looked really small.

My nephew - wisecracker that he is - leaned over and said, “I bet you $50 you couldn’t get in that tux.”

Ha! That’s a bet I certainly wouldn’t take. Those stills were taken many years and s-e-v-e-r-a-l pounds ago.

Once we arrived home, I popped the DVD in the player so the kids could especially see my father and several grandmothers who our children never had the privilege of meeting.

When Carmi and I were standing at the altar together, Karys started jumping up and down and shrieked, “Mommy and daddy are getting married! Mommy and daddy are getting married!”

She likes a good love story.

We had our local Chinese New Year celebration tonight and once again held the celebration in our church fellowship hall.

There were 20 families and a total of 85 present. Half of those families were not with us last year so that was cool. Lots of new friends.

Some of the children have e-a-r-l-y bedtimes and needed to leave before the event was over. But we managed to gather together those children who remained for a group shot.

I accompanied Carmi to Eliana’s class this morning for an emphasis on Chinese New Year (which is Sunday).

Carmi started off by reading The Runaway Rice Cake by Ying Chang Compestine. This book is one of Eliana’s favorites and the other students laughed throughout the story.

Carmi then taught them about the Chinese zodiac and shared a legend about how the animals were chosen. The class especially enjoyed finding out what animal they each were based on their birth year.

To wrap things up, the kids made a dragon mask.

Everyone looked thrilled except for… umm… our daughter.

I think she was still worried that we might stay and eat lunch with her.

While the kids worked on their craft, I wandered around the room to offer assistance and noticed a wall of creative writing pages.

I found Eliana’s page and just had to let you read the first line.

Don’t know about you… but I did a double-take when I first saw it.