We are back!

I haven't blogged since Christmas, and there are 2 reasons. First, I have been so busy I truly don't know if I'm coming or going. Lizzy had the lead in her high school musical 3 weeks after Christmas, "Guys and Dolls". That sort of takes over our family for a short time while we are in "musical mode". She did great, and we had lots of family come to see her, so it made for a fun and very busy time.

Then, we have been doing the great "East Coast Audition Tour". Lizzy is planning to major in music, and she traveled to 6 of the 7 schools where she applied to have her auditions. Most of those consisted of her singing, taking a theory test and aural test, and for some a keyboard assessment. She applied to schools as far north as upstate NY, and as far south as Georgia, so we have been on the road. It has been fun to visit these schools with her, to watch her decide what she really wants in a college experience. However, I am also glad it's behind us now, and we can resume life as normal, whatever that means. She's already receiving some letters from schools, offers of scholarships, etc., so stay tuned. More to come!

The 2nd reason I haven't blogged much is I had every intention of beginning a new blog. We started this blog to journal our story with Michelle, but we have 3 other wonderful children and we are hoping to start a family blog to feature our other children as well. That obviously hasn't happened for the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraphs. I hope to get that done, perhaps this summer. Until then, I'll try to keep this blog a little more up-to-date.

We managed to survive the epic snowstorms here in Northern Virginia. We've lived in places that have lots of snow, but most of those places also have lots of snow plows. That is not the case here, and we spent a lot of family time. I have to admit, it was nice to slow down and have everyone home for a while, but we were all ready to get back to real life.

Michelle is doing great. She is growing like a weed, and in the words of her speech therapist, she is having an "explosion". Not only is she saying everything now, she is much easier to understand.

In Virginia the 3rd grade does a big unit on China. Last week Josh's class had a Chinese New Year Party. I shared some pictures of our trip, and they had some great food. The highlight of the day was the dragon parade. The kids had to make their dragons at home for a project, and then they paraded through the school to show them to all the parents and students. Michelle thought this was wonderful. Sorry I don't have any better pic's of Michelle. I'll try to get some up soon.