Memnison Journal

Day three of the Sissy visit: pictures at Susan’s photo-blog.
Susan:
Today was the American Girl Place shopping spree. The girls got up and showered. Dash was a happy dog since she got to shower with me and then with the girls. I poked my head in the bathroom to see if everything [...]

From Susan’s photoblog (Sunday)  (picture links here):
Earlier tonight we picked Meredith Ellen up from the airport.  Sissy is here for the next 6 days.  We’ve got manicures and pedicures, American Girl Place tea parties, New Years Eve Parties to cram into the next 6 days.
Meredith Grace was barely able to contain her excitement in waiting [...]

Now comes the rush to the holiday…to children, it seems like it takes forever until Christmas, but I got news for ya, Kids - it’s a whole lot busier for the grownups, who have to make sure that everything gets done in the process…like fixing up the house, or shopping for presents, or hoping that [...]

Having a much less immediately lethal form of leukemia and being an adoptive dad of a Chinese girl, this story hits home: a kid in Ohio adopted from China has a nasty version of leukemia, and is in desperate need of a bone-marrow transplant.  There’s this little problem, however, about finding a genetic match from [...]

More excerpts from the journal, this time from the day we actually adopted Meredith (the day after we got her).  Again, see some pictures of the day on Flickr - the picture below is something the Jiangmen paper later got out of the files of the orphanage when the paper was running that stupid ‘Dick [...]

It’s official that we will have a visitor for the Christmas - New Years holidays - the Harringtons bought Meredith Ellen a ticket to fly up here for a week, from the 28th to the 3rd.  Both the twins are rapturously happy.
The reaction, as I related it to Leigh Ann:
Mere: *huge amounts of excited squealing*
[...]

BBC report about Australian aborigines being upset about a how-to-play-the-digerridoo book for girls; apparently some folks consider the instrument a male-only device.
BTW, Mere is fascinated by a new Aussie tween series called Double Trouble; it’s the old sepatated twins story as per Parent Trap. but in this case, the twins are part Aborigine, with one [...]

One of the finalists:
As she watched the small form swing backwards and forth from the crystal chandelier - hands on hips, sniffing the air and squeaking inaudibly - it suddenly became clear to Madame de Pompomme that she had done the wrong thing asking Jacques to find and bring back her long-lost sister: for, whilst [...]

Found at her LJ here or her online blog here.

Some more Sissy trip pictures, from the beginning and the end have been put into the Flickr set (which is now organized chronologically).

Some last pictures from Meredith’s trip to see her sister; both of them have been sad and miss each other a good deal. More at the set at Flickr here.

More photos added to the Flickr site, including a bunch of cheerleader stuff and a trip to the local snack joint for shaved ice (it’s really hot in Birmingham this week).  Mere is having an insanely glorious time playing and swimming and playing and playing.

Photos after the cut; the full list of the photos (the cut versions, I’ll have larger scale ones when Meredith Grace comes back this Thursday) are here at the Flickr site.
We really have not heard much from down there aside of what I’ve reported here from brief messages sent up with photos attached - basically, [...]

According to Leigh Ann, they’re doing carpentry in the basement with Mr. Harrington tonight.  The mind reels. The good times are still rolling. More pictures were just posted at Flickr; some are after the cut:

Meredith flew off this morning to Birmingham to see her Sissy, and she was very very happily greeted by Meredith Ellen and Ally.  Photos are at the Flickr site; they’re ones that Leigh Ann sent us via email, so they’re not full sized, etc.   Here’s a clip from an email Leign Ann (Meredith Ellen’s mom, [...]