July 18th, 2004.  The day they brought Jasmine to my hotel and left for good.  Some guy, her "grandma", and another little girl.  They spent maybe 10 minutes together, and then left.  The door shut, and Jasmine cried and screamed.  I expect I was the first man to ever pick her up.  She finally just collapsed and fell asleep, but woke up several times crying.  The next day we went to the China welfare agency (A communists style building, with leaky ceilings and creaky stairs).  I remember it being very hot.  She came in the yellow clothes, but I put the bib on her because she was drooling so much.  Jasmine would say "that must be a baby because she has no hair..."

"This is what she looked like.  13 hours to Toyko, 3 hours to Bejing, 4 hours to Xian, 1 hour drive through the country, and they handed me to her in the hotel lobby.  She was sick, tired, dirty and crabby.  I loved her on first sight"

I'm at the Microsoft MVP summit.  They had poorly curated corporate art, but the piece of the Berlin wall in the lobby was pretty cool.  Although the individual pieces of art were good, there was no overall personality to the exhibit. While I was in Seattle the Dalai lama and Bishop Tutu were having a meeting in the next conference room over.  The security around the facility was high, and many followers and handlers were working on arrangements for the meeting.  Surprisingly, the followers of each religion (Dalai Lama, Bishop Tutu, MSFT) were very similar.

Which way, right or left?  Seems so simple a choice in retrospect....

Dad took this picture in 1959, I wonder why he was there.  Or more accurately, I wonder what academic conference was there?  Let's see, Carol would have been 5?  I know my 5 year old (Jasmine) would be saying "This is  SO BOOOOORRRRRRRRRIIIIIINNNNNGGGGG, Daddy!"

They used one of my photographs on the front page of Yahoo answers (Mexico).  This time it was a picture of Libby.  Think we took this picture in Paris when Libby was less than a year.  I should get one of my linguists friends to translate!

Original

Libby's 4th birthday party was the other day, not her actually birthday, but her party (she made that very clear that these were birthday party presents, and not birthday presents).  All the presents had horse's on them, from dresses, to animals, a music box, to the cake...

which candle to blow out first...

4 years old...

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Jasmine draws a picture of Daddy, Jasmine, and the "Doggy pet I wish I had because Libby isn't a good enough pet."

Not to be outdone, Libby draws the family also

Bought the girls bouquets for the dance recital, these are a few of my favorite photographs of them....

Actually the same flower as above, but in the yellow sunlight, a different hue

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Libby and Jasmine had there dance recital a few weekends ago.  Libby loves dance, Jasmine not so much.  Jasmine has decided she wants to do gymnastics next, and Libby is going to follow.  I keep trying to talk Libby into staying with dance another few years, but no such luck.  I'm sure she will keep dancing around the house though (complete with telling me "clap!" when she strikes a pose so that she can curtsey...)

Jasmine and Libby

Exit stage left (Exit, pursued by a bear)

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Libby and Jasmine

Jasmine thinks she's a dog

Jasmine, Mommy and Libby

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