Oh, What A Week!

 I may have mentioned before about the dog door.  I got home and it was broken, so I had to fix it.  Here is the finished product.  Before I cleaned it.

I also won a Florida grown, Ponderosa Lemon!  Now, I thought it'd be a smallish lemon, but I was greatly surprised to find that I won two small yellow bowling balls!  FIVE INCHES in DIAMETER!  Today we cut up the first one!  Cora had some baking planned, but I had a better way of liquidating it.

 Lemon Drops!

 The husk looked like this after we took its zest and juiced it.

Our one year home study was today.  We had the social worker come and check in on us to make sure we are being good parents.  I think we passed.

We also, FINALLY, got this little beauty!  The canvas photo in the middle.  It required us to rearrange the whole wall.  I have to say, I like the picture we finally chose.  We deliberated for a long time about what was best.  We thought about a scenic picture of China...but that just seemed like something we wouldn't care about gathering dust in a disused room.  Then we thought about a family photo, but we decided that might be too quickly outdated.  Finally we decided on something that meant to something to us.  This does.  I took it next to the waterfall in the White Swan on Shaiman Island, in Guangzhou, China.

Chloe fastened herself to Cora's necklace shortly after we laid eyes on her.  That was a common thing to see.  That little hand was forever grabbing that chain and holding on to it as though it were her life-line to Cora.  It never failed to moisten my eyes.  Still does.   I cannot imagine a better way to remember that time and to never forget how dear we are to each other.  It reminds us that we won't let go.  We are a family.  Forever.