TA!!!!

We recieved our Travel Approval yesterday. We are finally getting there. We will be getting our travel assignment hopefully today maybe monday. So check back to see when we will be going to China. Hopefully it will be toward the end of March.

Megan's room

Megan's room is all done and we are ready. Thought you guys might like to see it. Come on Travel Approval.

LOA!!! Yippee!!!

We got our Letter of Approval today. Yippee!!! Come on Travel Assignment. We should be traveling in the next 2 months. We can not believe it. Megan here we come.

Megan Anne

We included a couple more pictures of Megan. We have been LOI officially 30 days now. Hoping for LOA soon.
The first two pictures are when she is about 12 months old. The second one was about her second birthday. Hope you enjoy.

Christmas Letter 2007

Dear Family and Friends:

Can you believe another year has flown by and we are at the end of 2007. We hope your year was as good as ours and we would like to take this opportunity to fill you in on what has been happening with us.

In our first draft of this letter, we wrote that it would likely be another 2-3 years before we finalized our adoption of a little girl from China. Well, that has changed. A few weeks ago, facing an ever increasing waiting time, we told our agency that we would be open to adopting a child with minor and correctable health issues. Well, last week our agency called us to see if we would be interested in looking at the file of a 2 year old girl named Guo Si Meng. She was born in the Guangxi province of China. She was born December 3, 2005. We won’t bore you with all the medical details, but our pediatrician has assured us that she is healthy and is developing well. We wish we could travel to China now to bring her home, but it will likely be 3-5 months before the Chinese government lets us. We are going to name her Megan An once the adoption is complete.

The second big thing is in October we bought a house. It is a 4 bedroom 2 ½ bath house with a nice size back yard in a very family oriented neighborhood.

Matthew turned 4 this year and is turning into such a big boy. He loves pirates and was one for Halloween. He is really beginning to like soccer and wants to play in the local league next year. Wendy started home schooling him this year and he has already begun to sound out words. There is a huge community of home schoolers in the Santa Clarita Valley and we have started to get involved in it. They have park days, field trips, clubs and classes for the different age groups. The biggest issue we have with home schooling is what to do with Victoria?

Victoria will be 2 ½ at the end of December and is becoming a vivacious and outgoing little girl. Her favorite color is pink and she absolutely adores her big brother. She can’t wait to be a big sister and has offered to share her toys with Megan.

That is our year in a nutshell. We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. May God bless you and your family this coming year.

Easter

We had a great easter. We went to our church who had an awesome celebration service. The kids got there easter baskets filled with a couple of toys each. We went up to Mr and Mrs. J's (Tom's parents) for dinner. We had 12 people there which included all of my family, my sister's boyfriend, his mom and one of Tom's parents friends. We had a wonderful dinner complete with Lamb and mashed potatoes and an onion/cucumber salad. It was all very yummy. Hope you all had a great Easter. May God bless all your families.

Our new kitty

We have a new addition to our family and her name is Tinkerbell. We call her Tink for short. She is a crazy little kitten who loves to play and snuggle. She is a Ragdoll and we got her from a local breeder. She is a seal point and has gorgeous blue eyes. The kids love her and love chasing her up and down the hall. She loves every moment of it. Victoria is constantly screaming excitedly "kitty, kitty." Here is a pictures of the kids and the kitty enjoy.

Snow/hail?

Whatever it was we had fun. A couple of pictures to enjoy. Its a rare for sunny California.

Merry Christmas!!

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. We had a quiet Christmas Eve at our house. We had 9 people for dinner and served an Italian fare. We had a Happy Birthday Jesus cake and sang to Jesus. We talked with the kids about the true meaning of Christmas and then it was time to get the cookies and milk out for Santa. Wendy helped Matthew write a letter to Santa. He asked for Woody from Toy story and all sorts of other toys. The kids got to bed at a decent time and we got to bed ourselves, knowing we had a busy day ahead of us.
Christmas we awoke to Matthew ready to see what Santa left him. We opened our stockings at our house which Matthew did get his Woody from Toy Story. We then went down to Wendy's mom's house. We had 14 people there. Tom's parents and brother were there. Wendy's parents, grandparents, her sister and her niece Ellie were all there. It was a little crazy. We got through the presents with relative ease. We had a fun day playing with all the toys we received. Having kids is so much fun we can play with all their toys. Ellie and Matthew both got roller skates so they were working on that. Victoria got a baby doll and wouldn't put it down.
Amy's new boyfriend joined us for dinner so we had 15 for dinner. We love it coming both from a small family. For all of you who were there thank you for making our Christmas special. Have a wonderful New Year to all of you. We will write soon.

The Johnson Family

Monterey/Carmel

The Johnson side of our clan decided to go up to Monterey and Carmel for a couple of days. We are showing Tim(Tom's Brother) California. The kids were great on the car ride and we got up there Tuesday afternoon with time to explore Carmel. We walked around the town a little bit and then went to the beach. We had so much fun exploring the beach. The kids(with our help) climbed a tree. Matthew, Tom, Mr. J and Tim went up and found a couple balls from Pebble Beach. They also climbed up and stood on Pebble Beach Golf Course. Meanwhile Victoria and I looked at every single little rock. I think we went about two inches in about half an hour, there were so many rocks to look at(maybe we have a future geologist in the family:)).
We were all tired so we went back to the hotel and relaxed for the evening. Well, the kids did not do well sleeping in one room with us. So we were up from 2:30 on. We decided to do the aquarium and head home. So with a lot of coffee/caffeine we headed to the aquarium.
The aquarium was so much fun. We had a blast. Victoria kept saying fishy. Everywhere we looked there were fishys. Matthew and I looked at the Jellyfish which we both loved. I think Matthew and Victoria loved the penguins the most. They were really cute. We had lunch there and saw sea otters and seals playing in the ocean. Oh I love it up there. Alas the kids, Tom and I were tired so we headed out for home. Tom's parents and Tim decided to still stay another night. We arrived home safely with little fuss from the kids and have now gotten a great nights sleep. Hope you all enjoy the pictures.

Wendy

Christmas Time is here!!

Hey everyone, Christmas season for the Johnson Family has begun. Matthew, Tom and I set up the tree yesterday. We had so much fun. What a joy to have children in the house and experience the magic of Christmas through their eyes. Matthew understands it completely this year and he loves it. He does understand that this is Jesus's birthday and not Santa's this year.:) Victoria squealed with glee over the Christmas tree and loves dancing with our dancing Santa. Just thought you might enjoy some pictures.


Wendy

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Tom and I hosted Thanksgiving this year. We teamed up and cooked a great meal together. Tom did his famous orange sweet potatoes and I did a cornbread stuffing. I don't think our families have decided on a favorite stuffing recipe. So feel free to send suggestions if anyone has one.:) My parents and Tom's parents were both there and my sister Amy joined us as well. We wanted to stop and thank all of you who are in our life mean so much to us. Thank you all of my family and friends. We love you all. Hope you enjoy your weekend. Here are some photos. You can see we had some fun.

I will tell you who is in the photos since all of you might not know. The first one is Tom and Mom looking up black friday sales. We did pretty darn good. You will have to wait til Christmas to see what we got. :) Mr. J/Tom's Dad is in the fore ground. The next is of my sister and Matthew playing together. The last is of my Dad/Papa with Victoria. Hope you enjoy.

Love,

The Johnson Family

Bridgeport

Hi everyone, its beautiful and 74 degrees here. Sorry east coasters but it is beautiful:). Matthew, Victoria, and I went to the park and enjoyed some time looking at the ducks and walking around the lake. Thought I would share some adorable pictures I captured. Hope you enjoy.

Matthew's Birthday

We finally celebrated Matthew's birthday on the 30th. My sister Amy brought a beautiful dinosaur cake that set off the mood. We had so much fun. Matthew got a big boy bike with training wheels that he loves. he also got a few trucks which he plays with all the time. We had so much fun and now my big boy is 3 years old

HALLOWEEN

Halloween was a lot of fun for the kids. Matthew was a fireman and Victoria was a Princess. We went with the Matthew across the street and some other little kids in the neighborhood. The thing I think is amazing is that people don't open doors anymore they just leave candy on the doorstep and when its gone it is gone. Matthew completely got it this year and couldn't wait to get candy. Victoria was sick so we didn't dress her up on halloween because it was to cold. We went to a fall festival at my niece's school so we dressed her up there. Included is a picture of them on Halloween.