We spent a wonderful Thanksgiving week in Maui with G-Pa and Carollyne, and Granny "0" and Uncle Jason. Much fun was had by all. You can't really beat water and sand to keep kids happy, and our kids were no exception. We've had a terrific week and are now ready to head home and pack our bage for China. We leave 11/30 and on 12/3 Ruby will become a Crooks! This month is a whirlwind of travel and adventure, and we are loving every minute of it! Hoping you all had wonderful Thanksgivings as well. We all have so much to be thankful for.
Warmest Wishes,
Mike and Jennifer

Kai is quite a boogie boarder!

Cool outfits!

Mom and Hunter

Catherine and Ciara

Mom and Dad

Hunter loved his new sport "wake boarding".

Hunter catching a wave

Homework on the beach!

Holly and Daddy boogie boarding

Ciara "moose surfing"!

Dad and Kai

Smiling Sophie on the beach

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hi Everone,
We are happy to introduce our new daughter Ruby (Jin Ru) to you! Ruby will be 7 in November, and we hope to bring her home in December, but as always that depends on how quickly China processes our paperwork! Below are a couple of pictures of Ruby as well as a bunch of pictures of our summer so far. We hope this finds everyone well and enjoying the summer!
Warmly,
Mike and Jennifer

Ruby (Jin Ru) 7/30/07. This is our sweet girl at the orphanage in Nanjing. She's now sporting the typical orphanage hair cut which is a bummer b/c she had the loveliest long hair until last month. Ah well, her hair will grow :) Her smile is just wonderful to see though! The picture was taken by another Mom who just adopted Ruby's best friend Emily.

Ruby (Jin Ru) and her best friend Emily (Yong Xi) at the orphanage in Nanjing

We've had a fun but busy summer so far. We started the summer at Spruce Meadows in Calgary which was difficult competition as always, but most of the horses had a very positive competition series there. It's such a fun place for the kids to be too, which I'm thankful for as we're there for almost a month. While we were there one of our mares, Lady, had her second baby. There is a picture below that we took the day after he was born, he looks like a promising baby. After Spruce, we headed back east to Princeton to have a weeks vacation at Granny O's house. It was a very much needed break from the competition circuit and we had a wonderful week there! I was lucky enough to get to spend a lot of time with some of my oldest and best friends as well as my brother and both of my parents. Mike and I got to really relax and unwind which after Spruce was a life saver. Thank you Granny O! You'll see from the pictures that a wonderful time was had by all!

Catherine and Sophie

Happy 14th Birthday Catherine!!! Thanks for the nice party Granny O :)