1st 4th

Lin celebrated her first Big American Holiday yesterday. We started the day by going to a good ole' Small Town USA 4th of July Parade. It was hot and sunny, so Lin chose to stand back from the street under the shade of an umbrella.

Ruby stood right up front, catching all the candy with her best buds, Lily, Mae and Ben. (That's Ruby on the right, in the pigtails.) Mae is 5 years old and according to Ruby, the sun rises and sets with her best friend Mae!

Doesn't Lin look great in her new glasses?

After a barbeque at Grandma Linda and Grandpa Marty's house (it was Grandpa Marty's birthday yesterday, too) we went to see some fireworks with Dave's sister and her family. We got there plenty early, which meant we had plenty of time to play some games and eat some snacks before the sun went down.

As dusk hit, Lin found a new past-time: catching fireflies! I feel silly for not knowing, but do they have fireflies in China? The following shot is of Lin putting a freshly-caught firefly into her empty water bottle. This morning when I looked at the bottle I counted 7 of the bugs. She told us this morning that before she fell asleep she took the lid off the bottle and awoke in the night to fireflies lighting up her room!

We had our first sisterly spat yesterday morning. Ruby was getting a bit physical with Lin all morning, pushing her around and being a bit obnoxious. We were trying to keep a handle on things, but apparently we both missed it when Ruby stomped on Lin's foot. Well, Lin was none too happy, and rightfully so. She started rattling off in Chinese and sounded like she was on the verge of tears. I think Dave and I handled it well. We made Ruby apologize but Lin was not inclined to accept and kept angrily chattering away. So we took her over to the computer to translate to her that Ruby shouldn't have stomped on her foot, but that she did say she was sorry and that we expected the two girls to get along. I thought it was important for Lin to see that sisterhood is a two-way street. And I think Ruby was genuinely startled by Lin's angry reaction and truly was sorry for what she'd done. After the computer-translated conversation I said to Lin "We're done. It's over." Ever since, Ruby has been very sweet to Lin and Lin has been tolerant, even a little pleasant, to Ruby. It's not that Lin doesn't get along with Ruby, but right now she merely coexists with her sister. There's just not much interaction between them. I guess it's better the way it is than to have them fighting all the time, but I do wish they would play together a bit more. This relationship, like her relationship with us, will continue to develop over time. As long as we can keep Ruby from ever stomping on Lin's foot again I think we'll manage!