A Full Day of Sports............

Today Cade played in his first soccer game of the fall season. He is playing on a new team this year..........a team full of all Platte City boys (except for one). We were down by one early on. Cade scored 2 goals in a row to put us up 2-1. We ended up holding on for a 4-2 victory! It was a great game and the boys all had a lot of fun. What a great way to start the season!

This afternoon Cali had a birthday party to attend for a couple of boys from her daycare. Kim took her to the party while Cade, Hunter, Dirk, and I headed to Arrowhead stadium for the Chiefs vs. Seattle preseason game. It was the perfect evening for a football game! We had awesome seats too. They were on the lower level right on the 50 yard line. We were only 16 rows back from the Chiefs bench. It was pretty neat seeing the players, coaches, etc. in action on the sideline. The Chiefs lost but we all had a really good time.

1st Day of School.........

Summer is officially over with............today Kim and Cade started back to school. Cade is a big 4th grader and this is Kim's second year in the Platte County R-III School District as the Pre-School teacher. Cali has been going to Tammy's house here and there for the past week, but now she is back for good.

Hanging out on the couch before heading out for the big day.

All smiles on their first day back to school and Tammy's.

We're ready to go Daddy!

Everyone had a great day. Cade enjoyed his first day as a 4th grader and Kim came home bragging about her fun group of young ones! Cali had a good day at Tammy's, but has been "on edge" all night (very tired). Tomorrow is another big day............check back soon.

Summer is coming to an end..........

It is Saturday night here at the McGinness household. We are sitting on the couch watching High School Musical 3. It is very entertaining. Cali gets up and dances each time there is a song! We rented it from RedBox. RedBox is my new best friend! We discovered it down at the lake last week. Since then we have rented movies from there numerous times. It is so cheap ($1.07 for a one day rental)!! Okay, I will get off of my Redbox high and move on............

The first day of school is this coming Tuesday. That means that summer is almost over with. It was a terrific summer, but Cade and Kim are both ready to start up a brand new school year. Cade is especially excited to start the 4th grade! He is in a new building this year. We had his back to school/meet the teacher night this past Thursday night. He has an awesome teacher. She is young and very energetic. We have heard such great things about her. Cade has a great class full of friends and acquaintences too. It is going to be an awesome year for him!

Cade starts the fall soccer season this next Saturday. He started practice a couple of weeks ago. These two pics are of him just prior to his first practice. He is very excited to start up a new season with a new team and quite a few new teammates. We are playing on a Platte City team this year, but we are playing in the same league as we have the past few seasons......the WMSL. We are all excited for the season to begin. The PC Pirates football team start up this coming Friday. We are ready for High School football to start up too! What a great time of year for sports!

The above pics of Cali show her true personality. She has an imagination that will not quit. She is always "pretending". We laugh so hard at the things she says an does! What a blessing she has been to our family!

Today we mowed and spent a lot of time outside. It was awesome outside all day long! We went on a quick walk before coming in for the evening. It is bed time now. Good night!

ALOHA..........LUAU 2009

This weekend was the annual Luau. We used to host this big event, but our good friends, the Meyers, took it over a few years ago. The night started out with some rain moving through right before it started. The rain stopped for just a bit, but then it really started to pour. We quickly moved the party to the garage. In some of the pics you can tell that our shirts are soaked. Rain or no rain, it ended up being a great evening. It is always nice to get dressed up in our Luau attire and go hang out with our friends. Enjoy the colorful pictures...................

We just spent the past 3 days down at the Lake of the Ozarks. This was our final family trip of the summer. School starts up very, very soon. We stayed at my boss' new condo. It was so, so nice! We enjoyed playing around in the lake, swimming in the pool, riding the Jet Ski, and just hanging out together. The weather was perfect. They have a boat, but we did not use it this time. If you ask Cade what his favorite part of the trip was, he will tell you it was the Jet Ski. Ask Cali and she says swimming in the pool (the first time I asked her she said it was sleeping!). It was a quick trip, but a good trip. We are already looking forward to our next time down there.

We took some really good pictures over the past few days. Visit our Flickr site to view all of the pics (link on your left). Here are a few of the ones I picked out for this blog post.......

2009 Float Trip

A couple of weeks ago we headed south to Leasburg, MO for our annual float trip. A group of friends started this annual float trip around 15 years ago. Kim and I think that this was probably our 8th float. It is always a fun weekend to just kick back, cook out, tell stories while sitting around a camp fire, play some games, hang out in the river, pitch our tent, and of course float down the river.

Friday was a beautiful day. We were able to hang out in the river and soak up the sun. It was cold that night! Kim and I wore sweatshirts and pants when we went to bed! We could even see our breath by the end of the night! Much better than sweating to death though. I was not complaining. We were on the river only 5 minutes on Saturday when the rain began to fall. It sprinkled for a bit then it became a downpour! The girls had ponchos on to battle the elements! It was so cold and so nasty. The sun finally made an appearance and we had a pretty nice afternoon. Everyone made it back to the camp site safe and sound. No one dumped this year either! That has to be a record! It was another successful float. We are already looking forward to next year.

OUR 13TH ANNIVERSARY

Today Kim and I celebrated 13 happy years of marriage. It seems so strange that 13 years ago today we were "gettin' hitched"! We look back at the past 13 years and so much good has happened..............

We both agree that marriage is "work". It is not always easy. Our key has always been communication. We do strive to communicate on a constant basis..............when we do that, all is good!

Here are some sweet pics from our big day 13 years ago.............we were looking fine!





Here we are 13 years later..................looking good and feeling good!



The kiddos are still in Branson with Boca and Pop so we are enjoying some quiet time at home this evening! Check back soon................

We are the Macs!!

Welcome to our new blog.............we hope that you will enjoy checking in often to see what is happening in our crazy lives. As some of you know we started a blog about 4 years ago as we started our adoption process. Kim and I had a biological son, Cade. Cade was 4 at that time. We made the huge decision to start an adoption process. After much research we decided that a little girl from China was the best fit for us. We knew that we would be in for quite a journey so we decided to start the blog, http://www.crazyaboutcali.blog.com/, in order to keep our friends and family up to date through our exciting, yet stressful journey to China to meet our little Cali Liu. You can visit our other blog to look back at our posts from the past 4 years. There are so many memories buried within that blog. Our blog host made some recent changes that drove me crazy............therefore I decided to make the switch to blogger. We hated to end our other blog, but we felt like this was the right time to make the switch. So, please check in often to check out what's happening in our lives. I look forward to learning more about blogger so be patient as things might change often (sidebar, etc.). Don't forget to click on our Flickr link (to your left) in order to go out and see more pics of our crew!

Here are some recent pics for your viewing pleasure: