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At the end of the day in order to get the drop down list to dynamically populate, the XML structure I was utilizing from the XML tools plug-in, in Microsoft Excel was creating the XML format I listed above.  You could probably write an example to get rid of the individual <row> listed above by putting all of the <Thing1>'s together and <Thing2>'s together is what worked.  Or if I wanted to maintain the relationship have <Thing1>CatInTheHat</Thing1> <Value1>Dr.Suess<Value1/>. I had to re-adjust my thinking on nodes and values in order to get this to work. 

Radzmar was spot on as usual, using the importData() method is a little clunky and his solution to import the data as a string is a good viable alternative the way I was presenting the problem.  Navigating the rules associated with the XML nodes is something I need to learn a lot more about.