Our good friend Nick has been training hard for his very first triathlon and we were lucky enough to be part of his cheering squad. His wife Amber had asked us to bring signs in bright orange so he could spot us during his transitions......we upped our game and made custom bright orange t-shirts instead. A little creativity and some patience along with $30 at WalMart and you too could have these gems.
We headed down to the race area with 3 adults and 4 kids in tow.....Nick and his buddy had to be down there VERY early so we joined Amber and their two kids. We finally found a spot to park and walked a fair distance to get to the transition area so we could see him come in from the swim. Turns out that somehow we missed him - super bummed about that. But we waited for a LONG time in the baking sun without anything to drink. And it turns out that makes for some cranky kids and sweaty adults. Waiting is so hard.....
Really, really hard.....
Best mom on the planet with her cranky 3 year old AND her baby in a carrier!
We finally figured out that we must have missed him and decided to take the long walk back to the finish line so we wouldn't miss his finish. We found some shade in the bleachers and waited....and were finally able to cheer super loud as he wrapped up the race. Once he finished, he headed our way to chat about the race and relax a little. The proud triathlon finisher and his family.
He let Paul hold his medal!
The triathlete and the male cheering squad!
Me and my friend Amber....I think we look pretty darn good considering how sweaty we were!
Everyone needs a little more cowbell.
Part of the cheering squad!
After Nick had some time to relax, we headed out to lunch together and then the kids convinced us to head to a playground. Because we hadn't gotten sweaty enough today I guess. There was fun on the swings.....
And on the rock wall......
And more swings.....we have kids that are obsessed with the swings.
We parted ways and our kids convinced us that we needed some frozen yogurt.....and so we did.
And then it was home for showers and some quiet time for all of us. Between the driving and walking yesterday at the Omaha Zoo and then the walking and the heat today, we were all exhausted. I think tomorrow will be a little more low key.
Still trying to wrap our heads around the fact that Lillie has been a member of our family for 2 years now. This little girl who put on her bravest face as she was placed in Jason's lap in a van in the alley behind Eastern is now the spark of our family. We celebrated in high fashion.....with her actual Gotcha Day on a Friday we were a little pressed for time in the morning but she still managed to put her request in for special pancakes. There are two times per year that the kids are allowed just about anything for breakfast....Gotcha Day and their birthday. She chose sprinkle pancakes and was pretty thrilled with the result.
That evening was kids choice for dinner....would normally be just Lillie's choice but she needed/wanted a little help from Paul. The choice was HuHot which was not a big surprise to us.
Saturday brought a rode trip to Omaha to hit the zoo. We have wanted to go for several years but it just never worked out. Today was the day.
Family selfie before we got going in the zoo.
Checking out the tiger......
Cute + smiling + touching each other = cute picture.
Ride on the carousel make the girl smile!
Little bit of love on the carousel.
We headed to stingray beach which lets you interact with lots of stingrays. I don't think either of the kids ever actually touched one but Jason and I did.
Great picture of my boys.....
Beautiful girl.
A little goat interaction time.....I know Mimi will go gaga for these pictures given her love of goats.
Checking out the lazy polar bear.
Comparing the size of his hands to a mold of a monkey's hand. Goofy.
They enjoyed seeing the lemurs since we just saw the cool IMAX movie about them.
We needed a sweet treat in the afternoon.
Checking out the butterfly benches.....
It was a long day but lots of fun. We spent a little over 2 hours in the car each direction plus lots of walking today. I think everyone will sleep well tonight. We were blessed with great weather which meant a lot of other visitors to the zoo were blessed with the same weather! It was BUSY. So happy to have our spunky little lady to keep us on our toes.
This is a post that I have been struggling to write. We received word last week that Peter had to be moved to a new foster home. On the surface, you might think that isn't a big deal. But to put that in perspective, let's review how this young man's life has transpired thus far. He was born and lived with his birth mother for about a month. He was then relinquished to Eastern and lived in the infant/toddler room until he was 10 months old. He then joined his foster family where they loved him like crazy. He stayed with them for a year and then a few months before his second birthday he was transferred to a new foster family. Doesn't exactly encourage any sense of permanency in his little heart. We received no reason other than a vague "personal reasons". Keep in mind that his foster mother is 70 years old (she is clearly a very dedicated woman....a saint in my eyes). So this "personal reason" could be a myriad of things that I can't even imagine. I pray that it is nothing serious related to her health or the health of her family. So now Peter has been moved to a foster mother who is 65 years old....a spry age compared to his first foster mother I suppose. We don't know much about his new foster family yet other than they have been doing this a long time. Since 1982 to be exact. So lots of experience under their belts which hopefully bodes well for Peter. We will continue to try to get more information about the foster family. We know that there won't be much documentation from his time in the baby/toddler room which means the first 10 months of his life will be sketchy. Now with this foster home change, we are unsure what, if any, information we will receive from that 12 months of his life. Milestones? Who knows. Pictures? Not sure. So terribly disappointing. We won't be able to meet this wonderful family and ask them questions and thank them in person for all of the love and care that they provided to Peter during those formative months. They likely saw his first steps and heard his first real words. They celebrated his first birthday. Maybe we will be surprised and information and photographs will be transferred to the new foster family. But frankly, I am doubtful. My initial reaction to the news was to respond with my disappointment to our US agency and request that any photographs from the foster family be sent to us to ensure they don't get lost in the shuffle. Within days we were told that Eastern would not reach out to make that request. Then I drafted a letter thanking the foster family and telling them how much we will love and care for Peter once he is able to come home to us. I also included a list of questions to try to fill in the gaps. I paid to have it translated so there was no excuse or delay for sending it to the foster family. It is back from translation and forwarded to our US agency with a passionate plea to advocate for our child and push Eastern to send this letter to the foster family. This is not about me or Jason, this is about Peter. Our US agency advised that they have never seen that kind of information come back when a child moves foster homes. So we will pray that we will be the first. We owe it to Peter to fight for information as it is his information to own. We have not received word back on how Peter handled the transition. We have heard stories of children in similar situations refusing to eat for days and crying and not sleeping. No big surprise. That is what we as adoptive parents deal with during their transitions home. That's the point - they shouldn't have to go through that more than once. Even once is bad enough. So all we can do it hope that his new foster family gives him grace during the transition and loves him through it. I am hopeful that we might get some additional information next week when he should be in for his August visit. And frankly, all of this is so unnecessary. The long wait does nothing but negatively impact the children. I am completely supportive of steps put in place to protect the children. This is not that. This is political. This is good intentions with poor implementation. This is completely unfair to the children. But even with all of those comments, there is nothing we can do to advocate or change it. So we will continue to wait with grace and pray for our son's heart to heal. We are 8 months into our wait and are hoping we are getting close to the halfway point. Certainly we hope that this is the last change in foster family while we wait to bring him home. My heart hurts because I know his heart hurts. And there is nothing I can do to help him. Absolutely nothing. It took me a week and a half to even be able to write about it. And now I have to let go of the hurt and move forward. I am sure that our resilient boy is doing the same thing. Or at least I hope so. No one ever said international adoption was easy but it sure is rewarding. We love you Peter JeeHoon.
Paul has now finished his first full week of first grade. Hard to believe he has completed 7 days of school already! We are blessed with another great teacher - one that truly cares about her students. Paul has had fun getting to know the kids in the class that weren't in his kindergarten class last year. All of the kids have had to learn the rules of first grade and boy are the rules and expectations a bit different than kindergarten! Mrs. Verlengia expects them to figure a lot out on their own and made sure they know that she is the last line of defense when an issue arises. I like the theory as they should be more self sufficient but that is quite a change from last year! There are lots of new routines to learn too. No more recess three times per day....they just have a morning and noon recess this year. All in all, Paul seems to be thriving. We had parent orientation last night so we could hear about all of these rules and routines. It was a quick 30 minutes with some paperwork and then listening to Mrs. Verlengia and then the PTO leaders. I think this is going to be a great school year for Paul. And finally, he is enjoying his afternoon bus privileges. He has been sitting with different friends each day and seems to really like the extra time with his friends. Each kid in his class (there are 24) painted a self-portrait and wrote their names on them. Each one is hanging on the wall of the classroom....too cute!
Paul agrees that First Grade really does rock!
And here is Paul's first grade schedule. He has a very early lunch this year and they have some LONG blocks of time for reading/word work as well as math.
We are so blessed to be in such a good school district....we made the choice when we moved here and I am pleased that we made a good one.
We officially have a first grader in the house.....Paul started school on Thursday. He was excited to go back and I think it really was time for the school routine to kick back in. He started the morning with his back to school presents....a silly idea I had last year that *someone* remembered and mentioned last week. So this year he received a new Lego set and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirt.
The obligatory first day of school photo.
Love that face.
First graders get real lockers outside of their classroom....he shares one with a classmate.
And standing in front of his classroom. We love his first grade teacher so far.
I thought I took a super cute picture of Paul with Mrs. Verlengia in her super cute t-shirt that said "I heart PT" (all of the teachers were wearing them). Consider me completely irritated that somehow I either didn't take the photo or it didn't save on the flash card. So instead you can just imagine a super cute picture of the two of them together. Argh. The first two days have gone well and Paul has come home excited to tell us about his days. There are only four sections of first grade compared to the five sections of kindergarten last year. Paul has a few of the same kids in his class this year which is nice but he also has the chance to make some new friends. And the other big change from last year is that Paul gets to ride the bus home in the afternoons. He begged much of last year and over the summer. Jason and I finally relented and decided to allow him the privilege. We also told him that we could take it away if necessary. I think he was nervous on the first day but had a great time riding home. The bus comes WAY too early to have him ride it to school so Jason will continue to drop him off. This actually makes it easier for Jason to just walk out to the driveway for Paul when he gets off the bus rather than sit in the pickup line for 30 minutes. Welcome to first grade little man!
I played hookey from work today (although I guess not totally since I let my boss know and I took a PTO day) to take the kids to the State Fair for one last hurrah before Paul starts first grade tomorrow. The weather was the best ever for the Fair in August.....temps didn't get above 80 degrees and there was a nice breeze. We did our usual thing and parked at the Capital and rode the bus. Once we arrived, everyone was parched so we bought a large bottle of water to share.
And then we hit some food vendors....corn dogs!
And some fresh squeezed lemonade to wash them down. I don't have words for the look on Lillie's face.
And then it was off to the Little Hands on the Farm exhibit. We have never been to that section and I am glad we went. It was super cute! You start by getting an apron and bucket and then the kids weave through the different stations to do "work" on the farm. Check out these cuties.....
They harvested corn and beans, got wool from a sheep, etc. Here they got to pick fake apples.
They got to "milk" fake cows....sorry GranJo that we didn't end up taking a turn milking the real ones!
At the end the kids empty their baskets and get "paid" so they can go into the grocery to buy one item. They can choose from a carton of milk, bottle of juice, fruit snacks or ice cream items. A nice sponsored exhibit to give out free stuff! And then the kids got these cute visors. What fun!
Next up was the Giant Slide.....an annual favorite. Daddy was the hero that ended up climbing up all of those stairs three times. First up was Paul with Daddy.
Paul got silly while Lillie took her turn.
Lillie's very first time on the slide - she screamed the entire way down.
This is actually a face of complete happiness. She was racing to tell me how much fun she had.
Both kids begged to go again so this time Paul rode alone and Lillie rode with Daddy. More screaming and lots of smiles.
And since the kids hadn't eaten or drank nearly enough, it was time for the make your own slushie trailer.
And we wrapped it up with a ride on the ski lift that gives you the best view of the entire Fair. Being the "afraid of heights" member of the family, this is always a bit of trouble for me but I sucked it up yet again. Paul rode with me.....
.....and Daddy and Lillie rode together in the car behind us.
And the little stinkers were excited to sit in the very back of the bus on the way back to the Capital.
I can't believe that when we wake up tomorrow we will have a first grader amongst us! I am glad we took the time to do this together and while the pictures look like smiles and laughter, it was actually a really hard day. Both kids were really tough this morning and then again when we got home. Being a parent was hard today and I am sure they would say that being a kid today was hard as well. The only reason I say that is because it is easy to look at happy faces and think things are always happy. We work hard everyday and celebrate the smiles because we know they aren't always there to celebrate.
