My Family's Big Summer Vacation

You've probably been wondering where we've been since I haven't posted in quite some time. We've been on vacation. We went up to the northeast for two weeks. We visited T's family in Westport and our friends the E's and T's brother's family in NJ. Here are some of the over 450 pictures that we took over the past few weeks.

First, over labor day weekend, my mother came to visit and we went to the children's museum. I painted E's face and we had a great time playing. The museum was quite empty so we had it virtually to ourselves.

The first week in Westport was lovely. We were able to go to the beach and really have some very nice family bonding time. T and I discovered that it isn't really a vacation if you take your kids with you! Normally we go to Westport in August, but we were attending the wedding of D&L on 9/15, so we planned our trip around their wedding. D and T are friends from childhood.

We went fishing for crabs with baloney, wearing our fishing hats....

We went to see battleship cove on a rainy day......

And Z got his first haircut with us.... and survived

Z took his first steps on the beach!

We visited the topiary animal gardens.

And E practiced her lime juggling!

When the weather got cold during our second week, we walked on the beach and looked for shells (my favorite past time). On one of our walks we saw a starfish (!) and a large crab buried in the sand and many other small sea creatures.

We visited our friends the E's. Their daughter K and our daughter E are about 9 months apart, so they get along wonderfully.

We spent a night at Grandma's and Poppa's house....

Then we went to NJ and visited T's brother, C and his wife Tr and our nephew J, who all just had a baby boy M! He is very cute and we got to see him when he was only 7 days old. J and E are about 18 months apart, so they play very well together.

While in NJ, we took the train in NYC to see our adoption agency who has an office there. The social worker that we worked with during our adoption is named G and we got to visit with her and the rest of the office and had lunch with them. It was a wonderful opportunity to visit with then and show off Z as they had never seen him before.

My labor day weekend

Here are some photos of our labor day weekend. E getting dressed up in her princess dresses



Z with his cowboy hat on.

And us having french toast for breakfast. E is talking to her cousin J on the phone. J's mom is expecting a baby any minute. We were calling to see if the new baby had arrived yet. It hadn't.

My "Greatest Wall of China"

As we were playing and folding laundry today....E put the laundry near her brother and said "I'm building the Greatest Wall of China!" So here is a picture of the Greatest Wall of China with my two kids on it....

My wonderful news

I just spoke to the international adoption doctor who informed me that all of Z's blood test results and stool results are completely normal. There is some question as to if he has received the Hepatitis B vaccination, but even if he hasn't, all we have to do is give it to him again. All other vaccinaitons are accurate per the Chinese shot record.

Also, we went to the craniofacial (skull) doctor for Z's flat spot on his head. The Dr. felt that Z's case was very mild and no helmet is necessary. It will simply correct itself as he spends more time not lying in a crib so much.

Good news all around!

My newsflash

Just wanted to let you all know of some new things Z can do now:

1. push up to a sitting position from his belly (new last week)
2. Get up on all fours (new last week)
3. wave bye bye (new this morning)
4. Scoot/crawl (new just now)

When he woke up from his nap, he was sitting up in his crib. Just now he scooted over to a toy!

WOW!

My daughter's new puppy

We have been talking about a puppy for a long time. Our dog JD died last July (a year ago). Recently, E has been telling us how much she missed JD. So when an opportunity came up to take this dog (his previous home didn't work out) we too it. His name is Sydney. he is 2 months old. E loves him.

My son's open house party

On Saturday we had an open house for Z and invited our friends over to visit with us. We had a wonderful time. It was great to be able to spend time with our friends and family. Here is a picture of the great cake and pictures of some other things we'v been up to....




Z's first grilled cheese sandwich



E eating mac and cheese with chop sticks