More Zoo Photos, a campout, and KAZAPALOOZA!

My friend Cathy sent me some more zoo pictures and they are so cute that I had to post them also. Below is my friend Cat and her boys and my map coordinator son.

I absolutely love this photo of Nick and Micah. Micah was so good with Nick and they were just so cute together all day and this picture captures Nick's adoration of his new friend!

The boys had a ball playing on all the different playgrounds. We really didn't even see that many animals. We went to the adjoining splash park after this picture. Everyone was sooo hot at this point!

Nick's friend Lauren Clay had her 3rd birthday at the beginning of June and they had a lunch camp out. It was so cute. They had a "tent" which they all fit under and "roasted" hot dogs over this really cute fake fire pit. Nick loved his hot dog and Smore (poptart version).

We headed to Kazapalooza on Friday. It was held in downtown Chicago near the museum area. It was an uneventful but rainy trip up and Nick travelled well as usual but would not go to sleep for the entire trip until we were right outside the city. He fell asleep reading......I SPY Chicago?

Close up......hilarious!

The first evening was a pizza party at the Sherwood Conservatory....... a brave place to allow 41 families and their little ones to settle in and eat pizza. The 4 moms that planned the weekend were present to get the party started and the mayhem began! It was hilarious. Kids everywhere! It was like going to a big celebrity party. I had followed so many of the families during their journeys to get their children that it felt surreal. Wow, it was THE Sophie and THE Aitugan and THE other Nicholas who was the son of the family who was supposed to join us in Zhez but got sent to Karaganda instead.....they also now have a second cutie son Jacob from Kyrgyzstan. We met folks who had been reading our blog because they had a crazy connection to Pat's sister Tracey. They live in NY also. It was just all so neat! The greatest thing was seeing all of the happy children in their families and knowing what we all had been thru to get them home. It was very much like a family reunion.

Nick posing .......looking like a dignified Kazakh!

All the kids were allowed to play on the stage while waiting for the pizza.

The second day was the big luncheon and raffle. They had a great movie of all the families present who had sent pictures of their journey. Their were three rooms in this restaurant....all filled to the brim like these pics.

Nick was quite overstimulated by all of the big group activities and we had a few yelling/acting crazy fits but we were usually able to just remove him and get him calmed down. Swimming in the great hotel pool was our relief! He has lately turned into an underwater fish. He wants to Dive, Dive like a submarine or go to the bottom and blow bubbles. He has some type of safety device on at all times because he just jumps into the pool. Below is a pic of his underwater usual status.

The last night they had a pool party and Nick decided he was going to be the "lifeguard". He would walk around the sides of the pool with a kick board and scowl at everyone. I don't think the real lifeguard knew that he was being copied....hilarious! I didn't get a pic as we were in the water at the time.

After the luncheon, we had Nick take a nap trying to get rid of the grumpies and then we went to Millennium park where they have a great water feature for kids to play in. It was really fun and Nick enjoyed the "shower".

We had a great time meeting all of the families that we did and hopefully next year we will meet even more. It will be in Nashville so easy drive for us! We are so glad the moms decided to take the jump and do all of the hard work to get us all together.

Our last great highlight of the weekend was having brunch with a family who adopted the year before us at our same orphanage in Zhez. Americans are only allowed to adopt maybe once or twice a year from our particular city and baby house so it is hard to meet up with your fellow baby house alum. Mary Sue and Nick invited us over to their house outside Chicago and we had a great time. Our Nick and their boy George are the same age and were most likely crib buddies. Their daughter Janet was even younger but was also in the same baby house. It will be so special to have them as friends as the kids get older. We plan on meeting the newest alum, Liam Finney, from Zhez in the near future once they get home from Kaz...hopefully at Kazapalooza next year.

Nick and George....."cousins" forever!

We have had beautiful weather for the last couple of days and last night we went to our city Arboretum. It has a great walking/jogging path and lots of trees, flowers and just great Nature.

Nick enjoyed the fish pond and loved taking the various paths thru the garden. He is obsessed with PATHS right now." Where does that one go?" is our main question in the car as we stop at each intersection. I think he is actually starting to learn his left and right directions. He also is crazy about signs.....we have to tell him what each one says.....EACH sign we pass....fun,fun!

The Arboretum built this rose garden several years ago and it is awesome although not in full bloom at present.

Nick always loves the end of the walk when we get to the big old trees. They have them for kids to play in and on. We had quite an interesting time last night as he was on top of the taller ones. Pat had placed him up to look around. He was twirling around and I was getting ready to take a picture and he proceeded to be "superman" without dad being informed and literally launched himself off the tree. Pat was able to grab an ankle but he still made a header into the ground. Unbelievable! Luckily with all of the rain, the ground was not so hard. He cried but was his usual self by the time we got to the car. A head injury scares me to death but he is so known for being "hard-headed" that it didn't even really seem to phase him. We tried to use this as a learning point for being safe and talked about him learning to yell, ready dad or mom, or 1,2,3 jump....anything that would give us a warning that he is about to launch. So when we put him to bed last night, he started to launch himself off of the bed....we said remember what happened earlier, let's practice what we "learned" from your fall today. So he stopped and counted and proceeded to jump...NO FEAR. So, fast forward to today to two specific behavior problems. He was having a fit about something and privileges were taken away and he proceeded in both occasions to say he wanted to go back and "learn" it again and do it right. Interesting!

This post is way too long but I wanted to get a few cute things that he is talking about right now before I forget them.

--He loves the three little pigs story and he can almost tell it himself but he says that the "big DAD wolf" is going to puff and "tuff" you house down. We crack up every time he says big dad wolf!!!

--He has been talking about the cross lately. When we went to church a couple of weeks ago, he saw a cross and said that Jesus was on the cross and He went up to Heaven and everyone was sad. Amazing to me what he has learned from BSF (we studied this right before the end of the year). He was laying on our bed this morning with his arms outstretched and he said, "mom, look I'm Jesus on the cross and I am going up to heaven."

--I was trying to get him dressed one morning and he was being a typical kid and I said firmly, Nick STAND UP.....and he added...singing........" for what you believe in, believe in God, He's the one who will back you up". I was so stunned, I just cracked up. It is from one of his veggie tale movies.

--I always listen to my music in the car....mostly a christian radio station and we were riding down the road....I don't even remember if we had anything specific on and he sang out K-Love...that is the station! I have even heard him sing parts of some of the songs they play more often. Just goes to show they are listening ALL the time. I have had to not listen to country music with him in the car anymore!

-- We sometimes give him a choice between actions when disciplining....you can choose to do the right thing or you can choose to do the wrong thing and have a consequence. Well, it has come back to haunt us as when he gets mad at us for not letting him do A or B, he will yell at us (working on that) that we WILL let him do A and B, "THAT is OUR CHOICE remember!" It is so hard to maintain a stern face when he does this!

OK, enough already......sorry so long but this is our journal of sorts so we have to make sure and get it all down for our feeble minds!

Have a great week!