First Movie, First trip with Mom only, and First "real" doctor's appt.

We finished off July by going to our first movie....."The Pirates who don't do anything". Pat took off work as it was a free movie offered by one of our theatres during the day. We thought the movie would be a crazy fun event because of Nick's love of pirates AND veggie tales. As all of our first usually go, not so much.......crazy yes, fun ......well, you decide. Nick was super excited to go in the theatre as seen below pulling dad to get inside.

He was adorable with excitement and amazed by the big seats and big screen and wow, popcorn too!? Things were going well at first......

The previews started and the boys were hilarious at their immediate attention to the large screen. The picture below doesn't do justice to their AWE! The parents were also equally awed but for a different reason. Whispers abounded at the "older" theme of the preview cartoons?? Well, come to find out, they started the wrong movie and previews were for an "older" audience...OK, accidents happen. I don't think Nick's brainpower is forever stunted but apparently the movie theatre personnel's were.....they decided that it would be easier to move the whole packed to the max theatre instead of simply changing the reel????? They said it would take longer? Oi!

So we finally got into the other theatre and the appropriate movie started with big happiness from all and Nick proceeded to get up and leave and state that he wanted to "turn it off" and upon realizing that you could not do this....then "I want to go home". Yes, he was not liking the movie experience whatsoever. If we had not had plans after the movie then we would have gone home. We proceeded to stand in the doorway for the next hour as he thought he would watch it and then he was scared again. Peek and Run were the words of the hour. He would listen for no scary music and then walk up to the front of the aisle and then if scary music came on he would run down the walkway to the door and beg to go out. No, this was not disturbing anyone as the movie was loud and no one could see us unless they were actually going out to the bathroom.


We finished up the movie day with a picnic lunch at the park and had it not been way too hot, the boys would have had a fabulous time but the mom's had maxed out their ability to "just deal"! :)


The picture below is for Aunt Julie! He took out this bunny hat the other day and just played and did the funniest thing with this hat that she gave him. I didn't get the funniest pics of him because he would run away but this was a calm moment looking at flash cards!

We ended the month with a trip for Mama and Nick to St. Louis to visit some high school and former Ky friends and their families. I was horrible with the camera (too busy keeping up with Nick) and did not get but one picture from the whole weekend. We visited my friend Christine and her family and did a big swim date and then pizza from my most favorite and memory laden pizza place, Pirrone's! We had a great day and the boys had a great time.

We stayed all night with Pat's PT school friend Laura and her family. Their daughter Olivia (and Laura and Heath) were amazed and awed at Nick's ability to never sit still and talk all of the time! ha! We had a great Saturday at the Park. It was a new all wheel chair accessible playground which was awesome. It had a huge castle, pirate ship, swings, water feature, and really great mushy comfy turf to walk on (or fall on)!

We spent the remainder of the long weekend with my friend Michele and her family. She has two teenagers and a 4 year old. It was a fun mix. Nick was especially enamored with Michele's sweet 13 year old daughter. She was his "girl best friend"...he could not remember all of the names of everyone that he had met. He would wake up and say, "Where's my girl best friend".....too cute. Two other close family friends came to dinner one night. I spent many an hour at my friend Karen's house growing up and it was good to play games and talk about the good old days......"the 80's!" Karen's mom even joined in on the Wii at 75! too fun! We have all decided that the fact that Karen's son is 17 means that we are officially middle aged ...BUT somehow when we are all together it still feels like the same high school chums that drove around north county for hours on a Friday night singing to Kool and the Gang and The Bangles......

Driving around my old stomping grounds brought back so many memories. I could have never ever in a million years imagined that I would be in Ky married to a professor with a sweet sweet kazakh born son! God is the God of adventures and definitely the Unknown!

Now back to the sweet Kazakh son who has grown soooooo much this year. We had his first real doctor visit for his 4 year old check up. All his other ones were so adoption related or catching up on immunizations related that they didn't even count....well, Nick probably remembered them but for me, it was a joy just to have a 4 year old annual before school check up like everyone else. And, he is very normal! Praise God! Growth has been crazy and our clothing and shoe budget took a big hit this last year. I took the picture of his shoes just to show again how much he has changed in one year......from size 7 1/2 to 11w is quite a jump!

We were in St. Louis 2 years ago on the same exact weekend as Nick and I were this year. We had just started the adoption paper chase and we were picking up some documents in St. Louis to start the process.

1 year later, we had a cute sweet boy who loved to swing......

AUG 2007

another year later......we have a cute kazakh boy who continues to grow and has already lost his sweet baby face from the previous summer. "sigh" But, he now takes on the exuberance (boy does he) of boyhood with a passion and fervor that keeps us laughing, active (always active) and always ready for the unknown.

AUG 2008