It's a PIRATE'S life for me!

As legend has it, every few years the ghost of Jean Lafoote, the peg-legged pirate
returns to leave a map to guide another generation of Kitzman pirates to their portion
of the stolen treasures from the isle of Dol Larstore!



Pirate Stinky Pete McGillicutty prepares his crew!




Ahoy, mates, the isle is ahead......Heave, HO! or as the alter ego, speed racer would say.....start your engines!



We set foot on the isle and began the search. First mate to the Captain, Auntie Rhino was close behind!


Look! "X" marks the spot!



Captain orders 2nd mate, Paddy Boy, to Dig, Scaliwag, Dig!


Captain, I think we got something!!





Treasure! Treasure!






Mates, Back to the boat! I see Pirate Seadoo''s ship approaching......Raise the motor, Push Back.....GO!GO!

Pirate Stinky Pete and Crew returned safely to the Island of Sodor (I know, I know....another story....but he is convinced that it is on the other side of the lake!)



We hope you all have a "Booty"ful Fourth of July and a great time "treasuring" all of the blessings of being an American!
Pat, Karen, and Stinky Pete

Independance Day (year 2)

Our Yearly pilgrimage north has begun and we were greeted with a nippy 60 degree weekend but the sun has come out and beauty surrounds us in the high 70's and 80's. Nick was so "cited" to be headed to the Lake. All he wanted to do was get on the lake with Ata Bob and go "super fast". We started the vacation of with Baby Colin's baptism which was very nice and what a super cutie he is and he was very well behaved for the service.

We got the boat out Sunday night and Nick wanted to have the boat at full throttle all the time. I am so worried about him now........how will we ever survive the teen years? ha!

Since it was a bit chilly, we did not get out to the Lake to actually swim until yesterday and I have no pictures because Nick proceeded to scream at the top of his lungs while standing in the water as it was apparently "ooky" and too "swampy". He wanted out and although we did get him to ride around with Dakota and Daddy in their rafts, we could not get him to do anything in the water. We will continue to re-introduce Nick to the Ooky water! He saw skiers and tubers going by and said he wanted to do that instead......oh my!

We did not make it out to the lake today because we had some alternate activities planned. We took Nick for his first Go-Cart ride and he loved it, of course! I think the conversations went something like this.......

"Hey Dad, Can we let 'r loose around the 3rd turn and then attempt to pass Dakota on the inside? Yes Son, of course, but just Nod and smile and your mom won't know what we have planned!"

OK, Dad......just Nod and Smile............love you mom, hugs, kisses.....nothing going on here......

Go Dad, Go Dad! We almost have him! Faster, Faster!................................

Back at the garage, Oldest Grandchild and Middle grandchild trying to pass on the sage advice of Second Son.......OK, Colin, little dude, he said if we just smile and Nod, we can get away with anything because they won't know what we have planned........the Kitzman boys can't be slowed down....watch out, watch out!

Next episode, will older grandchild show middle grandchild how to defy gravity and spin effortlessly above the water while above mentioned boat is at full throttle and will youngest grandchild single-handedly charm the socks off all the women in Rhinelander?.......stay tuned for more episodes of "As the hair turns Gray!"

the need for SPEED

Certain things are becoming clear to us as Nick 's personality continues to emerge.......he loves being in the water and now, the faster it goes, the better. The swimming is no big deal, Pat loves to swim too.....but this need for speed will be hard to handle. First of all, I am known for being a grandma driver although I do go a few miles over the limit some days, and I don't mind telling others to mind the speed limit...what's the hurry? Second and our biggest problem is that we are in fact middle-agers who's vestibular systems (the stuff in your head that decides whether you get dizzy or not) just don't seem to be what they used to ....I have never been able to do the fast crazy rides and Pat has learned on our last several trips to an amusement park that he cannot handle them anymore either. Now, I know that there are ways to improve this somewhat, we are a PT family after all but when the carousel sends you over the edge....is there really much hope? It looks like some lucky tween- or teenager will be added to most of our excursions so that Nick won't miss out on feeding his Need For Speed!



Why all this talk about Speed you ask? Well, we spent the evening at the County Fair and from the looks of it, we have an amusement park junkie in training! Our previous attempts at rides hadnot been so good as Nick wanted to get off the rides and/or stand up while it was moving causing the ride to be shut down....not so fun. Well, something must have clicked in Woodford County because he got it! and then he wanted to get it, again, and again, and again.



The first ride was the kid rollercoaster. Pat rode it with Nick and had the camera with him so no pics but he was smiling from ear to ear and got off saying more, more! So, on we went.....




I think the race car was his favorite.....look at that smile!



He has pictures of bumper cars in his "russian book" and he had never seen them in real life! He was so excited. Pat said everytime they bumped someone....he yelled out Sorry! So funny!



He wants to be a pilot most days so the helicopter was right up his alley or would that be runway?



He thought Dumbo and another car-type ride were much too slow and wanted off but did not try to get up....thank goodness. He had his eyes closed and kept sighing on the slow car ride. The lady standing next to us thought this was so funny. He is so dramatic!



Yes, this was the ride that almost sent me to the bathrooms. Probably Nick was saying to me....Mom why are you looking straight up and not looking out? Well, son, it is because i am about to HURL! So humiliating.....I sooooo wanted to be the cool mom! oh well! I can tell you the difference between an f-15 and an f-18....that has to count for something!



He rode several other rides and then some of the same ones over. He went into the fun house with Pat and the glass maze was hilarious....we could see and hear him hitting the glass as it took him a minute to figure out how to feel for the right path. He entered with such exuberance and Wham! and then, Wham! I guess as a Mom I should have been worried but it was just so darn funny! Dad was laughing too! Nick wanted to go right back in so I guess it didn't hurt too badly! It was so fun to see him learning to just have fun. We now feel more confident to try King's island next for more practice! We can definitely see Disney in our future now... woo!hoo!

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!

The last few weeks in review ....or, for me, in "rear"view!

First and foremost, I survived my upper and lower scopes. Thanks for the well wishes. I don't have to do it again for five years which really will be how long it will take to get over the drink of death. I have tried several of the "methods" of cleansing and I had forgotten how much I hate the particular one I had this time.....Patrick was my hero as I hurled the last glass "exorcist" style and in the process slipped and fell amongst the....well, you get the picture. I was in the middle of crying and laughing (and having Kazakhstan Ice flashbacks) when Pat rushed in and all he could say is...."I'll get it, I'll take care of it, I'll get it"! What a guy.....fatherhood has definitely helped him jump those "just hold your nose and clean it up" hurdles. I am so Blessed! So, on to what everyone really cares about......The Nick Chronicles.



Preschool ended in style with a little ceremony. They sang songs and then each child received a little certificate. Nick was not thrilled to be on stage but he somehow had located me in the crowd and was telling Ms. Marsha where I sat as he got his paper!








Our church is very large and only has baby/parent dedications once a year. We missed last year with all of the early chaos but wanted to publicly dedicate our sweet gift to the Lord and our friends were there to take pictures and promise to help us raise Nick to love the Lord. Our families being far away requires dependence upon a great circle of friends to do life together (and help babysit!) ha! Nick got a little gift for his ceremony which he loved! A baby Bible! He wanted to immediately start reading every story! His favorites right now are Daniel and Jonah! I want to get Nick telling the Daniel story on video because it is so stinkin cute! He mixes the veggie tale version with the real version and talks about the "two un-juns (onions)" who portray the priests who throw Daniel in the lions den which is "creepy and scary" but Daniel isn't scared because God "pa-tects" him! His facial expressions make it priceless!






We are amazed that way more than half the time we sit down to read a book that Nick picks one of the versions of the bible that he has for kids. He literally wants to go page by page. We also utilize veggie tale movies to teach principles and he picks them up so well. His new mantra is that we "do not need too much stuff, need be tankful for what have". We also have started explaining money to him as he always wants every new addition or new character of any themed toy he has like Geotrax, Thomas Train, etc. I told him that we need to have money to buy more things and we should be saving money when we get it not spending it on things we don't need. So now he talks about saving money and when asked by Grandma Martha if he was going to come see her, he said, "no have money" .......with gas prices, so true, so true!


Nick continues to have an incredible imagination and took Pat camping one day. His box held "everything they would need" and they were sleeping out under the stars and moon! Amigo felt the need to have boy bonding time too!


We decided after a year that surely Nick was ready for Hiking......he was much easier to control, better understanding of safety and English, etc. We thought we would break him in easy at our nearby nature trail area and invited his buddy, Mikey. We continue to learn that new situations cause Nick to revert to old habits until he gets an understanding of the requirements and outcomes. Some days we can get him to work through the new experience and cooperate and some days we cannot. Everyone at Raven Run could probably hear that we could not. He wanted to bolt down the trails, go left when we needed to go right, sit when we needed to walk, scream and cry, and the list goes on..... so not so good for the first time. The hardest part will be to get his parents to stay diligent in exposing him to new things. The pictures that follow are the happy times (the first 10 minutes) ..... he loves maps and we were charting our course and then his buddy showed up so smiles all around....for a minute. Mikey was trying to sing us thru the stress (bless his little heart) but even he was awed by the volume that one Kazakh boy can make in the woods.









We also finished up speech therapy for the school year at his "big boy school". This is the same school he will attend if we choose public school and it will be nice because we already know all the office ladies and principal and LOVE our speech therapist. She is so good with Nick and he loves coming to see her. I got this great pic on the last day of school for them and us.....does everyone look ready for a fun summer!



NOW, to present day......we met my long-time friend Cathy and her boys at the Louisville Zoo today. She and her husband are on their way Indianapolis for the Southern Baptist Convention and they always say hi on their way thru .....Ben, her husband, officiated our wedding and Cathy was a post-college awesome apt mate. Her boys were unbelievable with Nick. He loved them and once he warmed up to his "new" experience, he latched on to them and they had a blast.


I love this sweet picture of Nick!

Cathy's oldest, Micah, patiently read the signs and talked about all the animals with Nick. It was the sweetest thing! Nick loved the Go-la-las!





I missed the sweet picture of them holding hands but thought this looked funny because we were so active and Nick looks like he is saying....oh my aching back!


The Zoo has two water areas and we spent some time in the splash park as well as this big slide that Nick thought was so cool but it was a buck per slide! Remember Nick, "we have no money"! LOL!


This picture does not need commentary, does it? What a fun day!



So, that is a not so short summary of Kitzman Kapers for the last few weeks. We also attended the annual Adoption Assistance picnic and saw some more adoptive families (waiting and done). It is so special to be able to connect with everyone at least once a year and give hope to those that are waiting that "this too shall pass" and their little one is being hand-picked by God just for them. We are going to Chicago this weekend to attend the first annual KAZAPALOOZA which will celebrate all of our adorable Kazakh gifts. Stay tuned for lots of pictures! We are having a garage sale tomorrow.........I don't like all the prep for them and we usually just donate everything but we thought with gas prices and one salary, the money would come in handy for our summer travels!

Hope everyone is starting out their summer with a SPLASH! We have a New Addition to the Kitzman clan and will anxiously await our fourth of July journey north to meet our newest cousin, Colin Robert! Tracey is doing great and Uncle Pat and Auntie KK cannot wait to get some baby time.......it is such a novel idea to us that you can (as a new parent) actually just sit and hold and gaze at your child for hours at a time.......that would require Duct tape for us! ;)

Back in the World...

The computer is back to working again ......Thank You to our friend D'art for working on it....and thanks to his wife Dana and daughter Emma Claire for sharing him with us.

I have a few pics but don't have them downloaded yet. Mom and Dad are here which has been wonderful help. We have had a busy few weeks so I will try and catch up soon. I have an EGD and Colonoscopy tomorrow so I have to go get the drink of death here in a minute at the pharmacy. With unfortunate genetics and now reflux, these once "old people" procedures have become way too familiar to me. Luckily, it is only every 3 years. It takes me that long to get over the memory of the drink.

Hope everyone is doing well. I have been contemplating going private so if you read our blog, please leave a quick message so we know who is still with us. Have a great Monday!