Mayberry of the North 2009

I will finally be caught up with pictures with this post! woo,hoo! Our usual trip north for the 4th of July was altered in a good way this year. We decided to go visit Pat's brother and family in Eau Claire before we headed further North to Pat's folks house and cabin. We had never visited them at their house since we got married and it was about time. I also had the idea that they were not far from Minnesota so the trip had to include a side visit to Minni Karen's neck of the woods.

We arrived in EC on Saturday and had some awesome hometown Pizza. Now, since we had all just seen each other in Mexico a mere 8 days prior, we didn't have a bunch of "catching up" to do so we ate some awesome food, and watched Wal-E (sp?) with Nick. We decided to meet up with Minni and fam at the Minneapolis zoo on Sunday. It was absolutely gorgeous weather...mid 70's/low 80's and we just had a great time.

Garrett and Nick had a fun time and kept us hopping and shaking our heads all day. They both have so much energy! Kaz warrior blood I suppose! It was so special to finally get our boys together! Can't wait to see them again, soon I hope!

We left Mike and Julie's on Monday morning and headed on up to Mayberry....funny thing was the temperatures were dropping as we drove. We had 40's and 50's for the first 3 days there....totally rocked. We had to adjust our schedules a bit but we adjusted. It did finally warm up to some good boating weather and usual fourth fun was had by all. Because of the chilly air, we saw an abundance of Movies. They were all good and we even took Nick to one...Up!...He talked a bunch but the theatre was pretty empty so we made it thru the whole movie. We also saw the Night at the Museum sequel, Transformers 2, and the Proposal. I was able to read 4 books as well. I love the slower pace of a small town. We had a little adjustment to our usual 4th proceedings and were able to spend part of the day with Pat's extended family/cousins at his cousin Jeff's house. They have a fabulous place on the lake (different lake than Pat's folks)and we enjoyed visiting with family we don't always get to see every year.


We returned home to KY on Monday after the 4th and collapsed exhausted from our Month long vacation/socializing extravaganza! It's great to have family and friends that you actually do want to visit and spend quality time with but I think we will try not to have that all occur in June next year! ha! Enjoy the slide show of Pics from Wisconsin.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

I have been sick since the Monday we returned home with a mystery illness. Still have no diagnosis despite dr. visit, blood draws, and everyone's "opinions". So far, not swine flu, mono, or pregnant...could be just a viral "thing", long case of the normal flu, hep A, meningitis, beriberi, typhoid, or malaria....yeah, those last ones are from my parents...they are a little worried to say the least. So, I have had a 100-101 fever for almost 2 weeks and I am fed up! You cannot have a fever with a 5 year old. They don't really care and I just can't lay in bed cuz that's what I "feel" like doing so we have had playdates, bouncy place visits, and outings ...soooo don't tell me a fever put you to bed.....some of us don't get that luxury, being a mom is not for the faint of heart...although, I have felt like fainting. All I am saying is Nick has watched many, many shows this past two weeks. Luckily, he has spanish camp for the next two weeks so hopefully, I can mend and he cannot be bored out of his mind. He has been a trooper and so has Pat. I am glad my boys are there for me...I'm a lucky girl! It is one of those times you just want your mom though. She unfortunately has had her hands full with my dad who broke his tibial plateau (top part of your lower leg bone) after tripping over some carpet playing ping pong. Freak accident but a quick surgical repair and now he is mending well with really good Physical therapists by his side and my mom......lucky him!

Hope everyone is enjoying the summer and for us the unseasonably cool weather...no complaints from me especially since I am generating enough heat of my own. I will let you know what my final diagnosis was and I hope it doesn't require a "Dr. House" type doctor although I did enjoy the show in the early days.

Mexico Trip 2009

I am not sure I did the Smile Box the right way because I could not get all the pics on one show....so there are 5 shows...sorry! We had an awesome time and Nick had a fabulous time with his cousins. Many Thanks to Bob and Ruth who chose to share this special event in their lives with their family. It was a once in a lifetime experience to have everyone together for that amount of time and they said that was exactly what they wanted for their Anniversary present! Bob had a very sweet speech for Ruth and presented her with her first wedding band and said..."With this ring, I thee Wed" Yes, tears all around. He had a list of things that had made their marriage work for 50 years and I don't have a copy but the shortened version and definitey not as eloquent version is that making God, each other, family, and generosity your life's priorities will always bring joy and happiness! Enjoy the pictures!


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If you have not used Smilebox, Just click on play and it will upload the video of pics and play them for you. Very easy!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Kazapalooza 2009

I think I can, I think I can.......get caught up on all my posts. Next in line is Kazapalooza 2009 in Nashville! We had a great time seeing old and new friends.....it always is a bonus to meet your blog friends "in real life (IRL)" We arrived on Friday afternoon and took a stroll around the Opryland hotel premises. Pat and I have been there before but Nick enjoyed all of the water features and paths.......thought it was like Dora the Explorer!

Our first gathering was the meet and greet dinner that night. It is always a bit overwhelming when you get there and see everyone. Nick was afraid to go in the big room and this is where he spent most of the first part of the evening. Funny thing was more and more kids began to join him and before you knew it the party was under our table. Nick is always a trend setter!

There were 60 plus families there and we were the only ones from Zhezkazgan which makes for a slow interaction time (those adopting from same cities tend to congregate) but as the night went on we touched base with our old friends and made some new!

Minni Karen was not able to attend this year but cyber-introduced us to her son Garrett's babyhouse buddy Charlie and mom, Anita. We enjoyed visiting with them so much and Nick and Charlie had a great time under the table and above because Pat was the target of tickle attacks and general mayhem! Pat took Nick swimming when the our boy had enough socialization. Charlie and Anita were also at the pool. I met up with Cincy Karen and we chatted for a few hours with a couple other kaz moms in the meeting room after everyone left. It is always a trip to hear other Kaz stories and be amazed at the miracle of adoption, laugh a bit and cry a tad ....just generally bask in the glow of shared experiences.

Saturday morning after breakfast, we all gathered at the pool and it was quite a site. Kaz babies and kids swimming everywhere! I will venture to say that Kaz kids are the best and most adventurous swimmers that I have ever seen in a pool. They all seem fearless and quite the little water bugs! Nick was not into swimming that day so we stayed an hour or so and then went back to the room for a rest.







After our short rest, we dressed and Nick and Pat went on the Opryland Boat ride and we walked around the hotel. If you have been there, you know this can be considered a hike! We decided to head over to Opry Mills a little early and walk around before meeting up for our big dinner and raffle at Dave and Buster's (also at D&B's). Nick was a little grumpier than usual in the Mall so we sat down on a bench with him just to regroup and apparently exhaustion was the problem! Isn't he the cutest when he is sleeping! Look at those eyelashes!



Saturday night was the Big Dinner and Raffle which raised over 2500.00 for the Kaz orphan organization Two Hearts for Hope . They had lots of kid activities and a special Kid dance/DJ which was amazing. All the kids (and parents) gathered up front dancing with such joy and abandon. I leaned over to Susan (the famous Leeza's mom) and commented on the beauty of the scene and we just sat there a little (or alot) teary. Adoption is just a beautiful thing to behold. The friends we have made along the way are truly the dearest kind. I am so thankful for my Kindred Karens and I finally met sweet Mary from Toronto via Ireland. Her accent took me immediately back to our belated honeymoon in Ireland. I loved those people so much and she is a perfect example why! Such humor and life in she and her family. The "other" Kazmanian Devil, Orin, was as adorable as his pictures and his mom and I do have some seriously similar taste in boys clothing. It tickled us to see how much we dressed them alike! I am not sure how we missed out on Orin being in the pic below but I was thrilled to meet Mary finally in real life and give her hugs for all the support she has given us over the past 2 years.

In our down time, Nick was always making something grand in our room. I believe this was a campsite and he was napping in the "tent". Looks comfy.......probably should have joined him!

I joined Cincy Karen, my trusty sidekick and support giver (it is always so intimidating to meet the kaz blog celebrities IRL) for another late night out. We chatted and laughed for hours. What a blessing all these Kazamommies are to me!

One of the organizers of the event has TWO adorable kids from Kaz. Michelle's son Mateo has always reminded me of Nick. The last day at the goodbye meeting, the boys finally hooked up and started playing and I quick tried to catch a photo. They are two mighty handsome boys and they loved playing batman together. Michelle and her family live near our route to go up north so I foresee a future travel play date with the boys and a rest stop for mom and dad.



My goal is to get a picture every year of Nick in front of the Kazapalooza sign to watch him grow up. I really love this event and we are so appreciative of the 4 girls who plan and facilitate the whole event every year. What an undertaking!......Thanks so much Gretchen, Muriel, Michelle and Kristan.



It was hard to say good-bye so quick. So MANY people, so little time! I am so thankful that my husband is willing to support my blog obsessed habit and attend this every year. He gets an extra reward next year because it is in Milwaukee and he lived there for several year as a child and went to one of his colleges there so he is actually looking forward to the next one. We (the Kazmoms) all chuckle at our hubbies and their general "deer in the headlights" look at the big gatherings. We are just thankful they are there to help with the kids so we can all chat! It may take them all a few years to buddy up but it will happen. Kaz adoption makes you family, it will just take them a little longer to accept the "in-laws"! :) If I had it my way, we would find Kaz families in each state we travel thru on the way to visit our folks. It makes the long drive seem bearable! ;) We will be seeing Minni Karen and family in a few days. Can't wait to get our Krazy Kaz boys together. I am hoping to get the Mexico post done in a few days. I need to figure out how to do those embedded slide shows because we got lots of pictures to share. Our June has just been jam-packed with events. Looking forward to a little slowdown in July and Nick has Spanish camp for 2 weeks.......gee, what will I do with the free time! yippeeeeeee!

Hugs to everyone!

A visit and a picnic!

We have been so busy that I am hopelessly behind on the blogworld....reading and posting! We were blessed with a pre-kazapalooza visit from "The" Ruopoli family on their way to Indy for summer vacation. Miles and Nick hit it off immediately by chasing each other in and out of the hotel automatic doors! It was darling! We had a great dinner at Cracker Barrel and then headed to the park to get out some of that all boy energy! The boys had a great time with each other and we enjoyed chatting with Regina and Frank. They were just as sweet and fun in person as they always "appeared" to be online. So glad to know them "IRL" (in real life) now! We visited with them again at Kazapalooza but that is the next post!







I love this sweet pic of the boys.....definitely "cousins" forever! Miles giggles are just as Regina always describes them. IRRESISTIBLE! I loved hearing those precious giggles!



A little blurry but cute still....



We also had our annual picnic given by our homestudy agency. Always fun to see how many kids have found forever homes just in our state!

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Thought I would post our first picnic pony ride picture in 2007


and then, the pony ride pictures, 2009! I am thinking that the pony rides may be a thing of the past.....his legs are getting so long that we may have to move up to horses next.

The ancient Tower slide that scares me every year.....it is so unsafe but the kids love it! It is soooo high off the ground!

We finished off May with this picnic and then the busiest June of all began......details to follow!

Emptying out the old camera....

We received a great new camera for our birthdays and so it is time to get all the pictures off of the old camera and start fresh with the new one at Kazapalooza! It is the downloading part of the camera that is broken so it requires Pat to take the camera to work and download off of the SD chip to a disc and then bring home to me to download into our My Pictures files....major pain! Very thankful for the new camera! So here goes with some random picture time!

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I've had this picture below for awhile but don't think that I downloaded it....Nick is all about his daddy these days and wants to do everything like Pat. This picture was taken after dinner. Pat had put his feet up to relax and next thing you know Nick pulled up a chair to relax also! Cute!



Nic has not been all that into puzzles. Pat and I love them. We did several in Kazakhstan on our long winter days. He received a pirate one for his birthday and he finally stopped long enough to work the whole thing with me one evening.....I was so proud and he was too!





Nick loves the How I became a Pirate books and we found out that the children's theatre here was doing a musical rendition of the book! It was fabulous and Nick never moved once.....he was mesmerized! So cool! We could not take pictures during the play but I got one before with his ticket!


As much as I hate to have my picture taken along with the fact that I am usually the photographer, I realized during our last post adoption report that it will take great effort to get pics of me with Nick vs. Dad with Nick so I am trying to make an effort albeit torture!





Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a picky cake eater. I am not big on sweets but I am very particular. I am mostly picky about icing. I hate the new fondant or whipped cream stuff...I am old school.....crisco and powdered sugar or butter cream types are my favorites. My friend Amy's mom made me my cake this year and it was FABULOUS. Thanks so much Mrs. S!
She had all these extra touches that made it so pretty and one of a kind. I think she might regret doing it this time.....she might be booked for years to come!








Nick continues to be my little creative genius. Last week, he decided that all his animals were going on a plane ride. He directed them all to their seats.........I love the little penguin sitting behind Mr. Moose....there are 5-6 moose riding the plane also. Can you tell it was a theme in the early days!? :)


And, then, pilot Nick gave the speech and proceeded to take off......to Mars! :)

Nick graduated from Preschool and we went for his little performance and reception last Friday. He was not all that thrilled to be in the performance this year but he made it thru without too much drama and we took pictures of his "diploma"! :)

More Creativity.....Nick and his friend Logan were Chefs and they wanted chef's hats which we did not have so they improvised.....hilarious. I love the look on Nick's face. Pure Kid joy!

We finished out the year at speech with our neighborhood elementary school. We love the office ladies and Nick has developed quite a friendship with Ms. Marie.....she lets him into her stamp drawer! Since we will be going to the Spanish Immersion school next year, we will not see them for Kindergarten. They were all sad and so were we.......

We were even more sad to say goodbye to Mrs. Hellard, our very special speech teacher. Luckily, she has a little boy just a year older than Nick and we are planning a playdate soon!

So many final visits this month. I have been quite emotional about his last Bible Study Fellowship class until first grade, his last preschool class, his last preschool sunday school class, and his last speech class at James Lane Allen. He has been very blessed to have the many of the same teachers for both of his first two years as our son. God was good to us. He had structure, consistency, and lots of grace and love from these folks. They helped us introduce many things to our son like God, family, love, friendship, school, fun, crafts, etc. Many days, I would drop off Nick at BSF or preschool exhausted from conflict and they would accept him with open arms and for that 2 or 3 hours, we both rested from the "changes" of new family life. I tried to make sure all of his teachers knew how much they meant to us in this first two years and they will forever have a place in our heart as our team Kitzman Most valuable Players!! I know he will most likely have many more special leaders and teachers but this group will always be special.....

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Kazapalooza is here.......see you all in a few days!

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(I have one more post from the old camera but waiting on permission to post pictures of the sweetest little boy and his family who we were honored to have dinner and park play extraordinaire with last Saturday night!) :)

What's been going on?

So I know many of you have been wondering (or not) what the "boys" did while we were on the Kcubed weekend adventure....well, they....


CAMPED IN THE BACK YARD.....

WENT ON THEIR FIRST FATHER/SON HIKE

AND ATTENDED THE UK BALLOON FESTIVAL! I think they had a great time while mommy was away!

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Nick loves to read with us. I have trouble keeping our book budget in check because I always think that he needs to hear that story, or he would crack up at that, or he would love to talk about that character, etc....so he has LOTS of books....he actually calls his area to put his books "the library" and yes, there is THAT many! He rarely stops for long but for a book he will sit for very extended periods of time. One afternoon, Pat had offered to sit and read to Nick and told him to go pick some books.....Below, is what he came back with and proceeded to stack on the table!! ;)

Yes, those are all bibles in their various "kid" forms.....and he does want you to read them page by page..."all of the stories!" Do I see Seminary in his future, professor in higher education, a librarian perhaps!?! (by the way, if you have never seen the series called The Librarian with Carter from ER, you have missed a great show!) Carter's Librarian is actually how I see Nick!

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Nick's preschool had their end of the year performance. He was a silly clown.....how true, how true. He did a great job!

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You know how I love to look at how much our boy has grown and changed. Lately, he has just seemed so more grown up. The baby is all gone. We didn't get much baby at all but there was so much vulnerability and innocence in that first year....much like a new born. All those cries and screams you don't know what to do with but then you slowly learn what this cry means and what that action represents. I miss his sweet babyish face but I love my big boy too. Most days, we can communicate on a big boy level.....even above that at times. Yes, he regresses and it is painful but even the regressions are less baby, kind of more teenager (ha!). We came home a few Sundays ago from church and several people had commented on how old he was looking and I have to concur..... I will let you compare. There are 2 pics taken on May 5th, 2007 and the other two almost exactly 2 years later to the date....on May 6th 2009! Amazing and so handsome!

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Pat and I are celebrating our birthdays this week by going to dinner and Star Trek tonight. We may do a Brat-fest(the big greasy sausage not the gathering of children) on his actual birthday and a new recipe on mine. I am going to veer away from my usual Magee's obsession for my birthday cake and have the privilege of my good friend Amy's mom do the honors this year. She makes the best cakes and has spoiled me this year with little treats that she has made once she knew that I loved her ICING! She rocks and I am so excited. Only 3 week left til Kazakh adoptive families converge onto the poor unsuspecting Opryland hotel. I cannot wait! I feel like I know so many more families this year and we are praying that Nick will be just one more year down the road of tolerance of over stimulation....prayers appreciated! ;) Cincy Karen and fam will be there (Minnie, we will miss you so much!) and I am finally going to meet my Canadian (via Ireland) favorite cheerleader, Mary and family! She has followed us almost from Day one in Kaz. She sent us lots of humor and encouragement thru our 10 week stay in Kaz and has the one and only 2nd Kazmanian Devil, Orin. It really will be scary when all of the Kazakh energy collides on the 5th...If in Nashville on that weekend and the lights dim, Kazapalooza has begun! ;) As Nick has been saying lately, Let's get Rollin'!