Our trip up north {Part 2}

Our first full day in Connecticut was a very relaxing one.  The dumplings played a lot in the backyard, despite the rain that fell on and off.

While Lydia was in school, we headed over to Bammy's place to hang out for a bit with her and Patrick's Uncle Steve.  We had to stop off at the grocery store for a few things, and while Patrick ran inside, Madeline told Aunt Chele knock knock jokes.

Caleb couldn't help but listen in while he played on the iPhone.

Madeline apparently cracked herself up.

We passed a very pretty spot on our drive over to Bammy's place.

After hanging out a bit, we headed out to lunch.  We ate at this tasty Thai place.  One thing I could never tire of is spicy eggplant.  After lunch, we said goody-bye to Bammy and Uncle Steve and headed over to Milford Pond to feed the ducks.  It was fun to see the Canadian Geese again.  Last year when we read the Burgess Bird Book for school, I intentionally chose to read the chapter about them because of our trips to Milford Pond.

And here's proof that the kids really do get to experience the season of fall, if not in Florida, at least somewhere!

After returning home from feeding the ducks, the kids couldn't wait for Lydia to come home from school.  They anxiously awaited her return.

Lydia was so funny when she stepped off the bus.  This was exactly the reaction I was expecting from her as she looked over Madeline's clothes and thought surely they looked like her old ones.  Yep.  They sure are!  Thanks so much for passing them down.

Naturally Caleb and Madeline wanted to play outside with Lydia, but as you can see, the rain kept falling on and off.

But the kids were armed with a towel and ready to wipe up any drops that fell, even if it was just for a quick swing or slide.

When Uncle John came home, he whipped out some fun flying planes for the kids to play with.

The kids also watched a little bit of tv as the grown ups prepared dinner and conversed.  If you look closely, you can see Madeline has stripped her pants off.  Why?  Who knows! She is so stinkin' funny!

Well, I told you I was going to share a lot of photos, and I wasn't kidding!  And I still have several more days of vacation to share.  So hang tight.  And no, I haven't forgotten about the big news.  That'll be next time.

A special trip up north {Part 1}

We recently had the chance to travel to Connecticut to help two special people celebrate two very special birthdays.  Just like last year, we wanted to celebrate our niece, Lydia's birthday with her.  We hit the road without any trouble, and our flight was great, unlike last year.

 Since Lydia is in 1st grade now and at school all day, we had a little bit of time to hang out with my sister-in-law, Michele (aka Aunt Chele) and mother-in-law Barbara (aka Bammy) before she came home. Madeline LOVED playing with Lydia's toys, especially her ponies.

Before the birthday girl returned home from school, my brother-in-law John made it home from work, as well has his parents, Bill and Elaine, and his sister, Grace.  Lydia was surprised to see us all there.

And the cousins couldn't wait for a big group hug.  (Yep, that's Madeline between Lydia and Caleb.)

Lydia's Cake Boss cake was absolutely delicious.

And in case you're wondering what that is to the left of the cake...well, it's a hamster!

He goes by the name of Buttercup Peaches.

Lydia was absolutely thrilled.

And Madeline? She also loved Buttercup.  But just as much, she loved wearing Lydia's old dance recital costumes.  She is all girl, indeed!

Well, we truly had a great vacation.  And helping Lydia to celebrate her 6th birthday was just the beginning.  I took a ton of photos that I am working through and will be sure to share in the next few days.

The one thing I learned on this trip is that I desperately need to dust off my old (5yo) laptop and find some space to put my photo editing software on it.  It would've been nice to download my images while still away, instead of having to wait until we returned home.  As soon as we got home, I caught a rotten cold and didn't feel like doing much of anything.  So, I'm working to fix that workflow problem.

Anyway, stay tuned for more photos and other exiting news.

Some randomness

So this post will contain a bunch of randomness as I try to catch up on the last few weeks.  The photos I am sharing below have nothing to do with the post and everything to do with some shots I took around town during my second photography class I took this summer.  I really wanted to look past the usual scenes and see the details around me.  I'll share about the photos as I get to them.

On to the latest.  We'll start with our adoption.  We had a minor issue with three of our documents expiring and had to redo them.  No big deal.  I quickly gathered them and sent them off to their respective state secretaries,  Yep, all three had to go to different states.  Nice.  Um, not so much.  

(The bathrooms at our favorite soft serve.)

Then after finally getting them back, we sent them back to the courier in DC.  After a week of no word and assuming they would be on their way back to us, I finally touched base with the courier and discovered that there was, in fact, a problem at the Embassy.  Fortunately, they resolved it for us.  But I was not really thrilled that I paid for rush processing for the Embassy's mistake and subsequent delay.

(Local coffee shop.)

So, now that we have all our documents authenticated, we have one last reference letter to obtain.  We should hopefully be DTC by next Friday.

(Cool mural.)

The other big piece of news is that we have decided to take our house off the market.  We are having a hard time finding the right house, in the right location, and at the right price.  In the meantime, the boxes that we packed up have been moved into storage to give us that extra elbow room we really need.  It's certainly not ideal.  We definitely need a larger school room to accommodate our growing brood.  And I really need my own space for all my sewing and photography gear.  But the bottom line is that we have made more room for Havi to come home.  And that's the most important thing.

(Train track over the creek.)

Speaking of school, Caleb is really enjoying some of the books we're reading this year from our Ambleside Online schedule.  Not surprising, he loves Thorton Burgess's Animal Book.  He also sits on the edge of his seat for Understood Betsy and begs me to keep reading.  Nope.  One chapter a week.  That's it.  There are so many lessons to learn from this book, one must read it slowly.  But I can't blame him.  When I pre-read it last spring, I read it in two days; I couldn't put it down!  

(Abandoned building downtown.)

He's also really enjoying Pilgrim's Progress.  He has been narrating from Helen Taylor's book "Little Pilgrim's Progress."  However, we have also added to that Dangerous Journey.  The language is richer and closer to the original, though still adapted.  After we read so many pages, we'll then watch the Answers in Genesis "Dangerous Journey" videos.  Even Madeline was excited to watch them, and Caleb wanted to keep on going, but we only watch the videos for what we have read to that point.  I'm thrilled that he gets so excited about it.

(Railroad tracks downtown.)

We've also put Singapore 4 aside right now for some Beast Academy 3.  It's the new Elementary Math program created by the geniuses at the Art of Problem Solving.  Caleb thoroughly enjoys the comic book style "text" or guide.  That's where all the teaching is.  Charlotte Mason would definitely approve.  It's like a living math book!  I have overheard Caleb quoting the guide before bed several times.  Even Madeline likes to follow along and color the coloring pages.  I know she doesn't understand the math, but she's at least seeing that learning can be fun.  

And if you're wondering why we're going from 4th grade math to 3rd grade math, it's not because Caleb can't handle it.  In fact, it has done really well with it and needs to be challenged.  Beast Academy is hard!  The 3rd grade geometry is way harder than the 4th grade geometry in Singapore.  Beast Academy really challenges student to problem solve and apply what they're learning.  There is no spoon feeding at all.  And their 3rd grade books are the only ones they have published since they introduced their Elementary Math curriculum this spring.  I still review with him from time to time the stuff he's learned in Singapore.  But for right now, Beast Academy is our primary math program, and we're supplementing with Singapore.

(Storefronts downtown.)

Madeline is really enjoying her dance class, and Caleb sure loves his baseball...when it doesn't get rained out.  Poor guy.  He's had more practices and games rained out than haven't been.  It stinks.  He really enjoys playing catcher, and it's been fun to see him improve at the position as he matures.  He's hustling to foul balls and almost got a batter out at first on a soft hit.  We're so proud of him.

Well, I think that just about covers the main stuff that has been keeping us busy.  And I'm glad I finally got around to sharing these photos.  I had fun with this assignment.  I'm really bummed that I'm not taking Lisa's next class.  And I'm going to miss "sitting" next to Nancy. *sniff sniff*  But I'm going to continue to push myself with my photography and set some monthly goals.  Anyway, I hope everyone has a great weekend.  Thanks for stopping by today's randomness.

An afternoon with the Mouse

I apologize for the lack of blogging/photos lately.  We have been busy with schooling, therapy, baseball, and dance.  

Oh, and I spent the last two weeks sewing Madeline's Halloween costume....just 6 yards of fabric worth.

  Unlike last year when I waited two weeks before the big day to begin sewing costumes for both kids, I decided to get a head start.  And because of that head start Miss Madeline got to pick a pattern that called for cutting and sewing lots o' fabric.  I still have a few minor bits to hand sew, but it's about 98% done.  And she wore it on and off all weekend.  There's so much fabric that she can't put it on by herself. So she's pretty stinkin' cute marching over to me with this big costume and asking me to help with it.  Well, I'm sorry to say that I won't be sharing any photos until closer to Halloween.  I'll be keeping you all in suspense. Ha ha.

So, back to what else we've been up to.  Since we live a reasonable drive from the Big Mouse, we try to go whenever we can...when it's not unbearable hot or crowded.  So last Sunday (as in, not yesterday...yep, I'm slacking), we headed over there after church.  We only have one stroller.  So here's Caleb convincing Madeline that they can take turns riding in it.

We ended up just renting an extra stroller for him.  We hit up Dumbo, which there are now two of since they're expanding Fantasy Land.  And they did something a bit creative with the wait.  Instead of waiting in the hot sun for 60 minutes, they have an air-conditioned indoor play area to wait in!  You are given a pager when you enter, and when your pager goes off, you get in line.  That's a swell idea....if you're not stuck wearing your prescription sunglasses inside and can hardly see your kids climbing on big apparatuses higher than your head and you're all alone because your hubby is waiting outside. So, of course, after I track down Patrick, our pager goes off! Oh well.

We do spend a fair amount of time in Tomorrow Land, taking in the usual sights, like Buzz Lightyear (hooray for a Fastpass)...

...and the raceway...

...and the People Mover.

And since Patrick had never been on the Carousel of Progress, I thought we should go, as we had a few more minutes until we could use our Buzz Fastpasses.  I hadn't seen that show in over 25 years.  It was pretty funny to see how they updated the "Modern Era".  Crazy how times change.  We really enjoyed it.

Then we took in a little afternoon ice cream treat prior to hitting The Barnstormer.

Now Caleb had ridden it twice before, and let's just say it was not a winner.  But being that he's gotten older since he last tried it, and Madeline has gone on two kiddie roller coasters, we thought we'd all try to ride together.  Well, this time it was a winner with Caleb.  He loved it so much, he wanted to go on a second time! And Madeline?  It had her at Hello.  She laughed and copied me as I raised my hands in the air.  It was hilarious!

After the Barnstormer, we headed over to the Winnie-the-Pooh ride.  The kids love to play while they wait.

There's always time to act like lions!

..and play with gophers...

...or bees...

And when there's nothing to play with, you play with Baba's phone..

...until it's time to ride.

Well, like I said, we didn't stay all day.  We headed out just before dinner.  There's a great little Asian diner, Pei Wei, on our way home.  It's fresh, delicious Asian fast food, and it's always a winner.

Well, now that the weather is cooler, we'll be spending some more time in that neck of the woods.  We'll be heading back there in just a few short weeks to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary.  Yup.  My better half and I will be celebrating the big day family style.  And we love it.

I'm gonna try my best to catch up with the blog here in the next week.  I've got lots to talk about and some old photos I want to share.  Thanks for stopping by!