A few days before we left Virginia, we stopped by some friends house to drop a few things off. Sister Funk happens to also be Adayla's nursery music teacher. She came out to tell her goodbye. They had quite the conversation. She asked about their birthdays and, of course, remembered them the next day. She then asked her if she had a puppy and she said no. She asked her if she had a kitty and she said yes. She asked her what her Kitty's name was and she told her Prissy. She then asked when Prissy's birthday was. We asked her a few weeks later and she remember the kitty's name and all the birthdays. We are continually amazed at her memory and the kinds of questions she asks.
We checked out of our house just in time to celebrate Tally's first birthday. We had planned a little gathering of pizza and cake outside at the park near our house. Of course, it had to start raining about an hour before we were to start. My wonderful friend and neighbor said we could have it at her house and I took her up on it. Along with her, the Fowlers, Coles, Millers, and the Gillans joined us. It was a nice way to say goodbye to our friends there and celebrate the Tally's special day. She was all about her cake until she had about half of it eaten, where she must of felt extremely sick, and started screaming. We'll post pics later.
It is kind of nice to do all the cleaning on your own house, as by the time the movers come and you get it all clean, you are just ready to be done. It is much less emotional. We loved our house in Virginia and really enjoyed nearly every minute of it. But we were ready to leave and continue into the next step in our lives.
We left Virginia Thursday morning with a new fondness of the place it will hold in our hearts. We loved our year in Virginia and have many great memories of the time we spent there. The drive out was rather uneventful. The girls traveled fairly well. A few hours outside DC in the middle of seemingly nowhere on I-70, traffic comes to a sudden halt. We go about 5 miles over the next hour and all that had happened was a bit of work on an overpass and they had closed one lane. The unexpected traffic delays are something we definitely won't miss about the eastcoast. So a few hours later than planned, we finally arrived at Chelsie and Bryan's to spend a few days with them and Binx.
One afternoon, Bryan took Adayla to a lake close to their home so they could feed the ducks. They parked the car and had about a 5 minute walk on a path through trees. I don't think they saw any ducks, but she was happy to throw the bread in the water. Later, I noticed the bow from the top of her head was missing. I asked her where is your bow? She said, by the tree. I asked her to go with her dad outside to find her bow. They went and stopped by each tree in the yard, only to be unsuccessful. Tim said, "Adayla where is your bow?" She responds with, it is the the green tree by the lake. They came inside and she stuck to her story of the green tree by the lake. So with Adayla and Bryan, we headed to the lake to find the bow. We started the little walk into the trees back to the lake. Every so many yards, I would ask her is your bow here? She kept telling me no, it is by the lake. We reached the lake and the path circles around the edge of the water. Adayla loses interest in finding her bow and back to talking about feeding the ducks. Bryan and I are looking and he tells me that somewhere a little ways back he picked her up and set her on his shoulders. We keep looking and suddenly Bryan points out the bow, in the green tree by the lake, attached to a branch that could only be touched if a certain little girl was sitting on someone's shoulders. We just cracked up laughing! Bryan said she had two hand fulls of bread ready to feed the ducks, she noticed her bow being stolen by the branch, but didn't care as she was about to throw bread into the water.
We enjoyed our weekend with them. We played a few hands of cards with Sharon and Steve, ate a few good meals, shopped, and enjoyed the nice weather. We didn't let the boys repeat the Greatest Comeback in Spade History, but were often reminded about that New Year's game. Then Sunday morning we said our final goodbye to little Binx (of course with a few tears). We know he is well taken care of and truly enjoying his time with his cousin, Maddux! We are so grateful for being his foster parents! And we were off onto the next leg of our journey.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Sesame Place
I still haven't taken the time to figure out the order I want my pics in, but here are a few from Sesame Place!
Tally finally had a 45 minute nap, she was afraid to miss anything!
Ready let's go!
After her first ride, we weren't sure how the day was going to go, but she quickly adjusted and enjoyed the place!
Tally watching (a moment out of the stroller) and she was happy to stand and look around.
Tally finally had a 45 minute nap, she was afraid to miss anything!
Adayla hugged everyone of the Sesame friends that she found, she wasn't afraid one bit. We haven't watched it very much, but we have quite a few books that they are in. So she was quite comfortable and excited to see them. We saw many of the characters on the way out and grabbed a pic with them. After each one, Adayla would say, I want to find Cookie Monster...we never saw him.
Ready let's go!
After her first ride, we weren't sure how the day was going to go, but she quickly adjusted and enjoyed the place!
Tally watching (a moment out of the stroller) and she was happy to stand and look around.
The bug ride, get those hands up Adayla, (she is the one next to Tim ; )
Cheese!
What a busy day we had, we spent the day with Elmo, Zoe, Big Bird, and a few other good friends. First, let me update the rest of the week. Tally's appointment's went just fine on Wednesday. They didn't find anything in her neck and the ENT said everything checks out pretty normal. She did have a bit of fluid in her right ear, but that is common after an ear infection. She has a very large lymphnode on her left, but that is also normal in little kids. Next week we have her 1 year check up and shots and I was able to get an appointment to get her eyes checked. If everything checks okay, which is what we hope for, we can go with a piece of mind to China. It would be a much bigger ordeal to get these appointments in China and so thankfully we will have her checked before we go.
Next, here's a good passport story from the words of Tim in an email to some other folks in the area. They exchange their funnies and issues they have in this process......So our first set of movers are here today (Friday). As my wife and I were setting aside our "important" papers/documents, we noticed that we couldn't find our tourist passports. So we spent the next couple of hours going through everything to try and find them. With no success, we then spent a couple more hours going through everything that we are putting into long-term storage to make sure when those movers came today, that we could ensure for ourselves that our passports were not in that shipment. At 0100, we called the search off, with no passports, but reasonably assured that our passports were not in the long-term storage shipment so we could look through our other stuff this weekend before the next set of movers come Monday.
The last place that I knew I had the passports was at Mrs Davis' office on April 13th (for you non-Air Force types, Mrs Davis works at Bolling AFB's passport office). I had them there just in case I needed them for our official passport applications. This morning came and I called Mrs Davis to see if by chance I had left them at her office and if she remembered or had documentation of sending our tourist passports with our official passport applications.
When I called this morning to ask her, she said, "Oh yes, I have your passports. You left them in my office when you submitted your official passport applications." I reconfirmed with her that she was talking about our tourist passports and she said yes. Today is four weeks to the day that I filled out those applications in her office. I have since talked with her to follow-up on my application. She never said anything about my passports, never sent me an e-mail, never called TSgt Williams to say that one of his dumb Scholars left his passports in her office.
So as perplexed as I am, I am grateful that we don't have to go through a stressful process of reapplying for tourist passports and trying to get that all done in the next month.
I'd just like to know, did they have an office betting pool to see when I would come back to get my passports? I can't believe that she just kept our passports at her desk for the past four weeks.
I guess I can laugh about it now. Just wanted to send this along so you can laugh at my pain, and if you have any Mrs Davis issues with your applications, perhaps this example sheds some light into her thought process...
Oh my sweet husband...but we have them and the girls passports, so we are happy and ready to go.
The movers came and packed up our stuff that was going to storage. It was quick and easy. They did everything in 4 hours. It is so nice to have other people do all the work. Actually we had everything separated and so there really wasn't that much for them to do. Tim walked downstairs to find Adayla asking the movers, so when is your birthday? She actually still remembered when they were when they left. Hopefully everything that went into storage finds it's way back to us in a few years!
Next, here's a good passport story from the words of Tim in an email to some other folks in the area. They exchange their funnies and issues they have in this process......So our first set of movers are here today (Friday). As my wife and I were setting aside our "important" papers/documents, we noticed that we couldn't find our tourist passports. So we spent the next couple of hours going through everything to try and find them. With no success, we then spent a couple more hours going through everything that we are putting into long-term storage to make sure when those movers came today, that we could ensure for ourselves that our passports were not in that shipment. At 0100, we called the search off, with no passports, but reasonably assured that our passports were not in the long-term storage shipment so we could look through our other stuff this weekend before the next set of movers come Monday.
The last place that I knew I had the passports was at Mrs Davis' office on April 13th (for you non-Air Force types, Mrs Davis works at Bolling AFB's passport office). I had them there just in case I needed them for our official passport applications. This morning came and I called Mrs Davis to see if by chance I had left them at her office and if she remembered or had documentation of sending our tourist passports with our official passport applications.
When I called this morning to ask her, she said, "Oh yes, I have your passports. You left them in my office when you submitted your official passport applications." I reconfirmed with her that she was talking about our tourist passports and she said yes. Today is four weeks to the day that I filled out those applications in her office. I have since talked with her to follow-up on my application. She never said anything about my passports, never sent me an e-mail, never called TSgt Williams to say that one of his dumb Scholars left his passports in her office.
So as perplexed as I am, I am grateful that we don't have to go through a stressful process of reapplying for tourist passports and trying to get that all done in the next month.
I'd just like to know, did they have an office betting pool to see when I would come back to get my passports? I can't believe that she just kept our passports at her desk for the past four weeks.
I guess I can laugh about it now. Just wanted to send this along so you can laugh at my pain, and if you have any Mrs Davis issues with your applications, perhaps this example sheds some light into her thought process...
Oh my sweet husband...but we have them and the girls passports, so we are happy and ready to go.
The movers came and packed up our stuff that was going to storage. It was quick and easy. They did everything in 4 hours. It is so nice to have other people do all the work. Actually we had everything separated and so there really wasn't that much for them to do. Tim walked downstairs to find Adayla asking the movers, so when is your birthday? She actually still remembered when they were when they left. Hopefully everything that went into storage finds it's way back to us in a few years!
Last night we drove about half-way up to Philadelphia and it reminded me x2 why I hate staying in a one room hotel, getting there late in the evening, but we will keep doing it anyways. We got a little after 11 (which is what we had planned) and thought we could just get the girls into bed quickly especially since Adayla didn't fall asleep on the way. Of course, I was wrong. They had to run around the room, Tim had to watch the last bit of the Jazz game and watch the amazing dunk replays like 10 times, they had to run around some more, and finally get ready to get them into bed. Finally they went down and then Adayla got up 3 or 10 more times to "go potty." Oh well, it is just part of our life, we repeated the same story this evening.
And just a few notes about Sesame Place. They loved it! It is an amusement park, but with lots of water rides and swimming pools. Today was the perfect temp for it, it was warm enough to be able to enjoy the water, but you were comfortable if you chose not to. Tally and I played and watched Tim and Adayla as they rode rides and played in the water. We watched a live Elmo's World. Tally just clapped and danced. The pics at the beginning show some of the fun we had.
Tomorrow should be an exciting day, we get to clean up a bit and sort what is going by air or sea. So we must get a few hours of sleep....
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Tally's Crooked Head
After much frustration in getting trying to schedule an appointment to have her head looked at, we have success! We cannot and will not complain our insurance, as we are so thankful to not have to worry about any bills. But sometimes the process, just to be seen for a special appointment, can be more work and take many more days than I think is necessary. We saw the physical therapist 3 weeks ago today and this is the first day I have been able to schedule the next appointment. We had seen the doctor last Monday, but that was just in preparation for this appointment. And since we have no more time, he had to call for an ASAP appointment and we are able to go in on Wednesday. She will have an ultrasound done on her neck to look at the bump he feels on her muscle. This should tell us what it is. He still thinks congenital torticollis, but if not then maybe a branchial cleft cyst. But since he respects the phyical therapist and she saw no sign of torticollis, then he wants to confirm what she has. Either way, he thinks it isn't much to worry about, but this way we will know for sure before we take her out of the country! Immediately after that appointment, we have an appointment down the hall with the Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist. He wanted to have them look at the results and have another pair of eyes/hands take a look at her. We will update later this week.
Monday, May 7, 2007
Recent Pics
Binx is missing out and Tally is trying to take his place, but she just doesn't get it all!
Posing Adayla
Sorting thru the winter stuff, Adayla was quite helpful.
Tally had her syrup this evening, she loved it.
Tally playing Peek-a-Boo, except her hands were sticking to her face.
Pics while the girls were in Wyoming....
Easter morning, quite difficult to get 3 kids to all look at the camera at the same time.
Is that the Easter Bunny? No, I think it is Adayla!
Sisters!
Even Adayla's purses need a diaper change.
Even harder, 4 kids looking at the camera....
Cousins!
Aunt Jewls with the girls.
Little Grandma and Tally
Tally Waggers...a pic from last November
3 crazies!
Her new favorite shoes!
Someone give her some food!
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Saturday is a special day....
Today was busy from the start, we took a break from the preparations! We had lunch with one of Tim's high school friends, Berger and his wife, Erin. We had a great lunch at Smokey Bones and then went to Berger's Mom's house for a brief visit. We have met up with them a few other times and get a big kick out of them. He is such a happy guy and they are quite funny together. Adayla likes them alot and really enjoyed playing with them today.
Then this afternoon we had our final Olmstead gathering at the folk's house who are going to Japan. It was good times and good burgers. Adayla showed off her Chinese as Tim was telling about all the things she knows and uses. A few minutes later, she came up and said, "Daddy I want a Xiang Jiao." He asked her again and she said the same thing. He didn't know what she wanted and so she took him into the kitchen and pointed to the bananas. I was in the other room and Tim asked me what is a banana in Chinese. I said a xiang jiao. Everyone was quite impressed. Tally had the time of her life playing with all the new toys and crawling all over the place. She enjoyed climbing on some new things too. They had a plastic picnic table in the living room and she thought she was so cute to sit on the table and rock!
A few more Adayla funnies:
The other morning she told Tim as they were about to eat breakfast...Get your beibao off my weizi or Get your backpack off my chair. She is clever!
This morning as we were getting ready to go, there was a bag on the floor that had a bear on it. She asked me as I was fixing her hair what it was and I told her a bear. She asked if the bear was going to bite her. About 10 minutes later, she starts screaming he's biting my shoe in a very worried voice. I thought she was talking about Tally playing with one of her shoes and told her it would be SHE is biting my shoe. She repeated herself with he a few more times and finally I looked and her shoe was on the picture of the bear on the bag. It looked as if he was biting her shoe. She does this all in total seriousness and then only laughs when we do.
Her is a Tally funny, she loves to play where is Tally? She immediately puts her hands on top of her head (not over her eyes or even on her face). After you ask where Tally is a few more times, she will then drag her hands all over her face, pulling her eyes and nose in different directions.
The temp has been in the 70's and it been beautiful. Today it rained and the temp has dropped into the 50's. So once I got home, I decided what a perfect time to heat up the house and clean the oven. So once task is out of the way and we didn't have to heat up the house when it was 70 degrees outside. And I didn't have to worry about the girls getting near the extremely hot oven.
We are on our way to bed, so until I remember some more things to post......
Then this afternoon we had our final Olmstead gathering at the folk's house who are going to Japan. It was good times and good burgers. Adayla showed off her Chinese as Tim was telling about all the things she knows and uses. A few minutes later, she came up and said, "Daddy I want a Xiang Jiao." He asked her again and she said the same thing. He didn't know what she wanted and so she took him into the kitchen and pointed to the bananas. I was in the other room and Tim asked me what is a banana in Chinese. I said a xiang jiao. Everyone was quite impressed. Tally had the time of her life playing with all the new toys and crawling all over the place. She enjoyed climbing on some new things too. They had a plastic picnic table in the living room and she thought she was so cute to sit on the table and rock!
A few more Adayla funnies:
The other morning she told Tim as they were about to eat breakfast...Get your beibao off my weizi or Get your backpack off my chair. She is clever!
This morning as we were getting ready to go, there was a bag on the floor that had a bear on it. She asked me as I was fixing her hair what it was and I told her a bear. She asked if the bear was going to bite her. About 10 minutes later, she starts screaming he's biting my shoe in a very worried voice. I thought she was talking about Tally playing with one of her shoes and told her it would be SHE is biting my shoe. She repeated herself with he a few more times and finally I looked and her shoe was on the picture of the bear on the bag. It looked as if he was biting her shoe. She does this all in total seriousness and then only laughs when we do.
Her is a Tally funny, she loves to play where is Tally? She immediately puts her hands on top of her head (not over her eyes or even on her face). After you ask where Tally is a few more times, she will then drag her hands all over her face, pulling her eyes and nose in different directions.
The temp has been in the 70's and it been beautiful. Today it rained and the temp has dropped into the 50's. So once I got home, I decided what a perfect time to heat up the house and clean the oven. So once task is out of the way and we didn't have to heat up the house when it was 70 degrees outside. And I didn't have to worry about the girls getting near the extremely hot oven.
We are on our way to bed, so until I remember some more things to post......
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Preparing to move....
The past few weeks have been extremely busy with lots to do in preparing to move. But the house is coming together (or should I say apart?) and we have our piles all over.
The big news of the day was Tim finished his classes for language training! How has it already been 10 months, but we are ready to move on and speak it daily. He is blessed with a good ear and so though this language is extremely difficult, he is speaking and understanding quite a bit. He takes his DLPT test starting on Monday and will finish on Wednesday. It is the military's way of measuring his language proficiency. Chinese has 3 parts: listening, speaking, and reading. Each test is about 3 hours and so he chose to have it spread over 3 days. Good luck!
The girls are just doing their thing. We love to watch them interact with each other. Tally is strong willed, but already looks up to what Adayla is doing. Adayla pushes her around and then gives her the biggest hugs. They make each other laugh and giggle.
The week has gone by so fast. It is seems like last weekend was forever ago, so I forget to mention the visitors we had. Chelsie and Bryan brought Binx for a visit!! I realized how much I missed him. Adayla and Tally loved having him home again!! We liked having Chels and Bryan here, too. Adayla woke up to find Binx and I asked her where she thought Chelsie and Bryan were? She said they are at their house, so they got to sleep in! But when they came upstairs, she ran over and gave them the biggest hug.
We shopped, ate, played cards (the famous New Years match was only brought up about 40 times, Bryan and Tim will gladly tell you about it), toured downtown Washington DC, and had fun. We also sent them home with a car full of stuff! We have enjoyed having them as neighbors while we have been in Virginia.
We took Tally in again to the doctor on Monday and he still thinks it is torticollis. He recommended an ultrasound on her neck, we are still trying to get that appointment set up. Hopefully that will tell us something. We are also trying to get her into an eye doctor, but we are running out of time here. The time for appointments is much longer than we have, so we will try to do that on leave. I will update once we find out anything.
She has started cruising pretty quickly and may occasionally stand for just a few seconds on her own. She likes to walk with you when you are holding both her hands. She has begun to make sounds for doggie when she sees one walking and a definite H sound for hello. She still takes her two naps a day and has just recently started playing when she wakes up, instead of crying. She is still liking her mom, but is very happy with Tim or Adayla.
I think Adayla has started to feel the change that is about to take place. She is a bit grumpy! Or like she told me the other day while talking to Aunt Shayla, "Mom, I am crabby!" We have gotten rid of quite a bit of our furniture and some of her toys. I told we won't be taking her crib with us to China, but that she will get a big girl bed. She is very helpful though and likes to do things that the big people do.
That is it for now, it is bedtime and we have plenty to do around the house!
The big news of the day was Tim finished his classes for language training! How has it already been 10 months, but we are ready to move on and speak it daily. He is blessed with a good ear and so though this language is extremely difficult, he is speaking and understanding quite a bit. He takes his DLPT test starting on Monday and will finish on Wednesday. It is the military's way of measuring his language proficiency. Chinese has 3 parts: listening, speaking, and reading. Each test is about 3 hours and so he chose to have it spread over 3 days. Good luck!
The girls are just doing their thing. We love to watch them interact with each other. Tally is strong willed, but already looks up to what Adayla is doing. Adayla pushes her around and then gives her the biggest hugs. They make each other laugh and giggle.
The week has gone by so fast. It is seems like last weekend was forever ago, so I forget to mention the visitors we had. Chelsie and Bryan brought Binx for a visit!! I realized how much I missed him. Adayla and Tally loved having him home again!! We liked having Chels and Bryan here, too. Adayla woke up to find Binx and I asked her where she thought Chelsie and Bryan were? She said they are at their house, so they got to sleep in! But when they came upstairs, she ran over and gave them the biggest hug.
We shopped, ate, played cards (the famous New Years match was only brought up about 40 times, Bryan and Tim will gladly tell you about it), toured downtown Washington DC, and had fun. We also sent them home with a car full of stuff! We have enjoyed having them as neighbors while we have been in Virginia.
We took Tally in again to the doctor on Monday and he still thinks it is torticollis. He recommended an ultrasound on her neck, we are still trying to get that appointment set up. Hopefully that will tell us something. We are also trying to get her into an eye doctor, but we are running out of time here. The time for appointments is much longer than we have, so we will try to do that on leave. I will update once we find out anything.
She has started cruising pretty quickly and may occasionally stand for just a few seconds on her own. She likes to walk with you when you are holding both her hands. She has begun to make sounds for doggie when she sees one walking and a definite H sound for hello. She still takes her two naps a day and has just recently started playing when she wakes up, instead of crying. She is still liking her mom, but is very happy with Tim or Adayla.
I think Adayla has started to feel the change that is about to take place. She is a bit grumpy! Or like she told me the other day while talking to Aunt Shayla, "Mom, I am crabby!" We have gotten rid of quite a bit of our furniture and some of her toys. I told we won't be taking her crib with us to China, but that she will get a big girl bed. She is very helpful though and likes to do things that the big people do.
That is it for now, it is bedtime and we have plenty to do around the house!
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